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Recruiting Starts With Reputation. How’s Yours?
By Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette
Do you have job openings you just can’t fill? At a convenience store/gas station in the northwestern U.S. this summer, I saw a twist on the old cash register slush-fund-in-a cup idea. Instead of the familiar “need a penny, take a penny" routine, this cup said, “Need a penny, take one. Need two pennies, take two. Need three pennies, get a job! We're hiring."
Depending on the natural swings of the economy, employers in various industries throughout the US have, from time to time, a tough time recruiting top talent. While unemployment goes up and down, one thing is certain: the war for talent is far from over.
Demographers, economists, and anthropologists predict that labor shortages could be with us for the next sixty – that's six-zero - years!
So in an age when no one wants to think 60 days ahead, much less 60 years, managers run around implementing recruitment ``programs" designed to entice bodies, hopefully with brains attached, to apply for jobs. In certain job markets, employers are offering huge signing bonuses that must make their existing employees feel like chopped liver.
Put away the obscene bonuses. Forget the special programs. Your number one recruiting tool is your reputation.
In every city, there are employers with good reputations, and bad ones. Some companies are known as sweatshops, others as oases of opportunity. What's your organization's reputation as an employer? What's your personal reputation as a manager?
Maybe a better question is this: what's your reputation worth? Are you known as an employer of choice, or as an employer of last resort? If the former, you can have your pick of the market; if the latter, nobody with any brains, ability, or motivation wants to go to work for you! In this case, only two things can happen. Either you have to pay market-premium wages and salaries to secure better applicants, or else accept the lower quality applicants...or both.
One fast food chain, never known for being a great place to work, is so desperate for workers it's resorted to printing job applications on its paper bags. I can just see the manager's office strewn with greasy brown job apps, few of which yield bright prospects.
I know you may be tired of hearing about Southwest Airlines, but please suffer me yet another reference to the exemplary, and highly profitable, employer of choice. Southwest uses a paper bag in its recruiting efforts, too, but in a slightly different way. Ads in its inflight magazine, Spirit, and on posters in their boarding jetways feature a picture of a “container for motion discomfort" printed with the words “Sick of Your Job?" Funny, but Southwest doesn't have much trouble recruiting good workers.
Your reputation as an employer comes from at least three sources: your employees, your customers, and the media. Perhaps the most important of these is your current employees. People talk, and by some estimates, almost a third of what we talk about in social conversations is our jobs (I know, get a life!) And in the same way that unhappy customers will tell everyone they know about their experience, so will unhappy employees.
As a consumer, walk into any place of business, and within a few minutes, you'll have an idea whether or not it's the kind of place you'd like to build a career.
Then there's advertising. The American Advertising Federation reports a significant increase in consumer advertising this year by companies touting themselves not for their products and services, but for what a great place they are to work.
And whether you like it or not, your reputation comes from the media. We've all read about companies accused of discrimination, unfair treatment, compromising employee safety, and unconscionable working conditions. Some of the charges prove to be true, while others don't. True or not, once the allegations are made, the damage, often irreparable, is done. No one in their right minds would apply for a job in these places.
Mass layoffs seem to attract more media attention than anything else. What's your reputation there? Are you known, as FedEx is, for example, as a company that avoids layoffs at almost all costs, or as a company that binges and purges on the population to stay in step with short-term demand for labor? Your reputation for employment stability has a tremendous effect on your ability to attract high quality applicants.
I'll leave you with two recruiting ideas. First, never stop recruiting. So what if you don't have a position open at the moment? Don't let that stop you. If you discover someone you want in your company, because they share your vision and values, find a place for them. The specific job will open up – it's bound to. Don't let a real “find" get away.
And finally, the manager of a well-run restaurant, with a growing reputation for being a great place to work, shared with me her best recruiting idea. She eats at competing restaurants, and when she receives outstanding service, she leaves a big tip, and her business card.
All's fair in love, war, and employee recruiting.
Please print the following attribution for this article: Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden, co-authors of Contented Cows Give Better Milk, help clients clobber the competition by having a focused, fired up, and capably led workforce. They deliver powerful conference keynotes and leadership training. They can be reached at 800-940-7006 (+1-904-720-0870 from outside North America) or www.ContentedCows.com.