Hurry, hurry, step right up: how recruiters woo high-demand candidates - includes related article on employee retention

HR Magazine, Dec, 1998 by Robert J. Grossman

When Paul DeSisto's employer, Bank Boston Corp., awarded him a healthy 8 percent pay raise, the bosses were sending the portfolio manager a message that they wanted him to stick around. DeSisto, however, was unimpressed. So when a headhunter from New York called, even though his total compensation package had reached six figures, the former Air Force pilot was ripe for plucking. "The main thing I'm looking for is to work for people who want me to work for them," DeSisto says. "I don't want them to think they're doing me a favor." And when Regent Investor Services, a division of investment heavyweight Alliance Capital Management, gave DeSisto the red carpet treatment, he was only too willing to be swept away. "They really wanted me," DeSisto says simply from his new office in White Plains, N.Y.

Increasingly, staffing companies, recruiters and company HR executives report that money is important, but not enough to induce talented workers to move. Recently, researchers at Robert Half International Inc., in a sampling of the 1,000 largest employers in the United States, asked 150 top executives, half of them in HR, why good employees quit their jobs. Forty-one percent cited the belief that opportunities for advancement were limited. Twenty-five percent pointed to lack of recognition. Only 15 percent said money was the primary factor.

"Recognition and praise are critical, even more than salary and benefits," says Lynn Taylor, vice president and director of research at Robert Half in Menlo Park, Calif. "Companies that are not showing the path to employees and are failing to promote from within are going to lose out to those who do, especially in the strong job market we're in. It's incumbent on employers to lay out that path as early as the hiring process. Once on the job, companies have to deliver; they need to be in touch with employees on a regular basis to make sure they're getting what they were promised in the hiring phase."

Of course, Taylor adds, the 15 percent of workers who jump jobs for money can't be overlooked, but in the main, dollars don't drive people into the market. "If people are is happy and can see the light through the tunnel, you won't be able to make them move by waving money at them."

In fact, experienced recruiters say that if money is all it takes to persuade someone to change jobs, that person is a risk, because another employer with deeper pockets may come along and lure the recruit away.

Still, headhunters report that in some fields, like accounting, where there are five jobs for every candidate, money remains king. "It's as simple as saying here's the dollars on the table," says Ken Laury, a principal at Capital Finance Recruiters in Palisades Park, N.J., whose clients include Philip Morris Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. "You just dangle the money before them and they'll go."

The accountants and auditors that Laury recruits are lured away by raises averaging 25 percent. But soon, they're looking for even more. "They're jumping a lot," he says. "They average three to six months in a job."

"It's a candidate's market," says Tammy Taylor, president of National Sales Recruiters in Houston, "and the two reasons people will make a change are money and promotional opportunities."

EMERGING WORKERS

Recruiters report that the job market-at least in the United States-has never been tighter, and they have never been busier, especially in hot fields like information technology, finance and medicine. From entry level to CEO, the jobs are there for qualified candidates. Headhunters tell a tale of workers, sobered by downsizing and fearful of becoming technically and professionally obsolete, skipping from job to job and recruited away by savvy recruitment specialists.

But contrary to anecdotal evidence that job-hopping is an increasing phenomenon, average job tenure recorded statistically has changed little in recent years. According to a recent study conducted by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a management consulting firm in Bethesda, Md., the average job tenure at midsize and large companies was 13.4 years in the most recent period-1995 to 1997 - up from 12.6 years from 1990 to 1992. The study examined the employment records of 1 million workers at 59 companies.

But the devil is in the details. Buried within these aggregate statistics are substantial numbers of people for whom sticking with one employer until gold watch time is not a consideration. Ray Marcy, president of Interim Services Inc., an international staffing company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., calls them the emerging workforce. "The emerging workers believe that loyalty should be based on merit - not longevity," Marcy says. "'Measure me by what I do, not on longevity,' they say. Emerging workers take personal responsibility for their careers, recognizing that the world is changing and they must prepare themselves for the future. They're looking for more responsibility, peer relationships, training and mentoring. They prefer horizontally structured organizations with informal reporting lines. And they have their antennae tuned to the outside world; it's a buyer's market out there, and they're always looking for new opportunities."