150 Candidates Line Up for Aquire

 "...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES: (Theme -- sourcing employees)

Sourcing employees article -- Mike Frommelt, Principal and Co-Founder of KeyStone Search (and new EO member) authored an excellent and short article on sourcing employees -- complete article under DETAILS below -- take five minutes and scan this article. Thanks Mike.

150 deep at booth for job fair -- Lois Melbourne, CEO of Acquire, participated in a MBA summer job fair and had candidates lined up 150 deep. Corporations like Wells Fargo, TI, Bank of America and others kept coming to her booth and asking "who are you guys and what did you do???"

Inspired by Trench Safety -- a while back I shared Trench Safety's recruitment brochure. Based on their brochure, Melbourne designed one for Aquire -- here's a link to download a copy.

Best Places to Work in Texas -- noted Melbourne, "We did no advanced marketing prep for the job fair. The students had done web research on the company prior to the job fair (as any candidate we would consider hiring does these days). On the web site they found two things they said impressed them: 1. our customer list; 2. our award for "Best Places to Work in Texas" -- here's a link -- this is why it's   important to apply for these awards!

"Remarkable" word of mouth -- "At the job fair we started handing out the brochures to the candidates we spoke to that really clicked with us. We started getting people coming to us asking for the brochure   and telling us it was impressive, which told us people were showing it off elsewhere in the lobby or in the job fair," described Melbourne.

Bragging rights -- concludes Melbourne "I believe this type of positioning will be more and more important to the newer generation of workers coming on board. They want to respect their employer and what to be able to brag about the workplace environment."

Speaking of sourcing employees -- I'm going on my first tour of India: Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi May 9 -- 14. I'll be leading one-day Rockefeller Habits public workshops hosted by Bob Potini with E Gen Solutions.

DETAILS:

Sourcing: The Missing Link to Great Hiring

All CEOs interested in growth aspire to fill their teams with "A Players". Unfortunately, despite the many books and articles on how assess and evaluate talent, hiring the best every time can still be elusive.
 
One key reason is the lack of attention, or lack of understanding, of one of the most critical pieces of great hiring: Sourcing. If you are not fishing in the right body of water, you will never land the trophy.
 
Like many things in business, good sourcing starts with the right mindset.

The Mindset:
Recruitment is a sales process, not a human resources process. Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting down the HR community. Certain HR types can make great recruiters, but they are generally trained to screen and assess, not source. Ask yourself this, "Is my HR person able (or even willing), to pick up the phone tomorrow, call one of our competitors, and solicit their VP of Sales to leave that company and join ours?" If not, you have a screener, not a sourcer. Recruiting is a sales function. It is the process of "selling" the vision of an organization, and convincing a candidate to "buy" (join the company). Because it is so similar to sales, an easy way to illustrate the recruiting process is through the 100 year old, tried and true "sales continuum". (diagram below).

For recruitment, the continuum represents the entire pool of "minimally qualified" candidates in any particular region or industry, for an open position.

Always available
On the far left are the people who are always ready to move. You know the types, 25 cents more an hour and they're gone, never been happy with any employer, no employer has ever been happy with them, etc... These are the first to apply when you put your feelers out. They scan Monster and Career Builder from their employer's PC and apply for your job, using the other guy's equipment. They will do the same thing on yours, if you hire them!

Never available
On the far right are the never candidates. You can't move them from their current position, even with a crowbar. They love their employer, have golden handcuffs, work two minutes from home, etc...

Maybe available
The middle section represents the maybes, the people who may move, if they are presented the "right" opportunity. This could be more responsibility, a better working environment, a chance to be a part of something really exciting,   etc. Every individual has their own hot buttons.

Where the A Players are
Studying the continuum, you will quickly see where A Players generally reside; Toward the right, closer to the "Never" category. Why is this? Put simply, these people are successful in their current companies. They may not be 100% happy, but they keep their nose to the grindstone, work hard to succeed, and are generally paid accordingly. Also, they are highly regarded by their co-workers, giving them a sort of "first among equals" status. Basically, everything you would love them to be in your company. These people do not scan the classifieds, or Monster, they work hard all week and spend their free time with family, significant others, etc... If they do become extremely unhappy, they simply take a few of the recruiter calls coming in regularly, and confidentially explore opportunities.

So, how do you get to them? The following are six ways to start sourcing more A Players.

1. Write "exciting" and "descriptive" ads -- Verne Harnish gives some great examples on how to do this on Gazelles.com, so I won't repeat it here, but do make sure you include information regarding culture and values. Good people move for culture, not money. Studies have shown that great people look for three things in their employer 1) "Where are we going 2) "What is our plan to get there" and 3) "How do I factor into that plan". If you can't paint a compelling picture of your corporate vision and culture while answering those questions, you will not be very successful in luring A Players.
2. Build a recruitment database. Let all employees know that the organization is committed to talent, and that you are always recruiting, even if you have no official openings. Any time you or any of your people, go to an event, bring back as many names/titles/information as you can and enter them into a database. Also, make sure all your vendors and customers are in that database, as they can be great referral sources. For a small company, you can use Outlook or ACT! to manage this very inexpensively.
3. Get a sales minded individual to manage recruitment. Once you have a database, you need someone to call potential candidates. Again, this has to be a person with a strong sales orientation, who is not afraid to make cold calls. I suggest if you are adding people quickly, you may want to pull someone from your sales group to handle recruiting. Of course, you still have to pay them like a salesperson. This will quickly raise the number of A Players coming across your desk. TopGrading by Brad Smart reminds us that only A Players will hire other A Players. The     same is true of referrals; A Players more often refer A Players. As you build your database, develop a method of identifying the A Players in their respective fields and industries and call them first.
4. Don't rely on personal networks: Nearly every CEO I know believes they have a wide, diverse,     and willing network capable of producing almost anything with a few phone calls. Although this may be true for getting tickets to the big game, when it comes to recruitment, its simply not enough. Take this example: As an executive search consultant, when I recruit on a C-Level position with regional parameters, I will make an average of 150 targeted phone calls. For example, all CFOs with manufacturing experience in a three state area. For a search with a national scope I will often make 250-300 calls. These calls generally result in 12-15 candidates strong enough to interview. From there, 4-6 will be strong enough to present to my client, and usually only one or two will ultimately be worthy of an offer after evaluating cultural fit, skillsets, track record and potential for growth. Here's the eye opener - only about 10% of the people I will contact in that initial round of 150- 300 calls will be a part of my existing "network" or database. The rest are developed through original research and start out as pure cold calls. I spend the majority of my work life talking with executives, yet my "network" only accounts for 10% of my calls on any given search! Even if you have 200 A Players in your network, you cannot possibly     know enough people to give you a complete scan of any major market or industry, as it relates to a particular position. You must rely on the networks of others to ensure you have evaluated the whole field of talent.
5. Be "broad" when asking for referrals: When you call (or your recruiter calls) and asks for referrals, do not ask "Who do you know that can fill our Director of Marketing job?" When     asked this question, people automatically try to think of others they know who are "looking." The truth is, A Players, are never really "looking." Ask instead, "Who are the very best Marketing people in XYZ Industry, or Anytown, U.S.A.?" This question they can usually answer with a few     relevant names. Let them know you will not be using their name when you call these people. This will maximize the number of referrals you will receive. If you have a good, sales oriented recruiter, they will create interest in the role and your organization when they reach those A Players.
6. Get your culture aligned before starting an employee referral program:
   Formal employee referral programs rarely work. Most of the ones offering trips, cash or the like are desperate attempts to create candidate flow into an unattractive environment. The truth is, if your culture is not healthy, invigorating and well aligned around your core values, employees simply will not refer A Players. I do not know many people who will "sell out" their best friends     and top colleagues for a trip to Tahiti, or $2000 in cash. Remember, A Players are nearly always currently employed and have done well for themselves in their careers by making smart moves. If there is not a compelling reason to leave their current employer (usually cultural in nature), they will hold tight. There are many great resources available on cultural/values alignment,     including Gazelles.com, The Rockefeller Habits and jimcollins.com, just to name a few.

Of course, all of these suggestions will only provide results if they are part of both a well thought out plan and sincere intent to hire the very best. Many companies I encounter claim to be "all about talent" but then refuse to make sourcing a priority in terms of time and/or dollars. Sourcing, and overall   recruiting, is like anything else - what you get out of it will be a function of what you put into it.
Happy Hunting!

Mike Frommelt is Principal and Co-Founder of KeyStone Search. He is also a new EO Member. KeyStone provides executive search services to CEOs who know the power of a well aligned corporate culture. mikef@keystonesearch.com,   www.keystonesearch.com

 

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