News & Articles

Human Resource Management
Published in the Rochester Business Journal
February 23, 2007
© 2007 HR Works, Inc.

Winning the war for talent

By Candace Walters

As the pace of growth quickens at many local companies, so does the search for quality employees – be they engineers, sales or human resource professionals, or capable administrative assistants.

Without the right talent on board, businesses cannot prosper. Where employers once found it relatively easy to land top candidates, more are now encountering severe talent shortages in certain fields. No longer can companies merely designate internal or external recruiters and decide where to place job postings and ads. Today, adopting a competitive approach to winning the talent war is essential if an organization is to ensure innovation; boost productivity, customer service and employee retention; and secure market position.

How important is an effective recruitment strategy? Watson Wyatt has reported that companies with excellent recruiting functions increase their total market value by more than 10 percent.

Recruiting in the new millennium

Two factors – burgeoning technology and a shrinking pool of talent – have dramatically impacted the recruiting landscape in recent years.

The Internet offers candidates and employers powerful new resources that weren’t available a generation ago. To fully leverage those resources and maintain the edge on their competition, organizations now must employ a professional, well-informed and assertive approach.

At the same time, competition for talent has grown fierce. Workers are older and more mobile, and those trained in critical skills are in short supply. In the past three decades, the nation's economy has doubled while the birth rate has dropped by 24 percent, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that talent is the scarcest it has been throughout the working careers of today’s employed generations.

Yet, despite the clear need to hire as effectively as possible, many companies’ HR functions have not caught up.

Is your company's recruiting strategy successful?

Top companies consistently market themselves to potential employees in much the same way they market themselves to customers. How long has it been since your organization examined your recruiting strategy and measured its effectiveness?

Consider the following:

1. Are your recruiters knowledgeable about your company, its products and its competitive environment? In order to be taken seriously by in-demand candidates, a recruiter must be well-prepared and passionate about the opportunities his or her organization offers. Companies that hire entry-level recruiters and fail to prepare them to effectively sell the company shouldn’t be surprised when those recruiters deliver mediocre or ill-suited job candidates.
   
   
2. Do your recruiters and hiring managers collaborate effectively? Managers are busy people. Often, they’re so eager to fill a vacancy that they insist on speeding through the process without equipping the recruiter with enough information to attract candidates who will succeed in the job. The recruiter must insist on working with the hiring manager to identify the native competencies and learned skills that are essential in the position(s), and developing an interview guide that will accurately assess candidates’ fitness.
   
   When a hiring manager is particularly recalcitrant, the recruiter may need to sell that manager on the value of investing time in the process – perhaps by presenting figures on the dollars wasted on bad hires, or the damage done when the process skirts legal best practices.
   
   
3. Are job criteria well-defined? In order to be useful, job descriptions must be up to date and must define the three or four critical requirements. If the targeted position or a similar one is currently filled with a successful employee, the recruiter must find out from that employee what skills and competencies are needed, and what daily challenges the job presents.
   
   In outlining criteria, it’s also important to distinguish between learnable skills and native competencies. In every position, certain skills can be taught. But in many jobs – sales, for example – native intelligence in goal orientation, honesty and people skills must be present or the candidate is likely to underperform. As they say in sports, you can't coach tall.
   
   
4. How are sourcing venues chosen? While Internet postings have gained tremendous ground on print advertising, traditional methods remain important for many kinds of jobs. Recruiters often find targeted leads by posting openings on their company websites and on the websites of industry associations. Nearly all recruiters agree, however, that personal contacts and referrals – obtained through current employees, networking and job fairs – deliver the largest number of qualified candidates.
   
   
5. Are candidates’ key motivators identified early? Why is a candidate looking to move? Does he want more money or more flexible hours? Does she want to enter a new industry, or to escape from an oppressive boss? Determining early in the process what elements may make or break a deal will save everyone a lot of time and frustration.
   
   

The all-important interview

A recent survey by Myjobtips.com of job seekers aged 20 to 30 found that, in 90 percent of cases, the interview itself will alter a job seeker’s impression of the company.

Amazingly, however, it’s not unusual for interviewers sometimes to squander this crucial meeting. While four in five job seekers said the interviewers were professional and appropriate, the survey found, 20 percent of respondents said the interviewer hadn’t read their resume before the meeting. Twelve percent said the interviewer answered the phone, left the room, or engaged in other distractions during the meeting. And some 10 percent reported being asked inappropriate questions or hearing inappropriate comments – about their ethnicity, marital status or appearance, for example.

At its most basic, good interviewing involves doing one’s homework; recording actual responses, not the interviewer’s interpretation; avoiding prejudicial comments; and using a consistent format for each interviewee. The interview covers job history but does not rehash what’s already on the piece of paper.

But most important, of course, is asking effective questions. The best questions are those that predict how the candidate will behave in the various situations that the job will present. So-called behavior-based interviewing offers a systematic approach to gathering and evaluating candidates’ previous behavior and thinking to predict how they would handle future situations.

For example, a company hiring for a sales position might ask a candidate: “If you were assigned to develop a previously undeveloped territory, and had to meet a quota of $250,000, how would you proceed?” The interviewer is looking not only for content but also to gauge the candidate’s ability to think quickly and well.

If the interviewer seeks to learn about the candidate’s knack for working with difficult people, she or he might ask: “Think of an occasion when you needed to develop rapport and at first had difficulty doing it. What did you finally do, and how did it turn out?” Further questions might address values or ethics, work pace and intensity, problem solving and people management. Determine in advance how responses will be rated.

Conclusion

More than ever, a company’s strategic plan must feature a continuous recruiting initiative to attract employees. Poor recruiting and hiring squanders a company’s time and money, and results in lost opportunities.

A winning recruiting strategy takes time to develop, and must be continually refined. Experts find that:

• A great reputation goes a long way. A company that strives to become known as an employer of choice – and delivers on that promise over the long term – attracts candidates much more easily.
  
  
• Patience, integrity and empathy count. Even the best companies won’t land the top candidate every time. But recruiters who treat all job candidates with respect and remain in touch may learn, a year down the road, that a wonderful would-be candidate is now more ready to move. Or, the candidate who didn’t get the offer will recommend a colleague to your company because he was impressed with the integrity that your recruiter exhibited.

Particularly in a community like Rochester where networks are strong, maintaining cordial relationships – even in a hotly competitive environment – is essential to an effective, sustainable recruiting strategy.

Candace Walters is president and CEO of HR Works, Inc., an HR management outsourcing and consulting firm serving more than 600 clients in the Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse and Baltimore/Washington areas. HR Works provides HR Department outsourcing, part-time and interim HR managers, affirmative action plans, HR*Stars recruitment services, legally reviewed employee handbooks and supervisor manuals, compensation programs, training and more. To offer comments, write walters@hrworks-inc.com

Top

HR Works
246 WillowBrook Office Park
Fairport, NY 14450
1-877-219-9062
(Toll Free)