Attention Employers And Staffing Companies: Sometimes The Talent You Seek Comes In A Package You Don't Expect

A Parkersburg, WV -based staffing company with an office in Charleston recently scored a public relations coup by getting one of those you-can't-buy-this-kind-of-publicity stories written by Eric Eyre (http://wvgazette.com/News/201009241072).

The thrust of the story was that staffing agencies actually have jobs they can't fill - even in this jobless recovery.

According to marketing executive, Christian Kager, companies are "having a hard time finding qualified individuals willing to work."

I wonder if Kager has considered another reason why open jobs may be going unfilled: so-called staffing coordinators who don't know how to staff and recruiters who don't know how to recruit and front-line HR people who don't realize - or don't care - that sometimes the talent they need is literally looking them in the eye but comes in a package they didn't expect or aren't willing to advance to the next level of the employment process.

As some of my close friends and clients know, I have earned some ridiculous fees finding and recruiting talent and here's what I have observed: qualified people apply for the job but can't get past the HR gatekeeper because he or she is too black, too fat, too old or too gay or too (insert your prejudice here). I have collected 5-figure headhunting fees for "finding" candidates that my clients actually had a chance to hire but had rejected. I know a prestigious law firm that instructed its HR Director not to hire anybody who is "fat, black or ugly."

Take older workers , for example. Workers in their 50s remind front-line staffing coordinators and entry-level HR people of their parents. These twenty-something gatekeepers - let's say it like it is - use their jobs to stock their company with the kind of people they want to socialize with so when the talent they need comes to them in a package that looks like their parents, well, the hiring manager never knows about these older applicants because the twenty-something gatekeeper finds some way to disqualify them.

What's the solution? Simple: get some older workers in the gatekeeping positions. And while you're at it, get some black people and some gay people and some physically challenged people into gatekeeping positions.

If all your staffing coordinators and first-level interviewers are young and white you're going to have a hard time "finding" talent that isn't young and white.

And while you're at it, hire some staffing coordinators and some first-screeners who know how to evaluate candidates who have executive backgrounds, scientific backgrounds and technical backgrounds.

For more on this subject see my "There's No Whining In Recruiting" which first appeared in Business Lexington and later in this blog. Click here to read "There's No Whining In Recruiting". :: http://higginbothamatlarge.blogspot.com/2009/10/theres-no-whining-in-recruiting.html

There's No Whining In Recruiting

Over the past few days I've spoken to several people who tell me that, in spite of the recession and the high unemployment rate, they still have trouble recruiting "good people" so I've decided to post "There's No Whining In Recruiting" which first ran in the "Higginbotham At Large" newspaper column March 22, 2008.

There's No Whining In Recruiting.

Management can’t control the recruitment and selection process then whine about the low quality and poor performance of the people they hire. Everywhere I go, business owners and managers are complaining that today’s job applicants don’t have the right skills, don’t have the right experience, can’t pass a drug test and can’t pass a background check. And don’t get me started on what they say about “Millennials.”

“The right people” are out there. Your competitors are hiring them. If you’re not hiring your share of “the right people,” then stop micro-managing the sales guy and devote some time and thought to figuring out recruiting. Why do you think your company is paying you the big bucks? If you can’t recruit and hire the right people, you can’t manage.

Some common recruiting mistakes:

1. Relying solely on “passive,” advertising-based recruitment. Sometimes the talent you’d like to hire hasn’t written a résumé and isn’t reading job ads. If your so-called “recruiter” simply runs ads then waits for self-selected and unemployed people to send in résumés, you aren’t even getting to talk to people who aren’t looking for a job.

2. Treating recruitment like it’s a Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 job. You’re the one with the need, so why should job applicants have to take a vacation day, miss an hour and a half of pay, lie about their whereabouts or call in sick to interview with one of your 9-to-5, Monday through Friday recruiters? And do you really want to hire someone who called in sick or lied to her boss to interview with you? If you aren’t willing to come in early, stay late or schedule some interviews on the weekend, then maybe you shouldn’t be in management, because management means working whenever necessary to achieve the desired results. You don’t get to control the recruitment/hiring process, then whine about the results you achieve. There’s no whining in management.

While we’re talking about hours, let’s talk about those job fairs some of you like so much. Like managers, job fairs should work the hours necessary to deliver the desired results. Most job fairs are designed to deliver only those job candidates who can be at a hotel or convention center during normal business hours. Some of the people you’d like to recruit are working during the job fair and can’t take time to come downtown, find a place to park, and wait in line to talk to a “recruiter” because your booth is understaffed. And after all that, too often the person in the booth is grumpy and doesn’t seem to know she’s there to recruit people. Not only are these job fairs always held during normal business hours when much of the potential talent pool is at work, the so-called “recruiters” behave as if they consider job fair duty as some kind of punishment. The next time a radio station or newspaper tries to sell you a booth at a job fair designed to deliver only unemployed people and people who can come downtown between the hours of 10 and 5, act like a manager and tell the job fair seller you need a job fair that is open in the evenings or on weekends. Managers get paid the big bucks to buy what the company needs, not what it’s convenient for somebody to sell you. If management demands recruitment solutions that deliver a previously untapped share of the potential candidate pool, somebody will sell it. Good managers don’t squander company resources on job fairs that don’t deliver the right applicants.

3. Pre-judging what a jobseeker might do or how much she might do it for. I’ve recruited some people who happily took huge pay cuts to work for my client. It’s not always about the money. Here’s some top secret, headhunter stuff: you can’t tell what a candidate might do, where she might do it or how much she’ll do it for by looking at her résumé. I once got an engineer to (happily) take a nearly 20 percent pay cut because the job I was offering him was simply more interesting to him than the job he had. The employer calls him “Superman,” because there’s almost no kind of civil engineering this guy can’t do, unless his employer won’t let him do it — which is why I was able to recruit him. You can’t tell by looking at them. If there’s something wrong with your offer, what’s the worst that can happen? The candidate might say no. But she might say yes.

4. Entrusting recruitment to unqualified people. A recruiter at one of Lexington’s largest employers once admitted to me he felt like a “fraud” because he didn’t even understand most of his company’s job descriptions, never mind what skills and qualifications he should be looking for in candidates.

“The right people” are out there. Your competitors are hiring them. If you’re not getting your share, stop whining. There’s no whining in recruitment when you control the recruitment and selection process. If you can’t recruit and hire “the right people,” you can’t manage.