On the first day of the month an employee asks his boss for a raise. Boss says, "I am not sure that I can really justify paying more money. I don’t know that it really makes sense to pay your more money, but if you work hard and improve, we can talk in a few months about a raise."

So, the employee sends his résumé out into the world to find him a better job. For the next month, the employee is focusing his efforts on finding new work… writing cover letters, conducting interviews and making follow-up calls.

After focusing more of his time looking for a new job instead of doing his current job, he gets a new job offer worth 10% more than his current job… he is ready to jump ship.

The employee goes back to the boss and says that he is putting in his two week notice because he has accepted another job.

Two possible responses:

For a valued employee, the boss says, "If I can match the job offer, will you stay?"

For the mediocre or bad employee, the boss simply says, "Pack up your things."

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More often than not, the employee doesn’t even ask for a raise because he figures he knows what the answer is. So often, when a good employee turns in notice, I hear employers say, "What do I need to do to save an employee?"

My thought is that once someone decides to move on, it is going to cost me a lot more to keep him than if I would have just treated him fairly to begin with. Not to mention the amount of money the employee wasted of mine looking for other work, and now I have to pay to make the employee happy again.

Here’s a thought, always pay an employee what he is worth. Never be put in a position that you have to say, "Well, you weren’t worth it when you weren’t looking for other work, but now that you are looking for other work, you are worth it."

Always treat your employees like they are always looking for other work and really work hard to make them happy…. after all, they are looking right now.

The thought of empowering people so they fill the gaps in processes and procedures is a simplistic perspective on the argument for finding the right people.

Justin Foster says, "The Right People will help create the right processes!" While I agree with that, so often, finding the right people is either illusive or impossible.

One of the key factors his argument doesn’t take into consideration is that of unions. I have talked on this subject a little before. But I would like to share another example.

My sister-in-law purchased a treadmill last week. The delivery driver was going to drop it off in the garage. It was fully assembled and was incredibly awkward and heavy.

She asked him to take it inside.

He wasn’t happy about the request.

He brought it into the front room but was asked to take it downstairs.

He said that his union rules prevented him from taking it any further… so he left it.

Good businesses are designed to keep the customer first in mind.

Good unions are designed to keep the employee first in mind.

If you have those two different visions in your business, you will never be able to find the right people that are willing to put the customer first and fill in the procedural gaps.

The right people are everywhere… they are all around you. Yet the statement is always heard among employers, "It is so hard to find the right people."

What they are really saying is, "It is so hard to find the right people at the cheap price I am willing to pay."

Justin Foster comments that if you find the right people, you don’t need a process for everything. His terminology seems a little different than mine. He talks about people filling in the gaps when not having a process and I think of the gaps as the procedures of a process. I think that everything needs a process.

The challenge, though, is finding the right people. Although the people are all around, they aren’t going to come to work for you based on your current tactical approach?

Why?

Well, here is the issue. In order to find the right person, you have to find the person who is willing to take ownership. Someone that is willing to take long term ownership. Someone that is willing to take extra time and put in extra effort to make something his own.

That person costs more than the average. That person will want to step outside the realm of his responsibility and create new processes, new procedures and implement new ideas. This person expects to be empowered to do that.

There is a significant problem with this person. Or, more accurately, these people. You get too many bosses and not enough workers, processes get out of hand, quality suffers and automation ceases.

And just when you think you have the right person, that person will leave you for the other "right job". It is like the old saying, "A man waits all his life for the right woman. Once he finds her, she won’t marry him because she is waiting for the right man."

When you are an organization with three owners that all know their part, it is really easy. When you are an organization that relies on many people, there things that have to be dictated. Not everyone will take ownership. No matter how good you are at recruiting, you will never get all of your people exactly where you want them.

The best example is a fast food restaurant. I would be great with the customers. I would be efficient with the food. I would be exact with the money. I would cost more than 15 times their normal starting wage. I would never be hired.

Finding the right people is a good sentiment, but sometimes you have to settle because you can’t afford the $100 per hour price tag that good people will cost.

Last year, I had a post titled, “Dear Candidate” where I related an email that I received for a job offer. I pointed out that:

When you are looking to fill a position, it is probably a good idea to at least read the résumé of the individual before you offer to schedule an interview

Since that time, I have received not less than seven emails from the same person at the same company offering me the same position. Since that time, I have responded every single time with my displeasure in receiving these emails.

What does this say about the Farmer’s Insurance brand if they can’t recruit the talent they want and have to ask the same disinterested people over and over again? Do you find yourself using these tactics to hire? If so, what does this say about your ability to find and hire the right people?

The thing that also strikes me is that I received this post from a résumé posted at Monster. That means that each time this recruiter has viewed my résumé this recruiter has paid to view that.

What a waste of money!

You might be interested in a new project that we are doing. Take a look at Resumango.

We are building a revolutionary approach to building resumes and helping people find work.

I invite you to take a look at the site.

You might be interested in my post there titled How We Started.

You’ll see that site change over the next few months as we develop our skin completely as well as the innovative tools to help people manage their documents.

We plan on taking the recruiting world by storm. If you would like to be a part of the beta program, make sure you input your email address on the home page and we’ll send you an invite when we are ready.

It still needs a lot of work, but I would love some feedback on how we are doing.

For the past couple months I’ve been searching for a new employee for our Boise Office. On Thursday I received a call from Jeff informing me that he had just had lunch with a gentlemen that I “needed to visit with.” On Jeff’s recommendation I interviewed the gentlemen that same afternoon. The next day he was on a plane to Utah for our final interview and performed very well. We offered him the position that day, which he accepted.

The individual that we hired met Jeff only an hour and a half before his first interview with our company. With Jeff’s coaching he was able to perform well enough to get another interview. After being informed that he would be invited to Utah for a second interview the candidate called Jeff again for some additional coaching. After spending another hour with Jeff on the phone he had the information he needed to work on his resume and presentation skills to the point that he impressed all seven panel members in his final interview (no easy task.)

From the vantage point of an interviewer, I was incredibly impressed with what this gentlemen put together as a result of Jeff’s coaching. Perhaps a good look at Jeff’s posts would be equally beneficial for you in your search for work.

As all intelligent people should, I have an updated resume always on the internet. Today, I received an email for a job interview.

Subject: Position Available 

Dear Candidate,

We currently have a position open for an Insurance/Financial Agent with Farmers Insurance and I feel that you would be a great match.

Please contact me via email if you would be interested in scheduling an interview to discuss the potential of owning and operating your own insurance agency with Farmers Insurance.

To find out more about Farmers Insurance Group, check out www.farmersagent.com/mklauss.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Here is my response:

Subject: RE: Position Available 

Dear Hiring Manager, 

I am curious how you feel that I would be a perfect match for your organization since my resume clearly indicates that I would like to lead a high-tech organization and that my career over the last 15 years has had absolutely nothing to do with insurance.

I would not be interested in selling insurance as my education and experience do not fit that as a career choice. 

Sincerely, 

Candidate

When you are looking to fill a position, it is probably a good idea to at least read the resume of the individual before you offer to schedule an interview…. just a thought.

If you are looking for a job, you might be interested. Our very own Jeff Bettinger, top recruiter for Washington Group International, has just started a new blog. It is all about giving advice on how to build a new resume (or improve your exisisting resume… bigger - better - faster.

Go to HelpMyResume.com and check it out. Leave some feedback. Ask some questions.

There is a famine in the land for people that really are qualified to apply to most positions.  I am amazed that many resumes I receive that have nothing to do with the actual posting.  Frequently I will have a posting out that requires a Bachelor’s degree and “X� number of years experience in a certain field.  It is funny to me that some individuals can’t just stick to this.  It is tantamount to people who have 2 years of high school ball thinking they are good enough to go and play in the NBA finals with LeBron. 

 

Players like this are so rare.  In the history of basketball there are fewer than 20 players that have achieved his stature.  There are zero that have hit that stature at such a young age.  My point is this. .  out of the tens of millions of kids that started playing ball on the playground we have less than 20 that have been good enough to be considered an all time all star. 

 

Your weekend course in project management doesn’t make you qualified to build Hoover Dam all over again.  Don’t make the recruiter mad by submitting a resume for an all star job and have J.V. credentials.  You just wont get the job.

Jeff Bettinger is the Senior Vice-President of Human Capital and Investment at masterthebusiness.com and a Senior Recruiter for an International Engineering and Construction Firm.

I wish LinkedIn had some sort of mid-range membership.  I don’t like that I have to spend a couple hundred bucks a year with them to get access to many people.  However I have done a pretty good job at building my own network over the past few months by using the small amount of monthly free connections.  It would be beneficial to have a mid-cost account.

I can see that people who use the service in a more dramatic fashion would be frustrated on the latest developments regarding how you can link up with people. I posted about LinkedIn benefits recently. It is ridiculous that so many individuals have to be excluded from using LinkedIn because of a few abusers.  Perhaps they should spend some time making a way to report abusers and then booting the individuals that are abusing the system.  I really liked Mike Tiffany’s recent post on this LinkedIn Complaints Continue

Jeff Bettinger is the Senior Vice-President of Human Capital and Investment at masterthebusiness.com and a Senior Recruiter for an International Engineering and Construction Firm.