Topgrade Your Recruiting Efforts to Complement Your Business Vision
In today's market, organizations must adapt quickly to changing conditions. Now more than ever, having the right talent in place to support your short-term business initiatives and your long-term business vision is critical. Although your shop might be running smoothly today at your current staffing levels, how will this staff support your growth in a year, 5 years or even 10?
With the current unemployment statistics over 10 percent nationally, you can safely assume that there is high quality talent available for hire. As a business owner, you need to ask yourself - how can I capitalize on the talent pool available today? What do I need to do today to meet my business plan goals for the next quarter or in the next six months?
The answer can be found in topgrading your staff. Topgrading is about eliminating expensive mis-hires and securing top producers to fill your needs. In today’s economy with many highly- trained business professionals unemployed, bringing in a team of A-players is very possible with a focused plan and understanding of what it’s going to take to prosper. If you are stacking your team with A players you will have a competitive advantage with these players sense of market trends, timing, and priority.
Business owners who are proactive will win the recruiting game and will attract and retain the cream of the crop. Unfortunately, most employers don’t always know what they are looking. Waiting to recruit until you are in a desperate situation is like going grocery shopping on an empty stomach. You’ll jump at the first opportunity that comes your way. You can’t make the best decision, if you are not looking at the situation objectively.
Start with reviewing your business goals and identify the staffing gaps that are preventing you from reaching them. Before deciding to hire from the outside, reviewing the skills of your current employee base will allow you to capitalize on existing talent through a possible internal reorganization of functions. However, if you see that to meet your business goals, new skills are required, start with creating a job description or a position description that aligns with where you are taking your business.
Once you have a description, consider socializing it within your company. Research shows that referrals from existing employees are three times more likely to be a good match for the job. This is because your team can give candidates details about the culture of the company and the requirements of the job better than you can! If they feel it is a good fit for their friend Mike, it likely will be a good fit for them too. You can with a little proactive thinking, get the top talent that is out there.
