Are you finding it difficult to attract top talent to your company? Do you need ideas for finding extraordinary employees to help with your venture?
If so, Verne Harnish offers some advice on the Fortune website in the form of the following five tips:
1) Focus on your pipeline. Endorsing the view of Brad Smart, author of Topgrading and president of the consultancy Smart & Associates, Harnish says: “View scouting for talent the same way you do customer acquisition so you always have top people in the pipeline.
“Keep an ongoing list of potential hires and stay in touch regularly by, for instance,
e-mailing articles that will educate them about your company.”
You could also ask your key executives to offer suggestions for candidates each month.
2) Be seen in the right places. “Hang out where the people you’re looking for hang out,” Mark Lancaster, CEO of recruiter EmploymentGroup, tells Harnish.
The author also suggests advertising in publications that your targets are likely to read.
3) Try guerrilla tactics. The best talent could be working for someone else. A tactic used by Steve Hall, founder of online auto marketplace Driversselect, is to research who’s won industry awards and then phone them for professional advice. He even leaves notes on cars parked in ‘employee of the month’ spots suggesting the workers contact him to discuss a new opportunity.
4) Tweak the job description. Harnish explains: “Struggling to find the right systems engineer, Jennifer Walzer, CEO of tech firm BUMI, rewrote the job description she was circulating to draw those with the right cultural fit for her New York City tech firm.
“She added ‘highly developed sense of irony and a touch of snark,’ and got 125 applications with five great candidates, one of whom she hired. That’s up from the 120 applications – with zero strong candidates – she received with a standard, HR-style job summary.”
5) Become a celebrity. Promote yourself as an industry expert by writing a book on a relevant topic or speaking at key events.
Source
Five Ways To Find Extraordinary Employees
Verne Harnish
Fortune