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Recruiting - Leave No Stone Unturned

HousingZone.com - Leave No Stone Unturned

Excellent roundtable discussion about how to find quality employees. Succeeding in the talent game today requires some innovation - if you think that running an ad in the classified's is a strategy you are missing out on a world of other recruiting possibilities. Some notable ideas.

1. School Career Days/Intern Programs: These people are very motivated - they have already made an investment in themselves and are looking to put those new skills to work. The problem - if an employer goes there for the first time they are unlikely to get noticed and will feel that this is a huge waste of time. The reality is that you will have to show consistency. Pick a school or program - define your position as a company clearly - define why you are the best choice to work for - show consistency by showing up to every event and presenting career advice to the students. If you are consistent you will start to see results after a few events.

2. Emplyee Referrals: Don't overlook this and you should reward this - give your employees a bonus for finding good people but make sure you don't pay until they have been on board for 90 days or so.

3. Recruiters: This article downplays recruiters and many people have had bad experience with recruiters. There are two things that lead to the negative image; the first is that there are a lot of bad recruiters out there who simply work as a middle person looking up potential "candidates" in the help wanted ads. The second is that many employers don't clearly define either the job or the search. To find success with a recruiter you should understand that you are goigng to be spending a lot of money to find someone very specific. Spend an appropriate amount of time defining the position, goals, your culture, how they fit with your company, etc. Now go interview a bunch of recruiters - ask them how they find candidates and how their research department is run. Good recruiters have teams of people who will draw a geographic area around your business and then start calling into those businesses to find the top talent. The recruiter will then screen these people before sending them to you for an interview. If this process is done right this can be a very powerful way to find top-level help.

4. Advertise Everywhere: You should make it clear on all your jobsites, all your vehicles and possibly even on your company shirts that you are always looking for the best talent. Keey your name in front of everyone all the time - sooner or later when someone is looking to make a change you want them to remember your company.

5. Smaller Companies: This article makes an excellent point about recruiting the smaller business owners who may be tired. I believe in designing a company structure to be entrepreneurial in structure from the strategy to the accounting system to the organizational chart so that these prior owners would fit right in.

Talent is a very important part of your business - you cannot grow without spending a lot of time developing a good "Talent Plan".

Learn more about organizational planning and alignment.

Posted by David on November 25, 2005 10:10 AM|Permalink

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