By Michael Murphy

When you are trying to recruit good talented employees for your company there are two facts that can really, really, really make the job more difficult. The first is......a real tight labor market. The second is......a not so tight labor market. That's right. Whether the local labor market you recruit from is tight (that is very few people available or looking for work) or not so tight (that is lay-offs and a climb in the number of first time unemployed looking for work) the job of recruiting good talented employees is complicated. Below we have provided you with a few tips for improving the odds that you will find the right person for you. Good luck from all of us here at PCSi.

Develop a pool of existing applications. Many companies have adopted a policy of not accepting applications on a routine basis. This is often done for obscure reasons or is a relic of a policy developed years ago by an HR person who did not want to be bothered by "walk-ins." Reverse that trend. Let it be known that you are accepting applications. Many times local television stations will provide free listings of companies that are hiring in their local market. Be sure to give them a three-sentence job description and a salary or wage range. This is great free advertising and it gets your company name out to the general public. Once the applications start coming in don't let them languish in a filing cabinet, never read, never reviewed. By using any of a number of spreadsheet programs you can establish a database to track applications. You may want to include "cells" for: applicant name; date submitted; areas of experience; areas of knowledge, skills and abilities; level of education; amount of experience; telephone number and address. Tracking such key words will help you to identify a pool of applicants when you need someone. Also consider rating the applicant based on the information on the application on a scale of one to five with one being "not on your life" and five being, "catch'em before they get out of the parking lot."

Grow your own talent pool. As Dorothy told the Wizard: "There's no place like home." Develop internal systems for recognizing talent, and developing it for better paying jobs with more responsibilities within your organization. Internal recruiting and promotion can have a positive effect on employee morale and gives you the benefit of having someone who already knows "the system" taking on more responsibility. Generally a multiple step selection process can help with this. Get your existing managers and executives involved in the assessment process. Identify achievers and team players and then match them with mentors who will help them to develop the inherent talents. Make it a team effort and it will be more effective and have more "buy-in" by all involved.

OK, so you're a good employee but what have you done for me lately? One often over looked source of applicants is the existing employee base. Believe me your current employees know of people, often good people who would be a good fit for your organization. You might consider offering an incentive to encourage referrals. One client used a program called "Nifty Fifty." The idea being that an employee who refers an applicant who is hired and completes the introductory period receives a bonus of $50.00. The program serves to get the word out that you could use some help recruiting and you appreciate their assistance. Give it a try and see if it works for you.

Don't argue with people who buy ink by the barrel...but try to get them to use some ink on your company. Have you ever noticed how every city has a few employers who everybody knows about and wants to work for? (Sorry Mrs. Brown. I know I should never end a sentence in a preposition). How do they do it? One way is to get good positive PR with local media. Perhaps you can sell yourself to the local media as an "expert" in human resources and personnel matters. Two or three minutes on a local television station serving as an expert on career planning or EEO matters will provide you and your company with a world of exposure. If you are camera shy see if someone else in the management structure is willing to help out. Believe me there is a "ham" out there somewhere. Exposure leads to interest. With time and persistence you get better known. People begin to talk about your organization and that leads to interest and to applications. Also, such efforts are great for networking purposes. That is it just might help your career too.

Set up a 900 number. Not really. I just put that there to get your attention. Another idea for attracting applicants is to have a 24-hour per day hot line. This should be a toll free number. It should provide a listing of the types of jobs your organization hires for plus any openings that might exist right now. It is an easy and cost effective way to share information with persons in the community who may be interested in discovering what your organization is and what kinds of jobs may be available. If you manage to get on the local television or radio station don't be afraid to speak up about your toll free hot line number.

That spider's web...that internet. For a certainty the dot.coms are not what they used to be. Even so that is no reason for an aggressive HR department to overlook the internet as a potential source of good applicants. If you read in the paper or hear through other media that a local company is going out of business or laying off it might help to call and speak to their HR people. It may be that they will allow you to post job openings on their web site and they may even advertise it for you to their employees. The incentive for them is to reduce their unemployment compensation exposure. If you can get a press release out you may even earn some local media exposure to your efforts to keep the local population gainfully employed. You get a crack at some potentially good employees. You may get some good local media attention and exposure. Good citizens find good jobs in your company. Everybody wins. Sounds like a good idea.

That's enough for now. Obviously we could go on about using trade journals, schools, churches and other means for recruiting. The above are some ideas we have used successfully at PCSi. If you know of others or if you have used others that have worked well for you please forward them to us at pcsiconsultant@aol.com. If we like them we will add them to this article and give the credit to you. Good luck to all of you hard working HR types out there and we hope all goes well with you.

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