Finding/Attracting the Best Candidates

I- How To Find The Right Person

To successfully recruit, it is imperative to gain access to qualified candidates and get them interested in your job and company. To ensure this, it’s a good idea to get the word out through as many channels as possible. And by utilizing a targeted approach, you’ll increase the chances of attracting truly qualified applicants.

Standard recruiting channels include recruiting agencies, newspaper ads, Internet job sites, employee referrals, professional associations and campus recruiting you can also improve the pipeline of high-potential candidates by creating training positions or implementing internship programs.

Employee referrals are and effective and often overlooked strategy to find great candidates. Many companies offer rewards and prizes to current employees whose referrals get hired. Programs like are often cheaper than other methods and generate great results since it is rare that current employees would suggest someone unqualified or not likely to succeed.

Following are four important things to keep in mind when hiring:

1. You may have the talent you need already – consider current employees.

2. Carefully define the job and the requirements before you begin the recruiting process.

3. Remember a person’s past performance is the most accurate predictor of future performance, so interview carefully and check reference.

4. Remember a good fit is someone with the right experience, qualifications and personality – it is never a good idea to settle for someone who falls significantly short in one of these areas.
 

II- To Recruit Effectively, Define Your Company's Need First

Finding the right candidate to fill a job can be a daunting task for any hiring manager. There are a lot of variables to consider such as the candidate’s educational background, work experience, personal characteristics, potential to succeed, training requirements, cultural fit and presentation. In order to make your hiring process easier, it is important to define your needs clearly so you can filter out mediocre candidates from great candidates. Before you begin recruiting, it’s critical to define your needs first.

In order to define the job and its requirements, you should first understand two things: the primary responsibilities and tasks involved in the job and the background characteristics needed to perform the job.

One of the best ways to identify the responsibilities of a job is to look at what the incumbent employee does. Sit down with the incumbent and ask him/her how he/she spends his/her days, what tools he/she uses (such as software programs or information resources), who he/she speaks with, and the types of challenges he/she faces.

Write down the primary responsibilities of the job and then compare your list with the previous job description for the job. It is important to work with the incumbent to prioritize the list of responsibilities and make sure you did not overlook any key points. If you are recruiting to a new position, be sure to think ahead and define the responsibilities carefully.

Background characteristics such as education and work experience are two of the most critical components to consider when evaluating potential candidates. Regarding education, you should define whether the job requires a candidate from a specific type of institution with a degree or certificate, such as a vocational school or and Economics University, or whether you need someone who simply demonstrates academic success by being a top student from a prestigious institution or by holding an advanced degree in any field.

Regarding work experience, your analysis of the candidate’s C.V. should be based on the specific tasks and responsibilities for the available position. Three areas to focus on are industry experience, functional experience and large-or-small-company experience. Industry and functional experience are particularly important for externally oriented positions that require knowledge of products and competitors. If a candidate has not been exposed to all of the requirements, consider whether the candidate can learn these skills or knowledge and whether your company can invest the time and energy needed for training.

By taking the time to clearly understand the basic requirements for a job, you will be able to better evaluate your candidates on the basis of their education and experience. Knowing these things you can filter out mediocre candidates from great ones. As a result, when you do start interviewing candidates, you can focus on evaluating the more subtle qualities you need for a given position.
 

III-Attracting & Retaining Top Talent

Prior to the information revolution, competitive advantage mainly came from cheap, raw materials and labor. This is no longer the case. Today, the value of a company’s products or services is derived largely from knowledge-based activities such as design, technological superiority, customer service, and logistics. Thus, it is imperative to do everything possible to preserve and enhance the source and key to knowledge: the individuals who possess it. This means attracting and retaining top performers. However, hiring and retaining talented individuals capable of performing knowledge-based functions is increasingly difficult, as competition for talent heightens, more complex corporate structures are created, and job mobility continues to rise. Only those companies with the best recruiting and retention policies will succeed in the “talent economy.”

Recruiting and retention are interconnected. When a company is trying to “retain” talent, it is in fact “attracting” talent as well. Thus, recruiting and retention should not be addressed as disparate policies, but rather as one "talent” policy. Important measures to implement when developing effective recruiting and retention policies include:

First, adopting an objective decision making process. Employees leave companies that are unstructured and make ad hoc decisions. Give employees a sense of involvement in the decision – making process. People want to work in organizations where they know that their ideas and opinions matter. The more an individual feels they are making an impact, the more likely they are to stay.

Secondly, emphasizing the importance of personal and professional development. Junior-level employees tend to look at jobs as learning experiences that will increase their market value and prepare them for their next position. Senior level employees should feel they can learn and develop as managers and leaders. Employees value a company’s investment in improving their capabilities and feel that the company is sincerely interested in their development. Additionally, a company that improves the skill set of its current employees will increase its knowledge base and bench strength without having to hire outside talent.

Recruiting and retention are interconnected. When a company is trying to “retain” talent, it is in fact “attracting” talent as well. Thus, recruiting and retention should not be addressed as disparate policies, but rather as one “talent” policy. Important measures to implement when developing effective recruiting and retention policies include:

Making sure employees are fairly compensated. Top performers command salaries commensurate with their abilities. Money alone however is not enough to satisfy talented individuals. They also need to be inspired by their work and motivated to perform. To accomplish this, create incentive systems that link an individual’s productivity and effectiveness to their compensation.

Of course, open and effective communication greatly enhances the success of incentive programs. If employees don’t know the status of their performance or are not sure of how they are being judged, they will not be inspired to work or happy with their working conditions. Therefore, the benchmarks in an incentive program need to be well communicated and a monitoring and review method, which informs individuals of their progress, must be implemented. In this way, employees know how they are performing and when they are deserving of rewards. For an incentive program to succeed in motivating and compensating employees, it is essential to keep the measurement and monitoring process clear and understandable.

Implementing these measures is a good start. Companies with the best talent policies not only adhere to many or all of these strategies, they also implement them the best. This means individualizing talent policies according to the specific needs and desires of top performers. Each company must find its own ways to involve employees in the shaping of the company, to help employees grow, to integrate work with employees’ personal lives, and to design compensation packages with clear, objective appraisal systems. While the creation and customized implementation of a successful talent policy can be time and capital intensive, the only way a company can maintain and improve its knowledge base is by hiring the best talent, motivating performance at peak levels, and keeping talent within the organization

IV- If The Most Talented People Are Not Applying For Jobs At Your Company,
It Is Time To “Poach” Then From Your Competitors

The term “poaching” is used when a company steals an employee from another company, usually a competitor. For some people this might raise some ethical issues about recruiting other firms’ employees, yet there is an everyday competition to steal customers without a second thought. In a market like today’s that’s quickly growing, the top performers are already employed and their wages are raising as demand for quality employees increases. If you want the best performers on your team, then there are sacrifices that you will have to make, not only to successfully recruit, but also to retain these talented individuals.

Before you can recruit top talent you must identify it. Whether by employee referral, or already knowing some of the top names in your industry, the recruitment process should be focused and intense. There is no way to get great people if you appear unfocused, unorganized or not serious in your desire to recruit. And it is best to determine who you want and how much you are willing to sacrifice to get that person before you begin the recruiting process.

To poach successfully, one needs to be subtle. Top performers already have jobs, they are most likely content and even if they aren’t, they are usually not letting it be widely known that they are looking for a new opportunity. If your company is a competitor, they will not always be open to speaking with you or your employees directly, so it often helps to use a recruiter. If someone referred a certain person that you want then let your recruiter know, and make sure your recruiter has enough information to effectively “sell” you opportunity and your company. If you are not sure who you want, then instruct your recruiter to do some research and identify and approach the top performers in your industry.

It is important to build a relationship with the person you are trying to recruit, so that even if they decide not to move, they know your company name and will think of you when they do explore a job change. For this reason it is important to work with a recruiter that can represent you effectively, and even introduce you to top performers that are not interested in making a move at this time, but are interested in networking in their industry. These types of exploratory and casual conversations are a good way to get top performers to know you.

You have to know and look for signs that your target top performers are thinking about or getting ready to leave their current job. This can be done through contacts and friends of the target talent. Even if you don’t have a position open, when you find out that a top performer is thinking about leaving, you should move in. You can let a bottom level performer go, or if you have the resources, create a new position. Have your recruiter or one of your top managers call them up to sell your company and try to get them to come in for an interview. Be prepared to give a job offer quickly. If you are recruiting a top performer, then there will be other companies after them as well, so you should make your move fast. Also, be prepared for a counteroffer from their current employer, so you will have to offer them something compelling that will make them refuse a counteroffer. It could be more money, better benefits or possibly a better opportunity to advance.

You may think that by poaching employees from a competitor, they will get angry and do the same thing back. Actually, this strategy often intimidates competitors and even if they do try to retaliate, if you are successful at keeping your best people happy, the people you gain will outweigh the people you lose. And while poaching is sometimes controversial, it is necessary if you are serious about building a company of the top performers.

V- Like Attracts Like: Recruiting Talent through Employee Referrals

In today’s competitive job market, where top talent is getting more difficult to find and recruit, an employee referral program is a simple and effective strategy to recruit new employees. Traditional referral programs, with no incentives built in, have disappointingly low participation because there is little motivation for employees to refer good people. But with a few tweaks, a referral system can be made efficient and effective.

First, managers should approach top performers personally and ask them to name the best five people they have ever worked with. As top performers, the referrals from these employees hold much more weight than those of the other employees. If the best in the company are impressed with the work of the people they refer, then it is safe to assume that those people are worth contacting.

Second, other employees should be approached and asked the same thing. While these referrals might not be as high quality as the first group, current employees often have good insight as to the type of people who will succeed in your organization. An incentive for current employees to provide good candidates is a must. Give employees a bonus if someone they referred is hired. You can even give another bonus if the hired individual passes their probation period. Suggest that the employees themselves call their referrals to “sell” them the company.

Implementing a program like this can significantly cut costs and hours spent looking for new talent. It is simple and effective, can be done quickly, and can be a good supplement to traditional recruiting methods like advertising jobs in the newspaper and on Internet job websites.
 

<<Back>>