DEMsays

27/10/2026

You make the calls. Find the Job. Fight the Fee. Find the Candidate. Get the Offer.

AND THEN...

YOU blow the Deal!

It has been my experience that most of the time, the recruiter can look back and find something they said or did wrong that cost them the deal.

Number one culprit?

Afraid of the answer. Afraid that you might get the wrong answer so you don't ask the tough questions.

I have spent a career trying to help recruiters understand, this is what we talk about when we say tough questions.

Tough questions aren't just, “Do you want the job?”

It's the questions along the way that are going to get you where you want to go that you can't be afraid to ask.

For example.

Your candidate gets an offer and asks whether the company will give them three weeks' annual leave.

Most recruiters rush off to find out.

But here's the question you should be asking:

“Are you going to accept the job if they do?”

Because most recruiters are closing on the excuse and not the reason why they are not saying "yes".

You can only close on the real reason.

Unfortunately, not asking those questions is usually what costs you the placement.

LISTEN TO MY CLOSING SESSION ON DEMSAYS.

It's not enough to just get candidates out. You have to close.

Learn how to avoid surprises at the end, prepare candidates to resign, minimise counteroffers and recognise the early warning signs of placement problems.

Getting the offer is one thing. Getting the placement is another.

Listen here: https://lnkd.in/dJkEGuxS

26/10/2026

“ARE THOSE SWEATPANTS, SAM? REALLY?” 😂

That's something I once asked one of my recruiters.

We were arguing about the office dress code.

I was convinced I was right.

I wasn't.

But this week's question is about something far more expensive.

Should you reveal your client's name to a candidate before submitting them?

I had a very firm opinion about that too.

Until it cost us a rather large amount of money.

Sometimes the hardest thing about being right is discovering you weren't. 😂

Here's what I told this recruiter. 👇

Ask Dem: Give Them The Name of Your Client?

❓Hi Dem,

What is your policy on revealing the name of your clients to candidates? I am getting more candidates who will not proceed further until I tell them who the client is. I try to avoid telling them until they are screened and ready to be submitted.

Does your policy differ?

🙋🏻DEMsays,

So first, some background.

A few times over the years, I have been asked by my recruiters in my agency to re-think one of my core beliefs.

I pride myself on never being done with learning, and on being able to call myself on my own nonsense.

So when they asked me if we could abandon the smart dress code, and go business casual during the week, and completely casual (don’t get me started, “Are those sweatpants, Sam? Really?”) on Fridays, I fought hard.

I said it would affect morale. I said we’d feel less professional and there’d be a negative impact on our call levels and an imperceptible effect on our commitment.

I thought we’d swear more. 🤣

They pointed out we worked nationwide and never met our clients or candidates, and that the relaxed environment would offset the daily stress of living on commission. I finally realised that my real issue, what was I going to do with all those suits and ties I had bought, was silly.

So I relented. Morale went up, production too.

I WAS 100% WRONG.

Your question deals with another one of those core beliefs.

I made my mark by selling against people like you, and your understandable and fully rational policy of not disclosing the company to the candidate until they have been submitted.

“If I expect you to trust me with your confidential personal information like your salary, your family situation, your aspirations, your very livelihood, then I have to trust you too and that starts with sharing the name of the company.”

Candidates ate it up.

I would tell them theatrically,

“…I guess you could screw me over by going around me now that I’ve told you the company, but you have to put your head on your own pillow, I’m not making policy based on unethical outliers!!”

Oh, I would lay it on thick, I’d roll my eyes at myself!!

A bonus to the bonding this caused with my candidates is I never experienced the issues you do now. Candidates refusing to call you back or work with you without knowing the company name. This core belief, that I was treating others the way I wanted to be treated, an extension of the essential dogma of my spiritual life, was important to me.

And it doesn’t hold up any more.

It is too risky. Last year alone we had over R300K worth of fees lost by telling candidates the name of the company and them Linking In with someone at the client and the client then refusing to pay our fee. We lost a few other placements because after disclosing the company name they “asked around” and heard negative information and refused to interview, and we lost a few others because once we submitted them, the companies claimed to “already have them” simply because they were in their LinkedIn network or because they had posted themselves on a job site months or years before and the company archived the records.

All told it is a multi million Rand a year core belief that now did not stand up to the reality of modern communication patterns and the temptation that comes with technology.

So once again, I did what comes hard to successful people.

I accepted I was wrong and implemented a change.

The good news for you is you have always been where we now are. We don’t disclose until we are the company of record. We tell the candidates to put themselves in our shoes. The recruiter equivalent of cyber hacking is for us to disclose the name, and due to anything from innocent curiosity to outright deceit we are out our just and due fee.

We offer a compromise.

We won’t disclose who YOU are to the company, we will blind the CV contact info, and just submit the background, and we won’t disclose to you who the COMPANY is, until we have a mutual interest, and then we’ll tell you everything.

Do we lose a few who won’t play or are used to being coddled this way? Probably.

Not as many as we lose if we risk doing it the way we used to!

“I WAS WRONG”.

For some the three hardest words in the English language are “I love you”.

But love is easy. Being wrong is damn hard.

Being wrong about being in love is worst of all, but you don’t want me going there…

Dem

23/10/2026

YES, I USE AI TO CREATE SOME OF THE PICTURES YOU SEE IN MY POSTS.

I couldn't afford the movie sets. 😂

But there's an important distinction between how I package the training and where the training comes from.

THE PICTURES MAY BE AI. THE TRAINING ISN'T.

Everything I teach on DEMsays comes from 30 years in the recruitment business. What I've learned, what I've experienced, and what I've taught along the way.

I just gave it a much better cinema screen. 🎬

AI DIDN'T TEACH ME ANY OF IT.

Recruiters did.

Candidates did.

Clients did.

Placements did.

YOU DID.

And quite a few MONUMENTAL MISTAKES along the way did too. 😂

I've said this in my own training about AI:

EVERY TOOL THEY EVER MAKE TURNS OUT TO BE SOMETHING THAT A HUMAN HAS TO USE.

AI is a pretty sophisticated assistant.

BUT THE ASSISTANT STILL NEEDS SOMETHING WORTH SAYING.

So go and look at the pretty pictures. 👀

But this isn't Pl***oy.

RECRUITERS DON'T SUBSCRIBE TO DEMSAYS FOR THE PRETTY PICTURES. THEY SUBSCRIBE FOR THE TRAINING.

COME AND SEE WHAT 30 YEARS OF RECRUITMENT TRAINING LOOKS LIKE WHEN YOU PUT IT ALL IN ONE PLACE.

www.demsays.co.za

22/10/2026

CLIENTS HAVE A RIGHT TO NEGOTIATE YOUR FEE.

You could even say an obligation.

Why?

Because recruiters are willing to do it!

As an industry, we discount our fees all the time.

SO WHY WOULDN'T THEY NEGOTIATE?

I understand recruiters complaining about clients wanting lower fees.

But if we've been discounting our fees for years, and clients have been getting good candidates at those discounted fees, why WOULD they suddenly agree to pay more?

AND WHY ARE WE SO WILLING TO DISCOUNT?

Because there's something I've noticed about recruiters.

RECRUITERS DON'T BELIEVE IN THEIR PRICE.

Clients believe in the price. Recruiters don't.

You get a placement fee that's sometimes higher than your own annual package, so YOU don't believe in the price.

But think about what you're actually selling.

One fee. One time.

A fee that could be a fraction of the revenue your candidate will generate for that company.

SO DON'T TELL ME I'M OVERPRICED.

You can still get high fees.

But not until you understand why clients question them.

And not until YOU believe in the value of what you're selling.

Clients have every right to negotiate your fee.

And remember, you have every right to say NO.
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WANT TO HEAR THE REST?

The full CLIENTS BILL OF RIGHTS Listen-In training session is available to DEMsays members.

🎧 LISTEN NOW: https://lnkd.in/dD443HjR

DEMsays
Contemporary Recruiter Training

03/09/2026

Recruitment agencies spend a fortune on recruitment.

Which sounds like a ridiculous sentence until you look at where the money actually goes.

Job boards. LinkedIn Recruiter. ATSs. Databases. Sourcing tools. New technology. Better technology. And now, of course, AI tools for just about everything.

All designed to help recruiters find more candidates, reach more clients, work faster and ultimately make more placements.

And I'm not knocking any of it. Agencies need the tools. Technology has changed recruitment enormously, and AI is going to change it even more.

But I've always found it strange how much we'll spend giving a recruiter better equipment, while sometimes spending very little making them a better recruiter.

Because a better database doesn't teach you what to say when the client won't give you exclusivity. LinkedIn Recruiter doesn't teach you how to stop a candidate accepting a counteroffer. An ATS doesn't teach you how to qualify a job order properly.

And AI can give a recruiter an answer.

It can't give them the judgement to know whether it's the right one.

That's still the recruiter's job.

And that's the part I think we sometimes forget.

Better tools in the hands of an undertrained recruiter don't necessarily create better results…
..Sometimes they just help them make the same mistakes faster.

So by all means, invest in the technology. Invest in the databases. Invest in LinkedIn. Invest in AI.

🎯 Just don't forget to invest in the recruiter using them.

Because the most valuable piece of recruitment technology in the room is still the person sitting in front of it.

See what contemporary recruiter training looks like:

www.demsays.co.za

DEMsays | Contemporary Recruiter Training

02/09/2026

After almost a year of building it, today I finally get to say it.

THE DEMSAYS VAULT IS OPEN. 🎬

For the past few weeks, I've been telling you why I built it.

Today, I finally get to let you inside. 😁

Everything I've ever trained on over the past 25 years now has a home.

But DEMsays isn't here to tell recruiters they've been doing it wrong.

One thing I've learnt over those 25 years is that there are probably 5,000 different ways to do this job RIGHT... and your way is one of them.

The Vault isn't about replacing your style. It's about giving you another perspective 👀, another idea, 💭 a reminder, or simply a different way of handling the conversation that's sitting in front of you.

Because sometimes you want an hour of training.

Sometimes you need five minutes.

And sometimes you just need to know what to say next.

That's what I've tried to build.

📌A place a recruiter can go when a client says, "Your fee is too high."

📌When a candidate says, "I'm happy where I am."

📌When a job order starts going sideways.

📌When a rookie needs to learn the fundamentals.

📌Or when an experienced recruiter simply wants to sharpen something they already know.

Think of it as having Dem in your office whenever you need him.

Listen. Watch. Read. Find the situation you're in. Take what works for you and get back to the placement.

And because I couldn't think of anything worse than spending almost a year building another boring recruitment training website, I've wrapped the whole thing inside a 🎥 cinematic movie-themed world. 😄

After all the building, recording, writing, changing things, changing them back again and probably driving everyone around me slightly mad...

THE DEMSAYS VAULT IS OPEN.

If you've been following the story and wondering what I've been building, you don't have to wonder anymore.

Come inside.

👉 www.demsays.co.za

I'll see you in the Vault.

Dem

For Recruiters Who've "Heard It All."

27/10/2025

30/09/2025

For the very first time, you can now Design your very own DEMsays Private Recruiter Training Mini-Seminar! 100% customised for your company!

DEMsays Recruiter Training has never been more customisable. Because we know that one size DOESN'T fit all!
👇
Online Private Recruitment Training! The ENTIRE Placement Process…Select Your Program…Select your Topics…Even Select your very own Date and Time...

Marketing…Cold Call Recruiting…Referrals…Closing Deals…Prepping…Job Order Qualifying…Fees…Advanced Closing Techniques…Time Management…Email Usage for Recruiters…Candidate and Client Objections…Making the most out of your Guarantee…Building Trust with Clients/ Candidates…The Salary Issue…Placement Warning Signs…Counter Offers…Recruiter Integrity…Reference Checking…Retainers…Working Higher Level Jobs…Onboarding…Big Biller Numbers and Ratios…Slumps and Burnout..and everything in between!
👇
⚙️ How does it Work? ⓸ Easy Steps!
👇
Step 1️⃣: Select your Training Program:
✅ Rookie Recruiter Start Up Training Part I (topics customised according to agency needs)
✅ Rookie Recruiter Start Up Training Part II (topics customised according to agency needs)
✅ FunDEMentals Recruiter Training Workshop (Message Dem for topic descriptions)
✅ FunDEMentals Recruiter Training Workshop 2.0! (Message Dem for topic descriptions)
👇

Step 2️⃣: Select your Preferred Date and Time:
✅ Any Thursday or Friday, 9am to 2pm
👇

Step 3️⃣: Select 3 Topics from the attached PDF’s or let Dem know where the Gaps are and we will suggest 3 Topics for your approval!
👇

Step 4️⃣: Indicate Number of Delegates.
✅ 1-5 Delegates
✅ 5-9 Delegates
✅ 10+ Delegates
👇

Step 5️⃣: Email Dem with your Selections for a quote
👇

Step 6️⃣: Once quote is approved, date and time will be locked in!

Why THIS Training?

Let your Staffing Colleagues tell you!

"I have attended training with almost every recruiting/staffing trainer out there...BUT you ARE THE BEST!! THE BEST! THE BEST. You are in touch, on the ground. I don't know exactly what it is about you...but I DO KNOW that I feel blessed to have you!!!..."

"This is EXCELLENT info! Thank you so much. As always, DEM is a wealth of recruiting gold".

"You are becoming our recruiting Nostradamus!…"

"...thought this was one of the best and well-timed pieces of training I've sat in on in about 5 years!"

APSO calls Dem, 💬 “...one of the BEST recruitment specialist trainers in the country”

📜Email Dem at [email protected] to book your slot!

26/09/2025

DEMsays FunDEMentals Recruiter Training Series: 2.0!

⁉️ HOW are our Recruiters getting Fee Agreements back, signed, in 20 minutes, when everyone says they send a Fee Agreement, and it doesn’t come back?

⁉️ WHY is the Candidate Presentation Marketing Call working for some and not for others?

⁉️ HOW do our Recruiters get an 80 to 90% First Interview to Second Interview Ratio?

⁉️ WHAT is the FASTEST way to get a Job Order?

⁉️ HOW do our Recruiters get Referrals when everyone says people don’t give names or get back to them?

⁉️ HOW is a Recruiters desk different in 2025, and WHAT has really changed?

These, and a plethora of additional questions that Dem gets daily, all answered in our brand new Recruiter Training Series: DEMsays FunDEMental Recruiter Training Series 2.0!

Online Weekly Recruiter training from DEMsays SA! Pick your Topics, Pick your Dates, meet Dem LIVE Online!

APSO calls Dem, “...one of the BEST recruitment specialist trainers in the country...”

17/07/2025

JUST ADDED! Recruiters Diarise! 📅 UPCOMING DEMsays Recruiter Training Events!

Regardless of your level, years of experience, there is something for everyone…

Online Private Recruitment Training! The ENTIRE Placement Process...1 hour Per Week…Pick your Topics (or do them all!)…Select your Day and Time!

Marketing…Cold Call Recruiting…Referrals…Closing Deals…Prepping…Job Order Qualifying…Fees…Advanced Closing Techniques...Candidate and Client Objections…Making the most out of your Guarantee…Building Trust with Clients/ Candidates…The Salary Issue…Placement Warning Signs…Counter Offers…Recruiter Integrity…Reference Checking…Retainers…Working Higher Level Jobs…Big Biller Numbers and Ratios…Slumps and Burnout..and everything in between!

💙 The Buzz🐝 in the Industry about DEMsays Training💙...

APSO calls Dem, 💬 “...one of the BEST recruitment specialist trainers in the country”

"The spark you have lit in my team is amazing – if ANYONE needs a reference please use me. The terms are all being signed at full terms, your words are being used all over the place, your wisdom carried into our days. Just really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your enthusiasm and effort you put into each training day”.

"Hey Dem! My whole team attended your Rookie session a few weeks back and loved it. Thank you!”

"Never, in 13 years did I receive such a response from consultants after a training session. The drive and enthusiasm is even felt by our support staff!

"I have attended training with almost every recruiting/staffing trainer out there...BUT you ARE THE BEST!! THE BEST! THE BEST. You are in touch, on the ground. I don't know exactly what it is about you...but I DO KNOW that I feel blessed to have you!!!..."

"You are becoming our recruiting Nostradamus!…"

"...thought this was one of the best and well-timed pieces of training I've sat in on in about 5 years!"

Set up your Recruiter Training Timeline NOW while there are still a few spots left! 👉

DEMsays, you can quote him…”There’s not much wrong in any of our lives that a Placement doesn’t fix…”🩹