Four Things to Know About Recruiting for Better Results

What do you think business owners and managers tell me 80% of the time when I ask them to name their biggest challenge?  You got it – getting and keeping top-notch employees, or some version of that.

 

The good news is if you are feeling the pain of skilled labour shortages, you’re not alone.  The bad news is that it’s going to get an awful lot worse before it gets better.  This decade’s massive workforce transition (due to a surge of retiring baby boomers) is going to play havoc on most any organizations ability to staff positions, deliver quality customer service on time and to achieve the strategic plan. So what’s a person to do?  Do we learn to live with the situation or change it?  The answer is, “a bit of both.” 

 

It doesn’t matter if you run a small business or manage a large organization of people, a number of opportunities exist to flex or change your approach to attracting and recruiting excellent employees.  You just need to pause long enough to be able to spot them – and then get out in front of your competition early enough to establish yourself as an innovative employer of choice.  Don’t wait to copy what everyone else is doing or you’ll lose your advantage to stand out.

 

Here are four recruiting secrets that most organizations haven’t yet figured out how to do effectively.  (If you would like to receive the complete list of 10 strategies, pop me an email  and I’ll be happy to forward the full article).

1. Know What You Need.  Make sure your recruitment process starts with a clear description of the critical skills, behaviours and values required for superior performance on the job in your organizational culture.  Also know how to assess and align your people resources with your business strategy to ensure you either have or are recruiting the skills needed to move you from where you are today to where you want to be five years from now.
   
   
2. Know Your Ideal Candidate.  A basic ingredient of organizational success is understanding your ideal customer and targeting your marketing specifically at that customer.  The same strategy is even more effective where staffing is concerned.  Take the time to profile the specific skills, behaviours, values and interests of the workers you wish to attract.  Make sure you understand the underlying motivators for each generation if you are drawing from multiple generations.  Then write your recruitment ad to speak directly to the very person you wish to attract.  There is an art and science to this so if you aren’t getting a good response to your campaigns, you may need to rewrite your description.
    
3. Know How to Compensate.  Knowing how to compensate involves being intimately familiar with standard practices in your economic region and industry, what your ideal candidate truly values and how to incorporate an attention-getting motivator in your recruitment advertisements.
   
   
4. Know the Ideal Location.  Do your homework and make sure you understand where your ideal candidate’s eyeballs are going to be and at what days of the week and what times of the day.  Be strategic about where you advertise and how much you spend.

For most organizations, getting and keeping top performing employees is a challenging and ongoing process.  It sucks up a lot of money, time, energy and resources and it drains current employees of energy, motivation and morale while they attempt to pick up the slack during job vacancies.  The result is a compounding problem and unnecessary costs. 

 

Recruiting is but one component of the attraction and retention continuum.  It doesn’t need to be as difficult or as costly as it often is.  If you don’t have the time or resources to manage the process for optimum effectiveness, consider outsourcing the activity.

© 2006 The Wright Group.
Catharine Wright is a business consultant specializing in HR and business leadership solutions.  Through her work at The Wright Group, she transforms individuals, teams and organizations into highly engaged and profitable entities. 

She may be reached at 780.701.8178 or by email at cwright@wright-group.ca.  www.wright-group.ca

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