Staffing / Recruiting · Discovery Call
Discovery Call Questions for Staffing / Recruiting: A 25-Minute Playbook That Gets Past "Reqs Go Dark"
You've got 25 minutes with a VP of Recruiting or a Managing Director who cleared time on a Tuesday between a client escalation and a pipeline review. They already know your one-liner — that's why the meeting exists. If you open by re-explaining it, you've just told them you don't read your own notes, and they will spend the rest of the call giving you polite four-word answers.
Here's what they'll hand you in the first two minutes: "our follow-up is inconsistent" or "redeployment's a problem for us." That's layer one. It's free and it's worth nothing. Underneath it is a mechanism — a recruiter who sends three profiles Tuesday, gets "great, reviewing this week," emails twice, then quietly stops while the req sits in Bullhorn marked submitted for six weeks. Underneath that is a cost — a submittal-to-interview ratio nobody wants to read out loud, spread that was forecast and never booked, a contractor rolling off Friday who's on a competitor's payroll by Wednesday. And underneath that is the layer that actually moves deals: whose number this is, and what they promised the owner on the last quarterly call.
This playbook gives you the frame, the thread-pulling questions, a 30-second answer for when they ask "so what do you actually do" at minute six, and the seven objections you'll hear from staffing leaders specifically — the ATS objection, the MSP margin objection, the "we're a relationship shop" objection. Time-box it on your notepad before you dial. Discovering something great at minute 22 and cramming the next step into 40 seconds is how good discovery calls die.
The discovery call script
Say it in your own words. The structure is the part that matters.
- 1
0:00–2:00 — The Frame (do not re-pitch)
"Thanks for holding the time. When we spoke last week you said something I wrote down — that reqs go quiet after the shortlist goes out and nobody on the team knows whose job it is to chase. That's the thing I want to dig into. So you know how I run these: I'm going to ask a lot of questions for the first fifteen minutes and show you basically nothing. I'd rather tell you this isn't a fit than burn a demo slot on both of us. Fair? Still good for 25? And is there anything you specifically want to make sure we cover, so I don't run us out of clock?"
- 2
2:00 — Open the thread (pick ONE, then shut up)
"Walk me through how a req runs at your shop, start to finish. Client sends the spec — then what happens, who touches it, until the candidate starts?" Alternate openers depending on what they said on touch one: "When you said submittals are up and placements are flat — what does that look like on a bad week on, say, your IT desk?" "What made this something you're looking at now, versus this time last year?"
- 3
4:00–9:00 — Layer 2: the mechanism (three follow-ups before you change subject)
"Walk me through the last req that went dark. An actual one — what happened after the shortlist went out?" "Who sent that follow-up, the recruiter or the account manager? And how did they decide when to send it?" "Where does that live — is it a task in the ATS, a reminder in Outlook, or is it in the recruiter's head?" "How did you eventually find out the role was filled? Did the hiring manager tell you, or did somebody notice the req closed?" "What's the workaround your better recruiters have built for themselves that the rest of the desk hasn't?" Do not say "we automate that." That kills the thread at layer one, which is exactly where they wanted it to die.
- 4
9:00–13:00 — Layer 3: the cost, then "how do you know?"
"How many reqs a month go quiet like that across the team?" "Where's your submittal-to-interview ratio sitting right now versus where you need it?" — then the beat that matters — "How do you know? Is that out of the ATS or is that a feel?" "When a shortlist dies and you re-source the role sixty days later, what does that cost you — recruiter hours, job ad spend, the spread you'd already forecast, all three?" "Your contractors rolling off assignment — what's redeployment sitting at? Twenties? Higher?" "And fall-off inside the first 30 to 90 days — is that a number you report to ownership, or does it live on a spreadsheet somewhere?" If they can't answer "how do you know," that's your finding: the problem is invisible internally and you'll be building the business case with them, not for them.
- 5
13:00–16:00 — Layer 4: the stake (this is where deals start)
"Who's feeling that most right now — is it your account managers who can't forecast, or the recruiters whose placements-per-month number is flat?" (count to three after they answer — do not fill it) "Whose number does this actually show up in at the end of the quarter?" "What did you commit to the owner on the last quarterly — a fill rate, a headcount on billing, a time-to-fill?" "If it's still like this in twelve months, what's the conversation you're having with your CRO?"
- 6
Minute 6 trap — "So what do you guys actually do?" (30 seconds, then hand it back)
"Short version: we run the follow-up cadence on submittals and on contractors coming off assignment, in the recruiter's own voice, off the record they're already in — so a shortlist doesn't die because somebody forgot the third touch, and a contractor finishing Friday gets a real conversation two weeks out. But I'd be guessing at whether that matters to you until I understand one more thing — when a contractor's assignment is ending, who's supposed to call them, and when?" If they push a second time, give a clean 60 seconds, then: "Can I go back to the thing you said about the account manager finding out six weeks later? That's the part I'm not clear on." Almost everyone lets you.
- 7
16:00–20:00 — Qualify the path (weave, don't recite)
"If you decided this was worth doing, what actually happens next in your world? Does it go to your Director of Delivery, or straight to the owner?" "Have you tried to fix this before? What happened?" — the graveyard of the last failed rollout is your real competitor. "Who owned it? Was anyone reporting on touches after month one?" "What's forcing the timeline — an MSP renewal, a headcount decision, a slipping fill rate somebody's asking about?" "Is this a line item that already exists — recruiting tech, ATS add-ons — or would it need to get created?" "And if you just keep running it the current way through next quarter, what happens?"
- 8
20:00–23:00 — Targeted relevance (90 seconds, only what they raised)
"Two things you said I want to respond to specifically, then I'll stop. One — the shortlist that went dark on your top account. The cadence I'd put on that isn't a drip, it's four defined touches with a reason each time, going out as your recruiter, and your Director of Delivery sees a single view of which submittals have had zero client contact in seven days. That's the report that ends the debate in your pipeline meeting. Two — redeployment. The trigger is assignment end date minus 21 days, not the Friday they finish. That's the whole difference between a redeployment conversation and an exit interview you didn't get to have. That's it. I'm not going to walk you through screens today."
- 9
23:00 — Playback in their words
"Let me make sure I've got it. Shortlists go out and die because the follow-up lives in the recruiter's head past touch two, and you find out six weeks later the role got filled somewhere else. Redeployment's in the low twenties, so every assignment that ends means paying to re-source somebody you already recruited and background-checked. You told the owner you'd hold time-to-fill under 30 days this year, and the reason it's slipping is a debate every Monday because nobody trusts the last-contacted field. Did I miss anything, or get anything wrong?"
- 10
24:00 — Close a dated, named next step
"Based on that, the useful next thing isn't a demo — it's 45 minutes with you and your Director of Delivery, where I show you exactly how the submittal cadence and the end-of-assignment trigger run, using two of your own dead reqs as the example. Bring the redeployment number and last quarter's submittal-to-interview if you can pull them. If your numbers already beat what I'm seeing at firms your size in IT and light industrial, I'll say so and we're done — and you've got a clean data point for your ops meeting. I've got Tuesday at 2 or Thursday at 9. Which one?" Send the invite before you hang up. Confirm out loud: who's on it, what you're showing, what they're bringing.
How the call actually sounds
Prospect on the left, the rep on the right.
Rep
Thanks for the time. When we spoke, you said submittals are up across the desk and placements are flat, and you can't explain it to the owner. That's what I want to dig into. I'll ask a lot and show you basically nothing for the first fifteen minutes — that alright?
Buyer
That's fine, but I'll tell you up front — we run Bullhorn, we've got sequences in it, and I've sat through four of these calls this quarter. So.
Rep
Understood. Then let's not do the fourth version of that call. Walk me through the last req where you thought you had it and it went sideways. An actual one.
Buyer
Sure. Series B fintech client, senior backend role, we sent three profiles on a Tuesday. Hiring manager comes back — 'great, these look strong, reviewing this week.' Recruiter emails Thursday, emails again the following Wednesday. Nothing. Six weeks later our AM's on a QBR and finds out they hired internally.
Rep
Between that second email and the QBR — was there anything logged? Any task, any call attempt?
Buyer
Honestly? Probably not. And that's the part that annoys me. The req sat as 'submitted' for six weeks. My last-contacted field says something from March.
Rep
How many reqs a month look like that?
Buyer
I couldn't give you a real number. That's the problem — I don't trust anything in the system. My recruiters log activity at six o'clock from memory, if they log it at all. So when I say submittal-to-interview is down, my delivery director says the data's garbage and we're back where we started.
Rep
So the pipeline review turns into a debate about the data instead of a decision about the desk.
Buyer
Every Monday. And look — before you go further, we're a relationship shop. Thirty accounts, not three hundred. I'm not putting my clients into an automated drip. That's a fast way to get blocked by a hiring manager I've known for nine years.
Rep
Then the ghosting costs you more than it would a volume house, not less. A high-volume shop absorbs a dead shortlist. You've got thirty accounts. How many of your top ten went quiet on a submittal last quarter — and did anyone find out why, or did the req just close in the system?
Buyer
…Two of them. Maybe three. And no, nobody found out why. One of them we assumed was a budget freeze and it turned out they'd gone to a competitor on the VMS.
Rep
Who's feeling that most — the AM who owns the account, or you?
Buyer
Me. I told ownership in January we'd hold fill rate above sixty and get spread per placement back up after the rate caps hit. We're not close, and 'the hiring managers went quiet' isn't an answer I can take into that meeting.
Rep
Let me ask about the other side of the desk. Your contractors rolling off — what's redeployment sitting at?
Buyer
Low twenties. I know it should be north of fifty. But my recruiters are in LinkedIn Recruiter seventy percent of the day sourcing net-new. Nobody's calling a guy whose assignment ends in three weeks, and by the following Wednesday he's on somebody else's payroll.
Rep
So you paid to source, screen and background-check him, he performed for nine months, and you're buying him again from scratch. Roughly how many assignments end in a typical month?
Buyer
Twenty, twenty-five. But I'll be straight with you — margins are thin, MSP caps have us at twelve to fifteen, and ownership has frozen new spend. Anything that raises cost-per-placement is dead before I open my mouth.
Rep
Which is exactly why I'd rather talk about redeployment than spend. Every point you move it off the low twenties is a placement you don't pay to source — same bill rate, no ad spend, no recruiter hours. If you decided this was worth doing, what actually happens next in your shop? Does it go to your Director of Delivery, or the owner?
Buyer
Both. She'd have to say her recruiters will use it — we killed something two years ago because nobody touched it after month two — and then the owner signs.
Rep
So let me play it back. Shortlists die past touch two because the cadence lives in a recruiter's head, you found out six weeks late on a top-ten account, redeployment's in the low twenties against twenty-plus assignments ending a month, and you told ownership you'd hold fill rate above sixty after the rate caps. And the last rollout died in month two because nobody owned it. Miss anything?
Buyer
No. That's it, honestly. The month-two thing is my real worry.
Rep
Then that's what the next call is about. 45 minutes with you and your Director of Delivery — I'll show you the submittal cadence and the assignment-end trigger against two of your own dead reqs, and I'll walk her through what the first 30 days of ownership looks like, because that's the part that killed it last time. Bring the redeployment number. Tuesday at 2 or Thursday at 9?
Buyer
Thursday. Send it to me and I'll add her.
Objections you will hear
What they say, and what you say back.
| Objection | How to answer it |
|---|---|
| “Our ATS already claims to do that.” | Most do — the module exists and you're paying for it. Pull up Bullhorn right now and tell me what percentage of your submittals from last month had three or more logged touches after the shortlist went out. If your team's like most, the feature's licensed and unused, because it depends on a recruiter remembering to set the sequence at 6pm. I'm not asking you to rip out the ATS. I'm asking whether the follow-up actually happens when nobody remembers. |
| “Margins are thin this year — new spend is frozen.” | Understood, and that's exactly why I'd rather talk about redeployment than spend. What's your redeployment rate on contractors rolling off? If it's in the twenties, every point you move it is a placement you don't pay to source — same bill rate, no job board spend, no recruiter hours, and you already know the person performs. Show me the number and the assignments-ending count, and if the math doesn't clear the cost I'll leave it alone until budgets open. |
| “My recruiters won't use another tool. They're already in four systems.” | Fair, and if it's a fifth login it fails — I'd rather find that out now. Where does your team actually live day to day? ATS and the phone, mostly? If the follow-ups fire off the record they're already in and the recruiter only sees the ones that need a human on the line, adoption isn't a training problem. But you'd know better than me — what happened last time you rolled something out? |
| “Automated follow-up is going to feel like spam to my clients. These are relationships.” | Agreed — a hiring manager who gets a generic drip is a hiring manager who blocks your whole domain. What I'm describing is structure, not blast: your recruiter's own voice, a defined cadence, and an actual reason to reach out each time — a new profile, a candidate with a competing offer, a rate update. The alternative isn't high-touch relationship. It's your recruiter following up twice and quietly giving up, which is what's already happening on the reqs that go dark. |
| “We tried something like this two years ago and it didn't stick.” | What broke — the tool or the process around it? Nine times out of ten nobody owned the cadence and it died in month two. I'd want to know who owned it, what the first 30 days looked like, and whether anyone was reporting on touches in your Monday pipeline review. If that's the story, that's a fixable problem, and I'd rather solve it with your Director of Delivery in the room than sell against a ghost. |
| “Send me some information and I'll circulate it internally.” | Happy to, but a PDF won't tell you whether this fits your desk math. Give me twenty minutes with you and whoever runs delivery — I'll bring redeployment and submittal-to-interview benchmarks from firms your size in IT staffing, and if your numbers already beat them we're done and you've walked away with a data point for your ops meeting. |
| “We're a relationship shop, not a volume shop. This feels like a high-volume play.” | Then the ghosting hurts you more, not less. A volume house can absorb a dead shortlist across four hundred reqs. You've got fewer, bigger accounts, and each one that goes quiet is real spread off your forecast. How many of your top ten clients went dark on a submittal last quarter — and did anyone find out why, or did the req just close in the system? |
Questions reps ask about this call
- What are the best discovery call questions for staffing and recruiting prospects?
The ones that pull a specific story, not a rating. Start with "walk me through how a req runs at your shop, start to finish — who touches it until the candidate starts?" Then follow up three times on the same thread before you change subject: "walk me through the last req that went dark," "who sent that follow-up and how did they decide when," "how did you find out the role got filled?" Save the numbers questions — submittal-to-interview ratio, redeployment rate, fall-off inside 30-90 days — until after you have the mechanism, then always ask "how do you know?" Half the time they can't answer, and that's a finding: the problem is invisible internally and you'll be building the case with them.
- How do I get a Managing Director or VP of Recruiting past surface-level answers?
Don't accept the first answer. "Our follow-up is inconsistent" is layer one and it's free. Ask for the last real example — a named req, a named account — and you'll get the mechanism: recruiter emailed twice, nothing was logged, the AM found out at the QBR six weeks later. Then quantify it, then ask who's personally exposed: "whose number does this show up in?" and "what did you commit to the owner on the last quarterly?" That last layer is where deals start moving. And when they say something heavy, count to three before you speak. The sentence after the silence is usually the one you needed.
- What metrics should I ask about on a staffing discovery call?
Ask about the ones the buyer is personally graded on: fill rate, time-to-fill and time-to-submit, submittal-to-interview and interview-to-placement ratios, gross profit per placement (spread), placements per recruiter per month, fall-off inside 30-90 days, redeployment rate on contractors rolling off, and contractor headcount on billing versus bench days. Pick two, not eight. The most productive pair on a first call is usually submittal-to-interview — because that's where ghosted shortlists show up — and redeployment rate, because that's the number a Director of Contractor Care or Head of Talent Delivery can move without asking for new budget.
- How do I handle "our ATS already does that" on a discovery call?
Don't argue with the feature list — they're right, the module exists. Move the conversation from capability to behaviour: "pull up your ATS and tell me what percentage of last month's submittals had three or more logged touches after the shortlist went out." Nearly always the sequence feature is licensed and unused because it depends on a recruiter remembering to set it at 6pm from memory. Follow with "do you trust your last-contacted field?" Most staffing leaders will admit they don't, and now you're talking about ATS hygiene and the Monday pipeline debate rather than competing with Bullhorn.
- How much should I say when they ask "so what do you actually do?" at minute six?
Thirty seconds, tied to what they've already told you, then hand the ball back. "Short version — we run the follow-up cadence on submittals and on contractors coming off assignment, in the recruiter's voice, off the record they're already in. But I'd be guessing at whether that matters until I know one thing: when an assignment's ending, who's supposed to call the contractor, and when?" If they push a second time, give a clean 60 seconds and then ask permission to return to their layer-two detail. Almost everyone says yes.
- What's a good next step to close on a staffing discovery call?
Never "I'll send over some information" — that's a no with a smile on it. Prescribe based on what you found: 45 minutes with them and the person who owns the broken step — usually the Director of Delivery or the Practice Lead on the vertical they complained about — where you run their own two dead reqs through the cadence rather than a general tour. Ask them to bring the redeployment number and last quarter's submittal-to-interview. Offer two named slots, get the invite out before you hang up, and confirm out loud who's attending and what they're bringing.