Are you tired of hiring workers who can't cut it? Would you like to hire workers who would give you a competitive advantage? There's only one reliable place to get them: STEAL THEM FROM THE COMPETITION.
The beauty of stealing your competition's employees is you kill two birds with one stone. You strengthen your company and weaken theirs. Your costs go down and theirs go up. Their quality goes down and yours goes up. Their income goes down and yours goes up.
Why Employees Change Companies
At this point you're probably wondering why a hard working, highly skilled, and highly valued employee would leave his company and join yours, right?
There are many reasons a great worker might leave the comfort of his present job and join you:
- Better wage
- More hours
- Closer to home
- Better benefits (truck, gas allowance, tools, vacation)
- Greater decision making authority
- Professional development
- Promotion
- Easier projects
- Better boss
- Better atmosphere
- A family member or friend works there
Take a guess which factor is the most commonly cited by people who change jobs.
Money? Nope. That's about fifth on the list.Promotion? Nope. Give up? Thank you for playing. You can pick up your consolation prize from Angie on your way home. The correct answer is wanting to work for a better boss.
Interviews with over 10,000 job changers revealed that 70% of them left their jobs to escape their boss. 70%! The best workers are in play. Their connection to their present company is often shaky.
Good workers are eager to work for a company committed to success, committed to teamwork, and committed to their employees. You don't have to settle for under- skilled or under-motivated workers. You can go after the best.
It can be surprising easy to entice a good worker to your company if you word your help wanted advertisement as a sales pitch for your company. The ad needs to sell your company to prospective employees.
Hop onto CraigsList.com, Monster.com, or CareerBuilder.com, and check out your local newspaper. You will notice that virtually all help wanted ads come across as "If you have these skills, send in your resume. We offer competitive wages and benefits." If a company goes the extra mile they will add "Come join a fast growing company that offers exciting opportunity."
Wow. Now THAT is a compelling pitch! That ad is really going to pull in the well-paid, high quality worker.
Speak To Their Heart
You need to connect with them on a level that is meaningful. The level that is most meaningful is their relationship with their immediate boss.
The vast majority of great workers feel they are being taken for granted. They KNOW their bosses have set unrealistic performance expectations. They are tired of covering up for their boss' mistakes. They are tired of their boss' making their jobs hard to perform. They are frustrated. They love their work and may love their company, but they don't like working for who they report to.
Your help wanted ads MUST scream that you understand the life of a worker, the frustrations, the disrespect, the hassle. The ad must paint the picture that your company is different. It values its employees. It supports its employees. It listens to its employees. Yes, you have a high performance company, and hard work is the culture, but every step is taken to ensure each employee is successful.
If you successfully get that message across, you will be approached by fully employed, highly skilled, excellent workers. They can't help but inquire.
Make It Safe to Apply
Employed workers are EXTREMELY hesitant to send in a resume to a company they can't identify. They do not want to send out their resume only to have it land in their employer's hands. You must let job seekers know who you are.Identify your company, point them to your website, and give them multiple ways to get a hold of you: list your phone, fax, e-mail, and street address.
Don't worry about being swamped with unqualified prospects. We're going to take care of that problem with the next step.
Don't Be Shy - Qualify Them
Remember, your objective is to recruit highly skilled, hard working employees. Identify the skills the job demands and list those skills in the ad. Doing so will attract the right candidates.
Great workers want to work for professionally run companies, for companies who approach their business as professionally as the employee approaches his job.
Being clear with qualification requirements is a professional approach.
Don't Fear Angering Your Competition
If you afraid of starting a recruiting war, throw out those fears. You're already in a recruiting war! You always have been and always will be.
When you start receiving calls from your competition threatening that you better back off or they'll come after your employees, you'll know you're taking their best workers. When your competition wants to reach a gentleman's agreement about leaving each other's staff alone, you'll know you have them beat.
You're in a heated battle against those people. You're fighting for profitable jobs. You're fighting for quality people. You're fighting to put food on your table. Don't be lulled into thinking you can all work together happily. That's bunk. They couldn't care less about you and your company.
Ron Roberts, The Contractor's Business Coach, teaches contractors how to turn their business into a profit spewing machine. To receive Ron's FREE Contractor Best Practices Newsletter visit www.FilthyRichContractor.com.
