Recruiting good hires to any organization has been a persistent challenge for years. Furthermore, in what has seemingly been dubbed “the great resignation,” 2022 continues to be particularly difficult for leaders to recruit and retain staff. But there is a workaround, and it starts with hiring the best person, not the best resume for a job. In this article, I’m going to break down how we can turn this challenge into a major competitive advantage.

© ty | stock.adobe.com

A (Scary) New Dawn

These days it is not an unfamiliar sight to see businesses with newly chained doors or experience poor customer service due to insufficient staff. Even worse, help-wanted signs have now been replaced with those that warn, “We are short staffed. Please be patient with the staff that did show up!”

Obviously, this is an unfamiliar and unwelcome space for many business leaders. To overcome this, leaders must start with making better hires. Your survival necessitates that you become the best recruiters in your fields to attract the top talent.

The worst mistake you can make as a leader today is to say that you do not have the time to recruit talent. A struggling employee will give you 50 percent on the job. However, a better hire is somewhere out there ready to commit the full 100 percent to the company.

For you and for your business, this small change in personnel would likely lead to better customer service and an increase in repeat clients. Even more, your employment culture will be better aligned through increased shared values and goals.

Five Reasons to Prioritize Recruiting

Despite the best-laid business plans, the recruitment process can and will make or break a business. As a leader it is important to get the best economic value of your workers’ experience and skills. The way I see it, there are five reasons why actively recruiting staff is the best practice.

1. Employees (aka your human capital) are the number-one assets or liabilities to an organization’s success.
2. When you master good recruiting, you will have overcome a major business obstacle. Everything else will usually fall in place.
3. Great employees are not looking for a job, they are often well settled in another company that more than likely appreciates their value. The answer is to scout them out and lure them away (all is fair in love and business!).
4. The stronger the employee, the better the team and the higher the benchmark for success. After all, highly skilled and motivated people perform better.
5. The ability to attract and keep talent is what top coaches and leaders do better than others!

Five Mistakes to Avoid During the Recruitment Process

Now that we’ve established a good game plan, there are a few landmines that you will need to avoid during the recruitment process. To prevent you from accidently stepping on any, I’ve mapped what to sidestep below.

1. Learn the difference — applicants are not recruits. Why? An applicant is a person responding to an ad. A recruit is a person doing a great job at their current place of employment whom we are looking to attract to our team.
2. Do not rely solely on others to recruit for you, whether it be recruiters, headhunters, or HR personnel. Lead the challenge so others understand that it is a high priority area to you and a competitive advantage for the business.
3. Do not keep bad employees on staff for too long just because you can’t find the right person.
4. Do not hire the applicant that is not as bad as the others now, versus making sure we hire the best fit later.
5. And finally, recruiting is a proactive behavior that should continue for the duration of your business’ lifecycle. It is not just posting jobs or using recruitment websites to fill empty seats. Instead, it is actively seeking out those persons who have the potential to do a great job!

To close, as leaders we must remain active in the recruitment process. Remember, good people will only remain hard to find when we are not looking for them.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].