We hope you had a great New Year and welcomed 2007 with open arms. We've certainly taken pleasure in reflecting on all the great interactions we had in 2006 and look forward to a prosperous 2007.

Whether you are a first-time reader or a previous recipient, we're thrilled to bring you this quarter's edition of the milewalk insight. We offer this free newsletter to the human resources community and hiring officials to help attract and retain the top talent and improve your company's ability to motivate your employees.

As the year ended, we took a few moments to reflect on all the exciting events that occurred. It's our little way of making sure we don't miss “history” as it's happening. As part of all that is newsworthy, we review the economic situation, especially as it relates to helping serve you. The stock market prospered with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 Index, and Nasdaq Composite achieving increases in the neighborhood of 16, 14, and 10% respectively. With these increases, our country's expansion continued for more than 61 months, dating to November 2001! During this time, the economy created nearly 10 million new job positions, despite early complaints of a jobless recovery.

You are the individuals and companies creating this expansion! While previous milewalk newsletters focused on various methods to retain your best and most talented employees, this one helps ensure you capture the best talent.

As a prelude to our chief executive Andrew LaCivita's article – Hire the Best Talent – we included a recent editorial published in Information Week (December 2006). Sharon Gaudin notes that 75% of workers will look for new jobs in 2007. The main commentary helps ensure you don't let these candidates escape once you find them. Happy Reading!



After 12% of employees quit this year, more companies are putting in place special job-retention programs such as extra training and bonuses.

More than 75% of American employees will be looking for a new job in the coming year, according to a new survey.

The study also shows that 12% of companies' workforces voluntarily resigned this year, and managers are more likely to stick around than the people they're managing, according to the 2006 U.S. Job Retention Poll.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), working in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal.com, put together the study by surveying 462 employees and 367 human resources professionals.

"As the economy and job market continue to improve, employee retention poses a greater challenge for HR professionals," said Gail Griffin, general manager of CareerJournal.com, in a written statement. "The top three reasons people voluntarily leave their organizations are for better compensation elsewhere, career opportunity elsewhere, and dissatisfaction with the potential for career development."

Why are they leaving?
Better pay is luring 30% of employees away, while better career opportunities are beckoning another 27%. Dissatisfaction with the potential for career development at their current company is pushing 21% out the door, according to the study.

With 73% of HR professionals reporting that they're concerned about employees quitting, more companies are working harder to keep them around. Forty-nine percent of HR professionals said they implemented special retention processes this past year, compared with only 35% who did it in 2004. Promoting qualified employees, offering competitive merit increases/salary adjustments, and providing career-development opportunities are among the best employee-retention strategies, they reported. Although salary increases often are perceived as the most valuable incentive for employees to stay with their current jobs, they also are among the most difficult to provide because companies are still cautious about the budget expenditure.

"Offering competitive salaries is important to employees. However, compensation alone isn't sufficient for a complete retention strategy," said Susan R. Meisinger, CEO of the society, in a written statement. "Career-development opportunities and work/life balance are also important, and employers must consider these types of benefits in their retention practices if they want to maintain or increase retention at their organizations."



 
The SHRM study is rather alarming. While three of four employees won't actually change jobs in the upcoming year, it's important to note that many of your employees will evaluate other opportunities. In addition to the results cited above, Staffing.org's recent Staffing Index Survey found more than 80 percent of candidates were unhappy with their interviewing experiences. Two-thirds were dissatisfied with ongoing and follow-up communication and two-thirds were dissatisfied with the recruiting function in general. This should serve as a wake-up call to those companies wanting to employ the best talent.

Our current situation seems bright for those organizations hiring (leaving alone the issue of retaining your employees). Companies best positioned to take advantage of the current employment climate use recruiting techniques that not only effectively screen out the poor applicants, but also attract the best. Are you one of those companies? The majority is not.

In the past few years, milewalk has helped dozens of companies recruit top talent. While each company's recruiting process has its own personality, all successful ones have a few common characteristics. They:
Find the best resources through a variety of sources
Hire as quickly as is required to secure the best candidates while their interest remains high
Sell continuously throughout the process
Eliminate unqualified candidates as quickly as possible - Fail Fast!
Maintain a level of checks and balances that insulate themselves from subjective analysis across interviewers and candidates
Portray themselves as welcoming and prepared
Leave a positive impression on every candidate

While there is no single formula to guarantee success, answering a few key questions - before recruiting for any position - will start you on the right path.

Who exactly do we seek? Requirements clarity across recruiters and interviewers is critical. This expedites the process and eliminates much unnecessary interaction with candidates you ultimately will not hire.
How will we evaluate the candidates? Documented, well-defined, and specific criteria are best. In its absence, communicate detailed criteria to recruiters and interviewers so all evaluate against the same benchmarks.
Do we keep the candidates engaged? A process designed to screen and sell will improve your ability to “pull in” the candidates.
Do we eliminate unqualified candidates quickly? Design the interviews so you evaluate the non-discretionary criteria upfront (Fail Fast — If you're going to fail!).
Do we finish well? There are two key points. First, extending an offer is one of the most important interactions in the process. It should be well prepared and carefully considered. If you extend an offer, you want the candidate to accept it. Second, when passing on a candidate, the company should clearly communicate its rationale.

While each company's recruiting process should be tailored to its particular culture, industry, and position, many companies will benefit from focusing on the following across-the-board techniques to improve their ability to hire the best candidates and reduce time spent with unqualified ones.   These techniques are intended to be used in conjunction with effective sourcing and interviewing tactics.

You'll miss a lot of field goals if the goalpost is
moving.

Clarify Requirements
You'll eliminate significant work if you understand exactly who you seek.   Before beginning any search, create a detailed summary of your needs including non-discretionary and discretionary skills, character attributes, required experience, and keys to hire.   Building and maintaining a Career Development Model that outlines proficiency criteria for each level within the organization will not only help with hiring, but also serve as a communication tool to employees.

In recruiting, there is no substitute for understanding a candidate's needs and motivations. There is no faster way to determine whether a candidate will be a good fit for the organization.

Ready the Hiring Process
While it may seem obvious, many companies fall short in gathering and distributing key candidate information. Critical items such as the candidate's motivational factors, susceptibility to change, historical reasons for job transition, compensation history, and hot buttons are omitted from the resume. Capturing this information upfront and briefing the interviewers will improve their ability to evaluate and sell the candidates.



The will to win is nothing without the will to
prepare.
– Juma Ikangaa

Prepare the Interviewers
It's shocking how many interviewers are reviewing the candidate's resume for the first time during the interview. Each interviewer should take the appropriate time to prepare. The length of time and energy may vary from position to position, but this certainly involves more than a simple resume review. Spend a few minutes with your internal or external recruiter discussing the candidate. Plan the areas to probe and sell. At the end of the interview, document the key points to aid subsequent interviewers.

Engaging the candidate shows her you view this process as a two-way street, a partnership. It says – this is how it is to work with us.

Engage the Candidate
You want to keep the candidate interested at all times. The easiest way to do this is through timely and responsive communication. After each interview, get back to the candidate (or third-party recruiter) within 24-48 hours. Provide detailed feedback, insight, and discuss next steps to show courtesy and interest on your part. Studies confirm most candidates feel companies do this poorly. This is one of the best opportunities to set your organization apart.


You may be the best company, but if you don't sell yourself and your organization throughout the entire hiring process, you'll lose candidates to lesser companies that
do.

Sell the Company
The days when an employee was honored to have any job are over (at least for the time being). The statistics prove it, salaries are rising, and companies are extending more counter offers than in recent years. You need to sell if you want to hire the best. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future.

There are several techniques you can use. Some are overt, while others are subtle. Some are verbal and others are action-based. Use them all. Here are a few:

Advertise – Publicize the unique attributes of your company. In the Internet age with scads of information at our fingertips, the candidate will likely educate herself. Even so, it's worth pointing her to places where your company has been recognized for special achievement. This is especially important for a privately-held organization. It's also a great touch if the interviewer proactively offers what attracted him to the company or why he has stayed so long. This is a golden opportunity to show your enthusiasm and excitement.

Show Interest – A prepared interviewer shows the candidate the company is interested in her. Accentuate this by leaving ample time during the interview to allow the candidate to ask questions. And, get back to the candidate within 48 hours. This demonstrates interest and courtesy on your part and will leave the candidate with a great impression irrespective of whether you hire her.

Always Close – Throughout the entire process, ask questions that extract how the candidate feels about the organization. Find out what is required for the candidate to accept an offer. This exposes the candidate's evaluation criteria – something to know well before you decide to extend an offer.

You will fail sometimes. In those instances, fail as fast as you can and move
on to something more
worthwhile.

Fail Fast
Most companies spend far too much time with unqualified candidates, even though many ultimately reach the correct decision not to hire them. A good recruiting engine eliminates the unqualified early. The single most effective way to do this lies in the structure of the first interviews. These interviews should be designed to extract the candidate's qualifications (non-discretionary) relative to the position or cultural fit within the company. This requires pointed questions that elicit information you want rather than information the candidate wants to share. The “Tell me about yourself?” question may have its place, but usually leads to the candidate controlling a significant portion of the interview. Most open-ended questions are less effective early and should be reserved until later in the process.

Prepare to succeed. If you've done everything well thus far, you will have the necessary information to prepare an offer the candidate will accept.

Prepare to Extend the Offer
Irrespective of who presents the offer (HR, Hiring Official, etc.), this individual should understand the candidate's entire value package (see Newsletter Q1 2006 for more detail). The value package includes the candidate's criteria in evaluating the opportunity (culture, role, professional development, flexibility, etc.). Once understood, the hiring official can frame the offer discussion to first address how the company satisfies the criteria and subsequently explain the compensation structure. This allows the hiring official to connect emotionally with the candidate (see Hire the Candidate below) before discussing the monetary components. It also establishes how much “value” the offer truly has.

Of equal importance, the hiring official should anticipate any candidate objections and prepare – in advance – key rebuttals. This is an excellent exercise to perform with the HR group.

Due to the gravity of this choice, you may need to address emotions in addition to logical thinking.   Make sure to cover these factors that often seem to accompany a decision of this magnitude.

Hire the Candidate
As mentioned in the Prepare to Extend the Offer step, make sure to script the format of the offer discussion to first address how the company satisfies the candidate's value package criteria.   In addition, the hiring official can discuss other key areas that will draw the candidate emotionally closer:

  Why the candidate was chosen (we feel a connection with you)
  There was competition for the position (they will feel like they won something)
  What the future looks like (they will have something to look forward to)
  The company's recognition that this is a big decision and you want them to take the appropriate time to consider

After you've extended the offer, it's effective to suggest a follow up lunch or phone call midway through the candidate's “thinking time”. This shows consideration and presents an opportunity for you to gauge the candidate's interest level and concerns.

Granted, your organization may be stronger in some areas than others. Either way, focusing on improving these techniques will help you better secure the best talent and quickly eliminate the unqualified ones. You will be much happier with the results and improve the candidate's experience as well.


 


About the Author

Andrew LaCivita is the chief executive of milewalk, an executive recruiting and human capital consulting company located in Chicago, IL. He has consulted for over 70 companies throughout his career and publishes this free newsletter to the human resources community in hopes it will help you attract the top talent and improve your ability to motivate your employees. After all, as Jim Collins indicates in Good to Great…people aren’t your greatest asset, the right people are. For a more complete biography, please visit the milewalk website.

 
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