Everyone’s a recruiter

Editor’s note: This is the first edition of Hire Power, a monthly column designed to help you recruit, hire and retain the best talent for your company. We’ve got a rotating panel of columnists ready to give you practical, tactical advice on solving your labor problems. Let’s get to it.
 

When it comes to attracting talent to your ranks, there are a number of effective ways to go about it from online recruiting and job fairs to college recruiting and good old networking. And while every approach offers its own set of advantages, one method that offers consistently good outcomes is using sphere of influence (SOI).

Sphere of influence refers to those with whom a person has personal contact, and can range from those you know well and see regularly to those you may not know as well and see only sporadically. People in your SOI are family, friends and co-workers, but also extend to the people you know from church, the parents of your kids’ playmates or those you meet at trade association meetings (just to name a few).

When using SOI as a recruiting tool, the process involves having an ongoing conversation with those in your sphere. Sometimes that conversation is about a specific position you may need to fill and what job skills would be needed to fill that position. If there are certain non-negotiable skills that go with the position, like the person would need to have a commercial driver’s license or be a certified public accountant, then it’s always a good idea to be specific in those situations. But by describing characteristics, you might be able to cast a wider net and it may enable the person you’re speaking with to better imagine who they know (including themselves) and might be a good fit.

Don’t ask someone in your sphere this question: Do you know anyone who’s looking for a job in landscaping for a field manager position I have open? Keep it broader with this question: Do you know anyone who has real leadership qualities, is anxious to take on responsibility and is a strong communicator? The person you’re speaking with might be able to see those qualities that closely describe, for example, her nephew, who might be a good fit for your organization and the position you’re trying to fill.

There are certain situations where specific skills are needed, but by describing qualities like a “sense of urgency” and a “willingness to go the extra mile,” or even talking about your organization’s values and that your company is strong and growing, you may better your chances of attracting a good fit and if needed, you can fill in the gaps with specific industry knowledge they may be lacking.

The idea that everyone is a recruiter is another important aspect of SOI recruiting. We don’t have a central human resources department in our organization, so every employee is encouraged to bring good people into the fold. When done well, each one of your team members is actively recruiting from their sphere of influence with an eye to improving the collective team.

Often the ideal candidate is someone who’s not even looking for work and is successful where they are right now. It might be the barista who makes your coffee at Starbucks every day and has a consistently positive outlook and great customer service skills, or the Jiffy Lube technician who seems to be very knowledgeable about your car’s oil leak and goes that extra mile to explain it to you.

Another important aspect of SOI recruiting is that by having a mutual connection between your organization and the potential candidate, it’s like having a built-in reference. If you know someone, even peripherally, but will have continued contact with them, they are far less likely to recommend someone that might not work out because it may reflect poorly on them and can create awkwardness the next time you see them. Generally, if you know and trust a person and they know and trust you, you increase the likelihood that the candidate they offer you comes along with their endorsement.

The old adage “birds of a feather flock together” is the underlying principle of how sphere of influence really works. Generally in our spheres, we know people with the same characteristics we possess. By making it a practice to continuously reach out to those in our spheres of influence, we better our chances that we will connect with the right individual to fit with our team.

The author is director of public relations at Ruppert Landscape in Laytonsville, Md.