Upgrading Your Team in the Recession

Back in July, I made the recommendation on this blog (and was interviewed by Forbes Magazine Online) to use the recession as a unique point in history to upgrade your team.

Have you selected one or two key roles and upgrade the positions yet?

If not, what’s holding you back? Don’t miss out on this wonderful special time in history to attract a level of talent to a couple of key roles that you might never again have the opportunity to acquire.

What’s holding you back from taking the first step?

Here are some of the “arguments” I hear against upgrading when I mention this idea in our workshops and to our CEO/President clients:

• This person has been with me a long time and is loyal
• The individual in that role might have a hard time finding a new job
• I’m embarrassed that the hire didn’t work out – I’m hoping it turns around
• I think the person will eventually get better
• I don’t have time to spend on hiring someone
• The person is okay – they do some things well – no rush to make a decision
• Not sure I won’t make a mistake the second time around again
• No idea where to start or find this person
• I can live with this person – I’ll do part of their job
• What if I screw up the hire – then I wouldn’t look good to my ____ (fill in the blank)

Does this sound dysfunctional? Sure it does.

The number ONE trait of success for managers and executives is the ability to hire and retain an outstanding team of people. Are you a great manager/executive or an average one?

• Do you have an exceptional team in place right now?
• Why are you tolerating average/mediocre performance?
• Are you doing part of the work your team should be doing?

Do you have some people on your team that are good at doing 70-75-80% of their job, but stink at the other 30-25-20% of their job. Who gets to do this piece your subordinate cannot do? You guessed it – you do.

Before you can blink, 50% of your workload is doing the work your team should be doing. You’re doing 8% of Mark’s job, 5% of Susan’s job, 20% of Kelly’s job. Now you can’t do your job because so much time is being consumed by doing the work of your team.

Why are you continuing to accept this less than stellar performance.

Take action now and upgrade a few key roles that are below your expectations. Emerge from the recession with a team that truly is a strategic advantage.

Recognize that right now is a unique historical time period for hiring. There are some exceptionally talented individuals who might consider your opportunity. As the job market recovers – you may never again be able to acquire and/or afford this talent.

Discover the simple steps to find, assess and acquire great talent.

Barry Deutsch

Join our LinkedIn Hiring and Retention Discussion Group to follow the conversation around upgrading your team and finding great talent.

Losing a Top Candidate – Perception is The Only Reality. Lessons learned from 20 years on the front lines of the talent wars.

You rarely lose a top candidate at the end of the hiring process. It’s usually in steps taken along the way. In this case the client made a series of seemingly small mistakes that resulted in the candidate declining to go forward. It started simply by the hiring manager keeping the candidate waiting 30 minutes, then, he compounded the problem by not being prepared for the interview. “He didn’t seem to remember much about my background”, the candidate later confided in me. Despite the rocky start, the candidate returned for a series of additional interviews with other members of the management team. All went well, but the last interview was to be with a senior manager who was on a sales trip in Europe. No problem, we would arrange a phone interview. Week one resulted in no interview being arranged. It wasn’t until week two that the senior executive could “make room on his calendar” to call the candidate. The executive was 30 minutes late making the call and it lasted only 30 minutes. (Eight or nine time zones difference and he couldn’t find 30 minutes on his calendar for two weeks?) Finally, the client told me that all of the executives were very excited about the candidate and they wanted to move forward with an offer. I was told to inform the candidate that an offer would be sent to him “in a week or so”, as soon as the hiring manager could get all of the required approvals. At this point the candidate declined to continue. “To me, a hiring process is a reflection of how a company operates and makes decisions. I didn’t like what I saw.” The candidate took a job with a much larger company which had moved faster and more efficiently than this client.

Lesson learned: The best window any candidate has into the culture of an organization is the way it goes about the hiring process. If your process isn’t tight, professional, organized and strategic, top quartile candidates will go elsewhere, and they may tell their friends about their experience. One bad hiring process can equal two problems, the loss of a top candidate and a bad public relations moment.

Check your culture by downloading our Cultural Assessment. CLICK HERE to download a free assessment.

Is your hiring process effective at attracting top talent? Our 8-Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring process. CLICK HERE to download a free scorecard.

Mike is the founder of Hagerthy & Co, an executive search, training and consulting firm. For information on how to arrange for their complimentary Hiring Process Assessment go to: www.hagnco.com/page13.html#HiringProcess.

Can’t Find People? They Are Hiding In Plain Sight – 3 Examples

Finding people is a consistent problem we encounter just about every time we ask CEOs or key executives what their biggest issue is when it comes to hiring. If it isn’t in the top three it is always in the top five.

Yet when you ask them what their process is to find top talent most reply in the same way, “We run ads” or “We post it internally.” That is the way 80% of all companies go about finding people.

Below are three real life examples of alternative ways of finding people.

1) In 2007, I was having lunch with a partner from a local CPA firm. During lunch he commented that they had been struggling for six months to find an audit manager. In fact, he commented that they would pay a $10,000 bounty for an employee referral. I didn’t add a zero. So I asked, “How many people have you hired?”  The reply, “None.” They were doing the usual, running ads and asking current employees. That was their process for finding people.

So as the lunch continued, he mentioned to me that they had just brought on a new client and that he had just had lunch with the new CFO at this same restaurant. I immediately asked the partner, “Did you ask the CFO who was the best audit manager at his current company?” or “Who were some of the best audit managers he had worked with in the past?” He had never even thought of this. I suggested that he could contact all of his CFO clients and ask them. After all, it is in the client’s best interest to have good audit managers.

This was such an obvious thing to me and yet he was willing to pay ten grand. For those of you thinking it takes too much time to find good people, I don’t think asking these few questions would have extended the lunch that much.

2) Last year I was conducting one of our in-house workshops for a mid-sized technology company in New York. During the workshop, one of the key executives mentioned how difficult it is to hire technical people. I probed a little further and asked about the type of people they hire. She commented that they want people comfortable with technology. People who understand how networks work, people who diagnose a computer problem when a client calls with a problem, install software, and perform basic repairs that clients need right away if something goes wrong. They were willing to train on their specific systems and software. They just wanted someone that was moderately technical and comfortable with technology.

These people were “extremely” hard to find.

I asked if they ever go to Best Buy and engage the Geek Squad. Have they ever taken in a computer and found someone that provides great customer service and demonstrates that they understand technical issues?

She and her team had never thought about these people. I received an email two months after the workshop letting me know they had hired two people from Best Buy.

3) My best friend manages a store for one of the major retail chains. Every time we play golf, I have to listen to him complain about how hard it is to find people willing to work. He complains that his company works people hard and is demanding. The result is a lot of turnover.

So I asked him how often when he or his team is out shopping and they come across a great person in another retail chain do they engage the person, give them a business card and ask the person to call him, or let the person know that if they ever think about leaving to call him.

I mentioned that I go to a coffee shop most mornings when I’m in town for an hour of work. At this coffee shop, every person is probably in their late teens and early twenties. These people run the coffee shop. They open every morning at 6 AM so they have to get there by 5:30, they are friendly, they know customers by name, the coffee shop is clean and they are great employees. So I asked if he ever asked any of them about potentially coming to work a his store.

In both cases he replied no, and that he doesn’t even encourage his team leaders to be aware of potential employees when they are out shopping.

Qualified people are all around us. As a recruiter, I always have my antenna up. Most CEOs and hiring managers just walk right by these people. Work with  your team and start noticing people hiding in plain sight.

Download our Hiring Process Self Assessment Scorecard and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring system. CLICK HERE to get your assessment.

Get our most popular chapter “Sourcing Top Talent” from our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” which is available for Free to download. CLICK HERE to get the chapter.

Consider joining our LinkedIn group,  Hire and Retain Top Talent. This group is dedicated to discussions and articles to help  you improve your hiring and retention. CLICK HERE to join the group.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

How To Attract and Retain Sales and Customer Service People Using In-depth Work Style Personality Testing Part 2

How do you build up your sales and customer service force in a down economy? In part one of this article, we talked about some ways to attract and retain your sales and customer service people. Below are additional ways to use personality testing in the workplace to help attract and retain sales and customer service people:

1. Treat co-workers the way they want to be treated. In today’s fast-paced world of business, there is little time to get to know many of your co-workers. Using personality assessments as the basis for team building exercises can quickly get everyone to have a healthier respect for other ways of seeing the world.

2. Get everybody to play nice. Sales and IT, customer service and marketing, operations and financial people have to interact to make the company run smoothly. Too many employees get frustrated with other co-workers and just wonder why everyone doesn’t act like them. Through the use of personality profiles, managers can coach employees on how to interact better with peers.

3. Make managers better leaders.  The days of seat of the pants leadership are over.  When sales and customer service managers understand what makes their people tick, then they can be better leaders.   Knowing personality traits can help with motivating teams, communicating change and delegating authority.

4. Pick better teams. Today so much work is done by ad hoc teams that come together for a specific purpose.  Before you assemble a sales or customer service team it pays to know the strengths and weaknesses of the team members.  Sometimes this can be the difference between a productive team that gets the job done and one that pulls apart at the seams.

5. Set people up for success.  Sometimes we hire the right employee and put them in the wrong job.  Understanding preferred work styles and where a person would be happiest goes a long way to improving retention and productivity.

While in-depth work style & personality testing can be a valuable resource before you hire sales and customer service people, perhaps the true value of any assessment comes in using the insights it provides along the entire spectrum of employment. Personality assessments lend objectivity to decisions that may otherwise be largely subjective.

If this was helpful to you then it will be helpful to others. Consider passing it along to your team, emailing it to your network or updating  your status on Linkedin. Helping others is always a good thing.

Remember, it is not how many great people you hire. The true measure is how many great people you keep! For more information, please visit our Web site , www.lighthouseconsulting.com to sign up for our Open Line webinars and monthly articles.

You can download the recording from our radio show on Retaining Top Talent with Non-Monetary Rewards and Recognition. This is a two part series. CLICK HERE to download.

Join our Linkedin group Hiring and Retaining Top Talent. Lots of discussions and articles on this topic. CLICK HERE to join.

Author Bio

Dana Borowka, MA, CEO of Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC has over 25 years experience in the area of business consulting and helping organizations both nationally and internationally in raising the hiring bar through using in-depth work style assessments. Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, workshops, and executive & employee coaching.  To order the book, “Cracking the Personality Code” please go to www.crackingthepersonalitycode.com.

Stop “Telling” in an interview instead ask “How”

If you are in HR or executive search, how many times have you heard a hiring manager say when referring to a hire that is under performing and about to be let go, “I don’t know why they aren’t performing, I told them during the interview exactly what that job is. I can’t figure it out.”

Most of you just thought to yourself, “Too many. More times than I can count.” or “Just about every time we had to let a person go before their probation period was over.”

Why? What went wrong? It should be obvious from the hiring manager’s comment, “I told them exactly what the job is.” The key word is “told.” My guess is that the candidate probably even replied, “No problem, I’ve done that before and can do it for you.”  Well, with that level of assurance from the candidate, who wouldn’t hire them? After all, if the candidate couldn’t  do it they would tell you, “Sorry, I haven’t a clue how to do any of those things, but I’m a fast learner.” and you still would have hired them. Right?

The reply to the hiring manager should be, “Stop telling the candidate all about the position and having them respond, ‘Yes, I can do that.’ instead start asking, ‘How would you do this?’”  If they say they can do it, shouldn’t they  be able to tell  you how? If they can’t tell you how they would do it,  then how do they know they can do it?  Seems to me if someone tells me they can do something, they should be able to at least explain a little bit about how they will do it.

In our training workshop, Advanced Interviewing – Eliminating Embellishment and Exaggeration, this is one of the biggest issues hiring managers do that creates all the problems. They assume that because they told the candidate the job and the candidate responded affirmatively, all is fine. WRONG.

Train your hiring managers to stop telling and to start asking “how” questions. For example:

1) How have you reduced turnover in your last company?

2) How have you improved customer service?

3) How would you improve customer service in our organization?

4) How would you use your experience in sales to improve our sales process?

5) This position requires managing and improving our accounts payable department, have you done this before? When the candidate replies, “Yes” follow-up with, “How have you done this? and “How you would do it here?”

6) Can you give me an example of how you did X?

How questions engage the candidate, start a dialog, opens the interview up, and allows for the candidate to tell you rather than you telling the candidate.

Get your hiring managers or anyone in  your company that interviews to start asking “How” questions and interviewing accuracy will increase dramatically overnight.

Need help sourcing top talent? Download for FREE the chapter from our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, on sourcing top talent. CLICK HERE to download this Free chapter.

Join our Linkedin group, Hiring and Retaining Top Talent, it is one of the most active groups on Linkedin on this topic. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and feedback.

Brad Remillard

Hope and Luck Are Not A Hiring Process

Hiring is one of those processes in many companies that is often ignored, until it is needed.  My partner Barry Deutsch and I have spoken to hundreds of CEOs and key executives in the last three years, and there is a theme that most of these CEOs and key executives agree upon, which is, they don’t really have an effective, repeatable hiring process with highly competent people throughout the hiring process.

Just about every process in a company, from how customer invoices are processed, to how the phone is answered are repeatable, with competent people and a certain level of standards required. If something goes wrong in the process, for example, a customer invoice is lost resulting in the product not shipping or the order never being billed, qualified people research to identify what went wrong and if necessary either train the people or change the process.

This rarely happens when the hiring process fails. Too often companies just accept the failed hire as part of the process and move on. Why?

Over the last year I have asked over 500 CEOs and key executives the following question, “How many of you have audited, not sat in or co-interviewed, but audited if the people doing the interviewing are competent interviewers?” To no surprise the answer is that around 12% have done this. All the rest admit they have no clue if the people they are relying on to make a successful hire are even competent.

Is there any other process in your company in which you don’t know if the people doing the job are competent? I seriously doubt it.

We have put together an 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard that you can download for free to evaluate your hiring process (CLICK HERE to download).  This assessment will at least highlight the areas of strengths and weaknesses in your company. You can then begin to work on bringing your hiring process standards up to the same standards as other processes in your organization.

At a minimum an effective hiring process must have at least these 5 steps.

1. Job descriptions based on defining success in the role instead of a laundry list of candidate attributes, experiences and skills. Good job descriptions quantify expected results and the time frame to achieve them for managers, and benchmark standards for all non-managerial positions.We call these Success Factors, and the accumulation of all the Success Factors, a Success Factor Snapshot instead of a job description.  (You can download examples of Success Factor Snapshots by CLICKING HERE).
2. A sourcing process that attracts passive candidates, not just those candidates actively looking for a position. Passive candidates make up the vast majority of the candidate pool and the way most companies promote, advertise and network, they rarely attract these candidates. In fact, the way most companies advertise actually turns passive candidates seeking a compelling opportunity off. (You can download our chapter on sourcing top talent from our award winning book for free by CLICKING HERE).
3. In-depth probing interviews with competent people. We already discussed the need to determine if those interviewing are competent. Most interviewers don’t probe deeply and most “tell” the person about the job instead of asking “how” they would do the job. Interviewers can obtain 80% of the information to determine if a candidate can do the job with just 5 core questions.
4. Candidate assessment after the interview. Most companies simple ask those that have been involved in the interviewing process, “What did  you think of the candidate?” or “How did the interview go?’ The person usually replies, “Oh, I liked them. They will fit in well.” or maybe just the famous thumbs up or thumbs down. Not exactly an in-depth assessment to determine if there are any further issues that need to be vetted. (You can obtain our 8 Point Candidate Assessment Matrix by CLICKING HERE).
5. Additional validation needs to done. There needs to be some follow-up steps to validate that what the candidate said they did during the interview is what they really did. Some examples are skills testing, homework assignment, make a presentation, bring in an example of past work or performance reviews, or even conducting behavioral or work style assessments by an outside professional.

These are the minimum 5 steps required by every effective hiring process. If you don’t have at least these 5 being done with competent people, then you might consider re-evaluating your hiring process.

Download a FREE 8 Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard to evaluate your hiring process. CLICK HERE to download.

Our award winning book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. A CEO’s Guide to Hiring Top Talent, describes in-depth how to implement the 5 steps listed above. CLICK HERE to review the book and how to get yours.

Finally, consider joining our Linkedin Hire and Retain Top Talent group. It has numerous discussions and articles to help you attract, hire and retain top talent. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions. If you found this article helpful, please pass it along to someone in your network to help them too.

Brad Remillard

When an “A” Candidate Isn’t an “A” Employee

Has this ever happened? You screened hundreds of resumes, conducted extensive interviews, and found what you believed from the resume and interviews, the candidate that is perfect for the job. Exactly what you are looking for, maybe even better. You have high expectations for this new hire.

Then they come on board and fall flat on their face. Within 3 – 6 months you are saying to  yourself, “You’re NOT the person I hired” (a great title for a book).

You step back and start asking  yourself, “What went wrong? How could this have happened?”

Here is what went wrong – just because a person was a great CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR, doesn’t mean they are the right CFO, operations manager, sales manager or VP HR.  This is the main premise of our Success Factor Methodology hiring process.

Hiring managers too often assume that because a person excelled at their last company, they did all these great things, they told you they could do your job, that this means the person will excel in your company. We believe this is where the concept, “past performance is a good indicator of future performance,” falls short. First off, it is only an indicator, nothing more. An indicator is not the right criteria for a good hire. Secondly, it also depends on how qualified the person interpreting the indicator is at interpreting the indicator. It has been our experience that most hiring managers are not competently trained in hiring or interviewing to do this. The few that are generally do hiring so rarely that they need a refresher course before starting the hiring process again.

There is a better way.

The Success Factor Methodology overcomes the biggest hiring mistakes that cause the problem.

Start by properly defining the job. This is the number one biggest hiring mistake companies make. They don’t properly define the job, so the whole hiring process is in jeopardy from the beginning. Since the job isn’t properly defined, then exactly what is the hiring manager screening and interviewing on or for? Generally background, experiences and skills.

This makes sense because that is exactly what most job descriptions are, simply a list of candidate attributes. Not a job description,  but rather a candidate description. This leads directly back to the problem. Hiring managers assume that  if they have this background they are an “A” candidate, and they may well be an “A” candidate. However, since the job isn’t properly defined, the real question “Will they be an “A” employee?” isn’t known.  This is the only thing you care about.

To properly define the actual job, start by defining outcomes. Ask yourself, “A year from now what will this person have done/accomplished in order to be considered a great hire?” or “What defines success in this role?” This is how we came up with the name, Success Factor Methodology. We simply started asking our search clients the questions, “What are the factors you will use to define success in this role?”  Once we had 4 or 5 of these we combined them into a Success Factor Snapshot. Now the Success Factor Snapshot becomes the job description. After all, this really is the actual job.

Once this is done, then go out and find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver this success.

When you find a person that can explain how they will use their background, experiences and skills to deliver the 4 or 5 Success Factors, you have found both an “A” candidate and an “A” employee.

You can download some examples of Success Factor Snapshots for free to help you by CLICKING HERE.

Our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, with over 10,000 copies in circulation, describes how you can implement the Success Factor Methodology. CLICK HERE for more details.

Join our Linkedin Hire and Retain Top Talent group for more discussions and articles on this topic. It is free to join just CLICK HERE.

Cost Per Hire Versus Value Per Hire Which Is Most Important

The cost of a bad hire rarely impacts an organization, however, the value of a great hire can often transform an organization.

As executive recruiters, we hear about the “cost per hire” regularly. It seems like every time HR calls, this topic comes up. However, I would suggest that a far better discussion for HR to have is on the “value per hire.” Having this discussion not with recruiters, but with the CEO is a far more meaningful and beneficial discussion. It not only helps justify that HR contributes revenue and value to the organization, but it also brings HR in as a strategic partner.

This also goes for the CFO of the organization, who should work with HR to help determine a way to calculate the value of a hire.

A few years back I was sitting in the office of the VP HR when the CFO came by and stuck his head in to say hi. During the conversation he commented, “You know, over the last x years we have paid you over $300,000 for your services.” I think he was expecting me to be apologetic. I replied, “That is all? I completely agree with you that I have been grossly underpaid.” I don’t think this was the answer he was looking for. I continued, “Considering that you are now a millionaire, and the rest of the executive team I have placed here are also millionaires, and that the company went from $50 million in revenue to $250 million in revenue with a valuation close to $1 billion, I believe the fees I have been paid are justified by the value these people contributed to the company. Wouldn’t you agree?”

This isn’t about me. It is to demonstrate that even CFO’s don’t step back and recognize that for some expenses there is often a lot of value created for the company. If you de-humanize this concept, an employee is just another asset. Many often say the most “valuable asset” in the company. So, if employees are assets then shouldn’t the CFO be capable of calculating an ROI just like any other asset?.

Would this concept benefit HR as they justify the costs to acquire these assets? Isn’t it fair to look at both sides of the equation?

Employees are often described as “human capital” so some sort of return on capital doesn’t seem unrealistic. I’m not suggesting that the calculation is an easy one. I’m sure whoever first figured out how to calculate ROI had to tweak the formula more than once before getting it right, but just because it is difficult to calculate doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Defining success in the role before you hire a person is a good start. Our Success Factor Methodology recommends developing a job description that defines what great success is in this role. Basically, by the end of the first year what would this person have to have accomplished so that the hiring manager would consider this person not just a good hire, but a great hire. In our book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, we refer to these as,  “Success Factors” (for some free examples of Success Factors for different positions  CLICK HERE). I believe this is the starting point in determining the value an employee brings to the company. Top talent in your company will hit these. The average will hit these some of the time and below average will rarely hit the success factors. Obviously, for different levels within the company the value added will change.

At least now the company is starting to look at the value a hire brings to the company and can start to assess the ROI.

To learn more about the Success Factor Methodology to help you attract, hire and retain top talent, check out our best selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired.

You can also begin implementing the Success Factory Methodology with our comprehensive hiring system. CLICK HERE to review.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and feedback.

Brad Remillard

Choosing Recruiters: Mistake #2 – We Need an Expert

Some executives believe that the only way a recruiter can be successful is to have many years of recruiting in a particular functional category (finance, marketing, human resources, manufacturing), or in a specific industry (construction, bio-technology, education, non-profit, electronics, distribution).

Using the criteria of a functional or industry expertise is a classic mistake in choosing recruiters.

The best recruiters are not industry or functional experts. Their expertise is as world-class recruiters. They know how to play detective to find the very best talent, they understand human motivation and the key elements of why candidates are open to new opportunities, and they are master interviewers capable of extracting information from candidates – information they wouldn’t share with their closest friends or spouses.

Most functional or industry focused recruiters work the same old tired lists of candidates, move the same people from one company to the next and back again, and lack an in-depth understanding of how to nurture, excite, motivate, and create passion in candidates around new opportunities. Rarely do they actually “recruit”. They have no process for identifying new candidates other than a little light networking, running advertisements, and searching their “database” of candidates.

Two decades ago (B.I. – Before Internet – who can even remember this???), the only way to be successful as a recruiter was to specialize since the data you possessed in a 3×5 card system was your inventory or earning potential. Your success as a recruiter was a function of the strength of your network. Today, within 24-48 hours, any good recruiter can identify 80-90% of the key targets on an executive search using the Internet (Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, ZoomInfo, Jigsaw, industry lists and publications, and many times – simply visiting the competitor websites). There is NO longer any need to maintain a unique database of candidates in a particular functional discipline or industry specialization.

Recruiters who still hang onto the tribal methods of recruiting from 20 years ago will claim “I know all the key players in the industry”, “I am well connected”, “I have an extensive database”, “I once held the blank title for the same job you want to hire” or “I worked for years in the blank industry”. None of these claims translate into being a great recruiter. You might have once been a great CFO or Marketing Executive, but that doesn’t mean you’re a good recruiter. Just because you have a phone and a rolodex does not mean you can recruit top talent. The recruiters who claim they have the industry contacts and databases will typically throw a bunch of resumes at you while keeping their fingers crossed that you fall in love with one of them – consequently owing a recruiting fee.

This is not recruiting – it doesn’t even remotely resemble executive search. Instead, it’s nothing more than brokerage – flinging resumes by email with the hope that something will stick. The best recruiters understand which ponds to fish in and how deeply to fish in each pond. The best recruiters EARN their fees by uncovering the very best talent – not candidates who are convenient from their database.  Brokerage (or a referral fee for flinging a resume) shouldn’t be worth more than 5-10% of the candidates first year compensation. Real search fees in the 30% range can only be justified if the recruiter does the following:

Identification of target candidates

A major campaign to convince those candidates to interview and leave their current jobs

Helping you to screen, interview, validate, and vet candidates instead of box-checking job descriptions and then “flinging resumes” (more on why most recruiters don’t see their job as helping you to interview and evaluate candidates in a future posting).

Let me share a personal example: My specialty as an executive recruiter is recruiting – and Brad and I are two of the top recruiters in the United States – how many recruiters can claim they are great recruiters as opposed to “I understand what it’s like to be a CFO or I understand the industrial fastener market”.

If you are a company executive, which would you rather have:

A recruiter who claims to understand the functional role and industry and suggests they have a great database,

OR

A recruiter who has a proven track record of ferreting out the best talent, motivating that talent to get excited about your opportunity, and helping you to validate they can deliver the results you desire.

You obviously want the recruiter who can deliver the results you desire – why then do most companies use the wrong criteria to pick recruiters.

Brad and I talk have spoken a number of times in our weekly radio show about choosing recruiters. You can download our radio shows in our FREE audio archive. We are also preparing a recruiter best practice scorecard which you can use to benchmark recruiters before choosing a firm to help you fill a critical role.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Discussion Group on Hiring and Retaining Top Talent for a more in-depth discussion on choosing recruiters.

Finding Top Talent in a Down Economy: It’s Still Hard Work

Just because the haystack is bigger, it doesn’t mean that there are more needles in it. There’s a misconception in the market now that finding good people is suddenly easy.

HR people, hiring managers, and the general public believe that when unemployment is high, recruiters just have to run an ad and tons of top-notch, unemployed candidates will flood your email box. Well, they are half right. The inbox does get flooded on occasion, but not with top quartile talent, and not with the candidate who has the specific accomplishments I need for my client’s position. Despite the high unemployment, the bell shaped curve hasn’t suddenly changed to create more top quartile talent. If anything, it’s harder to find the right talent for the position because there are so many more people looking.

Consider:
• When companies downsize, they don’t let their top performers go first. They let the average to below average players go first, so the pool of available talent out there consists of far more average players than top quartile players. If you want to hire top quartile players you have to have a process in place to find and attract them.

• The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. In general, it’s harder to get top candidates to change companies right now. With the economy still uncertain, the perceived risk of making a move increases. A top candidate may not be happy where they are, but unless you can provide a very compelling marketing statement about your company and your position, inertia will keep the candidate where they are.

• “Experience” does not equal qualified for your position. There really are a lot of experienced people out there, but just because they are experienced doesn’t mean they know how to do the specific things you need done. HR departments and hiring managers are easily blinded by a flood of resumes from “experienced” people, but experienced at what? Have they managed the switch from one Chinese ODM to another that you need done in the next three months? Have they opened new distribution channels in the EU? Just because they worked for a company that outsourced manufacturing to China, or sold into Europe, doesn’t mean they have done what you need accomplished.
In real estate, it’s “location, location, location”. In recruiting it’s “process, process, process”. If you don’t have a basic hiring process in place that every hiring manager understands and uses, the odds of making a bad hire increases significantly. The basics of a good hiring process are:

• Put the destination in the nav system. Create a job spec that defines, specifically, what needs to be accomplished in the next 12-18 months. Ask the question, “What does success look like for this position a year from now?” Spell it out and quantify it if possible.

• Don’t expect to catch a tuna in a trout pond. If you want to hire top quartile talent, you have to go after passive candidates, not just aggressive ones looking for a job. You will need a compelling marketing statement that will convince the top quartile candidate to look at your opportunity.

• Interviewing 101. Despite hiring being one of the most important processes in any company, few companies train their hiring managers on how to interview candidates. Learn the “who, what, where, when and why” of interviewing.

• Get on the same page. Your hiring team needs to agree on what you are all looking for in a candidate. What are the specific accomplishments you want in their background and what are the qualities that will predict future success for the candidate? If you’re not looking for the same things, you might as well be comparing apples, oranges and cherries.

Don’t let the glut of available people fool you. Recruiting top talent still takes a lot of work.

Mike Hagerthy

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Mike Hagerthy is an executive recruiter and President of  Hagerthy and Company in Southern California and a Certified Strategic Partner of IMPACT Hiring Solutions. To learn more about Hagerthy and Company CLICK HERE.