There is a chapter titled “Picking and Measuring Your People” which addresses the need for companies to find and hire inbound marketing savvy people.  The book referred to these people as “Digital Citizens” who were either “born Web” or very familiar with the Web and who speak Web fluently.  The authors suggested using a framework they referred to as “DARC” to identify and hire these types of candidates.

The “D” in Darc refers to identifying people who are Digital Citizens.

The “A” deals with hiring people who can demonstrate analytical acumen. Because every marketing activity of inbound marketing is completely measurable, the ability to analyze the results will insure better decision making according to Halligan and Shah.

The “R” stands for hiring people who have Web reach.  Web reach is simply a new form of Rolodex; that is, a personal network of connections within a specialty or industry industry through the web.

Finally, the “C” refers to finding “Content Creators”.  These are people with great writing skills who can create what the authors refer to as “remarkable content”.

As I reflected on this chapter of “Inbound Marketing”I had two distinct thoughts:

1. Identifying job candidates who have the skills, background and characteristics required to handle the development and executive of an inbound marketing plan effectively, will necessitate careful consideration.  For each person to be hired, a prospective employer will need to create a comprehensive job description, interviewing questions and determine what, if any, testing should be done to help the hiring authority judge a candidate’s viability. 

2. The second thought I had dealt with a personal observation. It seems to me that when any company initiates a new idea or concept designed to improve efficiency, effectiveness and ultimately to increase the sales of a product or service the company offers, it almost always results in the need to find the right person to insure that the idea or concept is generated successfully.

Interesting, isn’t it…no matter how sophisticated or leading edge our approach to business, it inevitably boils down to a need to hire the right talent!

Let me know your thoughts on this or on any other topic in our blog. The Sourcerer wants your input…

Well, you should have heard this woman…she went on and on about how great the company was, how much she liked her job, her co-workers, the benefits, the way she was treated by her boss, etc, etc. I found myself taking a whole new attitude toward this company after that conversation.  And that got me thinking further…

Wouldn’t it be great to capture the enthusiasm of happy, satisfied employees and place their comments on your company’s career site so that candidates could see and read the reasons why they should consider your company as a potential employer!  Not the marketing hype from your sales department or ad agency, but the honest comments of real employees. 

No matter how high the unemployment rate is, finding truly talented personnel is difficult, to say the least.  Why not let your own employees help by giving interested candidates reasons to consider your company as their next employer?

Consider including the positive comments of one or two people from within the actual department or area where you have a new job opening.  You may find that doing so will encourage top talent to apply.

What do you think…

• Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden.  ~Orson Scott Card
• A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under this sun.  ~Thomas Carlyle
• You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.  ~William Shakespeare
• A man who has no office to go to – I don’t care who he is – is a trial of which you can have no conception.  ~George Bernard Shaw
• The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you’re on the job.  ~Slappy White
• Of all the aspects of social misery nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment.  ~Jane Addams, 1910
• Cessation of work is not accompanied by cessation of expenses.  ~Cato the Elder
• The hardest work in the world is being out of work.  ~Whitney Young, Jr.
• Hunger is not the worst feature of unemployment; idleness is.  ~William E. Barrett
• An “acceptable” level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.  ~Author Unknown
• Unemployment diminishes people.  Leisure enlarges them.  ~Mason Cooley
• Unemployment is like a headache or a high temperature – unpleasant and exhausting but not carrying in itself any explanation of its cause.  ~William Henry Beveridge
• We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.  ~John F. Kennedy
• When I quit working, I lost all sense of identity in about fifteen minutes.  ~Paige Rense
• I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work.  Work organizes life.  It gives structure and discipline to life.  ~Bill Clinton
• What is the good of being a genius if you cannot use it as an excuse for being unemployed?  ~Gerald Barzan
• The shock of unemployment becomes a pathology in its own right.  ~Robert Farrar Capon, “Being Let Go,” New York Times, 5 August 1984

The Sourcerer would love to add a quote from you to this list…

Finally they devised a plan that worked.  They sent an e-mail to every Nurse who currently or previously worked for them or who had registered with them at any time over the last five years, asking for referral names of qualified RN’s. They offered every person who e-mailed to them the contact information on an interested referral, the chance to participate in a drawing for an all expense paid trip for 2 to an island resort in the Caribbean.

The offer ended up on a couple of the social networks and the organization got over 120 referral responses.  They subsequently hired 6 RN’s from this program… and one of their referring sources got a great paid vacation.

The company calculated that they actually saved money when compared to the costs of using more traditional recruiting methods to find and hire 6 qualified RN’s.  Nice “Creative Recruiting”!

• What’s the company like?
• How many employees do they have?
• How many people work in the department I’m applying to?
• What’s the working environment like?
• Can you tell me about the company’s culture?
• Do they have much turnover?
• Why is the job open?
• Is there a clear career path in this position?
• Do they promote from within?
• What kind of opportunities are there for advancement?

Candidates who are interested in career growth want to know so much more than a typical job description will tell them.  You can use your Career Site to present this type of ancillary information. Information that can increase the interest a highly qualified candidate may have in your organization.

It’s up to you to create the “sizzle” that will help convince that “just right” job seeker to pursue your company.  There are lots of topics you can include on a well designed Career Site including:

• Employee testimonials (VERY effective)
• A company events calendar 
• A diversity policy statement
• Employee photos
• List of charitable events in which the company & employees particpate
• Company vision or mission statement
• Comments from satisfied customers

Use your imagination to create a Career Site that will appeal to the level of candidates you want to attract to your company.  Whether unemployment is at record highs or is incredibly low, finding  top talent is always difficult.  Sell the reasons why your employees like working at your firm.

 The Sorcerer’s answer: No and here is why…

 Media guru and recruitment consultant, John Zappe, recently quoted job posting distributor, eQuest, who said that CareerBuilder and Monster are still the most requested sites for advertising job openings. Companies looking for people use these sites because that is where the vast majority of job seekers register.

Even though a candidate may sign-up on specialized and/or local job boards, that same candidate will register with one or more of the major Job Boards to be certain that he/she has the maximum amount of exposure to potential employers.

 That means that candidates, both talented and not so talented, will respond to an appealing job posting, often in significant numbers.  Recruiters, Hiring Managers and HR professionals learn to dread the affliction known as “resume fatigue” when it becomes necessary to review a large number of candidate resumes for an open position.

 Is there a solution for “resume fatigue”? 

You bet, it’s called Talmax.  Check it out!

• Stay at your company longer
• Are less expensive to recruit
• Are often more qualified
• Adapt to your company culture more easily

 To implement a referral program many companies offer a bounty to encourage existing employees to refer friends and acquaintances for job openings. The bounty can be in the form of a cash payment, merchandise, extra time off or some other incentive.

 There are numerous cases, however, when a company’s ERP (Employee Referral Program), just doesn’t work well. This often happen when the program is not sufficiently promoted by the company or there is a lack of communication about the program within the company. One of the keys to a successful referral program requires the company to follow-up with any employee concerning the status of any person that employee referred…not doing so may insure that the employee  might never make another referral. Lack of communication from the company can easily lead to a “Why bother?” attitude from the employee.

 From the employer’s perspective, effective referral programs must track costs like bonuses paid and promotion expenses incurred for a specific campaign. Surveys should be conducted periodically to check employee satisfaction with the referral program and to ask for input to improve the program. Management should also track the success rates and number of hires that are made using the referral program during specific periods.

 According to a recent study by CareerXroads, employee referrals on a national basis account for 28.5% of all external hires. That’s a statistic to really consider if you want to increase your success in recruiting and lower your recruiting costs.

 To improve or maximize the effectiveness of an ERP, it’s important to set measurable goals.  Goals like ”increasing the percentage of hires from employee referrals from 15% to 20% over the next 12 months”. You will also want to measure how the return on your investment in a referral  program compares with the results of other recruitment options you use.

 In addition, for ease of use and consistency, automate as much of your ERP as possible and continue to promote the program through e-mails, newsletters and employee rewards. 

 Finally, a secondary source for referrals that is both effective and increasingly popular is social and professional networking using sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo and Twitter for recruiting.  Social networking enables candidates to network their way into target companies on the strength of their existing business or personal relationships. It also allows employers to identify passive candidates they might otherwise not find.  

Pros of Referral Programs

• Typically low cost depending on the size of the bounty, especially if used prior to using more traditional recruiting tools such as classified advertising, job board postings, or third-party recruiters.
•  Sometime this “birds of a feather” theory yields great candidates. The theory is based on the assumption that great employees tend to associate with or know of other people with similar traits.

 Cons of Referral Programs

• There can be problems if a referred candidate is hired and doesn’t work out or isn’t happy in the job. This situation can cause problems for the employee who referred the candidate and sometimes necessitates the employer implement an immediate solution in what could be a delicate situation.
• There can also be problems when a referred candidate is not hired, potentially causing embarrassment for the person doing the referring and reluctance to offer additional referrals in the future.
•  Often employees can be reluctant to proactively solicit referrals even when a bounty is involved.
•  Promoting an internal bounty program can be costly in terms of time investment and out of pocket expense. In addition, an Employee Referral Program generates extra administrative reporting that needs to be managed.

 Tips

• If you start an Employee Referral Program you may want to initiate your program using smaller referral bonuses to keep costs down.  You can differentiate the bonus amounts you offer as your need determines. When you launch your program, provide your employees with a written explanation including the fact that the incentives may increase or decrease based upon market conditions for sourcing specific skills. In other words, you may pay a bigger bounty to find a referral with a scarce skill and less to fill positions requiring more commonly available skill sets.
• Create a form that your employees can submit when they refer candidates. Date and time stamp this form to validate the referral when it’s time to pay the bonus.
•  Track every referral transactions carefully.
•  Decide if you want to build in a waiting period, perhaps 30 to 90 days, after the referred employee begins work, before you pay the bonus; rather than pay the bonus as soon as the referred employee starts the new job.

Putting an Employee Referral Program together takes time and no small amount of effort, but The Sourcerer knows that a program like this can be a great way to hire!

• My intensity and focus are at inordinately high levels, and my ability to complete projects on time is unspeakable.
• Education: Curses in liberal arts, curses in computer science, curses in accounting
• Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store
• Personal: Married, 2008 Chevrolet
• I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse.
• I am a rabid typist.
• Created a new market for pigs by processing, advertising and selling a gourmet pig mail order service on the side.
• Exposure to German for two years, but many words are not appropriate for business.
• Proven ability to track down and correct erors.
• Personal interests: Donating blood; 15 gallons so far
• I have become completely paranoid, trusting completely nothing and absolutely no one.
• References: None, I’ve left a path of destruction behind me.
• Strengths: Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer
• ‘My goal is to be a meteorologist; but since I possess no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage.”
• I procrastinate — especially when the task is unpleasant.
• I am loyal to my employer at all costs… Please feel free to respond to my resume on my office voicemail
• Qualifications: No education or experience
• Accomplishments: Oversight of entire department
• Extensive background in accounting; I can also stand on my head!
• Finally at the bottom of a cover letter: Thank you for your consideration. Hope to hear from you shorty!

If you’ve got a favorite resume gaffe, send it along and we’ll add it to our collection!

The Sourcerer’s creative recruiting tip for today: When recruiting, make it a point to “sell” the reasons why qualified candidates should be interested in your company. Fortune 1000 companies regularly do this with every job opening.  On their career sites and in their job descriptions, they provide information designed to appeal to the best talent available…and that appeal does not have to tie exclusively to compensation. Sure a compensation package is important to any talented candidate; however, there are other elements of the position and other information about a prospective employer that are every bit as critical.

Quality candidates want to know about the work environment, about their co-workers and the attitude their fellow employees have about the company. Candidates want to hear about the “social” side of your workplace including things like company events and the organization’s participation in charitable activities.  Top talent needs to understand the potential career path this position could take including the advancement possibilities and the degree of responsibility they will have in the position and in the company. The appealing picture you “paint” of your company and the people who work there can go a long way in attracting and landing the best available candidates. You need to provide this information as part of your Job Listing when you are looking for the best people you can find.

I have included a link to a Posting Page that contains a sample Job Listing to show you how easy it is to create an effective presentation that sells the job and your company.

View a sample Posting Page

Today’s high unemployment numbers do not preclude your need to provide these “selling points” in your recruitment advertising if you really want to source exceptional people. Even if a top quality candidate is not interested in or not qualified for a currently open position, he/she will return to your website to review future opportunities if they find your company an attractive place to work.  You can build that perception.  In recruiting, if you “sell”, they will come.