Now Hiring… PLEASE!
We all need good people on our team. Even if we are fully staffed, a successful business is always seeking out top talent. SGITM teaches that managers should spend one-third of their time managing, one-third of their time training, and one-third of their time recruiting. Larry Bossidy once said, “I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day, you bet on people, not on strategies.”
Hiring today is not like it used to be… The tide has turned. Employers can no longer tell employees, “Like it or leave it.” In today’s marketplace, attracting and retaining good employees is a top priority in both large and small businesses.
With the cost of replacing employees at 70 percent to 200 percent of their annual salaries—not including the effects on the business of lost knowledge, declining morale and productivity, and customer dissatisfaction—it is no surprise that four out of five respondents rated employee retention as a serious or very serious issue in a survey conducted by the American Management Association (1997).
“You need to have a hiring process,” said Steve Jobs in The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty.
Let’s examine a five-step process:
Step One: Recruitment Ads
Recruitment is all about finding the right people—but the old rules no longer apply. Today, recruitment includes a serious referral program in your business, radio ads, job fairs and open houses, Internet-recruiting sites, church newsletters, and community organizations. Of course the Internet includes CareerBuilder® and Monster.com®. But many local newspapers also have an online edition, which normally includes a job-search function.
Another option may be recruitment from local career centers at schools and colleges in your state. Go to www.rwm.org for a complete listing, by state, of vocational-school locations, phone numbers, and contact information.
Oh, you can always put an ad in the newspaper, too, I suppose.
Step Two: Initial Call
Have you called your office lately and pretended to be a job-seeker? What did they say? Was it something like, “Yes, you can come by the office anytime and complete an application…”
In today’s market, few, if any, potential employees will “drop by the office” to “complete an application.” Today’s workforce wants instant gratification. If you miss the opportunity to answer their questions now, they will hang up and go to the next call.
Make sure your entire team knows you are recruiting and let them see the ad you place. Have employment applications ready. Make sure you or an on-duty manager is able to speak with every inquirer and is able to clear your/their calendar to meet with the candidate.
Step Three: First Interview
The goal of the first interview is 1) sell the company and the job, 2) let the applicant know what your standards are including drug screens and background checks, 3) be real and don’t sugarcoat things, 4) let the applicant ask questions, and 5) let the applicant know the next steps.
You must first sell the opportunity to the potential employee. This can be accomplished by either a printed presentation in a three-ring binder or a PowerPoint® presentation.
The presentation should include: Your company story (who you are), product story (what you do), service story (how you do it), guarantee story (what makes you different), market potential (room for growth), and how you develop leads (take your company to market).
Step Four: Checks
It is highly recommended that you contact past employers. You may only get verification of length of employment, or you may be surprised by what you may hear. Remember, always ask, “Would you hire _____ again?”
Before proceeding too far in the selection process, be sure to conduct a driving-record check, a drug test, and a national criminal-background check. Some locations include a personality profile, especially for full-time sales positions.
Step Five: Now What?
Once the decision has been made to bring on a new employee, the work has just begun. After all, research has shown that most new hires decide if they are staying or leaving the company within the first five days of employment!
Have you and your team put together a plan. Train, train, and then train. Don’t just get them—keep them!