Earlier this week, we completed a 4-part webinar series on “Finding Great People” for the management and ownership team of a Florida-based business.The webinars focused on ways to counter the headwinds faced by businesses in an ever-tightening labor market. Here are three quick takeaways from these programs:

1. Recruiters Can’t Do It Alone – In the same fashion that small and medium-sized businesses count on everyone to do some selling, today’s labor market necessitates everyone contributing to the recruiting effort, using their network to broadcast openings, make referrals, and participate in the interview process where appropriate. Smart managers see to it that such efforts are appropriately encouraged, recognized, and well rewarded.
2. Talent Hunting is an Always-On Process – As I suggested to one of our client’s senior leaders, the odds of a great candidate having a hole in their dance card at the exact moment that a job in his business opened up are remote indeed. To wit, the hunt for talent, especially for core jobs needs to be an always-on proposition, even to the point that good candidates are occasionally taken on in advance of the need.
3. The Recruitment Process Needs to Get a Lot Friendlier – One easy way of doing this is to use ample doses of information, artfully presented, to make it easier for applicants to screen themselves out of the process. Another involves apprising candidates as to their status on as near to a real-time basis as possible. This second factor has been an annoyance to job candidates forever, and with the advent of ATS and all manner of information handling tools, there is no good reason for it to continue.

Oh, and one last thing, show your recruiters some love. They’ve been working their tails off for a while now.