Thank you @ere and Ken Sundheim for a great article this morning. If you are a recruiter, or an HR professional that recruits as part of your job functions, you need to read: http://www.ere.net/2013/10/22/5-secrets-to-effective-recruiting/ and share it with your hiring managers, your CFO and your Board of Directors.

Points 1 and 2 really resonated with me.

#1 – Appropriate Compensation Conversations: I recently had a situation where I extended a job offer at a lower rate than I knew the prospective employee wanted to accept. I had a pretty solid idea what the prospect was currently making, and we had an idea of how much the prospect wanted to make. I extended a job offer (on behalf of our chief officer team) for a comp rate that was less than what the prospective employee was expecting (due to a difference in benefits, 401(k) match, PTO, sick leave and equity) and a number that was a bit lower than market for someone with their number of years of experience and specific areas of expertise. After negotiating back and forth, between both the potential employee and the chief officers, we finally got the prospect to commit to a number that was competitive, although we had to make some trade offs in regards to non-comp benefits. At the end of the day, everything worked out, but the biggest pain point was that I recommended a reasonable compensation rate for the prospective employee to the chief officers that approve compensation, and they shot it down, in lieu to wanting to take the prospective employee through the “negotiation dance.” As the economy picks up, and more prospective candidates have their pick of new and exciting employment opportunities, it is going to be harder to attract and retain talent. Make sure you have all the individuals who have a say in compensation on-board with the idea that a 10-15% increase over current comp is a realistic starting salary for those you want to join your team.

#2 Company Sales Pitch – Almost 100% of people I interview ask me “What do you enjoy most about working with XXX Company?” and expect an open, honest  and engaging answer. This is a great question for interview candidates to ask, and sometimes a challenging one for a recruiter to answer. Most of us joined our current organization for a specific host of reasons: more opportunities for advancement, more exposure to chief officers, higher compensation, etc. but sometimes putting all of that into words can be tricky. An experienced recruiter has their sales pitch or employer-of-choice tagline ingrained in their brain and has tailor-fit it their statement according to what they like most about where they work and what they do.  Make sure you are ready to answer this question, especially if you have a unique company culture, have a progressive way of looking at training and development opportunities or have an aggressive compensation philosophy.

What are your secrets to effective recruiting?

-Namaste