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

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

How To Attract and Retain Sales and Customer Service People Using In-depth Work Style & Personality Testing – Part 1

How do you build up your sales and customer service force in a down economy? The quick answer is don’t be a dodo bird.

While researching our book, Cracking the Personality Code, we examined the essentials of what managers and business owners need to know about hiring and managing sales/customer service people with the help of in-depth work style & personality testing.

An interesting sales management guru we discovered along the way is Lee B. Salz. In June 2007, his widely acclaimed book “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager” was published. In it, he deals with one of the biggest problems companies face, the chasm between managers and sales and customer service people.

He uses the metaphor of the dodo to show what happens when one fails to adapt. Those who adapt, thrive. Those who don’t, become extinct like the dodo bird of ages ago. Some laugh at the use of the word ‘dodo’, but there is nothing funny about a business losing its competitive edge due to unmanaged change.

To hire the best sales and customer service people, and keep them on the team, your sales or customer service manager needs to know what makes them tick. We believe the sales and customer service personality code can be cracked. If that sounds like a bold declaration, consider this:  Studies show that personality tests are a far more reliable predictor of performance than interviews and resumes.

A proper test should reach beyond simple profiles and decipher a sales or customer service person’s underlying needs. This is key for employee development, team building, conflict resolution and succession planning.  If you want to retain the best, you need to treat them the way they want to be treated.

Below are some ways to use personality testing in the workplace to help attract and retain sales and customer service people:

1. Get the real picture.  Of course, every sales and customer service candidate wants to put their best foot forward during an interview.  However, through a personality test, you uncover a great deal about their ability to work well with other personalities, their problem solving abilities, their thought processes, and their ability to tolerate stress. Personality testing gives you objective information that can help you make an informed decision about if this person is a good fit for the job and for the team. If you decided to hire the person, the questions you ask during the hiring process will reduce your learning curve as a manager on how best to manage this person from day one.

2. Help them be all that they can be. Every sales and customer service person has strengths and weaknesses. Find out the real truth with an objective measure. Once you pinpoint the good and the bad, then you place them in the right position and coach them on where to improve.

3. Take me to your leaders. Personality testing gives the manager and sales or customer service team a common language about how they like to interact.  The assessments can help you train future managers on how to get the best out of the team.

4. Know how to manage difficult people. Face it, there will always be difficult people and flare ups on the job. Use objective personality assessments to diagnose potential sources of workplace conflict. The best way to deal with a problem is to prevent it in the first place.

We will have additional ways to attract and retain your sales and customer service people next week. 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.

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.

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

Our best selling book with over 10,000 in circulation, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, A CEOs Guide to Hiring Top Talent, is available as a resource to help your company improve its hiring of top talent. CLICK HERE for more information.

Author’s Bio

Dana Borowka, MA, CEO of Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC has over 25 years of 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

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

Optimize Your Staffing Decisions by Using In-depth Work Style and Personality Assessment Tools; Part 2

As mentioned in part one of this article, the wrong hiring decision can cost your company well over two to three times the individual’s salary according to Barry Deutsch, Impact Hiring Solutions. This figure may be a conservative estimate because of factors like training, evaluation, termination, re-initiating the hiring process, and lost opportunity costs. There is also an emotional factor involved in a bad hire situation. Not only can it cause stress and anxiety for both management and employees, but it also takes away focus from your company’s primary goals. Essentially, a bad hire can have a negative impact on your company’s bottom line and that won’t benefit you or your workforce.

These circumstances can be minimized during the initial hiring process by using several techniques including effective recruitment programs, skilled interviewing and in-depth work style and personality assessment tests. A personality assessment is a highly effective tool and an efficient use of company resources at this crucial point of the decision making process.

Which Personality Assessment Tool Should My Organization Use?

The following are some things to think about when reviewing various work style & personality profiles:

1. Training or degrees required for interpretation of the data. Weekend training programs can be problematic since testing and human behavior is a very complex subject. When making hiring or internal decisions, organizations need as much information and understanding as possible as the consequences can be very costly.
2. A copy of the resume should be supplied to the testing company to review when discussing the assessment results. We suggest that you make sure that they require this as part of the process so it is used when reviewing the assessment.
3. Scale for “Impression Management” to understand accuracy of results and if someone is trying to ‘fake good’. The questionnaire needs a minimum of 164 questions to gather enough data for this scale.
4. Common warning signs: When a representative uses absolute statements when describing human behavior, like ‘People are all the same’ or ‘People don’t change.’ This will convey what their level of understanding of the human personality is. Or when someone claims that their profile is 98 or 99% accurate, which rarely can be clinically supported. If you hear this, ask how the data was collected.
5. Career Matching: Some organizations claim to know what the perfect “sales person” or “secretary” is from a personality perspective.  Ask how many careers and occupations have been studied; is the data base validated by outside organizations or only by “applied in-house studies”? “Ideal” is very difficult to define due to the variance of geography, job history and education. What is most important is if the individual has a similar thought pattern that meets the criteria within the job description.
6. Number of clinical studies conducted by major universities. There should be multiple studies for validation purposes.
7. How long has the profile been used – what is the history?
8. How often is the normative database updated and where is the data coming from? (For example, U.S. Census 1990, 2000)
9. Cultural bias – is it built into the profile and for which countries?
10. Does the profile meet U.S. government employment standards? Has it been reviewed for ADA compliance & gender, culture & racial bias?
11. Reading level required (5th grade English, etc).
12. Number of profiles administered.
13. Number of actual primary scales as defined by the “Big 5” testing standards. Many tests will claim to have more scales than they actually have – this can lead to misrepresentation of data.
14. Does the data provide the depth necessary to understand how an individual is wired inside?
15. Validity, reliability and basis.

These are some general questions and if a profile falls short in any one area, we strongly suggest additional research into the accuracy of the data being generated.

Conclusion

A personality assessment is only one component needed for a successful recruitment and hiring program. It can provide valuable information for critical personnel decisions. Combined with an effective recruitment program and skilled interview techniques, it can benefit your company as a whole, in addition to your individual employees. Armed with accurate and quantifiable data from an in-depth personality assessment, the interview process becomes much more reliable. Ultimately, this only adds to your organization’s bottom line, allowing more effective management of your existing workforce and limiting the potential for wrong hiring decisions. For more information, please visit our Web ite, www.lighthouseconsulting.com to sign up for our Open Line webinars and monthly articles.

Do you know your companies culture? Would others in your company describe it the same? Take our Company Culture Assessment to find out. It is FREE to download CLICK HERE.

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.

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.

The Top Ten Mistakes Executives Make in Choosing Recruiters

How do you pick the right recruiter?

How do avoid making a mistake in selecting such an important trusted advisor?

In a survey project conducted over 3 years with 425 CEOs and Senior Executives we identified the Top Ten Mistakes that are made in choosing executive recruiters. We took on this survey project after hearing over 25 years horror story after horror story from companies who had retained recruiters to help fill critical positions.

We began to wonder why so many CEOs and Senior Executives were frustrated by the process of choosing and working with executive recruiters.

In my following ten blog postings I’ll identify the Top Ten Mistakes of Choosing Recruiters. You’ll probably want to LOLROFL as my daughter is fond of texting – you’ll first want to Laugh Out Loud while Rolling on the Floor when you read the Top Ten Mistakes. Then laughter will give way to anger and frustration as you realize how your company has made multiple mistakes in choosing and working with recruiters over the years – the bad hires, the painful experiences, and searches not completed – all the result  of mistakes in choosing recruiters – and which could have been easily avoided.

Do you have a pet peeve about choosing or working with recruiters?

What’s your horror story that you could share with our blog readers?

If there was one mistake you’ve made in the past in choosing a recruiter, how would you avoid making that same mistake in the future?

Listen to our recent Radio Show Broadcast in our FREE Audio Library on this subject of the classic mistakes companies make in choosing recruiters.

Join us in our LinkedIn Discussion Group on Hiring Top Talent for a conversation about choosing and working with recruiters.

Barry Deutsch

Hiring Managers Upgrade Your Team NOW – Radio Show

There may never be a better point in the history of your company to upgrade your talent through improving your hiring process. You’ve got a small window of time to pick one or two under-performing roles and upgrade with talent that you might not be able to acquire once the economy comes roaring back.

These top talent employees in your competitors are open to talking with you right now. Once the job market rebounds, they might not be open to talking with you for another decade.

Are you taking the proactive steps to find, engage, communicate with top talent right now – even though you might not have an immediate opening. Are you using Step Two of the Success Factor Methodology to attract great talent? You can learn more about Step Two in our 5-Step Process by going to this page on our website: http://impacthiringsolutions.com/blog/Step-Two.

Before embarking on this path to upgrade, you might consider a FREE Sourcing Assessment to determine if you’ve got the right tools to find and attract top 25% talent. You can request your FREE Sourcing Assessment by going to this page on our website: http://impacthiringsolutions.com/blog/FREE-Sourcing-Assessment.

Finally, join us in our LinkedIn Group for Hiring and Retaining Top Talent by clicking on this invitation: http://impacthiringsolutions.com/blog/LinkedIn-Discussion-Group.

On-line Programs This Week for Hiring Managers – August 24th

If you are a manager or executive, you might be interested in two of the programs Brad and I are hosting this week

Brad I will be hosting our weekly Internet Radio Talk Show today for Hiring Managers and Executives titled “Upgrading Your Team During the Recession” at 11-noon PDT on LA Talk Radio. You can listen in and also pose questions live during the broadcast.

We’ll be taking your emails and live calls to discuss the steps you should be taking right now to upgrade your team so that when you emerge from the recession, you’ll have a powerful team capable of propelling your business or team forward as a strategic advantage.

On Friday, we will be putting on our popular one hour webinar presentation based on our half and full day training program titled “You’re NOT the Person I Hired”. You can register for this webinar by clicking here.

We’ll provide an overview of our award-winning workshop that teaches the Success Factor Methodology. This hiring process has been implemented in thousands of companies around the world with validated success in dramatically raising hiring accuracy and improving the ability to hire top talent at every level.

We hope you’ll join us for one of these programs this week.

Barry

Why is your employee referral program a failure?

Why do most employee referral programs fail to achieve success?

Your employees are your greatest source of outstanding talent!

Why are they not whispering in the ears of their former co-workers, associates, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances who can deliver the results you need?

In over 25 years of executive search, hiring and sourcing consulting, and implementing hiring process improvements in thousands of companies, we’ve discovered a few key differences in why some programs work and others fail miserably. Here’s a list of the key reasons employee referral programs fail to live up to their potential:

• Financial incentives don’t work
• Most companies do a terrible job communicating about an opening
• Employees don’t trust their referrals will be handled in a professional manner
• Classic networking methods are not usually applied to employees

Let’s take each one of these in turn and dissect it over our next 4 blog posts.

However, before we jump into how to improve your employee referral program, let’s talk about metrics of success in employee referral programs. Most companies we’ve encountered achieve somewhere between 5% and 20% as a target range on number of candidates hired who came through an employee referral. I’m going to suggest that your target should be 50%.

Over the next 12 months, 50% of all hires should come from employee (modify this to be stakeholder) referrals. Some of my clients that I’ve worked with over the last quarter of century have continually refined their employee/stakeholder referral program to the point where 75% or more of all hires come from a referral.

Employee/Stakeholder Referrals are one of the main elements of our Success Factor Methodology in using Success-based Sourcing Methods. We dig into this subject in much more detail in our award-winning book, You’re NOT the Person I Hired. We’ve posted examples of using Compelling Marketing Statements in your referral program in our FREE Resources (we’ll talk more about creating a compelling reason for employees to make referrals in a subsequent post).

We’ve even created a FREE Assessment to judge the effectiveness of your sourcing methods, including employee referrals. If you would like to take the FREE Assessment, please complete the application form on our website and we’’ll show you how to quickly and inexpensively improve your referral program.

Once you really focus on implementing best practices in employee referrals, you’ll see that your quality of hires goes up, employee satisfaction goes up, employee performance goes up, recruiting costs go down, the costs of bad hires goes down, time to find and select a top performer goes down.

When should be the best time for you to implement best practices in an employee referral program?

What would you consider to be the primary best practice in your company that generates an abundance of employee/stakeholder referrals?

Barry