A few days ago I got a call from a small business owner who had a tall order:

“I’m looking for a great salesperson who’s got an established client base to sell my construction materials.  Ideally, they’d be able to work from home, with their own clientele, and have the ability to develop their own sales materials.  We don’t have a training program, so they’d need to be able to work independently.  The position is entirely commission-based – but if they work hard, they can make a lot of money.”

Except…a strong, entrepreneurially-minded salesperson who’s got an established clientele and the ability to work independently is (probably) already making a lot of money in their current job.  They’ve probably got a base salary, ongoing commissions from repeat business, job security and a certain level of seniority.  Why would they leave that to come to your small business?

It’s important to see your opportunity objectively.

If you’re like most small business owners, you are unreservedly positive about your business, and that’s good.  But when it comes time to recruit key people for your organization – particularly if you’re looking to build a team that can take you to the next level – you have to take a step back.  Top-tier candidates, the ones who can really make a difference to a small business, have choices, even in a tough economy.  Are you really offering them a better opportunity than they could get elsewhere?

Ask yourself:

• What does the ideal candidate really look like, in terms of lifestage, lifestyle, salary/commissions/bonus and day-to-day activities?
• How does your opportunity compare with what they are doing now?  If you’re asking them to take a reduced salary/compensation, what are you offering in return?  How long will it take for them to recoup that loss, realistically?
• Can you offer them a meaningful lifestyle change that will compensate for what they’re giving up?
• Will what you’re offering really attract the best and brightest in your field, or just a B- or C-list person?
• If you were offered this position, would you jump at the chance?  (Be honest!)

I know it’s tough, when you’re a small business owner, to commit to making an investment in a new person, whether it’s salary, training, recruiting or even just the time required while a new hire gets up to speed and becomes maximally productive.  But it’s like any other wisely-considered  investment:  You tend to get out what you’re willing to put in.

PART 1:  The real cost of bad hires

PART 2:  Getting closer to the ideal candidate

In our first two blogs about recruiting for small business, we talked about the true cost of bad hires and how better screening and interviewing can help you get closer to the ideal candidate.

But for many small business owners, ‘recruiting’ is a whole new world.  If your business is just starting to take off, it’s likely that your first employees came from people you already knew, referrals from friends and family, and hiring ‘accidents’ that just happened to work out well.

Now that you’re growing, you have to get more strategic with your hires, and that often means going outside your comfort zone:  Hiring people with skillsets outside your own, spending money on more senior people who can take on a leadership role, or investing in staff not because you’re overloaded with work but because you know you need to grow in the longer term.

This can be scary – but there are ways to find great candidates

5 tips for finding the best candidates for your organization

1.  Don’t be afraid to call a recruiting company

Many small businesses are reluctant to engage a recruiting company because they think it’ll cost them a lot of money. That’s not always the case.  Try calling a smaller recruiting company and asking if they have an alternative to the standard 20% contingency fee model.  Many recruiting companies will agree to provide you with recruiting help on a per-hour basis (you pay for the recruiter’s time, rather than a contingency fee) or to provide you with a list of potential candidates from which you can recruit directly, for a reduced fee.

2.  Engage your current employees to drive referrals

Recruitment managers will tell you that the best way to find great employees is by tapping into the networks of current employees.  So when you’re looking for a new hire, don’t keep it a secret from your current team – let them know the kind of candidate you’re looking for, and ask them to spread the word via their LinkedIn, Facebook or other social media channels.  (Offering a referral fee if they refer the winning candidate – $250 should do it – can help to motivate them.)

3.  Don’t depend on job boards

If you’re looking to hire 25 new call centre employees, posting on a job board like Monster might be a good way to attract candidates, but when you’re looking to fill a more senior role or need an unusual mix of skills, job boards aren’t going to reach the people you really want.

4.  LinkedIn can be a powerful resource

More than 95% of Canadian recruiters say that LinkedIn is their first stop when they’re looking for great candidates.  If you’ve been keeping up your LinkedIn profile and connections, it can be a great place for you, as a small business owner, to start as well.  Post the opportunity as your LinkedIn status, search your connections for potential matches, and check out industry groups in your area.  Just because someone isn’t actively looking for a job doesn’t mean that they’re not open to a new opportunity.

5.  Know what you have to offer

As a small business, you may not be able to offer big salaries or huge benefit plans to potential employees.  But small businesses often have all kinds of other ‘perqs’ to offer:  Accelerated promotion opportunities, a cool office space, a more varied workday, the ability to work at home, a more entrepreneurial environment – many people, after spending 15 years in a big company with established rules, simply yearn for the ‘every day is a new adventure’ atmosphere of a small business environment where they can stretch their skills.  So when you’re writing the job description or talking about it, put the emphasis on these elements – you never know when you’ll capture the imagination of an A-list candidate.

Last time, we talked about how, even for small businesses, doing your own recruiting can be a false economy in terms of hard costs, especially when it comes to sourcing top candidates.

But once you’ve got 25 resumes from potential hires in front of you, how do you choose the ones who are most likely to be a success in your organization?

Screening and interviewing are 2 of the most important steps in selecting the right person to hire, but they’re often discounted by small businesses.  Small business owners often think:  ”I know my business better than anyone else, and I wouldn’t have been this successful already if I didn’t understand people.”

It’s true that most successful entrepreneurs are good at reading people, and building successful relationships with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.  But assessing whether a person will be a great employee requires a different skillset, and asking questions designed to elicit specific responses which will predict on-the-job behaviour.

Professional recruiters – whose reputations hinge on being able to assess the right candidates for a job – can make a big difference by screening out the B- and C-listers, and ensuring you only see the potential A-listers for a job.

But if you aren’t using a recruiter, or it’s up to you to select the final hire from the top 3 a recruiter is sending you, here’s how you can improve your chances of getting a top performer:

• Make a list of the traits of your current top performers.  Are they high-energy, entrepreneurial types, or more methodical, detail-oriented workers?
• Envision the ‘ideal candidate’ for the role, including education, experience, work/management style, skillsets and personality.  Write it down!
• Make a list of the day-to-day skillsets required for the position.  Remember that whether someone has an MBA may ultimately be less important than whether they are comfortable preparing and delivering presentations to senior management
• Learn more about Behavioural Based Interviewing.  BBI is all about asking interview questions which are designed to get the candidate to provide specific examples of what they’ve done in work situations in the past, and are better predictors of future success than general questions like “So, tell me about yourself…”
• Prepare a list of interview questions before you enter the interview room.  It’s easy for small business owners to allow interviews to veer off into ‘social interactions’ rather than conversations designed to elicit specific information

PART 3:  Finding great candidates

Last week I got a call from the president of a local healthcare technology company.  He had about 25 employees, and was looking for a new salesperson to expand his territory.  But he was frustrated.

“Look, I know what I need here.  I’ve tried 3 people and they haven’t worked out, so I know I need someone who is willing to work harder than the people I’ve already tried. I keep advertising, but I’m not getting good people.  But I can’t spend a lot of money, especially when no one seems to work out.”

The thing is, bad hires cost a lot of money:  Companies say that bad hires can cost as much as $25,000-$50,000 – per bad hire.  And this Bad Hire Calculator shows you that even for junior or commission-based positions, the costs of bad hires are much more than you think.

As a small business ourselves, we know that recruiting costs (especially the traditional contingency-fee-based model) can seem expensive.  It can be tempting to think that if you just put a low-cost ad on Craigslist or even Monster, the right person will land in your lap.

Unfortunately, using job ads only exposes you to active job seekers, who comprise only a very small portion of the available talent pool.  If you’re like most small businesses, and need someone with a wide variety of skills or a unique skillset, you need to be able to cast your net much wider.

A recent survey by recruiting expert Lou Adler found that as many as 83% of currently employed people are ‘passive candidates’.  These are people who are currently working, aren’t looking at job boards, but who would be receptive to a new opportunity if it came along.

This is where engaging a recruiter can make a big difference.  Recruiters make it their business to develop long-term relationships with passive candidates, so when they get a request from a client, they’re working from a much larger potential pool of talent.

PART 2: Recruiters can get you closer to the ideal candidate, faster.

If you work in IT, you probably already know that it’s tough to make money directly from blogging.

But that doesn’t mean that creating and maintaining a blog isn’t a good idea – especially if you work in IT.  The blog itself may not end up delivering Google AdSense cheques, but it could give you the kind of career boost that will eventually earn you bigger paycheques.

Here’s how:

A blog makes you stand out from the competition

Ask any recruiter and they’ll tell you:  Given 2 roughly identical IT candidates, the one with the blog will be more appealing than the one without one.  Why?  Because a blog indicates all kinds of desirable traits that employers look for in potential employees:  An ability to communicate, a willingness to learn new things, and a certain amount of stick-to-it-iveness (because maintaining a blog over the long-term requires commitment).  All of this reflects well on you as a potential candidate.

A blog can say more about your skills than a resume ever could

For many IT consultants, resumes are just long lists of certifications and proficiencies – they just don’t leave room for insightful commentary (“Drupal just isn’t as effective as ASP when it comes to dynamic content…”) or in-depth analysis.  A blog, on the other hand, can contain longer pieces about your experiences and opinions with specific software, hardware, servers, or whatever else you’re interested in.

A blog indicates you’re a good communicator

One of the biggest concerns potential employers have about IT consultants is that they’re just ‘code monkeys’ who aren’t able to interact or communicate with non-IT people.  Having a blog – especially one which is written for a wider audience – is a good way to demonstrate that you are, in fact, capable of communicating with others, and enjoy doing so.

A blog can demonstrate you’re  well-rounded

Your blog doesn’t have to be about an IT-related subject.  Maybe you’re interested in photography, or cooking, or renovating houses in your spare time.  This can be a good thing:  Most companies will tell you that the best candidates for senior IT roles are the ones who are well-rounded and don’t just think about code 24/7.

A blog can capture your ideas in the moment

As you move forward in your career, and start interviewing for more senior (and more well-paying!) roles, you’ll find that employers increasingly ask for your opinions on software, database systems, project management, etc.  Chances are, you have opinions, and they’re based on real-life work experiences you’ve had.  But you know how it is:  If you don’t capture those ideas and opinions at the time, and make a note of the details, they may not come easily to mind when you’re asked about them later.  A blog can be a great way to make a note of ideas, insights and experiences you’ve had – which can be a great reminder for you later on.

A blog could attract your dream job

If you’re an independent or contract IT consultant, a blog can help raise your profile and attract attention from recruiters, employers and clients.  It may be that they stumble across your blog and think, “This person’s skills are exactly what I need right now!”, or they may see a link to your blog on your LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter profile which piques their interest.  At the very least, a blog increases the chances your name comes up when a recruiter does a quick Google search for you.  All of which can lead to better opportunities in the long run.

If you have an accounting designation or MBA, we have two fantastic opportunities at one of the most prestigious accountancy firms in the world.  Both positions have great opportunities for growth and advancement, as well as:

• $1000/year towards fitness (equipment/gym memberships)
• Participation in health, dental, insurance and pension benefits
• Performance bonus plan

Take a look at the opportunities below – 2012 could be the year that your career gets a huge boost!

POSITION #1:

HYPERION FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT (HFM) MANAGER

This is a perfect position for someone who wants to diversify their role by becoming a broader-performance management consultant.

The HFM Manager works closely with team members and client functional and technical professionals in a highly team-oriented environment, implementing financial software systems.

Leading application design aspects and assessing project requirements and deliverables, the HFM Manager identifies the best solution for clients.  The best candidates will be interested in expanding his/her technical skills with Oracle/HFM tools such as Essbase, OBRL Reporting, OBI, etc.

Experience in business processes and finance transformation is ideal.

What you’ll do in a day:

• Work closely with the client management team and users to define requirements and project scope
• Perform design and architect solutions which meet client requirements with respect to the close process
• Provide mentoring and training services
• Provide phone and/or email support on an ongoing basis
• Play a lead role as needed by performing project-related tasks such as scheduling, status reporting, product and account researching, progress and performance monitoring

The specific application experience you’ll need:

• Expert knowledge of/experience in HFM (5+ years’ experience)
• Experience working with Metadata and Business Rules logic
• Sound knowledge of the Value Dimension of HFM
• Hands-on experience in VB scripting
• Design and deployment of HFM Metadata architecture
• Design of Business Rules logic
• Experience with Smartview templates and web data entry forms creation
• Creating Star Schema and extracting data in customized format
• Experience with multiple currency handling
• Experience in building HFM Data Grids
• Knowledge of financial calculations
• Knowledge of end-to-end process automation and interface design

This experience would be a definite plus:

• Knowledge of FDM, Hyperion Reports, Oracle PL/SQL, and XML tags
• Knowledge of SOX Controls

What the ideal candidate looks like:

• CMA, CA, CGA or MBA
• 5 years minimum implementation experience with HFM
• Project management and/or software package implementation experience
• 5+ years financial experience including full monthly close processes
• Reporting and analysis experience
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Strong interpersonal skills, especially working wtih clients and co-workers
• Excellent client management skills
• Willingness to travel within Canada and possibly the USA

These qualifications will give you an advantage when applying for this position:

• Experience in an HFM lead role and in HFM design
• Working knowledge of Essbase and Hyperion Planning
• Experience with Hyperion or vendor reporting tools
• Excellent business acumen
• Experience with FDM and other ETL tools such as ODI
• Consultant experience, working with multiple clients
• Business degree

POSITION #2:

HYPERION PLANNING SENIOR CONSULTANT/MANAGER

This is a terrific opportunity for someone who wants to diversify their role and become a broader performance management consultant.

The Hyperion Planning Senior Consultant works closely with team members and client functional and technical professionals to implement financial software systems.

Participating in application design aspects and the assessment of project requirements and deliverables, the Senior Consultant identifies the best solution for our clients.  The ideal candidate will be interested in expanding his/her techical skills with multiple performance management products, within Oracle’s suite and other vendor applications such as TM1, SAP BPC, etc.

What you’ll do in a day:

• Work closely with client management and users to define requirements and project scope
• Perform the analysis necessary to design and architect solutions which meet client requirements
• Install, develop and implement Hyperion Planning-based solutions based on clients’ identified requirements, including data-form development, calculation scripts and business rule development, and reports using various tools
• Provide mentoring and training experience
• Provide phone and/or email support on an as-required basis
• Play a lead role as needed by performing project-related tasks, such as scheduling, status reporting, researching product and account issues, and monitoring project team progress and performance

What the ideal candidate looks like:

• CMA, CA, CGA or MBA
• 3 to 5 years minimum implementation experience with Hyperion Planning
• Project management and/or software package implementation process experience
• 5+ years financial experience, including planning, budgeting and forecasting, consolidation and closing
• Reporting and analysis experience
• Essbase development (calc scripts)
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong interpersonal skills, especially working with clients and co-workers
• Strong client management skills

These qualifications will give you a definite advantage when applying for this position:

• Experience with additional Hyperion tools or other vendor financial applications such as Clarity, TM or BPC
• Experience with FDM and other ETL tools such as ODI
• Excellent business acumen
• Experience as a consultant working with multiple clients
• Business degree

Think you might be a great fit for either of these positions?  We’d like to hear from you!

Send your resume (with covering email) to Andy Lo (andy.lo@polyplacements.com).

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As we’ve discussed before, insourcing – engaging a third party to hire, manage and administer a functional team onsite with your organization – can be a great way to get both the benefits of ‘outsourcing’ and the convenience of an in-house function.

But implementing an insourced function can be a delicate blending act, especially during the transition process.

Here are the 6 best practices that will help ensure your insourcing transition goes more smoothly – and generates the results you were hoping for, faster.

1.  Honour the past

If you’ve engaged an insourcing partner, it’s because your current function isn’t working as well as it should.  But that doesn’t mean that everything about your current function is broken.  So it’s important to identify what’s currently working, and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Great employees can be transitioned to new roles; great processes should be worked into the new system.

2.  Great project management is more important than big ideas

Successfully implementing a new (or new-and-improved) insourcing plan or partner depends less upon fantastic, sweeping ideas and more on really great project management, because it’s the fine details that will make or break the launch date, cost efficiencies, and acceptance by the rest of the organization.  So don’t get distracted by all the great communications materials – make sure the project plan is locked down and well managed.

3.  People are the most important element

The 3 big elements of any insourcing implementation are people, process and technology.  But people are the element that can have the most effect on whether an insourcing solution succeeds or fails – so it’s important to get the right people, in the right roles, right from the start.

4.  Don’t hang on to the wrong people

Even the most successful insourcing implementations will have a few people-related teething problems:  either an existing employee won’t transition well to the new function, or one of the new insourced staff won’t be a good fit.  It’s important to identify and remove under-performers or bad fits promptly, so the rest of the project isn’t sidetracked.

5.  Understanding the culture takes time

For better or for worse, every organization has an established culture, which won’t always been immediately apparent to the insourcing partner.  When creating your implementation plan, leave time for ‘culture discovery’ and strive for an objective understanding of the existing culture, whether you’re a part of the existing team or part of the organization hired as the insourcing partner.

6.  It will (almost) always take longer than you think

Implementing an insourcing function usually requires a thorough interrogation of the organization, and that interrogation always turns up some unforeseen circumstances – business needs may have changed since the decision to insource was made; staffing requirements may have changed; resourcing may have changed, etc.   You may not be able to predict what ‘unforeseens’ will turn up, but if you build a little extra time into your implementation plan right from the beginning, you’ll be able to deal with them without jeopardizing your timeline.

If you’re a recruitment leader, you’ve probably started asking your recruitment team – whether in-house, insourced or outsourced – for more reports in the past few years.

And you’re getting those reports:  You know how many candidates are applying, you know how many you’re interviewing, you know how many you’re hiring, and you even know how many of them are still on the job, 6 months later.

But.

There’s still a gap:  You’re getting plenty of applicants who seem to look good on paper, and your recruitment team seems to be swamped all the time, but somehow it’s all falling apart during the screening process, or the offer process – and the ratio of ‘interviews’ to ‘great candidates’ just isn’t as high as it should be, and you don’t know why.

Maybe it’s time for some Mystery Candidates.

Mystery Candidates are just what they sound like:  ’Ringers’ who apply for jobs, go through the interview process, and then provide you with detailed feedback on what’s working and what isn’t.

Why Mystery Candidates make sense

They do a better job of measuring candidate experience than standard time-to-hire and cost-per-hire metrics.  And candidate experience may be the difference between securing A-list talent and having to settle for B-list or C-list.

Sure, you may have an auto-responder set up to acknowledge applicants, but are those emails getting through?  Are they sending the right message?

Are candidates being contacted promptly?

When candidates come for interviews, are they being kept waiting?  Are the interviews fair and thorough?  Are they reflective of the actual position?   Is the recruiting team doing a good job of ‘selling’ the position and the organization?

Using Mystery Candidates can help you discover, for example, that the reason you’ve been unable to fill that junior Manager position is because it’s taking  more than 3 months from first contact to second interview – during which time all the best candidates have moved on.

How to set up a Mystery Candidate system

Retailers pay Mystery Shoppers a fee for their time; you can do the same for your Mystery Candidates – $100 is usually enough.  Here’s all you need to do:

• Select an open opportunity that’s currently posted on your website (a fairly junior one is probably easiest)
• Your Mystery Candidate should be a friend or colleague (outside the organization, of course!) who knows something about the role (i.e. if the job is in marketing, ask a friend who’s also in marketing)
• Brief them on the specific skills and experience associated with the role
• Create a fake resume for them, and give it to your recruitment team, as though it had come through ‘normal’ channels or a referral
• Then ask your Mystery Candidate to report on the process:  How quickly a recruiter contacted them, what the pre-screening conversation was like, and what happened in the interview

Yes, it requires a little bit of effort.  But you’ll end up with a more complete picture of your recruitment process – what’s working and what isn’t – than you’ll ever get in a year’s worth of monthly reports.