An Executive Recruiter’s Guide to Hiring Top Talent
Step 2: Sourcing
Come out, come out wherever you are!
We’ve defined what we’re looking for…now the fun starts! We get to go find them! We all want to hire the best person for the job. There’s a catch, though. At any point in time, and depending on whose statistics you’re reading, the percentage of the workforce that is actively looking ranges between 10-20%. So it comes down to 1 of 2 questions:
- Do you want to go after the best person who’s looking?
or
- Do you want to find the best person for the job?
This is a very important distinction, as it will dictate your overall sourcing strategy.
Developing your prospect list – a.k.a. sourcing – is both an art and a science. Prospects are the raw material, and the quality of your sourcing effort will determine the overall success of the search project. I recommend starting small and casting a widening net. Your prospect sources will generally fall into three categories:
- Industry contacts – people you already know.
- The 10-20% who are actively looking.
- Top producers that you’d like to attract.
Industry Contacts
Let’s start with the people you already know. You’ll start building the prospect list by mining the obvious sources: searching your internal database, reaching out to your social networks, and soliciting employee referrals. These are warm contacts, relying on relationships you already have in place. You’ll be connecting with people who may have the ability to do the job, some of whom will be actively looking, as well as people who are likely to be good sources of referrals.
The 10-20%
It’s pretty easy to find the people who are actively looking. A well-worded job post can open up the resume floodgates. If you choose to post your job, use a combination of the “big boards”, aggregators and niche sites. You’ll also want to advertise your positions appropriately for the best response. What I mean by this is you do not want to post a senior director opportunity on Craig’s List, or a programmer role on Execunet. Posting is definitely a broad brush; a quantity over quality approach to sourcing. On the plus side, you won’t have to spend a lot of time selling your prospects on the opportunity – they’ve come to you. On the downside, they’ve ALL come to you. You’ll spend a lot of time sifting through the responses looking for nuggets of gold.
The Shining Stars
A strong social network and a well-worded ad may yield some solid prospects for your search project. Earlier in the post I asked if you wanted to hire the best person who was looking or the best person. If you’re looking for the best person, you’re only half way there. Let’s assume that you’ve pretty well covered the 10-20% who are actively looking. Given that no one wants to hire from the bottom of the bell curve, you’re still ignoring roughly half of the potential prospects (or “passive candidates” in HR speak) for your search project if you stop now. Top industry producers – those that you’d like to attract – aren’t trolling the job boards and they don’t pay attention to generic email blasts. They are willing to listen to opportunities that provide personal and professional growth, but must be properly approached.
The third piece in our sourcing strategy focuses on identifying these individuals. They include industry leaders, subject matter experts, and respected competitors. You’ll find their names through competitive research, blogs, white papers and articles, and even asking your customers. This will yield a much smaller, but very high potential prospect list.
Now that your prospects have been identified, in the next post we’ll discuss strategies on how to approach, recruit, and convert the most qualified to active candidates for your search project.
Interested about the remaining steps in the Recruiter’s Guide?
Click Here
Deborah F. Harper, CPC, CERS
President
Certified Employee Retention Specialist
Certified Personnel Consultant
Debbie Harper specializes in recruiting for professional services, consulting and sales positions for software, hardware and consulting companies that provide complex technology based Enterprise Application, Infrastructure and Cloud solutions. She established Harper Hewes Executive Search in 1993, after achieving senior certification and national recognition with an established international recruiting organization. She was one of the first 50 professionals in the US to earn designation as a Certified Employee Retention Specialist (CERS).
An Executive Recruiter’s Guide to Hiring Top Talent
Step 1: Definition
“If you don’t know what you’re looking for how will you know when you’ve found it?”
The ultimate success of a project can be traced to preparation and planning. In this post we’ll define three crucial aspects that lay the groundwork of a successful search project.
- The Job: Defining Successful Performance
- The Flow: Detailing the Candidate Flow
- WIIFM: Or more accurately – What’s in it for them?
The Job
Often a search project starts with a dusty old job description that reads like a laundry list of generic skills and qualifications that may or may not be relevant to the position as it exists today. Toss it. We’ve found that the most successful hires rely on a performance based approach. Take a step back and define successful performance outcomes for this role as it exists in your organization today. What must the new hire accomplish in the first 30-60-90-180-365 days to be deemed a successful hire? How can these outcomes be quantified, evaluated, and measured? Be as specific as possible.
After you have defined “success” the next step is to determine those skills and experiences, including scope, scale and environment, which will demonstrate the new hire has the ability to actually do the job, again with an emphasis on specificity.For example, a sales position with a multimillion dollar quota could be focused on hunting new logos, or could be managing a single existing account. Different skills, different experiences. Defining the position in terms of expected performance based outcomes also ensures that both parties – candidate and management – will be in agreement from the start, as we’ll discuss during the interview and onboard steps of the process.
The Flow
Nothing derails a search more effectively than a poorly defined hiring process that starts, stops and leaves candidates hanging. It’s impossible to keep an “A” player excited for weeks or months of a stalled process. Before the search begins, it’s imperative to define your candidate process – specifically what happens from initial candidate introduction to hiring decision. What is the sequence of events, and who owns the process? Who’s keeping the candidates warm? Who interviews? Who decides? Are the interviewers available and willing to interview within the time frames agreed upon? Your process should be designed so that you, the hiring company, are actively deciding on the viability of the candidates, rather than having the best candidates self select out because they’ve lost interest, taken another offer, or just don’t want to work for a company that doesn’t seem to have its act together.
WIIFM
Far too often a hiring process will focus on what the company wants and needs, forgetting that quality individuals have options. Our third step is to
define your unique value proposition. Why would the top talent you want to hire want to work for you? What’s in it for them? Brainstorm with your team and compile a comprehensive and specific list of positives: company financial strength, leading edge products, company stability, comp and benefits, prestige, culture, more travel, less travel, flexibility, commitment to training and education…the list goes on. If you’re not sure where to start, ask your top performers why they came to the company and why they stay. (You may be surprised at what you hear!) We’ll come back to the value proposition throughout the remaining seven steps in the search project.
Spending time on the front end of your search project will pay significant dividends on the back end. Defining these three crucial aspects of the process will lay the groundwork for a successful search.
Our next post in the series : “8 Steps to Hiring Top Talent” will focus on sourcing. In the meantime, we’re offering a complimentary 30 minute Search Process Review to Hiring Managers. Please contact Debbie Harper to schedule a time to review one of your past, current or upcoming search projects.
Interested about the remaining steps in the Recruiter’s Guide?
Click Here
Deborah F. Harper, CPC, CERS
President
Certified Employee Retention Specialist
Certified Personnel Consultant
Debbie Harper specializes in recruiting for professional services, consulting and sales positions for software, hardware and consulting companies that provide complex technology based Enterprise Application, Infrastructure and Cloud solutions. She established Harper Hewes Executive Search in 1993, after achieving senior certification and national recognition with an established international recruiting organization. She was one of the first 50 professionals in the US to earn designation as a Certified Employee Retention Specialist (CERS).
An Executive Recruiter’s Guide to Hiring Top Talent
You can teach a turkey to climb a tree…
But wouldn’t you rather start with a squirrel?
Looking for Top Talent? It isn’t magic, it isn’t luck and it isn’t happenstance. Check out my recruiter’s guide…
In business today we’re pushed to perform faster, better and more effectively. Hiring top talent is no different. We’re all striving to hire top talent – those who can hit the ground running and generate positive results quickly. Companies committed to hiring the best and brightest – the fastest squirrels, so to speak – need a solid and effective search process to support that effort. Successful recruiting projects follow a defined process that – when implemented intelligently – will yield candidates with the ability, experience and desire to succeed with your company.
In a series of posts we’ll explore each of the 8 Steps to Hiring Top Talent:
- Definition
- Sourcing
- Recruiting
- Interviewing
- Evaluating
- Closing
- Onboarding
- Metrics
Our first post in the series : “8 Steps to Hiring Top Talent” will focus on defining the job, the flow and WIIFM. Spending time on the front end of your search project will pay significant dividends on the back end, as defining these three crucial aspects of the process will lay the groundwork for a successful search.
In the meantime, we’re offering a complimentary 30 minute Search Process Review to Hiring Managers. Please contact Debbie Harper to schedule a time to review one of your past, current or upcoming search projects. Using our Search Process Checklist we’ll walk you through the steps of a thorough search process to make sure you and your team are on the right track.
Deborah F. Harper, CPC, CERS
President
Certified Employee Retention Specialist
Certified Personnel Consultant
Debbie Harper specializes in recruiting for professional services, consulting and sales positions for software, hardware and consulting companies that provide complex technology based Enterprise Application, Infrastructure and Cloud solutions. She established Harper Hewes Executive Search in 1993, after achieving senior certification and national recognition with an established international recruiting organization. She was one of the first 50 professionals in the US to earn designation as a Certified Employee Retention Specialist (CERS).
Have You Thanked Your Mentor Lately?
Thanksgiving is less than two short weeks away. For many of us Thanksgiving marks the start of the “year end crunch.” Yearly and quarterly numbers have to be met. Business plans completed. Budgets finalized. Staffing plans approved. Next year’s kick off coordinated. New hires onboarded so they can hit the ground running in 2012. Add to that, the rush of holiday preparations, travel and celebrations, endless to do lists, competing priorities, and oh, by the way, getting your regular work done as well. It’s enough to send you screaming from the room!
At this time of year it’s very easy to become so consumed by all that we have to DO that we forget to recognize and appreciate how far we’ve come. Before the end of the year marathon begins, I’m encouraging us all to stop and take a deep breath. Take a moment to be thankful for where we are and how we got here and to say thank you to those who have helped us along the way.
To that end, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m promoting November as ‘Thank a Mentor’ Month. We all know specific individuals who’ve helped shape who we’ve become and what we’ve accomplished. It may have been as part of a structured mentoring program, a manager who took you under their wing, or you may have been fortunate enough to have a trusted advisor to guide your career. It could have been a long term relationship, or just someone who lent you a hand – or an ear – when you needed it. Perhaps they shared words of encouragement or gave you a kick in the pants. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that it made a difference.
So pick up the phone, write a note, a letter, an email, meet up for coffee – whatever works. Say THANKS to those who matter to you. You’ll make their day…and yours!
Deborah F. Harper, CPC, CERS
President
Certified Employee Retention Specialist
Certified Personnel Consultant
Debbie Harper specializes in recruiting for professional services, consulting and sales positions for software, hardware and consulting companies that provide complex technology based Enterprise Application, Infrastructure and Cloud solutions. She established Harper Hewes Executive Search in 1993, after achieving senior certification and national recognition with an established international recruiting organization. She was one of the first 50 professionals in the US to earn designation as a Certified Employee Retention Specialist (CERS).
Are You Ready to Compete?
Dice.com saw a 35% increase in first quarter. eFinancialCareers was up 48%. Monster reported a 25% increase in bookings across all industries. What does this influx of job postings mean to you? It’s classic supply vs. demand.
For the past several years companies could afford to be ultra choosy, often subjecting candidates to long and sometimes tortuous interview processes and making conservative offers. As demand increases, candidates have more options, the best among them often entertaining multiple offers when making a move. Here are three ways that you can insure that your company snags the best available talent.
1. Have a look at your hiring process. Is it designed to attract and engage the best candidates? Does it follow a reasonable pattern and time table that allows both sides to conduct their due diligence, but not stall or lose interest? Or is interviewing something that you fit into your schedule when your “real” work is done?
2. Evaluate your offers. Are your offers competitive? Real world competitive? Just because HR found a salary survey that says an average project manager in Dallas earns X doesn’t mean that’s what you should offer – unless you’re hiring a generic, average project manager. If your position requires specialized skills or subject matter expertise, strong candidates will expect to be compensated accordingly.
3. Share the vision. The best candidates won’t join a company just to fill someone else’s empty shoes. They want to make a difference; they’re excited about being a part of the company’s go forward strategy and will buy into their role in shaping the company’s future. Framing your opportunity in terms of its impact, both now and in the long term, will capture their attention and imagination, enabling you to close the strongest candidates.
Contact Debbie Harper at Harper Hewes Executive Search for a complimentary evaluation of your company’s hiring process. dharper@harperhewes.com
Hiring Mistakes – Vetting the Candidate
“But he was such a good fit on paper!” How many times have you heard that description of a failed hire? Unfortunately, the paper is only part of the story. It’s the person behind the paper that matters. The answers to three key questions will most often determine the success of a hire.
CAN they do the job? Pretty basic, right? Of course the candidate must have the requisite hard skills. In many instances, however, the environment in which they apply those skills gets overlooked. Scope, scale and context are as important as the skills themselves. If you’re hiring a technology executive to support a 24×7 retail operation, do you really want someone from custom manufacturing? Granted, the tools may be the same, but they’ll be providing different vastly different solutions – and in fact may not even understand the questions. Managing a team of 10 and managing a division of 100 require different leadership skills. A business development or sales exec who’s used to carrying a multimillion dollar quota may not understand the dynamics of selling a single multimillion dollar deal. And the list goes on.
WILL they do the job? We are all capable of doing many different things. But it’s not enough to have the ability to do a job; the candidate has to want to do your job. The individual’s goals and the company’s goals need to be in sync, and both must share the same vision of success. The word “passion” is almost a cliché in executive search right now, but the fact remains that people are complicated. We really only excel at the things that capture both our hearts and our heads.
Do they FIT? Cultural fit is crucial to a successful long term hire. Culture includes physical environment, process and attitude, among other things. It’s everything from jeans and t-shirts vs. suits, to communication style, to decision making process. If an executive is accustomed to working in a large environment that requires multiple levels of input, they may freeze when the decision is theirs alone. Likewise, someone who’s used to “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” may stagnate in a more deliberate, highly process-oriented environment. A creative type won’t last in a company whose reason for doing things is “because that’s the way we’ve always done them.”
A failed hire damages more than just the egos of the parties involved. It costs the company money, opportunity, morale and momentum. Vetting a candidate in these three areas – can they, will they, do they fit – will go a long way in avoiding costly hiring mistakes.
The Rise of the Written Interview
You thought you were done writing essays when you graduated from school, didn’t you? Think again. More and more frequently our clients are requesting writing samples from all candidates, not just those being considered for a formal communications role.
Consider this. As companies have slashed costs, the administrative ranks have been particularly hard hit. The admins that remain are often shared and almost always overworked. With the sheer volume of written communication demanded in the business world today most of us are our own “admins.” When‘s the last time you actually dictated a document?
Just as the quantity of written business communication has exploded, the quality has imploded. In addition to errors in grammar (my personal favorite is their / there / they’re) many times people forget that a sentence contains a subject and a verb, starts with an upper case letter and ends with punctuation. I admit to being guilty of this – as well as an over reliance on both the m-dash and the phrase “as well as.” Factor in the proliferation of tweet speak, emoticons and acronyms, and IMHO the ability to communicate clearly and concisely in writing has taken on increased importance.
Enter the written interview. Its purpose is to illustrate both your thought process and your writing ability. A typical written interview includes 6 to 10 open ended questions. Topics covered usually include past successes, challenges, your business philosophy, and a couple of situational questions. A written interview requires timely completion, unlike a resume or cover letter which can be wordsmithed for weeks. It demonstrates your ability to process the question and engage the reader with your answer. And just as when you were in school, neatness and grammar count.
Rather than resist this trend as just one more hoop to jump through, I encourage candidates to use it to their advantage. A written interview allows you to position yourself as the best person for the job by providing you an opportunity to address issues of specific importance to the employer. You get to state your case, unfiltered, and without reliance on the memory or note taking skills of the interviewer. The questions also give you insight into the priorities and culture of your potential next employer so you can better assess your fit with the opportunity offered.
So fire up your laptop and get to work. Your next career opportunity may depend on it!
What I Learned as a Yo Gabba Gabba Groupie – and how it can make your recruiting process stronger
I spent Thanksgiving week as a Yo Gabba Gabba Live! groupie. My son is a producer for the YGG Live show and couldn’t make it home so I joined him on the tour for the holiday. Unless you have small children or grandchildren you may not be familiar with Yo Gabba Gabba. Suffice it to say it’s like catnip to the under 5 set – and it was an eye opening experience for me! Producing a live show and producing an ongoing talent management and recruiting process aren’t as different as one might think.
Capturing and holding the attention of thousands of preschoolers requires exquisite planning and delivery, and the tour consistently reviews and refines their process. Capturing and holding the attention of top talent requires a similar attention to detail. Have you tested your recruiting process? Have you walked through it step by step, from a candidate’s perspective? Where can a good candidate fall through the cracks? What are you doing well and where are you turning off top talent?
The Gabbas reach their audience through multiple modalities: speaking, music, movement and dance, video. An effective recruitment process recognizes the need to utilize a multifaceted approach as well: social media, traditional job boards, networking and targeted select direct recruiting. Do you have a robust talent acquisition strategy in place, or are you basically farming LinkedIn and hoping for the best?
The YGG audience was engaged throughout the show – they didn’t just sit there; they participated. How interactive is your recruiting process? Have you built in regular touch points? Are you engaging with your candidates? Or is your process one-sided?
The show managed the kids’ expectations expertly. The audience knew what was coming throughout the performance, ending the show by singing “the Goodbye Song.” Can you say the same for your recruitment process? Do your candidates know where they stand? How many wonder if they’ve fallen into a black hole – they’ve engaged in your hiring process but have never been informed of an outcome. No one likes to say “goodbye” but as the YGG’s so eloquently demonstrate it’s possible to provide closure gracefully.
The bottom-line is that the entire Yo Gabba Gabba Live! production is dedicated to providing a quality experience for all. From the greeter in the lobby to the performers on stage to the crew that drops the balloons, they are all ambassadors for the brand. Can you say the same about your talent acquisition and recruiting process? What do your candidates say about your firm? Do they walk out feeling good about the experience, full of respect and admiration for the people they’ve met, even when they didn’t get the job? Or is your process so convoluted that candidates walk away thinking that they can’t wait to compete against you in the marketplace because if your recruitment process is so ineffectual, your sales process probably is also.
As the economy continues to improve, companies will find themselves competing for top talent. Will your recruiting process help you land them? Or chase them away?
For the first quarter of 2011, Harper Hewes Executive Search is offering companies a complimentary recruiting process review. Contact Debbie Harper for details.
Why You Didn’t Get the Job – Really
You interviewed for the perfect position. It was a perfect fit for you. You presented all of your qualifications in great detail. You told illuminating anecdotes that documented your achievements. You may even be the greatest candidate to have ever crossed their threshold. Yet you didn’t get the job. Why? The answer is simple – because it’s not about you. I know this sounds cold, but read on.
Companies don’t hire people because they need jobs or because they have compelling resumes. People get hired because the company believes they can solve a problem. Successful candidates use the interview process to position themselves as the best solution to the hiring manager’s problem. How do they do that?
Successful candidates use the limited amount of time available in the interview process to focus on the things that are of highest importance to the company. They keep their answers brief and follow them up with qualifying questions to make sure they ferret out the hiring manager’s problem, and then position themselves as the solution to that problem. Rather than going into a ten minute monologue in answer to the usual interview opener, “Tell me about yourself,” the successful candidate will answer with a brief summary of their background, followed by a qualifying question – something like, “Can you tell me a little more about what you’re trying to accomplish with this position? I’d like to focus my answers on the aspects of my background that matter most to you.” Using this approach throughout the interview sets the stage for an effective exchange that benefits you both. You’ll walk away with a much clearer understanding of the role and its challenges, and the company will have a much clearer understanding of the specific benefits to them of hiring you.
When I explain this concept to people involved in sales, it’s an immediate “Aha!” moment. Sales reps don’t walk into a customer’s office and begin reciting all the features and specifications of their product . They spend some time qualifying so they can understand what the customer is trying to accomplish, and present a solution that solves the problem. The interview process is the exactly the same, except that your skills and abilities are the product. Solve the problem, close the deal.
Facebook Faux Pas
Facebook privacy concerns are back in the news with the announcement of its new enhancements and collaboration tools. The reality is that anything you put on web will be accessible to someone, and Facebook is no exception. If you’re not on Facebook, it’s probably just a matter of time. Facebook grew 145% last year, and users between the ages of 35 and 54 now comprise its largest demographic. While you may not be using Facebook as part of your personal branding strategy, you need to be mindful that others – employers, customers, peers, recruiters – may be using it to check you out.
You’re all smart enough to not post a photo of yourself doing a keg stand at your college reunion. Here are a few other Facebook faux pas:
Whining. Of any sort. You hate your boss, your job is boring, and your customers drive you crazy. Cry in your beer, not on Facebook.
Political commentary. We live in a politically divided country. While your political rants may endear you to half the population, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re ticking off the other half.
Timing. Even though the lines between work and play continue to blur, the perception that you’re screwing around on Facebook during business hours can be a career killer. Remember, it’s all time stamped. Post your “song of the day” or favorite recipe on your own time.
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