Great people exist. Great people join great companies. But if you want to attract exceptional talent, you have to take unconventional measures to gain their attention.
The cost of a bad hire today is estimated by the US Department of Labor to cost roughly 30% of a person’s annual earnings. However, based on my 20+ years in leadership, I would argue that the cost of a bad hire is upwards of 60-70% of a person’s annual salary.
The adage that one bad apple can spoil the bunch is so very true. We’ve all witnessed the detrimental impact of a bad hire in some way, shape, or form.
I’m a firm believer that people don’t fire the company, they fire their immediate boss. The flipside of that is that people will stay at a company significantly longer if they have strong, positive relationships with their coworkers and bosses. In fact, people may dislike the company but stay because of their strong relationships with their immediate boss and/or coworkers!
Over the last 5-10 years, the war for talent has certainly heated up. And over the last few years, as the world recovers from COVID, the race to find, attract, and hang onto the best team members has reached a fever pitch.
Financial giant, Prudential conducted a study in March of 2021 that found “one in three American workers would not want to work for an employer that required them to be onsite full time.” The survey further indicated that 25% of workers planned on looking for a new job when the threat of the pandemic decreased, signaling a looming “war for talent.”
That prediction turned out to be extremely accurate as we’ve seen what people are now calling “the great resignation” as millions of workers across North America have leapt out of jobs where they didn’t feel valued and into the job market.
There’s been an enormous power shift as the need for skilled workers has ballooned, and a lot of executives are struggling with how this affects their leverage.
“Smart, forward-thinking executives will notice the tide change and immediately take action. They’ll put in place plans to attract and retain talent. The companies that prioritize their employees and do everything in their power to make them happy and motivated will be the winners in this new upcoming era.” – Jack Kelly, “A War for Talent is Starting – Spoiler Alert: Workers Will Win” - Forbes Magazine, April 17, 2021
If you’re an entrepreneur/manager/supervisor/executive/et al, you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with. The likelihood of your success is predicated on the people around you.
You are the sum of the whole.
If you rank each member of a ten-person team on a scale of 1-10 – Do you have a score of 100?
Try the exercise in this blog to rank your team and, by extension, yourself as a leader.
However you score these individuals, that score reflects who you are as a servant leader for those people. If you scored your team at 72 out of 100 but you think you’re an 85… That 13-point delta is something you need to take a hard look at. It might be you; it might be your team. It’s probably a combination of both.
But you can’t operate at an 85 if you’re surrounded by 72.
With the heightened importance and competition surrounding hiring in 2022, any effort to hire the right people has to start with your company culture. If you aren’t already putting your people and the company culture at the forefront of everything, you’re behind the 8 ball.
I’ve had countless conversations with hiring managers, HR directors, other executives, and countless others over the last few years. The one thing everyone agrees on is that finding great talent isn’t easy.
How are you attracting the right candidates to join your team? What can you do to ramp up those efforts?
Ask yourself these three questions, ranking each on a scale of 1-10:
1. How would you rank your company, as a whole?
2. How would you rank the overall culture at your company?
3. How would you rank the leadership of your company?
If you’re at a 6 in any of these areas, you aren’t attracting 10’s.
Whether you’re hitting 10’s across the board on the above questions or you see serious room for improvement in some areas, ask yourself:
How are you attracting people?
What measures are you taking to seek out talent?
Are you being conventional in your methods? (job-boards, classifieds, LinkedIn, etc) If you are, great! Those are important.
The bad news is, everyone else is doing all those things too. So, expect conventional, not exceptional, results.
Unconventional methods produce unconventional results.
If you want to attract exceptional talent, you have to take unconventional measures to gain their attention.
That doesn’t mean you need to stand on the corner in a gold suit twirling a giant sign.
But you’ve gotta go beyond the basic methods if you want to attract beyond basic people.
Ask yourself:
Are you offering value to the community?
Do you have deep, meaningful relationships so that when you need support and help, you can tap your network?
Are you getting witty in your job descriptions? Do they represent the culture of your company?
Are you utilizing your social media networks? Digital imagery? Videos?
Do you have a robust talent funnel fueled by your employees?
Do you have a recruitment bonus program in place that rewards team members who bring in new team members?
In the end, you have to ask yourself: Can you do better? Are you going beyond the conventional? Is your strategy “hope and wish” or “act and execute”?
I hope this blog inspires you and jolts you to go outside your comfort zone.
Your next great hire is around the corner if you want it enough.
Remember, great people exist. Great people join great companies.
Go unconventional and your results will follow suit!