How do you find talent today?

In his book 'Good to Great' Jim Collins points out that great business leaders all feel one of the biggest limitations on successful business growth is the difficulty of attracting and keeping enough of the right people.

In today's highly-competitive global environment finding the right people, with the right skills, at the right time, to accomplish today's and tomorrows organizational objectives is a strategic concern for every successful company! In his book 'Good to Great' Jim Collins points out that great business leaders all feel one of the biggest limitations on successful business growth is the difficulty of attracting and keeping enough of the right people.

Many great business leaders share the same view -- in today's highly competitive world recruiting and selection of the right people is a critical factor for their overall success. The next question is how can HR professionals ensure this idea becomes a reality? How will HR specialists go about finding new staff that have the combination of skills, knowledge and ability that enables them to perform a job to the required standards?

The first step involves putting together a systematic process that will ensure the company's recruiting efforts are linked directly to the business. There are a number of questions that need to be answered before starting to design your recruiting program:


• What is the company's vision?

• What do we need to be successful today?

• Are there major changes taking place in the industry or in our company?

• Will we be doing the same thing in 5 weeks, 5 months, or 5 years?

Getting the answers to these questions will help identify what skills, knowledge and abilities are needed for us to remain successful, both today and tomorrow! Now that the strategic questions have been raised (and hopefully answered) the focus will need to shift toward the operational perspective.

An operational focus also requires asking some tough questions before putting together a comprehensive recruiting strategy. First and foremost, the organization needs to identify all of the current vacancies and position requirements. The HR staff then needs to get management's view on which level they believe is most critical to the long-term value to the organization. Should the recruiting efforts primarily focus on high level positions, mid-level support or entry level positions? The recruiting priorities will change depending on how the management team answers that question.

After the recruiting priorities are established the HR staff will need to work in partnership with line managers to make sure their needs are met. And there's one tool that provides a link between both parties - the job descriptions. Why? Because job descriptions identify the skills and competencies that are required to meet their department's business objectives! Of course this means that the job descriptions must be current and accurately reflect the skills that are needed to meet current operational objectives. Hopefully, the job descriptions will also reflect the skills that will be needed to meet future business objectives.

Within the local region companies should also address their Nationalization efforts. Will recruitment focus primarily on supporting a nationalization program? If so, have minimum levels of experience, skills and/or education been identified? Will the position be reserved for nationals only or will people be considered? Why do these issues play a role? Because running a successful recruiting campaign involves more than just using the internet to post jobs or search for candidates. Successful recruiting starts with knowing where to look for the talents your company needs. It helps to know what the company is looking for before starting the search. It will also provide the data you need to determine if advertisements should be placed in local, regional or specialty magazines or newspapers.

It's common practice for HR personnel to start the recruiting efforts with internal candidates and turn to external sources if a qualified in-house candidate isn't available. This approach ensures the organization has a motivated workforce that competes for internal job openings while also recruiting new talent from the outside when internal candidates are not available.

Once the company has gathered enough qualified applicants the selection process begins. This process deals with choosing and hiring the most qualified individuals for the existing job vacancies. Selecting the right set of skills, knowledge, and abilities is an attempt to get a 'fit' between what the applicant can do and what the company needs. This is extremely important because how well an employee is matched to a job will have a direct bearing on the quantity and quality of their work efforts. Successfully matching the applicant's skills, knowledge and abilities with the job requirements will have a number of positive effects:


• Lower operating cost

• Lower training cost

• Higher employee morale

• Rates

• Greater job satisfaction

Finally, by ensuing a good fit exists between the candidate, position and company will help improve the company's retention rates. This is extremely important when you consider that recruiting costs can be as high as 25% of the employee's annual compensation package. This figure includes recruiting costs, orientation and training costs, as well as replacement costs if the individual leaves the company within the first year. Not getting a good fit becomes a losing situation for everyone and can actually hurt the company's reputation.

Although attracting talent is a difficult challenge for every organization, those that take the time to set up a systematic process based on their own strategy will be successful! To close this article I would like to leave you with two important thoughts:


• Good training will not fix a bad recruiting process

• If you don't hire the right applicant, your competition will