While some people look for opportunities to reach out to others in their industries, others prefer to manufacture those opportunities. Dave Clark, president of Mindsource, a technical staffing company in Silicon Valley, has created a monthly industry-networking session called "Birds of a Feather" (BOF) at which he and his employees hobnob with other Internet protocol folk in the Silicon Valley area. Word has gotten around about the monthly fete--mostly through E-mail and various newsgroups--to the point where Clark says the gathering has become a "centerpiece for our particular niche." It has also, he admits, become a source for the occasional hire.
Campus Recruiting: Beyond the Old College Try.
One of the classic recruiting spots is the college campus, especially for companies seeking newly minted M.B.A.'s. Doug Evans, president of Doug Evans + Partners, an Internet, electronic-commerce, and technology consulting company in New York City, found that he needed a bit of chutzpah to get attention from the M.B.A.'s, whose eyes tend to fix on Fortune 500 names. Evans began planning in May 1996 for presentations he'd make starting that November. When he first approached Columbia Business School, he says the administration wouldn't even talk to him. When it finally responded, all it gave him was a tiny room from which to recruit. To achieve a larger on-campus presence, Evans called a client who was a Columbia grad, who helped him get the pricey-but-prime suite where IBM and Arthur Andersen made their presentations. Evans also networked with on-campus organizations, and he inundated candidates with E-mails, direct mail, and telephone calls to maximize attendance at his presentation. As a result of the Columbia presentation, he netted three new employees.
Résumés: Making a Paper Trail.
For some people the practice of ferreting out prospects borders on obsession. Cathy Lanier, president and owner of Technology Solutions Inc., a $3.3-million technology-staffing firm in Columbia, S.C., never throws a résumé away. She rarely seeks entry-level personnel, but nevertheless she enters every résumé she gets into a database. Then, every two years, Lanier peruses the database and sends out an E-mail questionnaire to see what prospects have added to their résumés, including a checklist of computer systems and languages in which she asks candidates to rate their proficiency. She also asks for their current location, salary range, and references. Most important, she says, is asking for a contact person who will always know the prospect's whereabouts in case she somehow loses touch. "It takes a detective mentality," she says, "getting enough information to track them down later if you need to."
When Herb Sizemore was CEO of Kansas Communications, in Lenexa, Kans. (he recently sold the company), he kept a file of all the "People on the Move" columns in his local paper and called people a year after they'd taken a new job to see if they were happy with their situation. Louise Wannier of Enfish Technology Inc. keeps a "people book" of everyone she meets and scans through it periodically, keeping in touch with key prospects.
How to Hire: Part Two
Picking up the new tools
New Sources: Casting the Widest Net.
In 1991, Jeff Moler, CEO of Protek Electronics Inc., a $9-million electronics designer and manufacturer in Sarasota, Fla., received a call from the local Easter Seals office offering physically and mentally challenged individuals for Moler's assembly line. Moler accepted, and he reports that with a little extra training, those recruits have become a tremendous asset. "But lately even they haven't been available," he laments. Apparently, other local companies have caught on, creating much local demand for handicapped workers. So Moler went offshore--1,500 miles, in fact--to set up a second manufacturing plant in Costa Rica. "It was the only answer," he says. "We couldn't find people fast enough." Costa Rica offered a large number of available, educated workers, many with technical-school or college backgrounds.
Of course, one relatively quick way to staff up is to buy another company. When Shiv Krishnan, CEO of Indus Corp., a systems-integration company in Vienna, Va., acquired the Washington, D.C., and North Carolina assets of Vigyan Inc., in 1996, one of his primary motivations was the 30 staff members he would be adding to his staff of 25. But Krishnan warns that there are perils to recruiting by acquisition, especially since sale-price expectations in the IT field are so high. "The culture fit has to be right," he says. "If not, they'll leave and you'll have to sit on these huge acquisition costs while 75% of your assets have walked out." He says he was able to avoid that by ensuring that his soon-to-be acquired personnel were open to an acquisition. The Vigyan staff were working with fairly old technology and relished the chance to move into new areas.
Internet Recruiting: Finding the Right Connections.
Recently, Dan Maude, president of Beacon Application Services Corp., a systems-integration company in Framingham, Mass., made the switch to recruiting exclusively from the Internet, primarily because it's effective and comparatively cheap. "A year's worth of Web recruiting for us costs less than one agency fee," he explains. It's also faster: rather than wait for candidates to see and respond to the Sunday help-wanted ads, he can post jobs and get responses in the same day.
Maude says he's found certain third-party-recruiting Web sites to be very effective, particularly Career Mosaic, the Monster Board, and Yahoo!. Maude's listings include a link back to Beacon's Web site and a special E-mail address to which candidates can send their résumés. Since Beacon Application Services is one of 61 exclusive PeopleSoft partners, candidates can also find out about job opportunities through a link from the vendor's master site back to the company site. Aside from links, there are other ways of attracting potential employees to your site. Tony Petrucciani of Single Source Systems, a systems-integration business in Fishers, Ind., offers Web surfers a free chance at such prizes as a PalmPilot personal organizer just for visiting the company's Web site.
