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You’ve written your job descriptions, trolled your networks, and sought out employee referrals. You’ve posted your positions on the monster boards and you’ve spent hours scanning the boards for posted resumes. Your budget has been finalized and your head count approved. Your next challenge is finding and attracting the best candidates for the least amount of resources. Here’s how to find those critical hires!
Target Your Search Strategy To Your Specific Position:
For general talent where large volumes of positions are open, we recommend a classified advertising approach as the most economical and efficient method of hiring. An example would be hospitality workers, carpenters, nurses, sales representatives…any position where there are both volume openings and a large pool of qualified candidates. We recommend that you use not only the internet job boards to post your positions, but your local area newspapers, as well.
For executives and for limited, hard to find, talent, we recommend that you do not utilize the classified method for more than sixty days. The cost for classified ads on both the web and in your local newspaper is minimal. Casting your net broadly for a General Manager ‘might’ elicit the desired response, but it is also likely that the General Manager you want to attract, is very busy running an organization and is not reading the classified ads. The logic behind trying this method for up to sixty days, is that you may catch someone looking to move to your area who is researching and wanting to find your company.
No matter what your business may be, people are still your most valuable resource. Finding the best isn’t easy, but hiring the best always brings the greatest results. For those most difficult to fill positions where finding the best is your strategy, we recommend that you turn to a qualified, seasoned recruiter in your industry sector, and, if possible, in your area.
“There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.”
 --Aldous Huxley
Retained Search vs. Contingency Search And What That Means To Your Bottom Line: Retained search means researching, collaborating, targeting, engaging and securing the best candidate for your specific position. It means assuming responsibility for the completion of the search from a ‘no matter what’ perspective. It means that the retained recruiter and the hiring managers work in concert to strategically hire-in the most talented individuals.
Retained search means that you spend less time reviewing resumes, seeing volumes of candidates that don’t hit the target, and more focused time on seeing several fully qualified candidates and closing them. It means access to deep relationships with industry leaders in your sector who are willing to participate in your search for the ideal candidate.
Effective retained search is a fast, efficient, economical approach to hiring in the most sought after resources. Sound good?
Now your only task is to find such a retained recruiter to work with you. We recommend that you ask friends in your industry sector who have been successful to introduce you to their retained recruiter. If this fails to uncover the appropriate recruiter, then you must research, investigate and check references. We strongly recommend that you meet with the recruiter in person and ask them to work closely with the hiring managers to achieve success. Any seasoned recruiter should have a list of past clients, list of positions successfully filled and references.
Contingency recruiting means a broader range of exposure to candidates. Many contingency recruiters draw their candidates from the same monster boards that you can access, plus large databases of resumes, and possibly their own internal databases built over years. Most contingency recruiters are also in competition with other contingency recruiters, as well, as your own in-house organization.
This does not mean to imply that many contingency recruiters do not work hard and produce good results. We have known several who are very committed to their clients and have produced excellent results.
The challenge for a contingency recruiter lies in lack of focus. If an employer has not committed to a recruiter, and that recruiter spends time locating and introducing talent only to receive no response, they will, for economic need, look elsewhere for income. You must decide how much a focused, strategic approach is worth to your organization.
Questions To Ponder:
 How much have you saved and how much have you lost over the past year by assigning top priority assignments to your in-house recruiting staff who do not have the time, experience or connections to locate the talent you need?
How much have you saved by enforcing stringent percentage guidelines for a number of contingency recruiters?
How many critical positions have not yet been filled?
How much does this lack of talent affect your over-all company performance?
How much is your time worth?
How much value would you assign to the time your teams must take to interview volume candidates who never make the grade?
How much time has been invested in teaching your teams how to interview, and how to hire the right candidates?
How much has your stock been impacted by having a demoralized team of overworked and under informed employees?
The above questions are invaluable in determining the best route to filling your positions, whether they be mid-level workers or high level executives.
Designate a person, whether in-house staff or a retained specialist, who will take responsibility and work diligently to produce the kind of ‘no matter what’ results that are mandatory to your success. This will save you both time and money and have strong impact on your bottom line.
“There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one’s maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.”
--Buck Rogers
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