Can Social Recruiting Help You Find Top Talent?

Social Recruiting – Everyone’s talking about it – no one’s doing it!

What is Social Recruiting?

Social Recruiting is using the various social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to improve the flow of top talent for current and future positions. This post is an introduction to some of the benefits and tactics of using Social Recruiting to find candidates, such as sales professionals, create an employer brand, and present your company in a positive light to attract candidates who already have a good job. Leveraging Social Recruiting also allows you to engage with potential candidates for future roles by engaging, nurturing, sustaining, and communicating over a period of time to create a Just-in-Time recruiting pipeline.

In subsequent blogs posts, we’ll delve into each of the various services, tools, and techniques you can leverage to begin attracting top talent.

Social Recruiting Benefits

What are some of the benefits of using Social Recruiting to find and engage with top talent at every level in your organization?

• The activities do not have to be centralized in HR. All Hiring Managers and Executives can participate
• Inexpensive or FREE
• Easy to learn the proper techniques and tactics
• Simple to implement
• Low time investment
• Branding, PR, and marketing side benefits
• Creates a powerful recruiting message (also known as employer branding)
• Ability to engage with future high potential candidates

Sounds almost too good to be true. You’re probably wondering “what’s the catch”. It cannot be that simple.

The good news is that using Social Recruiting to find, engage, develop, nurture, sustain conversations with top talent at every level is truly that easy. Of course there is a small learning curve. Of course there is an initial investment to get everything set up properly. Of course it requires the involvement and participation of your hiring managers and executives.

Another huge benefit is that you can STOP paying expensive recruiting fees when you can do much of this work on your own.

Most of you know that I make my living primarily through executive search. This might sound like I’m cutting off my future incoming stream by recommending you start using Social Recruiting instead of recruiters. I’m going to suggest that most companies waste a lot of money on recruiters for positions they could have easily filled through Social Recruiting.

How Can You Get Started with Social Recruiting?

These techniques are so powerful that my partner, Brad Remillard and I will begin in August offering a series of webinars on using Social Recruiting. Our first one will be “How to use LinkedIn to Find Great Sales Professionals.” We’re excited about this webinar series and we’ll be structuring a series of tools (FREE of course) to use in establishing and building your Social Recruiting capability.

Here are some questions to consider as you start to look at implementing a Social Recruiting Strategy:

• What are some of the tactics and best practices available to you for Social Recruiting?
• Blogging – especially having employees share their successes and joy at working in your company
• Forums and Discussion Groups – featuring stories about the contributions your employees are making to your company
• LinkedIn – Strong Branding through a profile, audio, powerpoint, case studies, Q&A, active participation in groups
• Linked and Facebook – searching for potential employees
• Twitter – Job Postings
• Industry Sites/Trade Association Social Networking
• Are you leading your industry/business segment in using these tools?
• What steps have you taken so far in implementing a Social Recruiting Strategy?
• Do you have any good success stories to share with other Vistage Members?
• Are you wondering where and how to get started?
• What’s the one thing you need to know to get started on implementing a Social Recruiting Strategy?

Stay tuned as we tackle all the various best practices in implementing a Social Recruiting Strategy.

Barry

P.S. Hold the date for our upcoming Webinar on Using LinkedIn to Find Sales Professionals – August 26

graphic by Robert Scoble

Growing and Retaining Productive Employees

Recently, on one of the e-mail lists to which I subscribe, a colleague mentioned that he had been counseled by one of his mentors that the best thing he could do for his good employees was to fire a bad employee. Sounds harsh, yet it is true that for the greater good, we have to sometimes admit that we will not be able to help an underperforming employee to make the grade. It’s best for them and for the organization if we “make their services available to industry.”

I admire the companies for whom I have worked that have gone out of their way to make sure that they did everything possible to help their employees be productive and happy. They provided training. They moved people from one place to another. They provided internal mentors or professional coaches to both high performing employees and those who needed to “push on some growing edges” for the sake of their career. But what I and others appreciated the most was that they were also willing to set some goals and if they were not reached, the employee was dismissed, compassionately.

I have found that this view of “tough love” approach to employees is particularly difficult in small businesses. In many small businesses, employees are like family, except they get a salary and benefits instead of an allowance! The problem is that we should never hire someone we cannot fire, and family members, real or adopted, are extremely difficult to let go. Now is the time, however, to really pay attention to and begin action on shaping your corporate culture to be one based on performance, consistency and fairness – at all levels.

I know that many of us have been forced to “cut to the bone” during this recession. You may well believe that there is no room for more cuts, and perhaps you are correct. That does not mean, however, that your culture is one that will support an understanding of performance, consistency and fairness going forward. All of your executives, managers and employees know that you were “forced to downsize” in order to stay alive. They will not see your actions as being performance based so much as needing to cut costs, unless you truly did reduce your workforce based on performance. Perhaps you used the seniority or LIFO (last in, first out) method to make your decisions. If so, your employees do not believe that their performance will influence their employment with you – so no loyalty either.

If you believe you have really made the reductions in force using performance as the main criteria, then you don’t have a problem. If, however, you were not consistent and fair in how you reduced your workforce, then you will have a very difficult time as the economy turns around and people are willing to change jobs. Many of us are dealing with workers who are sticking with us, even though they are not particularly happy, because they know they do not want to be “on the street with a resume” at this point. They feel overworked, burned out, and in need of something exciting to pick up their spirits. How will you keep the good employees, the ones that are the most productive?

I recommend two things that are a bit counter intuitive. First, be ruthless in getting your employees to stop doing things they and you can do without. Stop making that report you’ve always looked at but on which you base no business decisions. There are likely many other tasks with which you can do without. Unburden your employees by making sure that no expendable or marginal tasks are continued. Nice to have no longer cuts it.

Second, and more on topic, begin now carefully, consistently, and fairly evaluating employees for performance and how well they adapt to change (like letting go of tasks). You must not allow poor performers to stay in the organization or you will totally demoralize your whole workforce. I’ve said before that there are many good employees, excellent employees, who are either available now or because their present employer is not as enlightened as you, will be available if they know you are prepared to bring them on board. It is a good time to build a winning team comprising your best players and the best players who have yet to be hired.

To help companies and hiring managers identify some of the things that managers can do to retain their best talent we have put together for you to download our 8 Level Retention Matrix. This matrix will help you identify whether or not your managers are doing what it takes to retain your best talent.

If your managers do some, or most of these, you won’t lose your talent to a recruiter. Your competition will.

You can also download for free our most popular chapter on sourcing top talent from our best-selling book, You’re NOT The Person I Hired. CLICK HERE to download your free chapter.

About the author

Dave Kinnear is a sought after business advisor and mentor. He works with highly successful executives through one-to-one mentoring and coaching meetings. Individuals who are presently running successful businesses and executives in transition work with Dave to ensure meeting corporate and/or career goals. Through his affiliation with Vistage International, Dave convenes and facilitates Advisory Boards comprising Business Owners, Company Presidents and Chief Executives dedicated to becoming better leaders who make better decisions and achieve better results.

Hiring Top Talent – Determining A Cultural Fit – Audio Recording

The number one reason candidates fail in their brand new job is that they cannot deliver your expected results. The second reason is that they cannot adapt to your unique culture and environment. Adapting to your culture must be measured to ensure a successful hire. Unfortunately, measuring the ability to adapt to your culture is one of those items everyone talks about, but is not sure how to do it effectively. In this Audio Program, Barry and Brad break down the specific tactics on how to measure whether a candidate can replicate their past accomplishments and achievements in your unique culture.on.

To download or listen to the recording CLICK HERE, then scroll down to the recording

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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.