The Advisor

IT'S NOT RECRUTING - IT'S MARKETING
(or ... FINDING GOOD EMPLOYEES!)
by David Sikora

After 18 years in the Human Resources and Recruiting industries, I've found that the key to attracting quality employees lies in establishing a well-thought out recruiting plan for your business. You can't expect great employees to find you. First, you must develop a recruiting plan to identify, target, and reach them. Once you do this, you'll greatly improve the caliber of your job candidates, lower your recruiting costs, and ultimately produce better business results.

Here are some suggestions to keep in mind:

• It's not staffing, it's marketing… You have a marketing plan for your business, right? That plan identifies your target customers, describes where you'll find them and how you'll reach them, and lays out a proactive strategy to raise your target customer's awareness of your unique attributes. Well, guess what, you need to do the same thing with your staffing efforts.
• Define your target candidate: Look at your best employees. What skills and qualities do they have? Be specific. Write down the attributes of your best employees. Use this information to create a description of your target employee. When you're done, you should be able to describe the education, work history, job skills, professional affiliations, and personal interests of the employees you want to target.
• Where will you find these candidates? Once you've described the qualities you'll be targeting, think about where employees like this can be found. Again, start with your best employees. Where did you find them? Newspaper advertising? Professional societies? Employee referrals? Internships? Whatever the source, describe the top three or four sources you want to focus on to get your message in front of your target employee audience.
• How will you reach these candidates? So far you know your target candidate, and where you're likely to find them. The next step is defining how you'll reach these people. What methods are most effective in delivering your message? Flyers? Radio advertising? Job postings? Recruiters? Personal recommendations? Which options are most credible to your target audience? How much do they cost? How will you allocate your recruiting time and dollars between these different channels?
• What makes your job unique? This is vital. Think about it? If you can't quickly, clearly, and confidently answer this, why would a quality employee choose your opportunity? You must take the time to write down what your opportunity has to offer to your target audience. Best pay? Most flexible hours? More responsibility, sooner? Advancement and growth opportunities? You need to understand what your target candidates want, how your opportunity provides this, and then sell the candidate on your position.
• Build a pipeline. Once you know your best recruiting sources, you must build a consistent, long-term relationship with three to four of them. Even when you don't have open jobs, you should be sponsoring their events, offering $500 scholarships, meeting with professors and/or top managers, placing adds in their professional journals, etc. The key is to build name recognition and credibility among the best potential job candidates. Over time, the best candidates from these sources will begin to seek you out to inquire about working for your company.

These tips illustrate the proactive recruiting approach that consistently produces quality candidates. If you follow them, you and your business will both benefit. Good luck.

Contact David at dsikora@peoplesense.com or visit People Sense at http://www.peoplesense.com