Talented candidates, especially those with coveted skill sets, are often able to pick and choose from multiple offers. Companies that don’t sell themselves effectively or have long, drawn-out processes will ultimately lose out.

So, you have identified the candidate you absolutely want to hire and you are about to make an offer. But you are up against a problem: Another company, or companies, are looking to land the same prospect. What should you do, especially when the job offers are indistinguishable in title, compensation, and benefits? How do you position and sell your organization’s offer – and your organization itself – to a candidate with multiple offers? The way your company recruits and manages the hiring process can impress a candidate and encourage that individual to choose your company over the competition.

Speeding Up the Interviewing Process

How can you speed up the interviewing process without sacrificing due diligence?

• Since most of the candidates you are interviewing are already employed, try to schedule interviews before or after typical business hours whenever possible. The simple gesture of scheduling the interview for the candidate’s convenience can speak volumes.

• If your candidate needs to meet with multiple representatives of your organization, try to combine some interviewers into groups to shorten the number of meetings. This scenario works well for senior executives interviewing with boards or for staff that will support multiple supervisors.

• Instead of asking the candidate back multiple times, arrange the interview schedule so all meetings can be held in one day or a half-day. This will allow the candidate to minimize the time away from the current job.

• Take your show on the road. Not all meetings need to be held at your office, especially first-round interviews. Although it’s very important for the candidate to see your facilities and staff first-hand, an initial screening interview can be held almost anywhere – at a local coffee shop, restaurant or hotel lobby.

Most candidates understand and even welcome the fact that they must meet several people at a company. Employed candidates, however, usually cannot come to your office for four separate interviews without arousing suspicion, or stay for four hours when they were told to allow two.  Candidates who are concerned about being missed at their current place of employment may be too distracted to put their best foot forward or to hear why they should work for you.

It’s important to be prompt when meeting a potential employee and, if there are multiple people on an interview schedule, to make sure that things are coordinated effectively. One of my candidates was kept waiting for 50 minutes by a senior executive because of scheduling confusion. As he had spent the better part of the morning at the potential employer and was due back at work, he was only able to give the interviewer 10 minutes. While the employer offered to reschedule, the candidate was so turned off that he turned down a second interview. By being flexible with interviews and considerate of your candidates’ time, you allow them to reduce the potential for raising red flags with their present employers. Candidates genuinely appreciate this consideration and will feel more positive about your company.

Positioning Your Organization: Setting the Groundwork for a Future Offer

Even if your role isn’t sales-oriented, you have to be a salesperson when it comes to wooing future employees! It is imperative to ensure that everyone on your internal interview team is on the same page and realizes the importance of selling the company and presenting a positive environment to potential candidates. They should be enthusiastic, timely, and prepared for the interview. All it takes is one interviewer who is disorganized, having a bad day, or imparts a conflicting message to leave a bad taste in a candidate’s mouth. Candidates want to hear honest answers to questions, but if someone in the group is known to be negative or comes across in a less-than-compelling fashion, consider whether that person can be left out of the process or coached to present more effectively. Everyone in the interview process must be able to speak knowledgeably, passionately and consistently about the company.

Because your ideal candidate may already be employed, it’s also important to know up-front why he or she is looking for a new position. In the initial stages of communication and interviews, ask questions to get a clear understanding of why the individual is choosing to leave his or her current position, and carefully document the reasons. This way you will know in particular how to position your organization in regard to the candidate’s likes and dislikes. After the official job offer is made, if your candidate seems hesitant to leave a current position or you learn that a counteroffer has been made, these reasons will be useful in reminding the candidate why he or she began looking for a new job in the first place and how your company can fulfill those needs.

Make sure that, in addition to going over the particulars of the candidate’s role, time is spent discussing the organization itself – its selling points, values, history and community involvement. As important as responsibilities, management style and opportunity for advancement are, it’s the intangibles of an organization’s culture that can be the deciding factor when a candidate is weighing options. Make sure informal benefits are known, too: reduced office hours during the summer months, telecommuting options for working parents, or morale-boosting social events, such as golf tournaments or company parties.

Negotiation Time

Once an offer is extended, speak openly to the candidate about the timing of negotiations and decision-making. If your interview process has had open, two-way communication, you should have a good idea whether your prospective employee has multiple suitors. When dealing with that situation, you want to achieve a balance of putting some positive pressure on the candidate while being understanding about the decision-making process he or she is experiencing. It’s reasonable to give a bit more time to a candidate who asks for it. During that period, however, the hiring manager and/or Human Resources should reach out to the candidate, offering to answer any questions and conveying how much the candidate is wanted.

The more personal contact you extend, the better – from delivering the job offer over the phone, to following up by making sure the candidate has received and understands the particulars of the written material. One client of mine sealed the deal by sending an offer letter to the candidate in a package with a company polo shirt; it immediately made the candidate feel she was a part of the team.

Candidates truly value open, direct communication and an appropriately timed process. As important as it is to expedite the hiring process, it should never move so fast as to overwhelm the potential employee or undermine an organization’s thoroughness. Conversely, taking too much time puts you at jeopardy for losing the ideal candidate to your competition. By putting forethought into the hiring process, you can ensure candidates will think well of your company, your organization will not be put at risk — and you’ll successfully hire the people you want!

At work or on the street, the racial spectrum of America is changing rapidly.  If you follow the latest headlines, there seems to be a valid explanation.  According to the US Census Bureau, by 2050 one out of every four Americans will be of Hispanic decent.  What’s even more impressive; however, are the projected number of individuals. Currently at 44 million and growing, the Hispanic population is expected to more than double, reaching 100 million in that same time period.

But if the Hispanic population is booming, why has it been so difficult for corporations to attract, hire, and retain Hispanic professionals?

The problem of attracting Hispanic hires is more deeply rooted than meets the eye. With over 78 million baby-boomers set to retire in the next two decades, the Census Bureau estimates that their exodus from the workforce will generate approximately 35 million job openings, and the growing crop of minority candidates, among them Hispanics, will eventually fill a large portion of them.

At present, the pipeline of available Hispanic professionals is scant at best. According to the National Society of Hispanic MBA’s Research Department (www.nshmba.org), Hispanic professionals currently represent 7% of the white-collar workforce.  At such a low figure, it should be no surprise why human resources departments have been working overtime to come up with successful ways to attract and retain them.

Contrary to popular belief, the pool of available bilingual Hispanics with sufficient professional working experience continues to grow smaller, not larger.  Part of the reason can be attributed to the increasing competition among corporations looking for similar Hispanic talent. In addition, the number of qualified candidates is shrinking because the majority of Hispanics are too young. According to the Pew Hispanic Center (www.pewhispanic.org), the average age of 60% of the country’s Hispanics is just 13.

The increasing quest for qualified candidates able to communicate effectively with Hispanics has created a need for innovative solutions. Currently, the most common options companies use to access Hispanic professionals include career expos and executive search firms. Career expos provide a large number of targeted candidates in a brief period of time, but may require an entourage of interviewers. If the event occurs when job openings are available, this option can present a quick-fix solution. However, for a more continuous flow of qualified candidates, some firms hire executive search services that have access to an extensive network of potential candidates and active jobseekers. Some search firms focus specifically on attracting candidates directly from a client’s competitor.

Surprisingly, these tried-and-true options haven’t rendered favorable results with Hispanic candidates –– some of the problems? First, career expos targeting Hispanic candidates are also attracting many more candidates from other ethnic groups, resulting in lower-than-expected qualified Hispanic candidates. Moreover, many executive search firms, particularly the larger ones, are too impersonal to attract qualified Hispanic candidates.

So what have some companies done to attract and retain Hispanic professionals? One Fortune 100 firm in the financial services industry decided to take a different approach.  Rather than focus its resources to attract Hispanic professionals, it chose to invest in its existing pool of employees by hiring an outside firm to teach its non-Hispanic employees some of the basic cultural selling skills needed to close and maintain a transaction with Hispanic consumers. In part, it chose to ‘Hispanisize’ its non-Hispanic workforce.

Hispanisizing a non-Hispanic workforce can help position Hispanic consumers as business case managers and salespeople can readily understand and follow. It can also open new channels of communication among employees and their managers who in the past may have felt uncomfortable addressing Hispanic-related issues. The business-case approach allows various skill-sets within an organization that tweak the traditional approaches to improve Hispanic consumer appeal. To achieve a high level of acceptance within an organization, the participation among the workforce must include the direct involvement and financial commitment of senior-level managers.

Other firms turn to smaller executive search firms that specialize in hiring Hispanics. They tap their personal networks to gain access to a larger pool of potential Hispanic professional candidates.

Even after spending substantial resources to attract Hispanic hires, companies are also faced with the daunting task of retaining them. Without a comprehensive and culturally sensitive support program, Hispanic hires can easily get lost in a faceless corporate business environment. Some companies have launched mentoring programs to give new hires more meaningful access to a company’s career opportunities.  According to the June 2007 Business Journal on Hispanic Research, Hispanic mentors were found to be less effective than their non-Hispanic counterparts. Some of the reasons cited ranged from a potential mismatch among Hispanic cultures to a mentor’s lack of influence at key decision-making levels, and that non-Hispanic mentors may have greater influence within an organization, but could lack the cultural-sensitivity and appreciation needed to mentor a new Hispanic hire.

To fully appreciate the increasing complexity of hiring Hispanic professionals, one can begin to see that unless a non-Hispanic mentor is fully sensitized or Hispanicized, the chances of retaining a new hire may be reduced substantially.

by Dr. Herbert C. Smith

After years of relative stability, knowledgeable workers in global organizations have begun to behave like free-agent athletes in professional sports. For the past several years, we have witnessed an increase in the number of individuals deciding to change jobs. The decision to test the market, barter their skills on the open market, and associate with new organizations has senior leaders and human resources executives scrambling for answers. Talented individuals have caused the quit rate, which measures workers’ ability to change jobs, to rise recently, and there’s no indication of a slowdown. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the quit rate reached a four-year high in September 2005.  It seems the American workforce settled down after the events of September 11, 2001.  Now, there’s a new game being played. The stakes are very high and could impact our commercial performance globally, and it bodes well for recruiters in the Talent Acquisition Championships.

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By Calvin Bruce, M.A.

“Amid the twofold pressure of pending retirement in senior executive ranks and the increasing value of intellectual capital and knowledge management, it is more necessary than ever before for organizations to plan for leadership continuity and employee advancement at all levels.”

– William Rothwell, Corporate Succession Planning

It’s commonly understood that one of the essential missions of a forward-thinking company is to preserve the corporate integrity, leadership capability, and financial resourcefulness of the organization in the event something unforeseen happens to one or more key executives. This is why, in firms of all sizes, it’s important to have “key-man insurance” in place, as well as other legal and financial instruments to maintain the continuation and well-being of the corporation. A consulting firm specializing in corporate succession planning (CSP) points out the elements of planning analysis that are especially beneficial for family-owned businesses: Business objectives, family dynamics/objectives, owner/manager estate plans, key-employee compensation, business valuation, transition financing, tax planning, estate liquidity, active/inactive family-member issues, and senior-generation retirement security.
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Increasingly, organizations that have made a serious commitment to diversity and inclusion are taking a hard look at hiring, turnover and promotion patterns, and challenging themselves with the question, “are there subtle biases operating in these decision-making processes?” Read the full story