The easiest message in recruitment to ignore is the one that asks a hiring director whether they have got any roles. Your desk probably sent it this week.

In this episode: why that message gets ignored, and it is not rudeness. A hiring director who answers it has handed you something and got nothing back. So the first message out of a desk I build does the opposite, and asks for the one thing a director can give without checking with anybody.

Also: the half of this most firms quietly drop, which is what you do with the answer when it comes back. Being the specialist is not what gets your call taken. What it does is stop your firm being compared like for like with the other four on the same brief.

Bill was featured in Forbes and the Huffington Post as a top 10 global influencer. That is not a bigger marketing budget. It is what happens when a desk is the one that asked.

Step 4 of the nine in The Desk Build is Launch: the first approaches going out across a counted market, asking for the thing a director can give.

One thing to do before the week is out: go to whoever runs your main desk and ask them what every hiring director in that vertical is worried about this quarter. Not what they are hiring. What is keeping them up. If they can tell you about the whole market rather than the two clients who talk to them, your desk is having real conversations. If they cannot, nobody has asked.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

What would your best consultant say if you asked them that today? Tell me in the comments.

What we build, what it costs and who it is for: theapexrecruiter.com/details

Most of the money on your candidate side is sitting in a message your desk has never sent. Not the first one. The second one.

In this episode: what silence from a senior candidate actually means, and why a desk that only ever sends one message is filtering out the exact candidates it was hired to find. The keen tenth answer. The unhappy and the already-being-shown-around answer. What is left in the silence is the group your client is paying you to reach, and a one-message desk never gets to them.

Also: what the second message has to carry that the first did not, why it has to ask for less rather than more, how many touches is enough before a name moves from a campaign into a rhythm, and the reason the same second message sent to a technical lead and a finance director tells both of them your firm cannot tell their markets apart.

Michael secured £36k in guaranteed retained business within four months. Laura: "My first year I doubled the bottom line. I am fully retained and my fees are a lot bigger than when I started."

Step 5 of the nine in The Desk Build is Attract. Its own words for the problem are blunt: you have no candidates in a new niche. Not too few. None.

One thing to do before the week is out: go back through every candidate your desk approached this year and pull out only the ones who never replied. Not the ones who said no. The silent ones. Count them. That count is the size of the market your firm reached and then let go of.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

Comment VAULT on this episode or on any of Andy's LinkedIn posts for The MPC Reply Fix: nine blanks to fill in about one candidate before you write a word, the email to finish by filling in the brackets, which fact belongs in which line, two worked examples, and a follow-up for when nobody replies.

Send Andy the word BUILD on LinkedIn and he will send you the details: what we build, what it costs, and who it is for. theapexrecruiter.com/details

Your desk sends a hiring director a CV and nothing comes back. So it sends another one, then a job spec, then a note that says just checking in. Most firms read that silence as an effort problem and answer it with more of the same.

In this episode: why the same first message fails with both kinds of hiring director for completely opposite reasons, one with no live role and one who already has three other agencies sending the same thing. Why good consultants keep writing it, and why that is a delivery instinct landing in the wrong moment rather than anything to do with attitude.

Also: the one thing a first message should ask a hiring director for, why it is answerable whether or not they have a role to fill, and the test you can run on your own firm's template in about a minute.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

Comment VAULT on any of Andy's LinkedIn posts for The Hiring Director Opener Pack: what goes into a first message before the role is live, and what never does.

Send Andy the word CLIENTS on LinkedIn and he will send you the details: what we build, what it costs, and who it is for. theapexrecruiter.com

Almost every desk plan Andy is handed has been written forwards, which is why nobody has ever checked whether it is possible. So many approaches a week, so many meetings out of that, and a number at the end that should land somewhere near target. It has arithmetic in it, so it looks like a plan.

In this episode: why a forwards plan can only ever be wrong about the outcome, while a backwards one can come out arithmetically impossible, and why that is the more useful answer. The order to work a desk plan in, from the billing figure down to the activity number. And the two numbers most owners cannot give you about their own market.

Also: why knowing the size of your market wins nothing on its own, what it does tell you, and the point at which a desk's revenue stops being hoped for and starts being predicted.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

Send Andy the word CLIENTS on LinkedIn and he will send you the details: what we build, what it costs, and who it is for. theapexrecruiter.com

Your live roles are not short of candidates. They are short of candidates who were not already looking. An advert reaches the ones on a job board this week, which in a specialist market is a small group, and it is the same group every other firm on the brief is working that week.

In this episode: why the message has to change to reach somebody who is not looking, why a format that works on a manager fails on a director at board level, and the five things to do on the live senior role your desk is working on right now.

Also: what a campaign candidate is worth that an applicant is not, and the client conversation the candidate market hands you for nothing once the role is filled.

Free this week: The Hiring Director Opener Pack. Five openers that ask a hiring director something only they can answer about their own market, ready to fill in and send. Comment BRIEF on Andy's latest LinkedIn post and he will send it over.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

Send Andy the word CLIENTS on LinkedIn and he will send you the details: what we build, what it costs, and who it is for. theapexrecruiter.com

On most desks the list is written by the same consultant who then has to ring it. So it gets written on a Sunday night, by somebody deciding whether their own week is going to hurt, and they choose the names who will answer. That is the fault. And it is nobody's fault.

In this episode: why "more business development" buys more dials at the same warm names, which half of the work is the expensive half, and what a built list actually looks like on paper.

Also: the billing target nearly every new desk opens without, the candidate side of the same Sunday night logic, and the Thursday question to ask before the week is out.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

Send Andy the word CLIENTS on LinkedIn and he will send you the details: what we build, what it costs, and who it is for. theapexrecruiter.com

Your firm has four divisions and not one of them has ever sold a client to another one. Every one of those clients is buying the rest of it somewhere else.

In this episode: why the sideways conversation is the most delicate one in your business, what it costs you to leave it alone, and the order to have those conversations in so nothing you have built gets damaged.

Also: the two divisions to start with tonight, and the one name on your client list that shows you the whole problem.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

Send Andy the word CLIENTS on LinkedIn and he will send you the Offer Doc. The free desk review is inside it. theapexrecruiter.com

The first firm to pay you retained is almost certainly already a client of yours. Which is awkward, because every owner goes looking for a stranger instead.

In this episode: why an existing client is the only one who can say yes on the call, the smaller ask that changes the answer, and why a proposal loses the room that an agreement wins.

Also: the one search you should never take money on, and the three names to pull off your own client list tonight.

For owners of recruitment and executive search firms, UK and USA, perm and contract.

Send Andy the word CLIENTS on LinkedIn and he will send you the Offer Doc. The free desk review is inside it. theapexrecruiter.com