With the high demand of finding top performers, apply these four techniques to stop wasting time with the wrong candidates.
- Focus on high probability candidates – Like weak logs lying around in the forest, there are plenty of weak candidates about. Stay away from the Lazy Logs. There is a reason they are beating down your door; they generally turn out to be underperformers. Unless you’re one of the top employers-of-choice in town and you exceed average selling and retention rates, don’t spend too much time recruiting people who are the absolute best-of-the-best, who are on the way up within their own companies, have no reason to leave, have big egos, may not be team players, and could be difficult to manage. Instead, build a relationship with these folks and leverage the relationship into a resource. Ask these people for referrals. Primarily target the reasonable individuals who are not the classic job seekers but are great performers who have to be asked directly before they will consider another job. You have a higher probability of ‘landing’ and retaining these candidates.
- Identify their career chasm – Prequalify candidates based on the gap between where they are now in their careers and where they would like to be in two years. You can identify where they want to be by using a short questionnaire or an interview (see appendix). If the gap between where they are now and where they want to be won’t be significantly filled by this job opportunity, pass on the candidate rather than disappoint them as an employee. Don’t just throw an opportunity in front of a candidate before doing market research on the candidate. You do it for customers, why not for candidates?
- Spend your resources where they count – Develop a system to track your success rate in attracting and closing candidates. Based on your success rate of landing various levels of talent, allocate your time and budget resources toward the type of candidate you have the highest probability of landing.
- Measure the quality of hire – Develop a system of measuring your “quality of hire.” Check to see which type of candidate performs best on the job. Use performance appraisals or rankings after six months and one year on the job to see which source produces the best results.
Written by TalentClick CEO Greg Ford, M.Ed. and Dr. John Sullivan.
