Welcome to The Hero 🗞️. This is approximately a 2 minute read.
🪙 Why your first call is a sales call - not a screen
⛽ The playbook for opening, positioning, and closing a passive candidate
🤐 The one question that tells you all you need to know
TL;DR
Passive candidates are evaluating you - not applying to you.
Lead with the opportunity, not "tell me about yourself"
Authenticity closes. Corporate polish doesn't.
😅 You Called. Now What?
You sourced them.
You wrote the outreach.
You got the candidate on the phone.
Then… you open with "So, tell me about yourself." 😬
You just asked the person you pursued to audition for you.
That's like asking someone on a date and making them explain why they deserve the seat.
70% of the workforce is passive - employed, performing, and not thinking about you until you showed up.
When they take your call, they're not applying.
They're listening.
And they're deciding in the first two minutes whether to keep listening.
Here's how to make sure they do.
The full breakdown is just below - don’t miss it! 😉
Links of the Day:
🔗 Best Links
Here are some of the best links I’ve found since last time I emailed you:
🗺️ Interview Strategy
7 Steps to Designing a Structured Interview Process (link)
Structured Interview Process: Make the Right Hires in 5 Steps (link)
🔎 Employee Retention
Your Guide to Retaining Employees and Reducing Turnover in 2026 (link)
25 Employee Retention Strategies to Reduce Turnover & Keep Top Talent (link)
📈 Staffing Industry Trends
Top 5 Staffing Trends to Watch for 2026 (link)
Hiring Outlook 2026: The Year the Labor Market Resets (link)
📰 News
Phenom Delivers Most Advanced Conversational Voice Screening Agent for Hiring (link)
🫰 The First Call Is a Sales Call
Most recruiters treat the first call like a screen.
Passive candidates treat it like an interview - of you.
That impression forms in the first five minutes.
You're competing with every thought they have about every recruiter who wasted their time over their career.
Show up differently.
☎️ How to Run the Call
1. Lead with the opportunity.
Don't make your candidate guess why you called.
Tell them exactly why you reached out - give them a compliment and share that you have an opening and if they’d be interested in hearing more.
When they say yes, you get them in the right mindset.
It signals the conversation is about them, not you.
2. Ask them what they want in a role - and match to your pitch.
"What's not working in your current role?" is the most valuable question on the call.
Their answer tells you exactly how to position the opportunity.
Stop scripting.
Start listening.
The person who listens best, usually wins.
3. Sell the vision, not the job description.
"The team is rebuilding the deployment pipeline from scratch" beats "we're looking for a senior DevOps engineer" every single time.
Great candidates enjoy what they do - they want a challenge.
4. Be a real person.
This is your biggest advantage right now.
Everyone is worried about AI taking over the process - so be the thing AI can't replicate.
Connect on a human level.
Be honest, be warm, be present- it works.
To Sum It Up…
The recruiters closing the best talent in 2026 aren't better screeners.
They're better sellers.
And To Wrap It Up…
Show up with something worth their time - or don't show up at all.
HOW WE CAN HELP?
There are a few ways:
Or you can just reply to this email.
I reply to absolutely everyone who writes me back 🙂
