Help Wanted Ads That Draw In Great Prospects -- and Where to Place Them
by Ron Roberts and Ranger Kidwell-Ross
Are you tired of hiring workers who can't cut it?
Would you like to hire workers who would give you a
competitive advantage?
There's only one reliable place to get them: STEAL
THEM FROM THE COMPETITION.
The beauty of stealing your competition's employees
is you kill two birds with one stone. You strengthen
your company and weaken theirs.
Your costs go down
and theirs go up. Their quality goes down and yours
goes up. Their income goes down and yours goes up.
Why Employees Change Companies
At this point you're probably wondering why a hard
working, highly skilled, and highly valued employee
would leave his company and join yours, right?
There are many reasons a great worker might leave the
comfort of his present job and join you:
- Better wages.
- More hours.
- Closer to home.
- Better benefits (truck, gas allowance, tools,
- vacation)
- Greater decision making authority.
- Professional development.
- Promotion.
- Easier projects.
- Better boss.
- Better atmosphere.
- A family member or friend works there.
Take a guess which factor is the most commonly cited by
people who change jobs. Money?
Nope. That's about fifth on the list.
Promotion? Nope..
Give up?
The correct answer is wanting to work for a better
boss. Interviews with over 10,000 job changers revealed that
70% of them left their jobs to escape their boss. Think of it: 70%!
The best workers are in play. Their connection to their
present company is often shaky. Good workers are eager to work for a company committed
to success, committed to teamwork, and committed to
their employees. You don't have to settle for under-
skilled or under-motivated workers. You can go after
the best.
It can be surprising easy to entice a good worker to
your company if you word your help wanted advertisement
as a sales pitch for your company. The ad needs to sell
your company to prospective employees.
Hop onto CraigsList.com, Monster.com, or
CareerBuilder.com, and check out your local newspaper.
You will notice that virtually all help wanted ads come
across as "If you have these skills, send in your resume.
We offer competitive wages and benefits." If a company
goes the extra mile they will add "Come join a fast
growing company that offers exciting opportunity."
Wow. Now THAT is a compelling pitch! So you suppose that those types of ads are really
going to pull in the well-paid, high quality worker?
Speak To Their Heart
You need to connect with them on a level that is
meaningful. The level that is most meaningful is their
relationship with their immediate boss.
The vast majority of great workers feel they are being
taken for granted.
They KNOW their bosses have set unrealistic
performance expectations. They are tired of covering
up for their boss' mistakes. They are tired of their
boss' making their jobs hard to perform.
They are frustrated. They love their work and may love
their company, but they don't like working for who
they report to.
Your help wanted ads MUST scream that you understand
the life of a worker, the frustrations, the
disrespect, the hassle. The ad must paint the picture
that your company is different. It values its
employees. It supports its employees. It listens to
its employees. Yes, you have a high performance
company, and hard work is the culture, but every step
is taken to ensure each employee is successful.
If you successfully get that message across, you will
be approached by fully employed, highly skilled,
excellent workers. They can't help but inquire.
Make It Safe to Apply
Employed workers are EXTREMELY hesitant to send in a
resume to a company they can't identify. They do not
want to send out their resume only to have it land in
their employer's hands. You must let job seekers know
who you are.
Identify your company, point them to your website,
give them multiple ways to get a hold of you: list
your phone, fax, email, and street address.
Don't worry about being swamped with unqualified
prospects. We're going to take care of that problem
with the next step.
Don't Be Shy - Qualify Them
Remember, your objective is to recruit highly skilled,
hard working employees. Identify the skills the job
demands and list those skills in the ad. Doing so will
attract the right candidates.
Great workers want to work for professionally run
companies, for companies who approach their business
as professionally as the employee approaches his job.
Being clear with qualification requirements is a
professional approach.
Don't Fear Angering Your Competition
If you afraid of starting a recruiting war, throw out
those fears. You're already in a recruiting war! You always have
been and always will be.
When you start receiving calls from your competition
threatening that you better back off or they'll come
after your employees, you'll know you're taking their
best workers. When your competition wants to reach a
gentleman's agreement about leaving each other's staff
alone, you'll know you've have them beat.
You're in a heated battle against those people. You're
fighting for profitable jobs. You're fighting for
quality people. You're fighting to put food on your
table.
Don't be lulled into thinking you can all work together
happily. That's bunk. They couldn't care less about you
and your company.
If you are struggling to find good employees, give me
a call me (913-961-1790) and let's see what we can do
to fix that problem.
Wishing you the best with your business.
Until next time, best of luck with your business!
Ron Roberts,
The Contractor's Business Coach
More information about Ron Roberts' and his company may be found on his website FilthyRichContractor.com. Ron may be reached via email sent to ron@filthyrichcontractor.com.
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