Lack of planning and poor execution are the two most common causes of failure, whether it’s fighting a war, launching any type of business initiative, or reallocating recruiting resources. When business conditions change, appropriate planning and reallocation of effort becomes even more important. When done properly, you’ll be able to anticipate problems before they cause too much damage. From a recruiting perspective, this planning needs to start by understanding the mindset of potential candidates while they contemplate switching jobs as economic conditions worsen.

In a slowing economy, consumers tighten their belts a bit, reduce discretionary spending, eat at home more often, and decide to take fewer investment and career risks. This is a natural reaction to a negative change in economic conditions. Typically, those who have lost their jobs or those in jeopardy of losing theirs get more aggressive hunting for something new. They also become less discriminating as the steady paycheck becomes more important than the future opportunity.

Those who are fully employed, but who are looking, become less active in the job market and wait for conditions to improve. Those with above-average jobs become reluctant to switch, since there will be little else available if the new job doesn’t work out. Under these conditions, the quality of active candidates responding to ads declines, and it takes increasing effort to attract passive candidates. Bear in mind that even if your company is not directly affected by the slowdown, your future candidates will be, since they all read the news.

Under current business conditions (Q1, 2008) here are some ideas you might want to incorporate into your upcoming sourcing and recruiting planning process. When executed properly, they’ll allow you to handle an economic slowdown without compromising candidate quality. Even better, when the economy begins expanding, you’ll be in a position to increase your share of top performers at exactly the right moment.

Sourcing, Recruiting, and Hiring Ideas to Offset the Economic Jitters

1. Convert Jobs into Careers. Top people aren’t about to switch jobs unless they’re convinced the new position offers a dramatic increase in scope, responsibility, impact, and growth. You’ll need to be able to describe this in clear detail and be able to prove your case. As you know, I recommend the use of performance profiles to define real job needs rather than job descriptions. These are even more important in slow economic times. Everyone on the hiring team must not only agree to what the job entails at the project and detail level, but also be able to communicate the importance of the job and the long-term aspects. Candidates will become more concerned and less likely to accept an offer if all of the interviewers aren’t on the same page.
2. Job Branding. When you tie a job to an important project or major business initiative, the job has more perceived value. This is a process called job branding. For example, a call-center job can be made more important when it’s described as the primary interface with a company’s customers. A sales rep position focusing on opening a new territory critical to the company’s business strategy enhances the value of the role. This concept must be incorporated into every job, every ad, and every conversation with your candidates. Collectively, it will go a long way into reducing the risk associated with a job change.
3. Define a Career Path and Prove It. It’s unlikely a top person will accept your offer unless you can convince the person your opportunity has more upside than does the person’s current situation. This means you have to tell the person how he could be promoted or how the job could be expanded. Not only can’t you be evasive here, you must also introduce candidates to others who have taken on these larger roles.
4. Leverage Your Employee Referral Program (ERP). Top performing passive candidates are more likely to value the input of someone they personally know, especially when there’s risk in changing jobs. Ask your employees to sign-up for LinkedIn, link to you, and then proactively build a network of all of the best people they’ve worked with in the past. Since you can see the profiles of these former associates, you can quickly determine who are the best people to target for your critical job openings. Have your employees make a pre-call introducing you, the company, and the importance of the opportunity. Here are some other tips on leveraging LinkedIn for recruiting passive candidates and how to link to me to get an instant network of 250,000 people.
5. Lengthen the Process. Slow down. Top passive prospects will need more time to evaluate the risk of changing jobs. Not only will they need to convince themselves but also their circle of advisors. Use this extra time to present more specific job and career information and get the person to meet more people in your company. As long as everyone’s on the same page, the candidate will become more comfortable with the new team members and the hiring manager. She’ll also view your hiring process as more selective, recognizing that you don’t want to make a hiring mistake either.
6. Move to a Consultative Selling Model Versus a Transactional One. Too many interviewers still think the interview is primarily about assessing competency. When dealing with top performers, this is less important than using the interview to find gaps and voids in the candidate’s background that can be filled by taking your job, if offered. (Here are some articles describing how to use the interview as a recruiting tool.) As long as they’re not too wide, these gaps and voids represent learning and growth opportunities for the candidate. This is how you use the interview as a consultative selling tool. When done properly, the candidate will sell you on why she’s qualified for the job and, in the process, convince herself why it’s a worthy career move.
7. Provide a Safety Net to Minimize Risk. Broaden the use of employment contracts to offset some of the risk with the job change. These need to cover a wider range of positions, including mid-manager and senior staff and offer more coverage. The contract needs to reflect the idea that the person being hired will only be entitled to a payout if the job is eliminated, not if the person is terminated due to sub-par performance.
8. Differentiate Your Jobs and Expand Your Sourcing Efforts. Stop writing boring ads with generic titles filled with skills and experience requirements. This is one sure way to turn off good candidates on the margin. Instead, start writing compelling ads that incorporate some of the job branding and career focus ideas mentioned above. Then, email these compelling ads to everyone in your resume database and send them to your employees, asking them to e-mail them to those in their network. This is a good way to reach top people who are sitting on the fence hoping something better comes along.
9. Increase the Comparative Risk of Not Changing. Use the idea that the decision to stay in a current job can be a bigger risk than changing jobs when first contacting prospects. As part of this, suggest that you’d like to present to the candidate a unique career opportunity that offers both current stretch and long-term growth. Mention that you’d like the chance to prove your case and, as a minimum, include the person in your network for future opportunities. If the opportunity you’re representing is truly a better short- and long-term opportunity than the person’s current role, the person would be hard-pressed not to seriously consider it. During the evaluation process, you might uncover areas of risk in the person’s current job that weren’t initially considered, including company stability and industry growth prospects.
10. Source from Companies and Industries that Are in Worse Shape. A performance profile allows you to shift the sourcing decision from identical jobs from competitors to comparable jobs in other industries. This alone expands the candidate pool. From a passive candidate sourcing standpoint, you need to proactively seek out top people in equivalent jobs in industries that are faring worse than yours. This immediately offsets the risk factor of changing jobs. For example, we recently placed an executive in the construction industry into a comparable job in the alternative energy field. It didn’t take much convincing to demonstrate the positive aspects of our job in a more stable and fast-growing industry.

While many of these ideas are applicable regardless of the economic cycle, the emphasis here is to clearly focus on the idea of minimizing risk and emphasizing the long-term opportunity. To pull it off, you’ll need a game plan, trained recruiters, and more involvement by every member of the hiring team. But when things get tough, the people involved need to get tougher to handle them.

Please forgive me. You already know me…by proxy, in the very least.

From the pages of Us Weekly (the generality implied in this paragon of journalism’s very name) to the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership (which, unlike the former, sadly discounts the impact of celebrities eating salad on the collective psyche of the nation), I’ve been psychologically deconstructed and catalogued more extensively than any personage in the annals of history. I am the subject of hundreds of articles, dozens of books, and won Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” for 2006. Not bad for someone barely old enough to rent a car.

You see, I am a millennial, or a member of Generation Y, or whatever else you want to label me. It doesn’t really matter; those of us born from 1978 to 1995, the accepted range for the above categorizations, almost unilaterally ignore such labels (I’ll refer to my generation as “millennials” for the sake of this article, but only because it sounds kind of cool, like an army of androids in some sci-fi flick).

This doesn’t seem to stop the world from trying. Corporations, in their nonstop quest to attract top talent, are among the worst offenders. Many of us feel like Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction: You want us bad, which is kind of flattering, but recently, it’s gotten out of hand and is kind of creepy.

Any effort to study my generation en masse and pin down our inner workings misses the point entirely. In fact, we share a single commonality. And here, presented to you, is the key to understanding millennials: We have no collective identity. There you go. None. Our only shared motivation is, at its heart, to be unique. Try to lump us into a convenient group, and you’ve already failed at the single most important thing to us: the retention of our identity as individuals.

You’d never know that from the volumes written about how to attract and retain top millennial performers, recent college graduates, and professional up-and-comers. Here, we are painted in the broadest brushstrokes possible, and recruiters and corporations are widely tailoring their messages and redoubling their efforts to position themselves as “cutting edge” and “cool” places to work.

Advance these programs with caution, because many of us see this as transparent pandering, and it is more likely to turn us off than actually interest us. We don’t want to sit at the kiddy table, and the more a recruiting message focuses on how an organization nurtures and grows young talent, or is “hip” to what millennial candidates want (stated or unstated), it often has an unwanted side effect.

By and large, thought leadership is correct in assuming that we do not want to pay our dues and have an unearned sense of entitlement. By differentiating us at the attraction/interview process from our prospective colleagues, or by even having these programs in existence, the message we hear is less “we understand your wants and needs” and more “there are enough people your age here to justify these initiatives, and there’s a regimented program in place that is likely to strip you of much of your autonomy and individualism.”

In the recruitment process, the onus should be placed not on how the corporation has shifted its practices and values to reflect the presumed values of millennials, but rather on spelling out how that candidate’s unique experiences and talents would tangibly contribute to the organization, and how the position itself helps the larger organization function. You better make it about us, not you, in the interview process, and by that I mean your value proposition is no longer, “what can the company do for you” but rather, “here’s what you can do to make the company better.” We’re not opposed to hard work, as long as we understand how our little “siloed” tasks serve a greater purpose and are going to be recognized.

Make sure that your recruiting message is focused on immediate learning and development opportunities in the role that the candidate is interviewing for, i.e., the ability to acquire new and in-demand skill sets. By setting forth a codified and regimental career path or touting career mapping (a selling point for many top organizations), the intended message is often heard by the candidate as “no matter how bright you are, no matter how much you exceed expectations, there’s an entrenched system for advancement and we don’t make exceptions.”

No matter what the advancement path in your company looks like, informal recognition and the ability to contribute beyond the narrow dictates of a job description are more effective value propositions to us than long-term rewards. Raised in an age of downsizing and restructuring (terms many of us have learned from our parents the hard way), millennials expect no true loyalty from corporations, and we expect that companies implicitly desire none from us.

The most effective value proposition to the millennial candidate isn’t selling the organization, it’s selling the perception of the role’s prestige against the marketplace. In other words, the best way to attract the millennial worker is by positioning how the role will look on a resume when the candidate is ready to move on. We have no realistic expectation that we will have long tenures in our jobs; we expect to change companies and roles, and to do this often.

The key, then, is not separation but, rather, inclusion. The only reason we act differently is that you are treating us differently. Starting out on a career is still the first rite of true adulthood and independence for a huge majority of us, so we expect to be treated as adults. And, reports of us as spoiled, arrogant brats have been greatly exaggerated. The much maligned “helicopter parent,” for instance, is my favorite anecdote and is well consigned to the dustbin of urban legends, with a place next to alligators breeding in the sewer system.

Think about when you were graduating college. This much has not changed: We want to distance ourselves from our parents as much as possible, and we are mortified at the very thought of their involvement in our professional lives. Our parents are not “The Greatest Generation.” Our parents, instead, transformed ABBA into pop icons. They voluntarily went to discos and drove us around in station wagons with wood-paneled interiors. In other words, we don’t give much credence to their tastes. The job search is no exception to this rule.

So, we’re really not a separate species after all, and, like Britney Spears (who is still a better musician than any member of ABBA), are unworthy of the attention heaped upon us in correlation to our accomplishments. But feel free to continue.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author only and do not necessarily represent the views of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. nor any of its employees or agents.

That’s the premise behind Notchup.com, a recruiting Web site that launched this month. It promises to deliver quality, passive candidates, the kind of worker who is happy where they are, but who, like any smart networker, is open to new opportunities.

The quality part of the candidate equation comes from Notchup’s screening process that lets in only candidates who “will be attractive to companies and receive offers to interview,” or so says the Web site, which goes on to explain that the criteria includes graduation from a top U.S., international or other highly regarded school, experience with a Fortune 500 company, fast career climbers and workers at startups backed by first rate venture capital firms.

Once in, the candidate gets to set their interview fee with the help of a calculator. Just how that works is nowhere explained, but we suspect it takes into account standardized headhunting fees for the candidate’s industry and career position.

Will companies use the site and pay candidates for interviews? Notchup claims that among others, Google and Yahoo already are. Though with the site officially in Beta chances are good the listed firms are getting comped to test the system.

Meanwhile, judging from the response to an article on TechCrunch about the launch, potential participants are already thinking of how to game the system. One poster, representative of several comments, observed: “Here’s a thought….will this create an army of would be employees whose sole job will be to get interviewed by all these companies and make a living?”

We didn’t get to speak with anyone from Notchup.com, however, there is a description of a feedback and rating system. Recruiters rate candidates on how seriously they took the interview and on the accuracy of their resume. Presumably, serial interviewers will get tagged as such and won’t be pursued.

Around the world, the consulting firm BlessingWhite found that people just seem less interested than they used to be in sticking around. A year ago, 65% “definitely” planned on staying through the end of the year. Now, 58% are ready for that sort of commitment. Below are the survey results.

Whether you realize it or not, every firm has two brands: a product brand and an employment brand. And, of the two brands, quite often the stronger one of the two is the product brand. Rather than bemoaning that fact, the key lesson to be learned by recruiting managers is that if you can successfully piggyback on potential applicants’ current knowledge and trust in your product brand, you can, in turn, dramatically bolster your employment brand and your recruitment results.

Like It or Not, You Have an Employment Brand

Every firm has an employment brand because current and former employees, the media, bloggers, and others are constantly commenting on and spreading stories about what it’s like to work at “your” firm. And, with the growth of the Internet, finding either positive or negative information about what it’s like to work at any firm is becoming ridiculously easy. Obviously, you can’t avoid having an employment brand, but you can certainly take steps to sculpt or strengthen your brand image as an employer.

It’s important to note that just as strong product brands have a powerful impact on sales, strong employment branding may be the most powerful strategic tool available to recruiting managers. Employment brands dramatically impact both the quality and the volume of the applicants that your firm receives. If that power can be bolstered by linking an employment brand with your firm’s already strong product brand, you can dramatically reduce most recruiting and retention problems.

There Is Frequently a Weak Link Between Product Brands and Employment Brands

Many firms are well-known for their products and that product “reputation” is known as your product brand. Firms like Google, GE, and Microsoft all have product brands valued at over $50 billion apiece. Some firms have great product brands like Post-its notes (3M), Smucker’s, Pledge (S.C. Johnson), and Clorox. Unfortunately, few individuals automatically make the connection that if these firms make such great products these companies are also probably excellent places to work!

Let’s take a firm like Smucker’s. Almost everyone knows and even likes their products and their advertising, but how many people think of Smucker’s as an employer? Now you might be thinking to yourself, “I don’t have any skills or interest in crushing fruit, so why should I consider a jam manufacturer as an employer?” But obviously, a large firm like Smucker’s also needs thousands of professionals in finance, HR, marketing, supply chain, etc. And, in addition, you and most of Smucker’s customers probably have no clue that they are headquartered on Strawberry Lane in Orrville, Ohio (if they did, many would consider it a desirable place to live and work?).

What this example illustrates is that a firm like Smucker’s has successfully built a strong product brand, but it has failed at doing an equally good job at building its image as a place that most Americans would consider as their next employer. If Smucker’s (or your firm) could successfully link having a great product with being an excellent place to work, it (and your firm) could easily and inexpensively improve recruiting results.

How to Take Advantage of Your Firm’s Strong Product Brand

There are many ways to link a strong product brand with a firm’s employment brand image, including:

• Get Added to “Best Companies to Work For” Lists. Firms that successfully land on “best places to work” lists receive a great deal of media exposure. Everyone that is named on one of these major lists also gets a boost in applications, but that bump is even bigger for firms with great product brands but weak employment brands. The reason for this significant bump is that there is an almost-instant mental connection when someone sees a well-recognized product brand on these lists. That reaction is usually something along the lines of “Well, that makes sense. They produce a great product, so why wouldn’t they also be a great place to work?” Because that firm’s product reputation is already strong, it’s easy for individuals to quickly make the positive connection between the firm having a great product and the firm being a great place to work.
• Run “Connected” Ads. An employment brand can be easily strengthened just by including a simple mention in regular TV or print ads about how the firm is also an excellent place to work. Wal-Mart, for example, successfully alternated “great place to work” TV commercials with their traditional product ads. Ads with an employment related slogan include “At Seattle’s Best Coffee, you can make a difference in someone’s day and in your career!” Or, just note that your firm has been recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the 100 best places to work.
• Employee Dress. You can ask employees to wear clothing that let individuals know you are an excellent employer. For example Wegmans markets had employees wear T-shirts once a week noting that they were one of the 100 best places to work (they have been number one on the list). Other firms ask employees to wear buttons related to their employment brand (e.g., “Ask me what it’s like to work here!”).
• Signage. If you’re a retail organization, you should make it clear to everyone who passes through your doors that you are a great employer (Starbucks puts the “100 Best Companies to Work For” decal on their front doors, and Continental Airlines painted the fact that they were a Fortune 100 best-place winner on one side of their airplanes). If you’re not a retail operation, consider replacing your current external “we are hiring” sign with a “people just love working here” or equivalent sign to send the message that you are a top employer.
• Recruit Your Customers. If you are a retail operation, consider putting small, freestanding cardboard signs by your cash registers to let your customers know that you are looking for people with exceptional sales or customer service skills. (Starbucks excels at educating its customers at the cash register, and McDonald’s once replaced its traditional “would you like fries with that” note on its paper tray covers with a message that conveyed “would you like a job with that”.)

  If you’re not a retail operation, consider including a small employment branding/recruiting brochure in your product packaging, since these customers are A+ potential recruits because they already love your product. Or highlight what makes you a great employer somewhere in the product instruction materials. If you keep a mailing list of your customers (or send out billing statements), consider sending your best customers a subtle recruiting message inferring that if they love the product so much, they, like others before them, would probably love working there. As part of your message to customers, also make sure that they are also aware that you hire people in areas not directly related to the well-known product itself, like finance, HR, marketing, etc.

• Allow Customer Referrals. Although your customers may love you, some might not be able to physically work for your firm. However, they might enjoy helping your firm by referring other qualified individuals. You can reward these referrers with cash or offer them gift cards or product discounts for successful hires.
• Ask Partner Firms to Help Out. Some firms are reluctant to brag about winning top employer awards. Nevertheless, you can ask or encourage major, strategic partners to take out ads congratulating you, their close partner, for being recognized as such a great employer.
• Your Product Website. Even though product-branding people are notoriously territorial, it’s a good idea to try to get them to at least put a short employment branding slogan (i.e., “working here is an adventure”) or the Fortune “100 Best Company to Work For” logo on your firm’s product website.
• PR and Product Events. Work with PR and marketing to set up a table or distribute information about jobs at public events that are put on by your firm’s PR or product divisions. Employment branding or recruiting information should also be visible at company trade show booths.
• Make it Easy for Applicants to Know Your Employment Brand. Don’t forget to include information about why your firm is a top place to work on your employment application form, on your corporate website, and even within your position descriptions/job announcements.
• Change Your Firm’s Name. Obviously, changing the firm’s name is a radical step, but several companies have found that having a product name that’s different from the firm name has negative impacts on recruiting and stock sales.

Excellence in Retail Point-Of-Purchase Employment Branding

I was in Seattle the other day, and I noticed an example of where a retail firm did an excellent job of spreading its employment brand to its customers. The firm, Seattle’s Best Coffee, which has a strong local product brand, effectively used an in-store sign (next to the cash register) to encourage applicants, while at the same time reminding everyone who read it precisely how the company is different from its better-known mega coffee chain competitor. The powerful point-of-purchase employment-branding card included:

At Seattle’s Best Coffee, you can make a difference in someone’s day and in your career!

We are world known for our personable outstanding guest service!

Our guests are not “just another person in line”! We want to get to know each guest by name!

We are looking for great people who are energetic, self-motivated, engaging, have the look of the leader, and enjoy working with coffee and connecting with people!

We are looking for team members who can live our values and share our vision as well!

Do the right thing

Have fun

Take ownership

Deliver the Best

Final Thoughts

The foundation element of linking product branding and employment branding is that every executive already knows the incredible power and economic value that their product brand has. Rather than having to start from scratch, recruiting just has to convince executives that their firm’s employment brand would also increase significantly in value if it was linked with the firm’s product brand. You might even be able to show your executives that having a great employment brand will actually strengthen their product brand because many individuals naturally equate a firm being an excellent place to work with the idea that well treated workers produce excellent products. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

There are lots of jobs to fill; not enough candidates, and many are poorly qualified; arcane laws around hiring; and fierce competition for talent. Sound familiar? You could be a recruiter for the Roman army in the 4th century B.C.

In the collections of the British Museum, there is a decree signed by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C., promising a reward of 300 sestertii to any soldier who brought another to join the Roman army. This is the first known example of an employee-referral program. And, it’s a generous one at that: The amount represented a third of a soldier’s annual pay. It reflected how serious the Romans were about finding soldiers. They had the first known recruiters and faced many of the same challenges we have today.

Keeping this huge organization staffed up was no small task, since wars were common, turnover was high, and there was a constant need for soldiers and other personnel. In addition to soldiers, the army needed engineers, medical staff, surveyors, carpenters, veterinaries, hunters, and armorers, even soothsayers. As a consequence, the Romans created many of the practices we have today to get the best talent.

Finding soldiers was no easy task, as the Romans had high standards, were saddled with many arcane requirements in hiring, and had plenty of competition for talent. Anyone joining the army had to be a Roman citizen; capable of marching 18 miles while wearing the full uniform, armor, and weapons; and carry 60 pounds of supplies. Despite good pay and bonuses, the somewhat hazardous work environment meant that people did not flock to the army. So, sourcers traveled the length and breadth of the Empire to find suitable candidates.

But laws imposed by the Roman Senate made this task more complicated. A citizen could not just be hired into any position. Roman society was divided into five classes that determined where one could work in the army. The most wealthy, the first class, were the most heavily armed and were equipped with helmets and armor. They carried spears and swords. The lower classes bore lesser armament and weaponry; the fifth class carried no armor at all and was solely armed with slings. Needless to say, they didn’t see much action and their accomplishments were not the stuff of legends. They did perform the vital service of digging latrines, but that didn’t usually lead to being covered in glory. Something else maybe, but definitely not glory.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Following some major defeats to the Gauls (the only known record of the French winning a war unaided, and then they were fighting Italians) and increasing competition for employees as more of the upper classes preferred to work in business or other occupations, the Romans abandoned the class structure for recruitment. Soldiers could be any citizens who were fit and willing to fight. There were also special inducements for experienced soldiers, i.e., veterans.

But this was not enough to meet the needs of the army. Facing difficulties in their wars against enemies like Carthage, the Romans started accepting non-citizens into the army. Since the original purpose of this was to get soldiers for the first war against Hannibal the Barbarian, it became known as the H1-B program. Legions had to demonstrate that candidates met the requirements of being a soldier, were paid the prevailing wage, and no Roman citizens were available to serve. Most who survived the campaign against Hannibal stayed on to become citizens after completing a course in Latin.

Compensation

Since the work had the potential to lower an individual’s life expectancy or quality of life (losing one or more limbs was a common occurrence), pay had to be good to attract the best candidates. Soldiers earned 10-12 pieces of gold per year. Benefits of working for the army included substantial grants of cash or land upon discharge, worth as much as 200 pieces of gold, which was a really good deal and represented 15 years of pay for soldiers who, on average, served about 20.

The Romans certainly knew the value of deferred compensation. Many soldiers also received sign-on bonuses of a few pieces of gold and also a share of the loot from any successful campaign. Even failed campaigns were rewarded. Caligula, after his abortive invasion of Britain, gave all legionaries four gold pieces as a retention bonus.

The Employment Brand

Money and rewards were not enough to get people to join up. So, the army aggressively promoted its symbols, in particular a golden eagle above the letters SPQR, the abbreviation for “the Senate and the Roman People,” signifying that soldiers served these two groups. The Roman army’s symbols were held in awe and represented Roman honor, the recovery of which the Empire itself would go to war for (or so it was claimed). As part of joining the army, a soldier “received the mark,” most likely by tattooing (a benefit available to employees of Nike and Harley-Davidson today). This supposedly meant that a soldier had become part of an elite group. A secondary, though not minor, benefit was that it prevented desertions since deserters could be easily identified.

Temporary Staffing

It was not always possible to obtain the required skills from available candidates or from within the circle of accepted allies, and so the Romans found it necessary to hire mercenaries. Germans, Arabs, Armenians, Persians, and Moors were all hired to help with campaigns to the point at which they often exceeded the Roman legions. All the non-Roman forces, whatever their status, became known as auxilia, or aids to citizen legionaries. They were only supposed to be used to bolster the regular army for short-term needs, but as Rome extended her influence over more and more countries and was perpetually at war, these auxilia in effect became regular soldiers.

Rome found itself making demands on its forces and called an increasing number of different kinds of auxilia into her armies. One reward for being an auxiliary was Roman citizenship. Then, like now, there was not a standardized approach and not every group or tribe was treated alike.

Best Practices

For a long time, all hiring for the army was directed from Rome at the direction of the Consul or leader of the Senate. Provincial governors and commanders in the field had no authority to recruit anyone.

That changed around 50 B.C., when they were allowed to hire locally. Giving the “hiring managers” the authority to pick their own employees made recruitment faster and more efficient, and also made them more responsible for their own successes or failures. Loyalty of the soldiery was transferred from Rome itself to its commanders, the men who could provide them with the loot. This made the army more effective, since the soldiers had been chosen for the tasks their commanders were entrusted with and without regard to consideration for rules imposed by bureaucrats in Rome.

Conclusion

Two thousand years later, how little things have changed. We’re still dealing with the same problems in more or less the same way. There are lessons here. The most significant is that recruitment practices were developed and changed to meet the Empire’s needs for human capital. How little of our own laws support that. They are rooted in conditions and practices that, while not entirely having disappeared, are no longer as relevant today as they were when those laws were enacted.

Successful recruitment is a complex task. It requires knowledge of sources, creativity, and a willingness to make the changes necessary. How many organizations saddle their recruiters with requirements that have little to do with the companies’ purposes and goals? Hiring managers in the field are often supported by a recruitment team in a distant corporate office that has little appreciation of the conditions they face. Employee-referral bonuses are miserly and are doled out with all sorts of preconditions. The biggest changes we have seen in recruitment have been in technology, but not fundamentally in how we recruit.

Yet, for all the innovations in Applicant Tracking Systems, job boards, etc., we’re no better off than Caesar was in 50 B.C. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.

Blogs are hot. Recruiting blogs have sprouted up on a regular basis for months, and competing writers now vie with each other for readership and “followership.” The majority of readers of blogs are Gen Yers, and they are the influencers and indicators of what the future of media may look like.

A survey published last fall by Forrester’s Charlene Li indicates that “24% of Gen Yers read blogs, which is twice as often as the 12% of Gen Xers (ages 27-40) and three times the 7% of Young Boomers (ages 41-50) that read blogs.”

What makes blogs so compelling?

It’s not hard to understand. We live in a sound-bite era. Over the past two decades, people have increasingly turned away from long books and in-depth writing toward short, action-oriented pieces. Books such as Who Moved My Cheese, that are written at a high-school level or lower, are wildly popular. Television led the way by nurturing a generation that reads little and watches video a lot. Hence the popularity of YouTube and magazines such as Discover, BusinessWeek, Fortune, and Fast Company. They have made the short article almost a requirement. Only a handful of publications with small circulations such as The Atlantic or The New Yorker offer readers in-depth articles longer than a few thousand words. Don’t get me wrong, here. I am not complaining (well, maybe a little), I’m just describing what is a reality.

Given this, the Forrester survey findings are not surprising. Gen Y and the younger portion of Gen X are the prime target audience for blogs. And, when they are well written, blogs are a powerful way of reaching younger employees, candidates, and fellow recruiters.

Our industry has a lot of great blogs that are, again not surprisingly, written by Gen X or Gen Y recruiters.

RecruitingBlogs.com recently published the results of its annual readers’ ratings of recruitment blogs, sponsored by ZoomInfo. Here are the winners of that contest in 10 categories, and I urge you to take a look at each one of them. They all follow the rules for an effective blog that I outline below.

1. Overall Recruiting: Six Degrees From Dave
2. Recruiting Blogosphere: Recruiting Animal
3. Third-Party Recruiting: Hiring Revolution
4. Best Recruiting Technology: I, Donato
5. Job Hunting: Wired & Hired
6. Corporate Recruiting: WirelessJobs.com
7. Sourcing/Research: CyberSleuthing
8. Group: Xtra Cheezhead
9. Recruiting Industry: Six Degrees From Dave
10. HR: Gautam Ghosh

Effective blogs are tuned to their readership in many ways, including their tone, style, and even their look and feel. But the following four critical elements have to be in place for a blog to gain the traction that it needs to get a high level of consistent readership.

Short and Fun

First of all, each posting must be short. Entries longer than 500 words are not going to be read, probably not even skimmed, by the average reader. The best entries are most likely 200-250 words and contain lots of white space and breaks. Once in a while, a longer post can be effective if the writer is telling a story about something exciting or has the ability to maintain some level of suspense. But even then it may be better to break the story over a few days to bring readers back.

Pictures and short videos are also useful. Jim Stroud, a recruiter at Microsoft, publishes a fun blog filled with humor and videos that exemplify what I am talking about.

Personal

Blogs gain a great deal of power when the writer is a real person. Heather Hamilton at Microsoft pioneered the idea of writing naturally and honestly. Good blogs are not overly edited or sanitized by the corporate PR department. They may have mistakes or reveal personal facts about the writer that lead the reader to feeling some identity with him or her.

Here is a great example from a recent post by HeatherLeigh: “Marketing plus potty humor.”

“If you don’t appreciate potty humor or clever marketing, don’t watch this.

And, can I tell you how proud I am that this was referred to me by my mother? Yeah, sometimes moms rock, even though I am sure they prefer to remain anonymous (and, right now, she is thanking her lucky stars she has a different last name than mine).”

Story-Based

Tell a story. We are all more likely to become engaged when there is a personal connection, some incident that arouses interest and hooks us into continuing to read.

Here’s an example from Bob Sutton, Stanford professor and author of the best-selling book The No Asshole Rule. As I read this, I want to find out what he said and what happens in the end. Here’s an example from Bob Sutton:

“I was listening to a great show on the other day on Fresh Air, where Terry Gross interviewed Bob Sullivan, the author of Gotcha Capitalism. I started getting quite agitated by the interview, as Sullivan talked about all the ways that credit card companies, hotels, and especially, cell phone companies ‘get us’ with hidden charges and related sleazy practices (listen to it here).”

We all tell stories, relate past incidents, and build relationships around shared experiences. The same applies in writing a blog.

Authenticity

Many blogs gain authenticity simply from their personal nature. We all tend to believe people who have a face, a personality, and are, to some degree, known to us. But, on the other hand, it is also useful to link to other blogs, websites, people who reinforce the posted message. If you look at the example above from Bob Sutton, you can see the links to the NPR show and to the book itself on Amazon.com.

Really good blogs use lots of links and associations to add depth and credibility. By doing this, the author builds trust.

Dave Mendoza, in his award-winning Six Degrees from Dave blog, illustrates all of these points. He uses video very effectively, links widely, uses humor, and introduces personal information in a way that makes him a real person.

Writing a blog is not hard, but it requires understanding these basics. It also requires the author to be engaged, have fun, and reflect his excitement to the readership.

In federal court in New York this morning, McKelvey admitted he “along with others at Monster Worldwide, Inc. routinely selected prices for stock options grants based on historical dates when Monster’s stock price had closed at, or near, a low point, resulting in grants of in-the-money stock options.”

Stock options allow employees to participate in a company’s financial success. But in Monster’s case, prosecutors charged that McKelvey and others backdated options so they would be immediately profitable when granted. The price difference represented compensation to the employee and should have been reported. But it was not.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney in New York City, which prosecuted McKelvey, declined to discuss the status of the case or to say whether other company executives were being investigated. However, a statement by the Securities and Exchange Commission said its investigation into the stock backdating continues.

In court papers prosecutors detailed numerous instances where McKelvey ordered stock grants to specific executives be issued at the lowest price during a certain month or even a quarter. According to the criminal complaint against McKelvey, he discussed backdating with the executives who would be getting the stock grant and even approved use of back dated options as a way to reduce expenses in certain Monster departments.

No Monster executives are named, other than McKelvey and Myron F. Olesnyckyj , the company’s former general counsel who is cooperating with the prosecution as part of a plea deal for a reduced prison sentence.

McKelvey’s admission came in a deal with the U.S. Attorney to defer his prosecution because of an undisclosed terminal illness, widely believed to be cancer.

McKelvey also today settled a lawsuit brought against him by his former company, agreeing to pay it $8 million and to reduce his voting power. McKelvey’s 4.76 million shares are worth 10 votes each versus those of ordinary shareholders. That effectively gave him control of 31 percent of the votes. Now he will control about 7.4 percent.

The change in his voting power could ease the way for the long-rumored sale of the company. When he still headed the company he company he founded, the 73-year-old McKelvey rebuffed potential suitors. Even after retiring in 2006, his voting strength made a buyout difficulty without his support. Now with his voting power diminished and his health failing, speculation about Monster’s possible sale has already begun.

McKelvey also settled a civil action brought against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission and agreed to pay $275,989.72. Although McKelvey is not personally believed to have benefitted from backdating stock options, he had Monster issue options to four personal employees of his. The SEC payment is the value of the options plus interest.

The terms of his deal with the U.S. Attorney include nine conditions. Not among the requirements to remain in the jurisdiction, not commit further offenses and report to a supervising officer is any requirement that McKelvey cooperate with investigators or agree to testify.

The spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney would not say what that means or if he is assisting in the investigation. She also said she couldn’t say how common deferred prosecution agreements are.

Professor David A. Harris at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law told us, “It’s a fairly unusual situation. It’s not something you see a lot.”

You’re at a dealership seated at a desk across from the sales manager. Right across from you on the showroom floor is the very car you’ve had your eye on for several months. One hour until the dealer showroom closes, the sales manager has a contract in front of you stating what he says is “the deal of a lifetime.” Do you sign? It’s a moment of truth.

Another scenario: You think back to your New Year’s resolutions for 2008, with eating healthier at the top of your list. You attend your first business meeting of the year, and it comes complete with sandwiches, salads, and the ever-popular tray of desserts. You finish your salad (sans dressing), sip your water, and eye the cookies. “It’s one cookie,” you say to yourself. “But it’s only January 2,” you counter, “and already temptation is setting in. What about the ‘new’ you?” Do you take one little cookie? It’s another moment of truth.

Many of us have faced our own moments of truth, with varying degrees of impact depending on the circumstances. But how often do we in recruiting (actually, make that all of HR) think about the various moments of truth our employees experience throughout the course of their careers with our organizations?

Our organization has spent a great amount of time researching and understanding the employee experience and related moments of truth, and we’ve found that there are a multitude of moments of truth that span an employee’s lifecycle with a particular organization, starting with the moment he or she is introduced to that organization. These 10 moments of truth are summarized below, with food for thought about how to approach each to ensure the best outcome for the employee and organization when a moment of truth is at hand.

1. First Contact with Organization. The old adage of “first impressions count” couldn’t be more true when it comes to recruiting. Whether a candidate has sought your organization out or vice versa, he or she should be treated with dignity, respect, and the utmost consideration of his or her viability as a potential employee with your organization. Remember that a candidate not deemed to be a fit for one opportunity may be perfect for the next. You want to ensure the hard work you’ve done to attract and develop the candidate relationship is preserved, even if there’s not a fit. Candidates will often tell others about their experiences with your organization and your team, so make sure they convey the “right message,” as it will result in some unexpected recruiting for your organization, even if the candidate spreading the good cheer doesn’t join.
2. The Interview. Hiring managers still struggle with the concept of “mutual interviewing.” It is imperative that we, as recruiters, continue to educate hiring managers about interviews going both ways. The interview is just as much about candidates wanting us as it is about us wanting them. It’s a fact often lost on hiring managers, and it may result in you losing a candidate at the pivotal point an offer is made. The offer is just the icing on the cake; candidates’ impressions are formed at these two moments of truth, so don’t overlook their importance to the recruiting process.
3. Before Day One. The time between an offer acceptance and “day one” (the new hire’s start date) is critical. Oftentimes, the candidate is being wooed by his or her current employer, who may be counteroffering or even filling the candidate’s head with doubts about whether your organization is really the place to be. Don’t go silent during this time. Make sure both recruiters and hiring managers are keeping in touch with the candidate, whether it’s a quick “hi, we’re excited about you coming,” to a more robust exchange when information about the organization is provided. This will enable the candidate to learn about the company in advance and thus get even more excited about the choice he or she has made to join the organization. Providing information and even requisite paperwork before day one will help the candidate assimilate more quickly when he or she eventually joins, and it shows the candidate that your organization values new hires tremendously.
4. Day One. It may sound basic, but make sure the new employee is greeted and recognized when he or she arrives. Unfortunately, the stories about new employees not being able to get past security or being forgotten in the lobby by their managers are not that uncommon. Make sure the candidate is cleared to enter the facility, greeted by the new manager (or, at the very least, a member of his or her new department), and shown the rounds on day one. It’s a special and emotional day for the new hire; ease his or her nerves by ensuring he or she is welcomed, meets others, and is shown his or her space, i.e., the new home away from home. Try to minimize the amount of administrivia the new employee is subjected to on day one; use the steps outlined in Moments of Truth #3 and free up time for the new hire to have fun on day one.
5. First Feedback from Manager and Team. First, make sure this happens! All too often, months will pass as a new employee wonders what his or her manager thinks of him or her and how things are going. Don’t leave it to chance or wait for the new employee to ask. Ensure managers are proactive and timely in their feedback. At the very least, ensure managers check in regularly during the assimilation period to provide support and feedback, which will go a long way in ensuring this moment of truth doesn’t result in the “what have I done” conversation that the new employee may have with his or her spouse or friends.
6. Performance Feedback. This is that wonderful time of year when we walk into our boss’ office and wait to hear how our performance has been judged. Even the best managers sometimes struggle with how to deliver formal performance feedback, whether positive or constructive. Remind your managers of the investment the organization has made in new employees, and ensure they are prepared to have an engaging and productive experience at the formal review session. Avoid surprises, be supportive and encouraging, provide specifics, and most of all be honest. Even difficult messages are appreciated if the recipient feels the message is sincere.
7. Year-End Compensation Discussion. It’s not enough to hand the new employee a print-out detailing compensation information. Spend time talking about the company’s pay philosophies, how the employee’s compensation is determined, and honestly answer all questions. Recruiters have done a lot of upfront work to explain the organization’s pay programs and their intent, but it is the hiring manager’s responsibility to bring what the offer letter says to life when it comes to compensation and incentives.
8. Help During a Personal Crisis or Situation. Even the most seasoned managers can struggle when it comes to the twists and turns life deals our employees, such as sick parents, personal illnesses, financial struggles, and children’s learning disabilities. Whatever the situation, make sure managers provide support and flexibility to the extent possible when an employee needs it most. It is not always easy or clear on how to best balance business and personal needs, which is where HR’s support, counsel, and coaching can play a pivotal role.
9. Feedback on Succession Planning and Potential. To tell or not to tell? While this article is not intended to take sides in the age-old philosophical debate of whether or not to tell employees they are on a succession plan, it is intended to drive a spirit of open and honest communications between manager, employee, and HR as to where an employee stands and how he or she is viewed. If employees do not know or understand how they are viewed and valued by the organization, chances are they will take action and look for a place where they will be.
10. Development Discussions. Although clearly out of scope for recruiting, we do have a vested interest in how well a manager focuses on development with his or her employees. One of the big draws for a candidate in considering an opportunity is the potential for development. Managers talk a big game when trying to “win the sale,” but the real moment of truth is after the employee is on board, assimilated, and integrated into the organization. Two years down the road, he or she will want to know what’s next. If managers aren’t prepared to have these conversations or worse, not deliver on the conversations they’ve already had, word will get out.

There are several other moments of truth employees are sure to face throughout their careers, and in some ways, one could arguably make a link back to the recruitment process for each. The important thing is to know and understand these moments of truth, anticipate them, and help candidates and employees work through them. In the end, only the candidate or employee knows what’s best for him or her. However, it is imperative that recruiters work with all managers and the organization to ensure a candidate or an employee has the best, most accurate, and complete information on which to make the optimal decision in every moment of truth. Anything less, and your greatest efforts to identify, attract, and retain the top talent may very well be in vain.

Google, no surprise, is king of the mountain. Less predictable: Quicken Loans, in the #2 spot.

Google, no surprise, is king of the mountain. Less predictable: Quicken Loans, in the #2 spot.

In my previous article, “The Naked Truth about Recruiting at Diversity Conferences,” I focused on how companies could achieve a return on their conference investment by implementing a detailed process. We now need to look at a more elusive problem and understand how it impairs the recruiting initiative. That problem is called Business Process Interoperability. (Stay with this folks, it’s brilliant…)

When you really think about it, recruiting is a fairly simple process that deals with moving information and events from one stage of the process to the next: getting a candidate’s resume into an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), submitting a candidate to a hiring manager, or closing the candidate after an interview. The problem with its successful execution is not always the completion of the obvious major steps of the process, but often the communication gaps that exist between these steps in the process.

Before I get into how this concept impacts the recruiting process, let’s consider the following definitions:

The IEEE defines “interoperability” as: “the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged.”

This term has evolved from the technology industry and it clearly pertains to many of the problems that exist in the recruiting process. The interesting part about interoperability is that it focuses on the negative space of the process, the connector of two functions of the process. (Think of it as the black arrow on a flow chart.) For example, if you look at two pieces of software independently, they might operate flawlessly alone; but, if they need to work together to be effective and don’t, overall success can be greatly compromised.

Now let’s look at the word “process.” The definition given by my good buddy Noah Webster is: “a systematic series of actions directed to some end.”

A process within a business (such as the business of recruiting) is a way to put parameters around specific goals or targets. It sets out a list of activities that will need to be accomplished to reach one’s goal. When we put “business” in front of the word “process,” it takes on a slightly different meaning.

A business process is defined as: “a systematic series of business actions directed to some end within a business.”

Put them all together and you get the concept of “business process interoperability,” and the question of the day becomes clear: How well are the different functions of your business process working together and what is it costing you in compromised recruiting when it is not?

If you look at most business processes, there are many opportunities where communications can and do break down. (How many times in your career have you lost a candidate because something that should have happened did not happen?) In established business processes such as payroll or accounts payable, the steps are well defined and documented; everyone knows what role he or she plays. If they aren’t well defined, which is often the case in recruiting, a phenomenon know as “information silos” forms. There are places where information is captured but never communicated. This is the antithesis of a best practice and the last thing we need if we are to ultimately hire great candidates.

Now, let’s take this idea and apply it to the recruiting process.

First, let’s define a sample recruiting process:

• Talent-Demand Forecasting: Determining what type of talent is needed.
• Sourcing: The process of finding candidates.
• Screening: Determining the candidates’ qualifications, their interest in the opportunity, and their availability to proceed to the next step in the process.
• Interviewing: Further determining the candidates’ qualifications and interests. Compatibility testing for both the company and the individuals.
• Selection: Selecting a candidate for the specific position.
• Offer: Providing written documentation for the candidate to say “yes” or “no” to the opportunity.
• Hire: Providing the candidate with a paycheck for work or services.

Now, let’s look at the concept of interoperability as it relates to recruiting. The best example would be the communication between a sourcing team and a recruiting team. Independent of each other, they may be very effective and produce results for their phase of the process, but effectiveness is greatly reduced when information is not efficiently transferred from one function to the next. How many candidates actually make it into an ATS? How many candidates never get to the offer stage because of the lack of information from the manager? Who gets lost between the cracks? You can see how interoperability can hurt even the best recruiting processes, as well as the best recruiters.

How many times have you seen a successful recruiting team falter or even fail because of the sourcing team or its strategy? How many good sourcing teams don’t have a functional recruiting team or strategy? How many times have you heard a sourcing team say, “The recruiters aren’t processing the candidates”? And how many times have you heard a recruiting team say, “The sourcing team isn’t getting me enough candidates”? You can see how focusing on the “negative space” between each function of the process will determine success as much or more than the steps themselves. It is that black arrow on a flow chart that keeps the process flowing effectively. Attention to these important details helps recruiters deliver great hires.

Looking to improve business process interoperability in your recruiting organization? Consider the following:

• Delineate the recruiting process clearly. What are the different functions within your recruiting process?
• Define recruiting process functional goals. Set expectations. Work with the next function of the recruiting process to determine what success actually looks like. (What is going to happen if these things occur?)
• Emphasize negative-space communication. The supply chain, defined by communication between two recruiting process functions, must not be allowed to falter.
• Encourage information flow. Information must travel in both directions. Feedback is just as important as delivery for overall success.
• Assign accountability. The ultimate recruiting word. Who was supposed to do what?

Now it is time to focus on the interoperability of the recruiting process if you want to really improve results and become more effective. Before you try to fix the top of the funnel, make sure your ROI isn’t leaking through the holes in the process.

Currently some staffing suppliers are opposing the sale of the system to Ensemble Chimes Global’s former president, and alleged improprieties have come to the surface about the financial dealings of executives of Axium International Inc. the parent company of Ensemble Chimes Global, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. As these events transpire, clients are realizing how they can become vulnerable, should their vendor management system supplier be acquired, file for bankruptcy protection, or handle funds inappropriately. While the bankruptcy trustee has made interim arrangements for the operation of the system, at the very least, clients face the potential for business interruption should vendor management system firms go belly up and all of the financial ramifications have yet to be identified or decided in this case.

As of Friday afternoon, Ed Lenz, senior vice president for public affairs and general counsel for the American Staffing Association said he had heard from staffing suppliers that outstanding receivables owed staffing firms by Ensemble Chimes Global totaled anywhere from $100 million to as much as $300 million. Lenz said it was his understanding that the majority of the outstanding balances represent billed but unpaid client invoices.

Also still at issue is $22 million in funds swept away by Axium’s owners Golden Tree Asset Management as reported by the Los Angeles Times last week and contractors who were paid directly by Ensemble Chimes Global are blogging about being laid off and having little recourse for unpaid wages.

How staffing suppliers that provided temps under the Ensemble Chimes Global system might weather large write-offs is another potential concern for clients.

At the very least, many Ensemble Chimes Global clients originally contracted with a company that operated under different ownership and a different set of financial circumstances, during the pre-acquisition period. While clients may have felt protected under the terms of their original ECG agreements, it’s hard to say if those agreements will provide complete financial protection for clients, until everything shakes out.

“Now everybody’s trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again,” says Lenz. “I think there will be lessons learned from this insolvency. For example, clients will want to make sure that VMS suppliers have escrow accounts, so they don’t co-mingle funds, and clients may place a premium on sound management in the future and require more assurances that the VMS company will continue to operate. All of the issues haven’t surfaced yet, and right now, clients have a right to be skeptical.”

Employee referral programs routinely produce the highest volume and the highest quality hires in corporate recruiting. These employee referrals are so effective simply because they turn every employee into a recruiter. When every employee is a recruiter, you dramatically increase the volume of recruiters (every employee) looking for talent. In addition, because employees have broad social networks and they continue looking outside of work, you also, in effect, expand the amount of time (24/7) your recruiting effort is active.

Unfortunately, our extensive research into the referral program practices of over 600 employers has shown that most corporate referral programs suffer from low expectations, poor design, and weak results. If you are not getting at least 50% of your hires from employee referrals, either you have a company that your employees are ashamed of or you have a poorly designed referral program. If your program is under-performing, one of the simplest things you can do to improve it is to provide some of your key employees with “referral cards” that they can hand to promising potential applicants.

Tips for Developing Compelling Referral Cards

The use of cards in recruiting is a hot topic these days, in part because of the controversy related to a U.S. Army recruiter who placed his recruiting business cards in the pockets of camouflage-style pants at a Target store in South Carolina. Well, the mother of a 13-year-old boy who bought one pair of the pants was outraged. And, although the recruiter was not disciplined, it still highlights the need to use referral cards correctly.

If you decide to offer referral cards, here are some tips on how to do it right:

• Limit those who can receive the card. You don’t want your employees handing out employee referral cards to every “Tom, Dick, and Mary” they come across. If everyone gets handed one, they immediately lose their prestige value. The fact that they are hard to get makes them, in turn, an honor to receive. So, instead of flooding the market, only hand out referral cards to individuals with higher-than-average potential.
• Not all employees can hand out cards. Because not every employee has the same opportunity to run across and successfully assess potential stars, you don’t actually want every employee to be handing out referral cards. Now, that doesn’t mean that every employee can’t make referrals (because they should be doing that), but it does mean that you should limit the number of employees that is allowed to hand out referral cards. Individuals who should receive these specialized cards include executives with a title that impresses (e.g., “Wow, I got this card from the CFO”). Next, limit referral cards to individuals who a manager determines to have the capability of identifying or assessing great talent. Finally, provide them to individuals with a large number of opportunities to meet potential candidates (this might range from the receptionist and outside salespeople to individuals who attend a large number of trade shows and those who teach, write, or speak regularly).
• Limit the number they can hand out. If you’re targeting truly exceptional individuals, it would be highly unlikely that any employee would meet dozens of them each month. And, because referral cards should only be given to potential top performers and innovators, you should limit the number that any individual can give out each month. This target quota should range between 3 and 10 a month, with exceptions being made wherever past experience has proven variations are a good idea. Obviously, individuals who hand out cards that resulted in a high number of hires (and vice versa) should have their quotas adjusted accordingly, based on their success rates.
• Provide feedback to card distributors. Even after the cards have been handed out, it’s important to assess whether they are having the desired impact. This means that once a month or once a quarter, you need to provide feedback to the individuals who are handing out the cards about 1) the number of “their” cards that resulted in employment inquiries, 2) how many of the responders were good enough for interviews, and 3) how many responders were eventually hired. By providing this feedback, you can help ensure that those giving out the cards are educated about what is working and what isn’t. If you find that a particular individual has a low success rate, first talk to him, then eventually stop giving him referral cards because you don’t want to clog the referral card response system with low-quality names.
• Expedite referral card inquiries. Because the referral card program is, by design, supposed to be quite selective, you have to handle those who receive the cards like they are “A+ quality,” and thus, top-priority applicants. That means that applications from these individuals must be coded and prioritized. I recommend that you set five days (after they’ve made an employment inquiry) as a limit to let them know whether they are to be scheduled for an interview. It’s critical that these individuals receive priority because that’s precisely what getting one of these referral cards should mean (i.e., “You are someone special who we want to talk to immediately”).
• Offer a referral bonus. Paying a bonus for new hires under any referral program is always a good idea. Some mistakenly think that finding referrals should be the standard part of everyone’s job. But, the fact is that a good deal of referral work that is done by employees routinely occurs outside of normal work hours, and, as a result, it should be rewarded. In addition, referral bonuses of up to $1,300 do have a measurable impact on the quality and the number of referrals that a corporation receives. If you find there are cases when managers or others making referrals would have a conflict of interest should they receive a bonus, offer an option for donating the bonus to their favorite charity.
• Encourage executive involvement. Very few things have the same impact of energizing the employee population about referrals as having the CEO and senior executives frequently use, and then boast about, the impact of employee referral cards. As a result, start off by trying to get the CEO to be a role model in handing out cards. It’s also important to note that having a large number of senior managers utilizing, and then seeing, the result of the referral cards will boost both the visibility and the reputation of the recruiting function.

Make the Content of the Referral Card Compelling

Anyone can hand out a business card. As a result, getting one doesn’t impress very many people. In direct contrast, a referral card should be so compelling that you feel it’s an honor when you receive one. Some of the essential content elements that make a referral card compelling include:

• The Design. The actual design of the card should be unique enough that when you see it, you immediately think it is something special. For example, Southwest Airlines used a referral card that looked exactly like one of their iconic plastic boarding passes. Once you saw it, you knew it was not a standard business card. Some firms choose to just put their referral messages on the back of their standard business cards, but if you make this mistake, you will get a much weaker response rate. The best cards reflect something unique by their shape, color, print, or texture. Generally, when it comes to size, all referral cards are larger (so that they stand out) than standard business cards.
• A Slogan. All great referral messages should also be put in the form of the slogan that reflects what it’s like to work at your firm. The slogan should be short, easy to remember, and something that sends a direct “I want to work there” message. Simple referral slogans include “more than a job,” “it’s an adventure,” “tired of working ‘inside the box,’” “join us,” “if you have a passion for customer service, we have your dream job,” or “if you are a game-changer, you’ll love it here.” Be sure to pretest your slogan to make sure that it impresses and sends the correct message.
• An Action Driver. Great referral cards not only excite the individuals who receive them, but they also drive recipients to take the necessary actions to actually apply for positions. Action drivers (that make you apply) can take many forms. They can be related to speed (”Call today, and we will let you know within the next 5 days”). Action drivers can relate to probabilities (”If you were directly handed this card, the odds are over 75% that you qualify for one of our positions”). Or, they can be designed just to make the individual feel special (”Whether you’re interested in a new job or not, I just wanted you to know that the way you handled yourself was special”). Test your action phrases and content to ensure they cause people to actually apply for a job. In addition, you can offer the person who receives the card a small reward or gift for applying (e.g., a $25 Starbucks card), if you’re serious about getting these targeted individuals to apply.
• A Unique Website or Contact Person. If you make the mistake of sending all responses from referral cards to the standard corporate website, you will not be able to identify and then prioritize these individuals. Instead, I recommend that you include on the referral card a unique website page (designed specifically for these pre-assessed individuals) or the e-mail address/phone number of a designated recruiter who knows how to handle these high-priority referrals. Remember, if you don’t handle these applicants with special attention, then you should remove any message on the card that makes them feel special. Some organizations also include the name and contact number of the person who is giving out the card. This is a good idea if there is a high probability that card recipients will work in the same business unit that this individual manages. Just remember that customized referral cards are more expensive to print that generic ones.

Final Thoughts

An employee referral card that contains a powerful message and makes a lasting impression on a recipient is an extremely powerful tool that is, unfortunately, seldom used in corporate America. In fact, I estimate that fewer than 5% of referral programs have a well thought-out referral card element.

If you want to take advantage of this powerful tool, I urge you to take your time to ensure that all of the elements that I’ve cited above are included in the program and on the card itself. And, if the referral card process is designed correctly, almost immediately you’ll have data to show that it produces high-quality hires. Any questions?

We’re currently conducting a major research project on how top people look for new jobs. This research will offer great insight into what companies need to do to better align their current sourcing efforts with market realities. If you’d like to take part, just send this survey link to all of your best candidates and those you’ve recently placed. Even though the current research is preliminary, one thing is already obvious: the best people don’t look for new opportunities the same way average candidates do. Over the next few years, those companies that aggressively redeploy their resources and technology to match how the best seek out new opportunities will be those that hire the lion’s share of them. While not simple, it starts by understanding how the best people look for work.

Here’s a typical four-step process that most good people who are fully-employed follow when they decide to enter the job market voluntarily. It suggests that contacting these people earlier in the process might be a far better sourcing tactic than wasting money posting jobs where the best people never see them.

The 4-Step Search Process Top People Follow When They Decide to Look for New Jobs

1. Send out Feelers. Step one starts when a top person starts experiencing some level of job dissatisfaction. He or she then starts exploring other opportunities on a very casual basis, usually networking with friends and former co-workers. This lasts about 30 days. A good portion of these people find jobs this way, but an equal number take themselves off the market as conditions with their current jobs improve.
2. Expand the Network. This begins in earnest if job conditions don’t get better and step one doesn’t pan out. Top people then begin to more aggressively network with a wider group of people, proactively seeking other networking opportunities. This is typically through friends of friends. They’ll also casually start calling a few recruiters they know just to put their names in the hat. Concurrently, they’ll use Google to see what’s available and quietly check out a major board and a few niche job sites to see what’s out there. Since they’re not yet desperate, they’ll be looking for jobs that either stand out, are easy to find, or offer something special. Towards the end of this phase, they will formalize the networking, join appropriate groups, and start attending the meetings of the professional groups of which they’re already members. They also might check out the big, well-branded employers in their industry or seek out some way to gain an employee referral. By this time, the original pool of top prospects will shrink by about 50% with many people finding jobs this way and some others taking themselves off the market.
3. Start a Formal Search Process. This phase begins if the current job situation gets worse and making step two connections doesn’t lead anywhere. Under these conditions, people will get more aggressive and implement a formal plan, giving themselves three to four months to find a significantly better new job. First, they’ll be more aggressive contacting recruiters. Then, they’ll go online. Since they’re still not desperate, they’ll avoid the cumbersome requisition-driven navigation process currently built into every career website, every Applicant Tracking System, and every job board. Instead, they’ll start a top-down process, first looking at growth industries where their skills can be useful, then for the strongest companies in these industries. From here, they’ll start looking for jobs by classification, e.g., accounting, customer service, sales, and engineering. In parallel to this, they’ll start checking out more niche sites, seeking out more networking opportunities (e.g., Facebook, alumni, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo), sending letters and e-mails directly to managers, and more aggressively trying to find some way to get referred into a company through an employee. They’ll also post their resumes online in some database. Since these people are very good, most will find jobs this way.
4. Accelerate the Job Search. If the current job situation continues to deteriorate and all the above leads nowhere, the remaining top candidates will then put their egos aside and succumb to the maze-like bureaucratic rules most companies have imposed, lower their expectations, and look for a decent job close to home. Not surprisingly, since they are top people, most will find a good job within a few weeks.

It seems misguided to spend too much effort targeting this leftover pool of top talent, since it’s a small fraction of its original self, yet most companies unknowingly do just that. Instead, I’d like to suggest that an intervention-based strategy for finding candidates who are somewhere in steps one, two, and three of their job search will be far more effective than waiting until they get to step four.

Here are some ideas for implementing this type of “intervene-earlier” sourcing strategy:

• Implement an employee referral tip-toe program. To do this, first contact every single person you’ve hired this past year and have them identify every single great person they’ve ever worked with in the past. In parallel, have them contact as many as they can through MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn with the idea of making these connections a formal part of their extended business networks. The objective here is to have these people contact your employees first whenever they get the itch to consider something else. This type of early intervention strategy will give your company first dibs on the best people the moment they tip-toe into the job market.
• Leverage your referral program. Make sure your recruiters personally contact every great employee referral, first to recruit them and second to network with them. During these calls, recruiters should target getting at least two to three more great referrals and then repeat the networking process with the next set of referrals. Networking this way can leverage your employee referrals at least two to three times. Make this a formal process with consistent messaging and train your recruiters to cold call and network this way. Also, create a dedicated mini-website as part of your candidate relationship management (CRM) process to nurture all of these referrals.
• Build a proprietary pool of top prospects and candidates and then creatively nurture it. You’ll need some technology to support this, but the idea here is to proactively build a humongous resume database of every referral you obtain, making sure every one is pre-qualified, and then have an ongoing series of CRM events to keep everyone in the database warm. When specific opportunities come up, you’ll want to automatically reach out to the people in this pool. If your mini-site and nurturing are professionally done, top people will check out your opportunities on a regular basis, often before step one.
• Use talent hubs and aggregators to drive traffic to your existing open requisitions. During steps two and three, top people will google for jobs searching on the job title, location, and the term “jobs,” looking for something readily available. Aggregators like indeed.com push jobs to candidates who look this way. A talent hub is a private career-oriented mini-website that combines all of a company’s jobs within a functional group, like accounting or sales, while presenting a high-level career opportunity message. The site is designed to be found by appropriate candidates based on search engine optimization techniques. The top-down approach dramatically increases the size of the candidate pool by being positive and non-exclusionary. Once on the hub, candidates are then funneled into appropriate open jobs or into the proprietary resume database for further networking and nurturing. Jobs2web.com is taking the lead on developing these talent hubs.
• Tap into the power of third-party recruiter networks. All good third-party recruiters focus on finding candidates somewhere long before they get to step four. Typically, most have more good candidates than searches. BountyJobs.com has emerged to create a market for these “extra” candidates by tapping into groups of recruiters who all work with the same types of jobs. With a network of recruiters working this way, you’re likely to find a top person very quickly. Since the fee is contingency-based, it’s worth trying.

While there are many other tactics you could deploy, developing an “intervene-earlier” sourcing strategy is the real message here. Although it might not be exactly as described above, good people do follow a multi-step job search process, getting more and aggressive if necessary. Sourcing programs built around this concept can enable companies to pick off some great talent before they become generally available. To pull it off, you’ll need to expand your employee-referral program, train your recruiters to be great networkers, develop a proprietary database of hot prospects with expanded CRM and nurturing functionality, build some talent hubs that can be found, and tap into the emerging third-party recruiter network market. This is what an “intervene-earlier” strategy would look like once implemented. It shouldn’t cost any more than what you’re doing today, and it will certainly result in more top candidates being hired than waiting around for the leftovers.

It’s all about performance. Over the past four or five years, I have seen a steady increase in organizations spending time and effort to define and measure employee performance. Firms like Success Factors, DDI, and Authoria have had good commercial success in providing the tools and processes that make this easier to do. Oracle and SAP offer modules that ease the process of defining competencies and measuring employees on their contributions.

As the economy heads into a recession and profits are under scrutiny, this will become even more important. No organization can afford people who do not contribute and who cannot perform consistently at a high level.

But, what is often lacking is a connection between employee performance and the traits recruiters look for in candidates. Many recruiters just take the generic job description and base their interviews and selection on competencies that may not be aligned with the reality of the position. Defining a great performance and tying it back into the competencies, skills, and traits that candidates have is essential.

If we are serious about finding the best people with the most talent to recommend for hire, here are the five steps we have to take:

1. Identify and Measure. First of all, we have to work harder than we do at identifying and measuring the low, middle, and high performers. We need to establish indicators of success and of high performance for each position we recruit for. Indicators could be the number of sales made in a month, the number of reports written that resulted in consulting assignments, the amount of revenue their group has generated, and so forth. This is hard work. There aren’t a lot of benchmarks to go by, but we all know more or less who contributes the most to our organizations. Our task is to quantify that and find a way to measure it. Focus groups of managers and customers can help define what constitutes good or poor performance. Recruiters, along with managers and customers, can put together tentative lists of criteria and measure current performers against them. Over time, it will become clear which indicators are most accurate.
2. Develop Profiles. Once we have the indicators or criteria determined, we can work with managers and develop profiles of the high performers in each group. We can look for commonalities and traits during the screening and interviewing process that predict success. These could be competencies, activities they engage in, work methods, or processes. There are many firms that can help you determine these critical success factors (as they are often called), and even help you develop tests to identify them. If this is well done, often clear patterns emerge. For example, several years ago, a firm was hiring technicians to repair precision-manufacturing equipment. By using the process described above, it was able to identify several skills that led to success. It learned that people leaving the armed services who had been trained as mechanics had the highest success rate. Then, the company focused its recruiting on exiting service personnel.
3. Find Them and Target Your Messages. The next task is to discover where these people are and what they enjoy doing. This is necessary so that you can target your advertising message and placement toward this audience. To do this well requires a focus on competitive intelligence (CI). CI is well known in the industrial world and many companies employ CI experts to ferret our information about production capacities and equipment installations at competitors. The same principles apply to recruiting. You can gather information from competitors, vendors, and suppliers about where good people may be located. You can certainly use your employee-referral program for the same purpose. And, every time you actually find candidates with the right profile and skill set, ask them where more people like them are. One of the most useful ways to collect information is to ask incoming new hires for referrals and for general information.
4. Build a Database. Collecting and capturing this information is critical. The knowledge you gradually accumulate is valuable and should be put into a database that can be shared with other recruiters. This is a form of knowledge management and, when properly done, it can save thousands of hours of work and bunches of money. After all, headhunters rely on their own human knowledge-management systems (i.e., their brains) to do this all the time. Our challenge is to make this more broadly accessible and to keep it current. I like to think about these sorts of databases as the recruiters’ gossip place. It is an online forum for chatting about competitors, successes, and failures and for collecting bits and pieces of information that, alone, may not be valuable. However, when they are combined with other bits, they represent a treasure trove.
5. Decide Whether to Recruit or Develop. The final step in this process is to determine whether there are enough highly skilled people to recruit efficiently and economically. Sometimes, it is actually cheaper to develop people internally. The recruiting function must become a talent agency, which is something it has not been. Talent agencies recognize talent and develop it for strategic purposes. We, as recruiters, need to take our knowledge of what high performance looks like and then, using market knowledge and competitive intelligence, make a recommendation as to whether we should continue to try and recruit the people who have “it,” or whether we should put together a development process.

The only limits are our own vision and our ability to work the politics of our corporate environments. One way to find employees with potential to move to new positions would be to open all of our screening processes to anyone and then select those who seem likely to be successful. The Internet and our recruiting websites make this very easy to do. The key is that recruiting is not only about finding talent, but it is also increasingly about developing it. If we are to move our profession upwards, these things I have described are what it is going to take.

Precision, measurement, quantification, and process rigor are elements I have been focusing on for some time now. Recruiting generally needs to improve in all of these, and now that economic times are getting tough, when could be a better time to start?