User Submitted!
96

Top 10 Rules - Challenge

What are the Top 10 Rules for Recruiting Great People?

Groucho_advertising_beer_1Groucho Marx once said he’d never join any club that wanted him as a member. Is it just me or does it sometimes seem candidates cop the same attitude?

Remember that great candidate who said they would resign their current job and join the day she received your offer, who suddenly became undecided, plagued with second thoughts? Did the leopard change its’ spots overnight? No, truth is, she was probably never convinced to join your company in the first place.

Changing jobs like most major buying decisions is rarely an impulse purchase and you certainly can’t “sell” high performance people a "new opportunity". It’s the culmination of a series of intermediate decisions that keeps pointing the candidate in the right direction that moves them.

Everyone who reads Recruiting.com knows first hand that “Talent scouting” in today’s candidate driven market is hard work. Great employees are rare. Yet, if you want your company to grow successfully, you have no choice but to perfect the recruiting process.

So I challenge you all to articulate the Top 10 Rules you need to remember --- to win. I’ll go first!

1. It’s a seller’s market. The industry’s best and brightest are rarely, if ever, actively looking. They know that they’re highly sought after, and that should they choose to leave a company in the morning, often that same morning, they’ll be hired by someone else. Every technology company in every technology market wants them and your competitors are your best source of qualified candidates. Build your team by skillfully targeting employees who work for your competitors. Establish a dedicated crack-team of your best people to court them and provide a customized campaign tailored to their needs.

What are the other 9 Rules? An autographed copy of Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters goes to the winner of the BEST Rule.

We just need a judge.

David Perry

Sat, 03/11/2006 - 8:36pm

Understand your candidate’s “Value Grid” and speak to it.

Ten years ago Jeannette Symons cofounded Ascend Communications. It was sold a few weeks after her 35th birthday for $20 billion, in the biggest tech merger ever. For her and many like her, the operation was not about money. Jeff Bezos, whose wealth has swollen to about $5-billion from his success as CEO of bookseller Amazon.com, spends about 12 hours a day at work, six days a week, and helps stock shelves with his lowest-paid employees. Bezos tells them there is no time to slow down and smell the roses, because the Internet is still under construction. For many top performers it’s not about money. It’s about changing the world. Today’s knowledge workers do not want to be managed, they want to lead: to be trusted. They need to be empowered with the right information to make sound decisions, to grow the business and to be part of a community that is contributing to something worthy of their time and energy.

John H
Sat, 03/11/2006 - 8:40pm

Rule 2) Patient's lie! (no wait, that's House; I'm Holmes)

Rule 2) Candidate's lie! Sure you can substitute the word people, but remember who we're dealing with in our search for talent. This business requires a healthy dollop of cynicism or you will die of heartbreak and starvation. If you like, think of it as 'Trust, but verify.' Any claims a candidate makes need to be backed up by documentation, referencing/testing and (more often) a thorough background check. Ensure that your candidate knows that the best employers expect best practices and that due dilegence will be done to verify any claims they make.

'So with that in mind Bob, is there anything you'd like to tell me now before I present your background...?'

Sat, 03/11/2006 - 11:55pm

Dave, let me get this straight. You're looking for rules to entice good people into new jobs.

Not basics like "Make 30 calls per day".

Am I right?

Sun, 03/12/2006 - 12:40am

Canadian Headhunter. Yes I'm looking for the Top 10 Rules for Recruiting Great People? As Peter Weddle has said so eloquently the last War for Talent was quantitative [bums on seats so-to-speak] this new War for Talent is one of Brains-on-seats. Hiring smart people is harder than hiring just anyone. Bright people have different expectations - in how they're found and how they're treated - anyone who doesn't recognize that up front runs the risk of loosing the war before they've ever fired a shot. Those are the ideas/rules I'm looking for.

Sun, 03/12/2006 - 10:19pm

Rule #6: Good Companies and Good Ideas Sell Themselves.

The key to finding the best talent is understanding what drives them. They like working with other smart people and having the freedom to fail. That requires good management and secure finances. When scouring your database to find perfect candidates for a client, remember to ask yourself if you worked as hard finding the best company to recruit for as you did finding them the most talented candidates.

Mon, 03/13/2006 - 12:02am

How about "have a clear and specific notion of what you are looking for?" For example the words "smart/bright" are vague and general. What does smart or bright mean? High IQ? High EQ? Creative? Fast thinker? Able to express themselves and be understood by others? What?

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <font> <img> <span> <p> <br> <br/>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
More information about formatting options