Wednesday Wisdom: The Flight of Wonder Boy

Dear Claudia,

I’m caught between loyalty to a candidate and loyalty to a manager, and I want to know what you would do. One of my managers has been about 30% understaffed in a mission-critical role for more than a year, and the work load for his team is huge. It near to impossible to find the right combination of skills and experience in a candidate, so when someone shows up on the market I hear about it pretty quick. This week a resume from his team was posted “confidentially” on one of the niche job boards; I know the guy well, and he was recently denied a promotion because of the understaffing issue. I think he’s right to be looking, but I know for sure that the hiring manager isn’t aware of it yet and will panic when he is. Do I tell the candidate that I know? Do I tell the manager? Or should I just keep recruiting and let nature take its course?

Wants to Do the Right Thing

Dear Wants to Do,

Honey, first things first: put your head down and recruit. If you’ve been working on this project for a year and the team is still understaffed by 30%, you’re as responsible for the pending turnover as anyone in this situation. I’m not sure what your strategy has been to build pipeline this past year, but could be it’s time to rethink it – and fast.

At this point, there’s a greater than 50% chance that Wonder Boy is gone to the competition, and all for the bargain price of a new job title and the certainty that he is appreciated for his contribution. Isn’t it sad to see really great talent disappear because the business doesn’t plan well?

It might not be too late to salvage this, and for that reason I strongly suggest you also have a private conversation with each of them. Start with the candidate to understand what is fully motivating the move, and if he has any interest in you mediating a deal to remain at the company.

If he’s made up his mind to go, or wants to hedge his bets, he’ll most certainly ask you to keep his search confidential; to that I would sweetly reply “I’m sorry, can’t do that.” In my book, posting a resume in the public domain is launching a public job search, like it or not. But the harder truth is that your company is facing double Jeopardy: another empty seat in an already understaffed department, and intellectual capital that is taking up residence at the competition.

Do the proactive math, my friend – denial will get you nothing, and you’ll need a strong relationship with the manager for what needs to happen next: revamping the job requirements so you can actually fill some jobs.

**

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Permalink Reply by Regina Farr on April 29, 2009 at 11:28pm

I must agree with Claudia as well. I would have the conversation with the associate and if his/her mind is made up to pursue something outside the organization, I'd encourage the associate to speak with their supervision about their plans to pursue other opportunities. My thoughts the manager and the associate may be able to come to a compromise which would be a win for the company. Once this is resolved, I'd have another meeting of the minds with the hiring manager on the vacancies to see if we need to rethink our expectation and my search efforts.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on April 30, 2009 at 3:13am

My perspective here is from having dealt with this very issue several times while running both recruiting and organizational development during two successful turnarounds.

Where there's smoke there's fire. If one person is unhappy in any understaffed group, two or more are also unhappy.

Don't snitch without a plan in place. Talk to your comp person about comp possibilities - they'll know the group's comp structure (sorry but a title change alone is touchy-feely BS and anyone who is happy with simply a title change might also be worth losing) and your OD person about succession planning before speaking with the employee. Yep, said employee. Also, be sure you've gathered market data (were you thinking this would be a 5 minute project?) about jobs and comp.

Speak to the employee about all things related to the job including how the group is being led; if you hear things that surprise you, conduct your own sleuthing project and find out if there's truth in what the job boarded employee has told you. Line all your ducks up in a row.

Then go to the hiring manager after you've had your talk with the employee. Notice I didn't say buy in from the employee.

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Permalink Reply by See_Jane_Recruit on May 1, 2009 at 2:16pm

I think you'll be hard pressed to find any recruiter that doesn't agree that: 1) clearly something is wrong with the company/management when your client stays 30% understaffed for over a year and people are trying to get out and 2) You go where the money is. Clearly this guy that is now job searching wants out and if you don't get him, someone else will. He has a valuable and diverse set of skills--grab him NOW. Be honest with him that you work with the company he is with now and pump him for inside information about why he is unhappy there. Then tell him to keep it on the DL and you will try to place him. Then have a conversation with your client and say: "Hey Mr./Mrs. Manager, why do you think you can't get the staff you need? Would you consider changing your job descriptions and training people on skills they don't have. Maybe you should break out postion #12 into two jobs instead of combining it into one." Bingo-bango-bongo. Money, money, money.

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Permalink Reply by Claudia Faust on May 6, 2009 at 8:58am

Sorry guys, it took some time to connect with Wants to Do for an answer to your question. She's on the corporate side of the equation...now what say you all?