PLACING RECRUITMENT ADS
Where does the recruitment process start? It starts with the job advertisement.
ADVERTISING FOR JOBS
Do you normally place an advert in newspapers or on the internet when you are hiring new people? Okay. I just want to give you some advice in this area because actually the selection process starts with your advertisement in the newspaper or on the internet.
THE EASY MONEY ADVERT
If you place an advert stating “$$$ EASY MONEY $$$ CALL ABC INC.” which of these two categories of people (the productive or nonproductive) do you think become most interested in this advertising?
The non-productive guy goes “Perfect, this is exactly what I am looking for: EASY MONEY.” He is interested in inflow, just look at him, everything is an inflow: money, car, it’s “What can I get? What can you give me?” He will respond immediately to this ad and because a lot of these people don't have jobs, you get a lot of people with no jobs applying.
THE CHALLENGING ADVERTISEMENT
What would happen if you made an ad which said: “IMPOSSIBLE JOB, VERY DIFFICULT, HARD WORK, BIG CHALLENGE, HIGH PRODUCTION, CALL ABC.”
The positive guy becomes interested: “Wow, a very good challenge.” The reason he is looking for a job is he is a little bored with where he is right now; his current job doesn't give him enough barriers and he is starting to go “I need a bigger barrier, this job looks like something for me!”
The negative guy when he sees that advert goes “How could anyone want that job? You would have to be crazy to want that job.” He wouldn't even dream about sending an application for it.
THE RECRUITMENT CYCLE STARTS WITH THE ADVERTISING
So the selection process starts with the advertising and you can reduce the amount of unproductive candidates who apply by how you advertise.
If you advertise how nice a job is, how much money they will make, how nice an office they are going to have, how much education they will get, etc, these are all inflow factors and you will attract automatically more of the unproductive people.
If you advertise CHALLENGE, DEMANDS, WORK, RESPONSIBILITY, etc., you will attract more of the productive people. If you make an “easy money” ad or something in-between you might get more candidates but if 80% are bad it doesn't really matter, but you will have a LOT of work.
Also, if your ad is too inflow oriented you might not have a single productive person apply for the job. Then it doesn't matter how good you methods are you still won’t hire the person you want.
CHALLENGE IN HIRING ADS
This is a key to making hiring a lot easier – CHALLENGE.
If you keep a challenging attitude throughout the entire process; even when you interview you keep challenging the person, you say “Welcome, I want to tell you something: this job is not easy, there are a lot of demands. You are going to have to work overtime and become very skilled, our clients have very high demands and you will need to be very professional. We also measure your production so if you don't produce we will all know about it. I just want to tell you this upfront because maybe you think it's too tough for you.”
When you challenge people like that some people go “Maybe this is not my job.” they loose interest and that's good because then you don't have to spend any more time with them. But you will also see some people who kind of wake up and go “Okay, I can do this job!”
ARE JOBS EASY TO DO IN YOUR COMPANY?
Now, if you look at your company, would you say there are a lot of jobs that are very easy? No! The truth is most job positions have a lot of demands.
In order to become successful in almost any job position you have to be pretty good. There are very few jobs you can do today where you can be lazy. I mean, we can just go back twenty five years and see a big difference. Twenty five years ago there were many more jobs where you could say “I am going to just sit here and put a stamp on this paper every day.” but those jobs tend to disappear simply because nobody is interested in paying for them, if they pay somebody who doesn't produce very much it means that someone else has to work that much harder just to pay their wages.
The truth of the matter is there are very few jobs today that are easy and when you tell people “This is a tough job, high pressure, lots of work” you tell the truth and when you tell the truth the productive people like it, they start to respect you. They say “Great that you are not telling me that it is easy when it's not.”
When people start a job and leave very quickly it is often because “The employer didn't tell me the truth about this job. In the job interview he said that this is a great, nice, beautiful job and when I got it… arghhh. It was a lot of work and it was totally different to what I thought.”
EXAMPLES OF A CHALLENGING RECRUITMENT AD
I can give you an example. We were recruiting a sales manager for one of our clients and this company had a tough situation: was in a very competitive market plus the owner of the company was a very tough person.
We had someone who was interested in the job and we told him “You have to understand this is a very difficult job, a tough market and the boss is really difficult.” We told him over and over again how tough it was.
He said “Yeah but I'm prepared for it… I'm ready.” and they hired him.
We called him up two months later “How's it going?”
He said “I realize you told the truth, this is unbelievably tough but I cannot quit because you told me. If you hadn't told me I would have quit already, but I can't say you cheated me. So, I decided to stay and I decided that I am going to succeed in this job.” And that was four years ago and he is still there.
So, don't worry about telling the truth about a job. If there should be some difference it is better if the person says “It is not so tough, it's actually better than I thought.” than the other way around.
PLACING HIRING ADS SUMMARY
I have covered here some tips on making and placing job ads. If you follow these you will find your life becomes much easier when it comes to recruitment.
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