The Ideal Candidate

In a Human Resource manager's perfect world there would be little employment turnover. Qualified candidates would be plentiful, and those of us with the often-unwelcome task of recruiting and interviewing new employees would do so quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively, with each candidate search resulting in a wealth of highly-qualified applicants.

This, however, is not a perfect world.

Unemployment rates are at an all-time low, jobs are plentiful, often going unfilled for long periods, and, in some areas of the country, companies have actually moved or closed because they could not adequately staff. Those of us who, as supervisors or managers, are responsible for department or company recruitment find ourselves spending an increasing portion of our work week brainstorming new recruitment techniques and ideas, writing employment advertising copy, interviewing and training again and again, until the revolving door problem seems insurmountable.

Part of the frustration of the hiring process is that so many of us whose job functions include recruiting and interviewing tasks are not trained Human Resource Managers. We may be self-employed, or executives in companies whose size, style or budget have not warranted a separate Personnel or Human Resource Department. The HR functions fall to us as department or company managers. Often we have excelled in our previous non-supervisory position, have been promoted on the theory that if we excelled at the job we should be able to train and motivate others to excel at the job. We have not, however, had guidance on how to actually locate and then woo those others to our firm.

Which brings me to the focus of this column. In my recruitment advertising career, I have worked with recruiters, human resource managers, department heads and employment agency staff, assisting them in the tasks of finding and retaining the ideal candidates. I have viewed and experienced the frustration and the expense of high turnover, and unfilled or poorly-filled positions. While I don't suggest I or anyone can solve all these problems, I am convinced that the majority of executives responsible for hiring functions need and welcome guidance in the area of cost-effective, legal recruitment.

In the coming weeks and months this column will talk about the various recruiting options - print, broadcast, internet, employment agencies, job fairs, referrals, networking and others.

We will take a look at the myriad publications, sites and resources available to the recruiter, offering not only employment advertising, but access to resumes, job listing services, expert guidance, and networking opportunities.

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