“I cannot seem to find any good people. What if I cannot find a good candidate?”
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this from small to large companies. I have to wonder many things. Where are you looking? What has caused this need? How complicated is your job? And just how are you defining “good”?
My daughter and I were hanging out during our bedtime routine. I was remarking about how I need to be better at some family things (I do). She remarked very matter-of-factly, “Dad, you know no one is perfect.” Then followed up with “Can you imagine if everyone was perfect?” Can you? I am positive theologians, philosophers and sociologists would argue even this would be a bad thing. An employer reading this might argue, “I am not looking for perfect, just good.” I think they are parallel, albeit not the same thing. My argument would be that either perfect or good, there must a definition. And that definition is very difficult as it would be based on the situation, the context that makes up the goal of having perfect or good. As employers look towards “good”, I am sure they also want great, awesome and perfect. Are they settling? Even if they are, how do you find “good”?
Where are you looking? Some depend on “help wanted” or “we are hiring”. Some use the advertisements or the internet. Did I really say advertisements? What decade am I in, the twenties? Some rely on word of mouth or networking. Which one works best? It depends. It depends on the nature of your business and your market. I handle a lot of wireless retailers, almost exclusively. Think of their product. Which one? I live in Fort Collins, CO. It was ranked one of the best educated cities in the U.S. It is also a university town. Which one? Internet might be a great way to go for both. I am a big fan of networking. Most jobs go unpublished. Get in a habit of establishing networks and peer groups. My fave (I am so not hip, sorry) is active recruiting. The best candidate is the one already employed. Why say active? Wait for it…
What is causing this? Why are you looking? I find most employers are re-actively looking for “good”. And let me tell you, the longer you look and more frantic you are, the more likely you “settle”. Reactionary recruitment is painful to watch. This is why I like active recruitment. It implies you are always looking for talent, for “good”. “But what if I am fully staffed?” Yep, always be looking and working your people resources. “What if I do find someone good (or great)?” Congratulations, unless you want to get rid of Trevor or Tiffany, keep in touch with the someone. If T and T need to go, well, I guess you just won. The point is do not wait until there is pain (I’m sorry, a need). Be proactively looking for “good”.
Is the job that complicated? In some cases, yes. I get that. This then dictates the ways and means in finding your “good”. As my genre is retail, I will stay on that path. Retail is a revolving door. It has one of the worst retention rates. Some better than others and some scary. I will have a post on retention in the coming weeks. Can this job be taught easily? If I come into your organization, will you make this job more complicated than it needs to be? Or even worse, will you hire me and then not give what I need because you think it’s obvious and easy? And you wonder why people get frustrated (oh sorry, you think they are lazy) and leave (oh yeah, they weren’t good and had no work ethic). Did I hit a nerve? “good”.
Define ”good”. I do this exercise in my workshops where I have the learners write down what makes up an ideal (a.k.a. good) employee. The managers begin writing these laundry lists of things. By the way, have you heard that before? Laundry list? Who makes a laundry list? I make grocery lists. Ok, so the managers make these long, incredibly extensive grocery lists of what they expect an employee to be, do or have. I look at it, then look at them and then look back the list. I ask “where do you find this person? Cuz if you could tell me, let’s grow them and make billions.” They laugh and I don’t. The bar has been set at an unimaginable level of expectation. I look for two things and only two. As I have said before, I will not give these away in the blog. Let’s just say they are simple. Why, because I have a training program that helps them with the stuff in the job.
So,
Don’t look everywhere, look where it “produces fruit”.
Be proactive.
Provide an easy-to-follow job.
Define a realistic employee.
Let’s be real. There will someone out there who will say “Isn’t good settling? I look for excellence and expect nothing less. I do not care if I have to look for weeks or months. I will find the right candidate.” This is me giggling right now. My response would be “Umm, that is what I have been talking about.” “What?” Just change the word “good” for “right”. Go ahead, re-read. The post was about recruitment. “Good” was the catalyst.
Someone once said, “You know, no one is perfect.” Good night Gracie.