WorkPlace: Hiring Talent Begins With Recruiting Talent

It’s up to you! Your company’s future growth and success are directly proportionate to your ability to hire talented, productive employees. Attracting quality people requires proactive and continued measures. This means, to the extent possible, you must anticipate and prepare for personnel changes before they occur. Hiring after a long vacancy usually results in compromised decisions made out of desperation…the kind you want to avoid!

There are hundreds of ways to recruit people and what works for one company will not necessarily work for another. Company culture, unique characteristics of the position, market complexities and competitive pressures all must be considered before deciding which recruiting method to use. Keep in mind, however, that even the best recruiting methods can’t make up for what’s lacking internally. Even when you pay big bucks to get someone through the door, if the boss is a dictator or the workplace is filled with backstabbing, unhappy slackers, the best recruiting tactics are for naught.

Today, talented candidates have higher expectations that you must be willing to meet. Noncompetitive wages, inflexible work environments and poor management are just a few of the catalysts to turnover. Before investing in competitive recruiting methods, take an honest look inside and be sure you are doing all that’s possible to maintain an environment where people want to work.

Recruiting Ideas. As employers face increasingly difficult labor conditions, we’ve seen an outpouring of creative and costly recruiting tactics. Let’s review some:

• Offer a bonus to current employees for referrals that result in successful hires. Continually remind employees about the bonus. Use flyers. Increase the bonus amount for difficult-to-fill positions. It is not uncommon to find hiring bonuses in the $250 to $1,000 range today.

• Provide a compensation incentive for newly hired employees such as an accelerated performance review after six months, with potential for an increase.

• Participate in a drive-through job fair. Your company’s recruiting brochure, application or other information goes into a bag with other companies’ documents. Candidates drive through a line and grab a bag of documents. They contact you if they are interested in applying.

• Stay in touch with former (productive) employees (called "boomerangs") who have resigned with proper notice. Invite them back whenever possible!

• Create a resume bank and refer to it when there is a vacancy. Contact qualified candidates who may be working now.

• Advertise via newspaper, Internet, radio, your Web page, community papers, church bulletins and other sources. Ensure all ads are well written and attractive. Develop a recruiting brochure or flyer.

• Hire interns or student workers. Remember, part-time work does not necessarily equate to part-time effort. A student worker can be converted into a full-time, trained employee eventually.

• Attend job fairs.

• Contact school or military outplacement firms.

• Watch the newspaper for companies experiencing a layoff or merger. Contact their HR departments to find out how to get in touch with displaced employees.

• Network within the community.

• Offer an open house. Advertise the event and serve beverages and food. Invite families and candidates. Some are even hosting "Pink Slip Parties" where those out of work can mix with company officials over cocktails.

• Contact trade and professional industry associations for referrals.

• Set up a booth at local community events.

• Ask for referrals.  It’s never too early to ask for referrals. Ask new hires for names while information about former colleagues is fresh in their minds.

Contrary to what many businesses believe, classified advertising remains a viable source for talent. However, it’s not what it used to be. Today, if you elect to run an ad, it must be attractive and interesting and it must sound better than all other ads for similar positions advertised the same day. Blind ads are no longer in style and candidates look for multiple methods to respond (phone, fax, e-mail), which make it easy on them. If you run an ad, make sure you have your best person receiving the call — someone who’s trained to enthusiastically interest the caller and obtain useful information about the candidate.

Limiting Liability. If you elect to take calls as part of the screening process, document the information you obtain. If you are screening people over the phone, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), callers are actual "job applicants," equal to walk-in candidates. Therefore, if you "reject" a call-in candidate or invite certain ones in for an interview and not others, technically you are making an "employment decision" which you must be prepared to prove was not discriminatory.

Before interviewing, you’ll need a complete understanding of the specific job duties and functions. Every vacancy presents an opportunity to reevaluate the position and requirements for success. One useful way to define your need is to create a detailed job description before hiring. Take the opportunity to define exactly what you’re looking for and raise the bar! List the attributes, background and personality of the person you’re looking for. Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll know where to look.

To help reduce the liability in recruiting, follow these tips:

• Ensure job descriptions detail essential job functions, background requirements and physical and mental demands of the position. Use language that is consistent with state and federal employment regulations.

• When placing an ad in any public newspaper, journal or periodical, always include the following, "Equal Opportunity Employer/DFWP." This phrase is required by federal anti-discrimination regulations and most drug-free workplace provisions.

• Never use statements such as, "female wanted," "must be between the ages of 18 and 25," or "good physical health." These statements violate anti-discrimination statutes. Also, avoid references to guaranteed, long-term employment such as, "permanent position," "no layoffs," or other phrases that could be used against you if there is separation of employment.

Selling Your Company. In today’s job market, candidates can interview employers, not the other way around, because they have many choices about what kind of organization they want to want to work with. Knowing that candidates are analyzing companies in this way, interviewers must be prepared to project what their culture and workplace is about. Many companies are highlighting intangibles and are selling "opportunities" (vs. selling "a job") such as a strong learning and development environment that offers training and career opportunities.

If you are a small employer, what opportunities and intangibles can you sell to prospective employees? Consider these:

• A chance to use all of your skills;

• Positive recognition with good performance;
• A chance to control work strategies;
• A flatter organization with less bureaucracy;
• The opportunity to provide input that affects the business;
• The opportunity to learn more about how business works; and,
• The chance to solve problems through your own efforts.

CONCLUSION. If recruiting is marketing in today’s market, then retaining employees is akin to re-selling a customer. How do you keep your customers? Determine and meet their needs. Offer new services at a fair price. Treat them with respect. Customers and employees want to be associated with businesses that are forward-thinking and that listen to them. Put as much effort into finding and keeping employees as you do finding and keeping customers — it will pay off.

The author is president of the Winter Park, Fla., consulting firm, Seawright & Associates Inc. She can be reached via e-mail at jseawright@pctonline.com or at 407/645-2433.