Working Wounded: Recruiting Top Talent for Your Organization

May 25, 2007 — -- Dear WOUNDED: I'd like to upgrade the level of people we have working for our company. How do you do that?

ANSWER: Your e-mail reminded me of something I once read about tomato sauce. Turns out that sauce companies spent oodles of money (yes, rhymes with noodles) trying to find the perfect sauce recipe to satisfy every palate. After thousands of plates of pasta they discovered there is not one magic recipe out there. Some of us like plain, some of us like chunky and some of us like spicy.

It's no different when recruiting talent. Things that work when recruiting one talented employee often don't apply for another. That's why it's so important to tailor your recruitment strategy to the individuals you are trying to recruit. I've listed three do's and a don't below. For more, check out Taylor and LaBarre's book, "Mavericks at Work" (Morrow, 2006).

DO identify top talent. Duh! Make fun of this first "do" all you want, but most companies spend precious little energy acquainting themselves with their top performers. What a waste. Part of the reason is the "squeaky wheel rule:" Organizations spend the vast majority of their efforts on the poor and average performers. Stars are left alone specifically because they don't need their hands held. After a while the stars just fade into the wallpaper, feeling taken for granted -- precisely because they are.

DO ask: Why would top talent work for us? Does your company pay a higher salary than the average for your industry and community? Do you let workers control as much of their job as possible? Do you offer great benefits? Do you offer opportunities for personal growth? Do you have a group of managers who know how to reward a great performance? If you could only answer yes to two of the questions above, you have some work to do before you'll realistically be able to recruit top talent to your organization.

DO showcase your talent. What is your reputation in your industry and community? Do you market your top performers as speakers at industry and community events? Do you enter local contests to identify top companies to work for? Sure you can go out and recruit top talent, but if you invest some effort in showcasing your existing stars, you can also make it easy for top talent to find you.

DON'T abuse top talent. I'm willing to bet that a sizeable number of managers in your company have adopted a drill sergeant mind set when it comes to dealing with employees. That it's their job to break down the troops and rebuild them in the company image. That's incredibly dumb and short sighted. Your managers need to be an asset for your organization, not something that drives out the very top talent you've worked so hard to attract.

You might think that I'm hitting the sauce, but top talent is out there. It's your job to create the kind of environment in which they'll thrive.

"A wise man knows everything, a shrewd one everybody." -- Anonymous

The long and the short of it … employees need one page resumes, executives two.

• Prefer a one page resume for employees, 52 percent today (73 percent 10 years ago)
• Prefer a one page resume for executives, 7 percent today (28 percent 10 years ago)
• Prefer a two page resume for employees, 44 percent today (25 percent 10 years ago)
• Prefer a two page resume for executives, 61 percent today (64 percent 10 years ago)
• Prefer a three page resume for employees, 3 percent today (1 percent 10 years ago)
• Prefer a three page resume for executives, 31 percent today (7 percent 10 years ago)

From: Accountemps

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. He'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic, especially if you have better ideas than he does. His books include "The Boss's Survival Guide" and "Gray Matters: The Work place Survival Guide." Send your questions or comments to him via: bob@workingwounded.com.

ABCNEWS.com publishes a new Working Wounded column every Friday.This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.