As I write this, we are in one of the toughest global recessions since the 1930’s. Investors of all stripes have seen sometimes as much as 50% of their portfolios wiped out. Many have put their money in safer investments (or in cash) but the wiser investors are carefully buying up good quality, undervalued stocks that will rebound when we start to pull out of the recession.
Entrepreneurs and corporate managers can learn a lot from these canny investors when it comes to hiring. Now might be a good time to hire good quality, undervalued employees who will pay big dividends when we start to pull out of the recession. If your company is looking to hire, there are some misconceptions that you should be aware of which can turn these opportunities into disaster.
But there is a way to take advantage of the recession, big time.
Let’s start with the Big Fallacy: “Because we’re in a recession, there are a lot more good people out there, looking for jobs, who we can hire.” This is a commonly held belief and it is completely incorrect.
If you value your business or organization, you want to hire good people, right? But how do we define good. For any job, out of all the people who could do it, 25% are good to excellent, 50% are average and 25% are from below average to incompetent. You, I hope, want to hire from the top end of the good employees, let’s say at least from the top 10%, or even better, from the top 3%.
But as a recession deepens and companies lay people off, unless they are bound by union contracts, the people they lay off first are in the bottom 25% and the people they lay off next are in the average range. Companies will fight like mad to keep the good people who are in the top 25%!
The end result is that the people looking for jobs in a recessionary market are usually (but not always) in the average to poor end of the performance scale. So instead of looking for 1 person in 10 you are having to find that 1 person in 25, 50, 100 or more.
However, there is one great way for you to turn the tables in your favor.
Many of the companies who employ the sort people that you want to hire are also caught in the recession. They may have had one or more rounds of layoffs and of course, they have laid off the poorer performers. So the people who are still working for them are probably (a) the higher performing employees and/or (b) overworked because of the layoffs and/or (c) worried about the future of their jobs and their company. Here is a pool of people who are probably good performers and who might be very motivated to switch employers. These are the people who you should be targeting to hire.
That said, how do you find these people? How do you approach them? How do you persuade them to consider working for you?
The usual answer to this question is to employ an employment agency or headhunter. This can be a good solution if you use a firm that will proactively go out and find you the candidates who are currently working. Unfortunately, these firms are the exception rather than the rule, most work from a database of résumés of people looking for work.
But, if you can find the right one, now might be a good time to use a headhunter. During a recession employment agencies and headhunters are all hurting financially and you may just get a break on the fees. Nevertheless, even at discounted rates, a headhunter can be expensive.
Our system How to Hire Great Employees – First Time, Every Time will show you how to source that top 10% of employees: how to find them, how to approach them and how to make them fall over themselves to work for you. In addition, if you decide to use a headhunter, it also has a information on how to find the right one and how to work with them so that you get the best results from them.
Most importantly, it takes you through a step by step process to select, interview, check out, test and hire the very best people from that top 10%. To find out how to turn yourself into a world class hiring manager, click here.
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