Planning Your Recruiting Efforts Can Help You Find Great Employees
Today, companies have an ever-expanding list of options available to them when it comes to sourcing new employees, from advertising in newspapers and trade journals to powerful, cost-effective recruiting options available through the Internet. Unfortunately, the growth in the number of recruiting options available has made the competition for top candidates even more fierce. So how do you break out of the pack to find the people that you need? Like most other business activities, a successful recruiting program must be a planned effort. Here are some tips for ensuring that your recruiting effort produces results: Always Be Recruiting: Recruiting is least successful when you're forced to find someone quickly due to an unexpected resignation. Out of desperation, many companies often end up filling a critical vacancy with an available candidate who lacks one or more of the essential skills required by the job. The best company recruiting programs are those in which recruiting is an ongoing activity, instead of a knee-jerk response to an immediate need. And, even if you're not currently expanding your workforce, normal turnover or performance issues almost certainly means that you'll need to hire at least one new employee every six months. Don't Rely On A Single Approach: For years, executives thought that an effective recruiting campaign consisted of a few advertisements in the Help Wanted section of the Sunday newspaper, with a recruiter or two thrown in for good measure. But those tools are simply no longer effective enough in today's market, especially when everyone else is using them too. Just as you wouldn't rely on a single technique to identify prospective customers for your business, your recruiting program should include the regular use of a variety of prospecting tools that can identify qualified candidates. Today, there's no shortage of ways to identify good candidates, including advertising in community newspapers, Internet-based advertising, job fares and open houses, and college internship programs, to name just a few. Make sure your recruiting program takes advantage of all of the tools at your disposal. Develop A Target List Of Prospects: In many situations, you already know some of the best candidates for certain positions within your company. For example, you (or your sales manager) can probably identify in a heartbeat the star salespeople that regularly complete against you for business. Or, you've met someone who'd be an outstanding candidate for an administrative or clerical position in your company, but you don't have an opening right now. Instead of waiting until the right opportunity comes along, find ways to continually remind them about your company and your interest in them. Occasional phone calls, or periodic copies of the company newsletter are all you need to let them know that you're interested in them, whenever the timing is right for you both. Make The Interview Process Efficient And Responsive: If you think that the burden of creating a favorable impression rests completely with the job candidate, think again. With lots of companies competing for the best people, your interview process must be efficient, responsive and, most important, respectful of each candidate's time and interest. That means being organized, keeping to your interview schedule, and getting back to prospective employees when you say you will. After all, if you can't make an effort to make a favorable impression during the interview process, what kind of an effort will you make when the person is on board? Stay In Touch With Outstanding Candidates: Don't despair if a top candidate declines your offer in favor of a job at another company. All opportunities are not created equal, and even that "can't refuse" offer may not look so great after a few months in the job. Stay in touch and you may just get a chance to win your top candidate back. And, even if their job works out, good candidates will be flattered by the attention and will remember you when they make their next move. Consider Overstaffing Where Appropriate: If your budget allows, overstaff those positions where the recruiting demands are continual or where finding the right candidates is most difficult. Then, utilize that excess staff to support those activities. Good people are always an asset, and having trained people in reserve who understand the company and its products will give you greater flexibility in expanding your organization or in replacing a marginal performer. Don't Delegate The Recruiting Process: You can't effectively delegate essential recruiting activities to a secretary or an administrative assistant. The expense and consequences of poor recruiting are too great to place the task in inexperienced hands. And, the effort to keep the best employees starts with the recruiting process. Play an active role in recruiting from start to finish, and make sure that your key managers do the same. William von Achen is president of Strategic Management Resources, an executive coaching and management consulting firm offering advice and counsel to business owners and senior executives. For more information visit our web site at http://www.smrweb.com.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Assertive Communication - 6 Tips For Effective Use
Assertive communication is the ability to express positive and negative ideas and feelings in an open, honest and direct way. It recognises our rights whilst still respecting the rights of others. It allows us to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions without judging or blaming other people. And it allows us to constructively confront and find a mutually satisfying solution where conflict exists.
Introducing the 15 Frameworks of Successful Self-Employed Professionals
A framework is a way of thinking, a point-of-view, a perspective on something. Here are the 15 frameworks of the successfully self-employed professional. You'll find some of these to be radical and foreign. Don't let that stop you! Try them on; see what you learn from them.
Innovation Management: The Hype Cycle
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.
Dividing The Loot
It is when the going gets better, that the going gets tough. This enigmatic sentence bears explanation: when a firm is in dire straits, in the throes of a crisis, or is a loss maker ? conflicts between the shareholders (partners) are rare. When a company is in the start-up phase, conducting research and development and fighting for its continued, profitable survival in the midst of a massive investment cycle ? rarely will internal strife arise and threaten its existence. It is when the company turns a profit, when there is cash in the till ? that, typically, all manner of grievances, complaints and demands arise. The internecine conflicts are especially acute where the ownership is divided equally. It is more accentuated when one of the partners feels that he is contributing more to the business, either because of his unique talents or because of his professional experience, contacts or due to the size of his initial investments (and the other partner does not share his views).
Eight Key Steps to Building B2B Major Account Client Alliances
Audiences who saw the fabled Broadway musical, Chorus Line, marveled at the intricate timing and seamless interaction of the dancers as they mastered the choreographer's precision steps after many false starts in rehearsal.
Invoice Factoring for Goverment Vendors
Assignment of Claims Act of 1986"....What does this mean for you?
How to Manage Your Most Valuable Assets - People?
People management and leadership has become a major topic of conversation in today's market place and have assumed mythical qualities. Managing you people is not that difficult if you are willing to invest one thing in their development; YOU.
What Is Business Sense?
What is the principal thing you need to succeed in your business today? Money. Sure, you need it, but it is not the main ingredient for success. People. Of course they are necessary, but having them may not guarantee success. Excellent products or services. Well, this is a must to succeed. But you may have them and still not succeed. Promotions, visibility, marketing. These factors lubricate your business activities for success. So what is the principal thing?
Conflict Resolution Training- When Personal Safety is an Issue
Conflict generally arises by having your needs, desires, perceptions and values challenged.
Keys to Feeling Powerfull In An Uncertain World
Life has always been full of uncertainties. Over the last several years with downsizing, bankruptcies, scandals, crime, the economic environment, and the threat of war, people are feeling power-less, fearful, and stressed about their present and future lives. I know people give their power away, often in ways they don't realize.
How Your Feelings and Those of Your Employees Can Make The Difference
How we feel is really more important than what we know. This is because how we feel plays a bigger role in our behavior than knowing what we should or should not do. For instance, we "know" smoking is bad for us. We see research that tell us auto accident injuries and deaths can be greatly reduced by using seat belts. We "know" that brushing our teeth after each meal fights tooth decay. Despite these facts that we "know", many of us smoke, don't use seat belts, and fail to brush after eating. We have other needs and feelings that are stronger and take the place of our "knowing" what we should do.
One Crazy Cookie
In order to survive, you have to be happier than if you were in your right mind.
Creativity and Innovation Management: Specialisation or Generalisation?
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.
Hows Your Company RQ (Reputation Quotient)?
In light of recent corporate scandals, from Enron and Global Crossing to those of once trustworthy mutual funds, is it any wonder that more people are asking, "Can I trust this company enough to do business with them?" But the trust issue isn't just relative to the buyers of your products and services, its vitally important to employees as well. Impacting their retention and performance in very real ways.
How Managers Can Turn Failures Into Successes
Although there are real, external reasons for managerial difficulty ? including massive reorganization after takeovers and the realities of discrimination due to age, sex, and race ? managers fail most often for reasons they themselves create.
9 Tips for Getting the Most From Your Conference Investment
Tips for Getting the Most From Your Conference Investment
The Power of ?Ask?
For Call Center managers, it is not a pipe dream to improve employee moral while increasing productivity. It may even come easy to some to find fresh, new ways to reduce performance problems. Sound like an advertisement for something unattainable? Perhaps try to engage, involve, and connect employees to their work by the power of ASK.
Increase In-House Nursing Homes Collections
The following nursing home collections report outlines 11 guidelines you can follow to increase the amount of in-house long term care collections your facility collects.
Don?t Forget Where You Came from - Why the Past is Important in Implementing Business Change
Much of the literature and advice on implementing business change focuses on knowing where you are going and making sure that you understand and communicate a consistent vision of the future. Indeed, I have looked at the importance of this in an earlier article in this series. This month's article, however, looks at the past and its often under-estimated importance in implementing change.
Managing Motivation
"Without the chance to meaningfully participate in steering one's own destiny, without the opportunity to gain the sincere respect of one's own peers, without an honest stake in making the community more successful through one's own work and ideas, employability can quickly decay into generic training programs or bogus choices..." --"Beyond Empowerment: Building a Company of Citizens" by Brook Manville, Josiah Ober, page 52, Harvard Business Review January 2003.
|