I got a very time appropriate newsletter today from Jack Daly in which he lamented the Press and their desire to pummel us with negativity about the tightening economy and try to convince us that we’re all victims. It was appropriate because I’ve been working on this blog post for a while and simply needed the impetus to finish it and get it published.
You’ve read over and over again that I truly feel like now is an exceptional time to recruit but it’s not because of the sheer volume of people who are unemployed. Let’s face it, while there are more people looking for a job today than at any time in history (as a number, not %), the number of A-Players in the workforce hasn’t gone up.
Recently I wrote about what an A-Player looks like and where they’re “hiding” and the truth is that they’re NOT hiding. Instead, they’re just not making themselves readily known because they’re working their tails off for someone else.
Topgrading talks a lot about the idea of building your Virtual Bench. It’s another way of saying “Dig your well before you’re thirsty”. The book Who does a better job of describing how you can “Deputize” your friends and colleagues to help you constantly be recruiting for the best talent in the marketplace. Because let’s face it, if you’re waiting until you have a hiring need to try to identify the top talent (or A-Players) then you’re probably not going to have much luck.
What Jack Daly’s newsletter did for me was help me really quantify what I could be doing inside of my company to ensure that my Virtual Bench is where it needs to be. His list includes:
- Rank my staff to really understand what I’ve got and encourage me to deal with my poor performers.
- Have a list of 20 people in what he calls the “Recruiting Basket” and what I’ve referred to in this blog as the Virtual Bench.
- Build a Recruiting system around touch points. My first sales manager used to call this a “tickle file”. These “touches” are process-driven and ensure that I’m “touching” the people I might want to hire on a very scheduled and routine basis.
- Always take Proactive Recruiting Interviews (I try to have at least 1 a week with someone new)
- Assess the Virtual Bench at least once a month to figure out how solid the pipeline is.
There are an awful lot of economists who think that we’ve hit the bottom of this market already and that we’re already on the way back up. If we are, and the 3rd quarter is when you envision heating back up, NOW’s a good time to start paying attention to these ideas of Jack’s!
Tags: A-Player, A-Players, best talent, Brad Smart, chris mursau, deal with poor performers, deputize your friends, dig your well before you're thirsty, economy, hiring, Interview, jack daly, newsletter, proactive recruiting, rank your staff, recruit don't absorb, Recruiting, recruiting basket, recruiting interviews, recruiting touch points, smarttopgrading, talent acquisition, tickle file, top talent, Topgrading, topgrading methodology, touch points, under-performance, underperformers, unemployment, unemployment rate, victims, virtual bench, who, who the book
