The 1 Thing You Should Be Doing About Talent

People ask me all the time if there are any shortcuts in recruitment. Are there any quick fixes to deal with today’s changing talent landscape? Normally I would lecture you. I’d explain that your talent strategy is as fundamental as your business strategy or marketing plans. However, there is something you can do right now that will help you and your business immensely in the long run.

Leaders should practice “keeping the sofa full,” by interviewing talent all of the time. (Read my blog on Keeping the Sofa Full here)

Everyday leaders struggle with proactivity and routines. A business needs a rhythm or way of pulsing and discussing what is most important. Where should we put our focus? Where should we put our time and attention? What matters most? Deciding what is most important is the hardest part.

I’ll say it again, your business should be interviewing talent all of the time. It is really that simple. We don’t sell only when we need a new customer. Proactivity is everything. Keeping the sofa full is about always knowing who your next hire is. But I don’t have any openings right now you may be thinking. You may not now, but you will. We all will. That is the one fact in today’s talent-driven economy. Your business and every business will lose some talent for good and not so good reasons. What you do about it is a choice.

When you keep the sofa full, it will take less time to fill your open positions. If you always keep an eye on talent and meet people, it can shorten the days it takes to fill a recently vacated position. Keeping the sofa full also improves your brand and your productivity. Can you find better talent than you have? Can you top grade or upgrade someone who is failing or has average performance? Keeping the sofa full is a direct way to improve your engagement scores and culture at the same time because it requires you to be giving feedback to staff and to know if they are productive and a culture fit.

I know this seems impossible for your company. You’re fighting today’s fire. Dealing with this week’s crisis or business opportunity. The business has a different plan du jour right now. Time is always the enemy for good ideas like this. Recruiting proactively takes planning, discipline and prioritization to interview all of the time. As a leader it takes time, money and most importantly resources to commit to this. It seems like a soft dollar cost savings to turn hiring all of the way off. But have you ever tried to get any program going again when it was turned off completely? It takes retraining, planning, kick off meetings, etc. to breathe life into something that has not been used in a while.

So take action. What are your three most abundant skill sets? What is the hardest role to fill in your business? Build recruiting for these roles into your daily operations. Take all networking calls. Meet any referrals quickly. In short, interview talent all of the time.