RecruitingSavvy

No Edge. No Play.

"If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete."

Jack Welch, Former Chairman of General Electric

Successful recruiting is not about luck (send out lots of people and hope somebody gets hired), but design. While there is no way to ensure the outcome of a sendout or an interview, it is possible to ensure that the "odds" are tipped in your favor.

A competitive edge is whatever tips the odds of success in your favor. Having a competitive edge is like a double-edged sword because advantages can be internal (your personal gifts, abilities, and expertise) and external (such as technology, information, or partnership). Take Lindsey Vonn, downhill hopeful for the Winter Olympics next month in Vancouver, B.C. and the first woman ever to win two, back to back World Cup Championships.

She has some internal (personal) advantages, her father and grandfather were both competitive skiiers. And she grew up in Minnesota, not noted for its mountains. This meant that she grew up in a situation where she did little free skiing and lots of reps. She is also a bit taller and a bit heavier that her other female competitors giving her a speed advantage.

But she also has some significant external advantages - she travels with two personal trainers (provided by Red Bull), a ski technician and her former U.S. Ski team member and Olympian husband, Thomas Vonn. And she trains harder than any of her competition; often showing up an hour earlier than anyone else. Cutting edge surgical techniques recently put her back together after a nasty accident.

While none of this will ensure her victory in an event that is typically determined by a hundredth of a second, she has certainly done what she can to tip the odds in her favor. And, oddly enough, it is working as she has logged her 25th straight career victory. 

What is your competitive edge? Here's the motto: No edge, no play.

The Problem with HR

One of my many fantasies about starting a recruiting firm was that I would have these great relationships with corporate recruiters in the HR department, since I would be coming through for them. Fact is that we are a challenge to many of them and sometimes end up making them look bad. Since uncovering this fantasy, I have often said that "the problem with HR is the salary" - corporate recruiters get paid whether they produce anything or not.

My belief about HR was recently confirmed by the CEO of Redfin (an innovative online real estate sales company), Glen Kelman, who shares secrets in a new book by Guy Kawasaki (Reality Check). Kelman writes about the use of outside recruiting firms....

"We've experimented with in-house recruiters working on an hourly wage, but they tend to focus on managing the hiring process rather than adding candidates to the pipeline."

In their defense, corporate recruiters often have many more things to focus on than just recruiting,  which is why we have a job!

It's All About Who You Know...

Where do job seekers learn about potential new employers? A new study by WetFeet.com underlines the changing nature of our recruiting environment...

• 73% learn about their next employer through their personal network
• 30% find their next employer through employment ads
• 24% locate their next gig through media including TV, newspapers, and online

Obviously there is some overlap in categories 2 and 3, but what does this mean for the future of recruiting?  POINT: If you are not in the candidate's network you will miss out on the opportunity to place seven out of ten. Of course everyone knows that recruiting is about networking, but networking is different from being a member of the potential candidate's network.

Here are some immediate implications:

1. Hit and run recruiting will have to be replaced by genuine "candidate development," read: long term relationships
2. Single contacts will have to be enhanced by multiple "touches" on different levels and in different ways (check out next month's post on creative "high touch" tools).
3. Social networking reluctance will have to be overcome because social boards are the new networks where people are connecting. Ever heard of eHarmony. com?

Look for tips for "high touch recruiting" in next months posts....Meanwhile, if you don't have a LinkedIn and Facebook profile you'd better get started!

Two Kinds of Recruiting

I ran across this excellent affirmation/reinforcement of my post last month about Why We Use The Passive Approach: "There are really two kinds of recruiting, that I call virtual and relational recruiting. Virtual recruiting is all about the here and now. It's about having a requisition for a SQL Database Administrator in Arizona and putting that together with a candidate you just found in Boston with the most competitive offer humanly possible. Relational recruiting is all about the longterm conversation you develop with the candidate; what their lifetime objectives are; whether they have kids, where they live; what is important to them; how they make decisions. But more importantly, its not about the job you're ready to deliver today - its about coming together two jobs from now." (Jeff Gore, Stride & Associates).