“THE KEY FOR US, NUMBER ONE, HAS ALWAYS BEEN HIRING VERY SMART PEOPLE.” – BILL GATES
05/25/2018
If your company is typical, 80% of your profits come from the top 20% of your people. The P&L tells no lies. How well equipped are you to hire more people that rank in the top 20%?
Here are 5 key traits for you to assess your recruiting process:
1: Sourcing: Flow of quality talent is the first step. If you start with a poor talent pool, there is no recovery and your chances for success are grim. There are two types of talent, those who are in the job market and those who are not. One recruiting secret, the most talented professionals are rarely looking. How effectively is your recruiting process uncovering the talent that is not looking? For top professionals, there is significant risk in exploring new opportunities and changing their career course. Fear of change and the unknown culture of a new company combined with a sense of betrayal of your current employer make this a daunting task for even the most qualified professionals. Breach of loyalty in the most progressive companies can be devastating to one’s career. Most internal recruiting efforts miss out on sourcing this high level of talent.
2: Confidentiality: Strict adherence to a confidential process is critical to protecting your talent and customers. If there is an incumbent in place, the importance of confidentiality is even more sensitive to hiring companies. It is extremely difficult for the even the best company led recruiting processes to maintain confidentiality, but any recruiting firm worth its salt should be able to outline in detail the steps they take to cover their tracks and mask their recruiting efforts.
3: Scorecard: What does winning look like? Or as I prefer to ask: “If one year from now we are raising our wine glasses to toast a job well done, what has this professional done?” How have they impacted your P&L and what are the essential tools and resources that they have leveraged to achieve this? Your scorecard should include defined measurable outcomes (success) and the list the proven history of success traits required of a candidate to get you there. Spending the time to answer these questions up front will enable you to create a list of essential skills and traits, to understand past successes as well as the cultural dynamics. Finally, a rigorous ranking of these items is the heavy lifting. Number 1 on the list should be twice as important as number 2. Developing the right Scorecard is key.
4: Selling: Why is your company the best place to work? Is it the best place for this professional? It makes sense that companies struggle to sell themselves to their candidates. They lack objectivity and are emotionally attached to the situation. Let’s drop the idea that if you sell a professional somehow it limits your ability to vet them. Try this exercise: 1) Create a “best place to work” ranking of your customers and your vendors. 2) Create a “Best place to work” list of your peer competitors. 3) Make a list of peer companies outside of your area of competitive reach and rank them. I doubt most leaders could list the top 3 peer companies in the next major metro area much less describe what is it like to work at them. Business leaders are focused on their people, their customers and their suppliers and that myopic perspective impairs their ability to objectively assess their company’s unique talent value proposition relative to their peers. Consider thoughtfully how you would sell a professional when they ask, “Given the competitive options, why would a professional want to work here?” Take the time to develop your talent value proposition. As leaders, you should be the best at delivering your 90-second pitch. Rehearse it. Capture it on video.
5: Vetting: Any professional skilled at vetting will tell you that their process begins with exceptional Sourcing (#1). Having a top-notch pool of candidates to draw from allows you to head into a rigorous interview phase with confidence. Now you dig in to differentiate between high performers with a proven history of success, and those riding the coat tails of these professionals, those who coast on the rising tide of the company or market. The most reliable strategy for removing biases and revealing blind spots when vetting is to have multiple interviewers with diverse backgrounds using scripted questions from your meticulously developed Scorecard.
How is your competition getting ahead? Remember, probability of success or failure starts with the quality of your talent pool.
Our team is presenting 5 fully vetted professionals for every project within 3-4 weeks. We have focused strictly on the building products industry for 20 years, and this history has allowed us to develop and leverage our long-term relationships and provide thorough, credible references for our clients.
Reach out to learn how our team can impact your 2018 Goals!
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