Smart tactics for finding workers

Nation's Business, Jan, 1998 by Thomas Love

The decline in the U.S. unemployment rate to 4.6 percent could complicate the already difficult task for many small-business owners trying to find good workers.

But entrepreneurs shouldn't despair Although they may lack the personnel department and recruiting budgets of large firms, they enter the battle for talented workers with other powerful weapons.

"The top way to recruit is to go to the people who work at your organization and appreciate you as a boss," says John Challenger, an owner of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a nationwide executive-search and outplacement firm based in Chicago.

Employers such as Raul Fernandez concur about the value of employee referrals. He is president of Proxicom Inc., a seven-year-old firm in Reston, Va., that provides Internet related services. Internal advertising is his No. 1 source of recruitment, he says. "People are happy to they refer their friends here for jobs. That's a great sign for our company."

Trying Harder

Companies looking for workers in a tight labor market should use the same tools they would employ when workers are plentiful, notably newspaper advertisement and employment agencies, says Ken Goldstein, an economist with The Conference Board, a business-research organization in New York City. The difference, he says, is that when workers are scarce, employers have to "beat those bushes harder" to get results.

Entrepreneurs should borrow techniques from professional recruiters, Goldstein says, such as approaching employees of the firm's competitors and suppliers. "If you're looking for salespeople, ask suppliers the names of good people who have called on them lately; if you're looking for technical people, ask about people who have come in to service their equipment,"he says.

Goldstein also suggests approaching retirees and others "who have worked for you before. Don't let them slip away" And be creative, he says. "One company advertised over the sound system during a San Francisco 49ers game. A California company flew a plane down the beach with a help-wanted banner behind it. "He says one airline has asked passengers to become headhunters and to submit resumes.

When recruiting gets really difficult, entrepreneurs have to "cast a wide net, and there is none wider than the World Wide Web," he notes. "Put an ad on the Internet and hope someone, somewhere win look at it and apply for the job or at least know someone who will."

Internet recruitment has been "extremely effective" for his firm, says Proxicom's Fernandez, who often uses CareerBuilder (www.careerbuilder.com). Among the many other employment sites on the Internet are The Monster Board (www.monster.com) and Career Mosaic (www.careermosiac.com). About one-third of the commercial Internet sites do not charge for listening; the typical fee charged by the md is $25 to $150.

Less Conventional Sources

Arte Nathan, vice president for human resources Mirage Resorts in Las Vegas, is tapping an even more innovative source: nonviolent first offenders who were sentenced to -- and graduated from -- a Marine-style camp rather than a prison.

Nathan says a number of states have instituted similar boot-camp programs, but he warns that ifs the responsibility of employers to work closely with parole officers and other court representatives to identify graduates who will make good employees.

Barry Lawrence, spokesman for the Society for Human Resource Management, an 80,000-member professional organization in Alexandria, Va., says its members have found that state welfare rolls can be a source of employees, although he says irs too early for hard data on how they have fared in the workplace. (For more on the topic, see Page 10 of Dateline: Washington.)

"The important thing there is to be early out of the gate,"he says, to capture the best of the lot. After that, he concludes, you'll have an increased chance of running into people with serious problems that might make them unemployable.

Employers should bear in mind, says Lawrence, that it's very important to look at the other side of the question. You can recruit like crazy, bit you also have to pay attention to the people you have because you don't want them leaking out the back door. If you make some real retention efforts, you won't have to worry so much about recruiting."