This afternoon, I spent an hour in a wrap up project audit for a company near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The results are nothing short of astounding, but the way they got there is the real story. As with all clients, this was a journey of data collection and discovery, and letting the market guide us to the answer. So as not to “bury the lead” in this story — they are fully staffed with engineers and CAD designers for the first time in years.
In my initial workshop with this amazing family-owned electrical design company, they came away energized and ready to recruit talent in the new way I had taught them. But in the weeks that followed, something got lost in translation. Whether it was the daily grind of work that got in the way or just old habits creeping back in, they contacted me saying they had not had nearly the success they had hoped for. For their 4 open positions (engineers and CAD designers) they had only received about 30 resume responses to their ad. Worse yet, most of the applicants were not a fit at all. Not the right skill set, not the right geographical radius, or not the personality fit for the organization.
I also noticed some of the old language had crept back into their daily discussions about finding talent. “Well, you know good people are hard to find,” and “People just don’t want to work anymore…” and all the other false vague generalities that most companies are using to blame the world for their failure to bring in the right people with their recruiting efforts. So we were invited back in for a refresher course of all the techniques I had taught them… but they had not really embraced. Because subtlety is not my gift, it was part training, part “come to Jesus” session.
So we regrouped, reloaded, and wrote some job ads in the form that I had originally taught. Here are the results:
600+ inquiries and resumes received, 4 great people hired who all fit the company culture, and a company fully staffed in less than 8 weeks. The truth shall set you free.
Imagine that… 600 talented engineers and CAD designers all looking for a new opportunity who were just waiting for someone to invite them in in a way that spoke to them and solved their problems. You see… they were there all along.
Want to learn to make this type of event happen for your company? Drop us a note…
