Jump Start Your Recruitment

By Rick Dacri, Dacri & Associates LLC

It’s getting ugly our there. The ability to find good people is getting harder and harder. All the studies continue to point to increased employee shortages, particularly in critical positions such as nurses and engineers. Depending on traditional means of recruitment won’t work any longer. Placing newspaper ads and posting positions on the internet will land you limited response.

Today you need a comprehensive approach to recruitment. No more passive approaches. Employers must put on a full court press to find good people. Without it, you and your organization will find yourself behind the competition.

So here are five elements guaranteed to jump start your recruitment:

1. Define your recruitment niche: Everyone wants to work for the best organization. Your challenge is to create a great working environment, where your current employees want to be everyday.

Think about why prospective candidates would choose you over a competitor. It could be your organization’s mission or an innovative product line. What ever it is, you need to be able to show why you are a great place to work and then spread the word. Your recruitment niche must create a “buzz” in your community.

2. Make everyone a recruiter: recruitment must be every employee’s responsibility—from the president to the receptionist. Your employees know you best and as such they should be your best ambassadors and therefore your best recruiters. They should be scouring the community for the best people and bringing these candidates to your attention.

An employee referral program must be the cornerstone of this initiative. In a recent Society for Human Resource Management national study, employee referrals were cited as generating the highest quality of candidates with the best return on investment for the organization. Develop a generous program, promote it heavily, and unleash your employees into the community. You’ll soon find candidates flocking to your door.

3. Educate your employees: Let your employees know why they are critical to your recruitment efforts. Beyond the employee referral payout, employees benefit by getting to work with other good people. Help them understand that as they assist in recruiting stars, their job becomes easier, and remind them, it is more pleasurable to work with a winner you helped recruit than a stranger who came in off the street.

4. Develop a recruitment toolbox: All of your new recruiters will need access to this toolbox. Include an inventory of stories highlighting the good things happening in your organization and the successes your employees have experienced. When your recruiters speak to a potential applicant, they should be armed with a number of these success stories. Remember, applicants respond to a genuine story told by a peer much more than they do to flashy ads created by advertising.

Develop a recruitment brochure featuring your organization. Make sure your prospects know why working for you is a good idea. Include everything an applicant will need to apply for a job. Incorporate your success stories and new job information in your company newsletter and web site. Your toolbox should also include posters, letters to employees, payroll stuffers, etc. Be creative. Try different things.

5. Expand your sources for applicants: Target your recruitment efforts to where your potential applicants “hang out.” That means you have to carefully analyze what you are looking for in a successful applicant and only then you can determine where to focus your search. There are two ways of doing this. First look specifically at their professional skills. If you are recruiting an engineer, then focus your recruitment around engineering schools, professional engineering associations, niche recruitment boards, etc. Second, look at traits or attributes. If the job’s primary need is a warm, nurturing, individual with good organizational skills, you’re looking for a homemaker so you should focus your search at PTAs, health clubs, church bazaars, etc. To be successful here, you cannot passively recruit. You have to aggressively go to these venues to recruit.

Other applicant sources include job fairs; open houses; school recruiting (colleges, community colleges and high schools); association conferences; senior centers; military; direct mail campaigns (a great targeted approach); and networking at professional associations. There are many other sources. Target your search and use multiple sources to ensure a better return.

Remember, ads and the internet focus on those that are unemployed or at least looking. Focus on those who are working, generating a better and larger source of candidates.

Every great hire you make brings you one step closer to success. Be unequivocal in your search for the right people. When you develop a recruitment strategy that becomes intertwined within the culture of your organization and include all your employees, you will find that candidates will start to seek you out.  

Rick Dacri is an organizational development consultant, coach and featured speaker at regional and national conferences. Since 1995 his firm, Dacri & Associates has focused on improving the performance of individuals and organizations. Rick can be reached at 1-800-892-9828, or rick@dacri.com