12 Most Resourceful Ways to Find Your Next Employee

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Looking for a young, intellectually curious, dedicated person to join your company? Guess what, so is everyone else. No matter how high unemployment gets, smart people are in short supply – and for that reason I’ll call them unicorns. So how do you find these unicorns? First, don’t limit yourself to just those who are actively seeking. There are many individuals that have never thought about a new job, but when approached they are quite open to new opportunities. So here are the 12 most resourceful ways that we’ve discovered at my company to find these unicorns.

1. Social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

Sometimes the simplest approach can work wonders: communicate job openings at your company. The great thing about social media, it’s not about who you know, but who your connections know. And if you are looking for a specific cross section of skill sets, you have a huge database of potential employees within LinkedIn – try doing a profile search, leverage your special interest group job boards, etc.

2. Competitors

Don’t be afraid to solicit people from your competitors. Bottom line, we all have them and they have resources they don’t fully appreciate. Better yet, those resources often come with some intellectual knowledge of your industry and can be instant assets.

3. College campuses (career centers, job fairs, your fraternity/sorority networks)

While many of us once used a career center to find our first job, not many of us think about going back there to give someone else theirs. What’s more, many career centers have alumni specific areas where many young professionals still exist.

4. On your own website

There’s no real huge surprise here. However, I will call out there should ALWAYS be an open job req on your website. Even if you’re not in an immediate need situation it’s always good to have options for those times you need to move quickly.

5. Conferences

I’m not sure there is an industry today that doesn’t have some sort of user conference/trade show. Personally I love going to conferences, it’s a networker’s playground. Aside from looking for new clients I’m also looking for unicorns. This one can be linked to #2 (competitors).

6. Networking – both yours and your colleagues

You should be asking all of your friends, even those in other lines of work, because they have friends and so on and so on. Your co-workers should be doing the same. While social media can be one way of going about this, a personal touch, like a phone call, will generally get you further in your quest.

7. Headhunters

At some point you will find yourself at the outer reaches of your own (and your colleagues’) network and you need some new paths. Head hunters, staff agency, etc. are great way to find new resources that ordinarily would be outside your periphery.

I hear some moaning, yes you may have to pay a little to make this work. Like anything service-related, you’ll need to find one you trust and who understands your needs. However, if you shed your biases and think big picture/long-term I bet you’d trade a few dollars for a unicorn.

8. Professional associations and societies

Similar to conferences, professional associations and societies (The Direct Marketing Association, The Society of Women Engineers, American Copy Editor Society, etc.) are a great place to find like-minded individuals. Look for the budding young professionals and see what they are trying to get out of their membership…maybe your company will be a better fit.

9. Hold a contest

I think one of the more creative ways you can find a unicorn is to hold a contest. Now obviously this won’t work for every company, but for those that can create the required buzz to pull it off I think it’s a great idea. Think comic book looking for the next illustrator or a company looking for their next social media agent.

10. Nepotism

This is a tried and true way of finding people. Just be careful. When it’s good, it’s great, but when it’s bad, oh it’s not pretty.

11. Interns

Person 1: “What happened to that intern from last summer”
Person 2: “Oh they ended up taking a job at NachoCompany”

If there was an intern you liked there is no reason they should be employed elsewhere. Stay in contact after the internship and make them an offer prior to graduation b/c the good ones get locked up months before they even get that diploma.

12. They find you!

Believe it or not, I have found some of the best resources are the ones that find you. Job openings are irrelevant. They contacted you because you’re the company they want to work for – period. Typically this happens by building a reputation of being high quality and putting yourself out there for others to hear about you.

Although this is the hardest way, it also yields the best unicorns!

All that’s left is to write the job req, but I’ll leave that up to you.

p.s. I’m interested in hearing what’s worked for others.

Photo by ait athens licensed via Creative Commons

Stanton Willins

http://www.covalentmarketing.com

Stanton Willins is the CTO and Co-Founder of Covalent Marketing - and has to wear many hats along the way (including recruiting). He believes that it’s not what he does, but how he and his team do it, that separates them from everyone else. And it’s what keeps Covalent Marketing’s clients coming back. Stanton can often be spotted at the intersection of Marketing and Technology at a little place called Customer Intelligence.