Struggling to hire staff? Read this.

Every single recruitment company we have met over the past 12+ months are looking to grow with experienced hires. Without fail.

Some are very good at this, some are not. And quite a few fall in between. I want to focus on the companies that are very good at hiring and appear to do it with minimal effort and fuss*

*spoiler alert: the effort certainly isn’t minimal, but if you get in the habit of doing the points below then it shouldn’t be too much fuss.

The main difference is that these businesses are constantly building their ‘potential employee pipeline’. They don’t wait for someone to leave, or a project to be upon them before looking for new staff. They are constantly looking.

Here are some ideas to help you build your potential employee pipeline, and to make sure that you are in the best possible position to hire staff when you need them and not 6-12 weeks after you need them.

Who is responsible?

It’s fine to have numerous people working on attracting talent to the business but there needs to be one person who takes ultimate responsibility and is then held accountable to the board on a monthly basis for this. Even if this person is the CEO. If there are multiple people responsible then you’ll find that if something doesn’t get done then one was assuming that the other was doing it.

Name gathering

Are you name gathering from your candidates? Who else are/have they worked with?
What did they think of them? Add them to a tracking system (can you set up your company and job on your database/CRM) and head hunt the good ones.
Have you asked your clients how you compare to others in the market? Is there anyone that they rate within the market? Again, add them to a tracking system and headhunt the good ones.
When interviewing consultants for your business do you ask about the people in their own business? Who do they rate? Peer/Managers/up and coming juniors? Is there low morale? What are the general frustrations within the business and use this information to approach them. Can they show you a billings league table as proof of their own billings? Make a note of who is at the top. Can you keep a copy? Is there anyone else (friends, old colleagues) that they would recommend? Anyone that could give them a peer reference?
Could you send out emails over popular holiday periods (Christmas, either side of a bank holiday etc) to your targets and get mobile numbers via the out of office reply?
Can you employ an overseas outsourcing business to ‘mystery shop’ your targets to assess their telephone manner?
As soon as someone starts within the business involve them in helping in the company growth from day one. Get them to map out their previous business, or go through their linked in with them and get opinions on previous colleagues.
What do you do to inspire your current workforce to generate referrals for the business? Can you run an internal competition, or set up visuals for an internal referral league table showing who has introduced the most potential new recruits for the business?

Advertising

Do you have an SEO strategy for specific keywords? ‘work in recruitment London’, finance recruitment London’ etc. Consider bidding for Google adwords.
Do you have quality/powerful adverts to sell to recruiters’ hotspots? Who is writing the adverts? Would it be worthwhile outsourcing to a specialist (you are a recruitment expert, not an advertising expert)? Where should you target these adverts (ie where do your target consultants look on a daily basis); Recruiter Magazine, Recruitment International etc, or where they may be looking for job leads (ie your market specific media/job boards)? Can you get free internal recruitment adverts from your current advertising partners? Can you catch frustrated commuters? Metro? Evening Standard?
What kind of PR do you have going out in to the market? Do you have a constant presence in the trade press and online media? Are your linked in profiles suitable to attract people (or do they put them off!)? Have you joined and are you participating in appropriate linked in groups? Are you tweeting about company news and successes?
Consider advertising for part time recruiters – you should get an excellent response.
If recruiting for trainees have you considered doing a Saturday assessment day?

Networking

How much time do you spend networking? When you go to a trade show/client pitch are you guarded when with the competition, or are you building relationships? Ask for their business card and keep in touch with them. View recruitment awards (eg The Recruiter Awards) as strong networking grounds; only the top consultants get taken to these and it is a more social occasion and so they may be more receptive. Is there anywhere that your target recruiters congregate after work? If you don’t want to use these occasions to approach directly, at the very least use them to raise your profile with your target market. Could you talk at/sponsor one of the events?
Are there any consultants that you interviewed and really liked but they didn’t join for any reason? Are you tracking them? Are you building a relationship with them? Are you promoting your business to them on a regular basis (letting them know about recent award wins, client wins etc)? Can they be included in the company newsletter?
Is there anyone that has left the company that you were sorry to see go? As above; are you tracking them? Are you building a relationship with them? Are you promoting your business to them on a regular basis (awards, client wins etc)? Can they be included in the company news letter? Have their reasons for leaving the business now been addressed/changed (progression, money, internal relationships etc)
Proactively invest in meeting one recruiter from a competitor per month (for lunch?) to share ideas, network etc – this will lead to building a relationship and a potential hire.
At Apple each manager has 5 names given to them of world class talent that they are responsible for building relationships with for 6-24 months down the line – can your Managers do this?

Internally

Are you ready to attract people to your business? Do you have job specifications that actually sell the opportunity? For Trainee’s, Researchers, Consultants, man managers, Directors? All will need to be sold to differently. Have you considered/do you include the criteria to move up from one to the next?
Do you have a ‘we are hiring’ page on your website/social media (Facebook, Linked in etc); ‘we are hiring’ has much more impact than ‘work for us’ is? Do these pages actually sell to recruiters ‘hotspots’? Have you looked at your competitors ‘we are hiring’ pages? What works and what does not? Who’s company would you rather join? Are you using video as part of your hiring page (done well, this is proven to be far more effective). Is it obvious you are hiring when on your website?

Externally

Recruitment to recruitment (r-2-r) firms will be sending their best candidates to only a small number of clients. It is unlikely you are you one of these. Consider how to become one. Are the terms of business adequate (consider higher fees for the right people)? What is your relationship like with them? Are you building it or putting barriers in the way? Consider inviting 8-10 in to the office and sell to them the benefits of working with you. Make sure you keep in touch with them every week (treat them as if trying to develop your own clients – you want to be on the r-2-r’s ‘PSL’ for the best candidates). Build relationships, work with them, sell to them, consider taking them for drinks, joining in on team incentives etc. The more they are brought in to the business the more likely you are to be their first port of call.

Some of these ideas will be relevant for your business, some not so, but the main point is to make sure whatever you chose to do, that you do it continually. If you do then you will have a network of people with whom you have already built a level of trust and rapport with to tap in to as soon as the situation arises.