No your computer monitor is not upside down, you are just viewing Canada in a different way! Which is what I have done with our recruiting process.
In early October Mark Buckshon the owner of the Construction News and Report Group asked me if I wanted to take on the recruiting role to locate new Publishers for our papers. The model is simple, we find a sustainable region with a qualified rep. Actually we find the rep first and see if the region will support them. This is different then usual hiring and expansion process where you say I want to open a paper in Regina now find someone. Ironically in our model the qualified people determine our markets.
One thing from our planning session last year and this which was emphasized was we will expand where we find the right people. For the past year that meant posting job ads in Ontario in places like Ottawa, Kingston, Niagara, Toronto and Northern Ontario. When Mark asked me to take on the role I said I would but I wanted to use the same exact process for posting the jobs and the screening process as we had in place for 30 days to understand how we can make changes. Well through working with what was in place I found a few areas to change right away.
1) Do not just limit the job postings in Ontario near our existing markets. The great thing about the Canadian Job Bank you can post anywhere in Canada and it is free. So I targeted areas like New Brunswick, British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta and again supporting areas in Ontario for our existing publications.
2) I modified our working test a bit which involved the candidates working on a feature to generate sales from suppliers/trades and then producing a list of potential features they could work if hired.
The change was simple, Have them complete the feature list first at no cost to us and then modify the working paid test. If the person bomb the list of potential features we stopped the recruiting process. The paid portion of the test is where I clearly defined that we would pay then for 3 days consecutive work (defined how many hours 21, we had one candidate in the past invoice us for over 30 hours once, long story) and defined three ways they could be successful.
a) Generate sales from the list of suppliers and trades we provide you.
b) Land a new contract advertiser.
c) Set up two features with lists in that would meet the requirements of a valid feature.
3) Another change I have made is giving some people a second chance at completing the initial questionnaire we send out to gage peoples understanding of effective ways of marketing and also if they understand our process of having trade and supplier supported features. How I determined if I would give people a second chance was easy, I reviewed their resumes and looked for work experiences similar to mine and our other existing publishers. I simply sent back a online response to them saying here is what we were actually looking for. In two cases they the candidates did not redo it and one other person kept asking more questions.
Now one candidate responded with what I was exactly looking for and in the online sales test he scored 8.5 and 10 out of 10 two key areas around sales and closing. In the past I think because his first attempt at answering the questionnaire failed we could have never known his true talents.
4) The last change I will make is reviewing as many resumes of people who did not complete the first screening process assignment which is answering the questionnaire. In recruiting sometimes the best people for the job have decent jobs already and maybe are just going through the motions of finding a new job. Our process is different where we do not do a real sit down interview until the end of the process just before we do a reference check. This difference may scare away some candidates who are very well qualified to work for us that may simply need a little push to get going. I will be doing this review over the holidays season.
Now all the changes I have made are not earth shattering, but they are a different view of the current process we had in place. I recommend that if you are stuck in a rut with recruiting and finding new talent that you let another successful employee take a peek at what your are doing and see if they can find new ways to make it work. You may just find a new recruiter.
How do you locate and hire new staff? Share you stories with me at chasemarketing@sympatico.ca
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