All right, so it has been way too long. 11 months to be exact.  Every superhero goes into hiding. Mr. Incredible did with all of the supers, but he came back.

I have come out of hiding called work. Over the last eleven months, our team has done a major implementation of a new applicant tracking system, had 100% turnover in my department and due to the incredible efforts of our sales department our business is up which means we have been knee deep in requisitions. With the exception of the turnover, not a bad problem to have….or is it?

Even with the economy in flux again, company’s are hiring due to increased business. However, recruiters, including ours, are asked to take on more requisitions averaging 40 to 60 reqs per recruiter. Who can be successful managing that kind of load. Answer: NO ONE! Do we have a choice? Answer: No! However, a (not so) funny thing happened on the way to the ATS….managers started noticing who could handle it and who could not. Recruiting Leaders and Hiring Managers.

So recruiters started whining that they didn’t have enough resources and we needed to hire more because the load was too much.  Unfortunately, our hands were tied due to budget constraints.    They had had enough.  I could not blame them.  What did they do…left and went to find other work. With all due respect, Good! That’s right, I said good. To quote a famous tiger, it was GREEEEEAAAT!

In order to build your moral back up and begin to repair damaged hiring manager satisfaction, turnover is actually good. In my world, it was the best thing to happen to me. Did I have to take on an increased workload as a Director of managing 60 requisitions? Yes! Did it stink? YES, yes it did. Did I go out and find replacements? Yes! Did I upgrade from what I had before? YES!

How? I took a different approach because I realized I made some poor hiring decisions. We all have, but as the Recruiting leader, you need to consider the following when trying to replace your team:

1) Hire Out of the Box: My first replacement was someone who recruited for six years back in the 90′s and at the turn of the century went into real estate for the next 10 years where he was very successful. What did I see? I saw past recruiting experience but it was his real estate experience that really interested me. Why? the key to the real estate is networking through the internet to find your next lead and not afraid to pick up the phone to make cold calls. Also, customer service and listening to what the homebuyer wants makes for repeat business. It made perfect sense. I tried him for a few weeks on a temporary basis and within two weeks he had closed eight positions and I had 4 positive unsolicited hiring managers comments come through email and phone. Within three weeks, he was a full time employee and has been my key partner in training the next two people we brought on! I am so glad to have him on our team and that I did not just look at recent recruiting experience. I saw the potential, took the chance, paying off big time for our team!

Hire for Experience and Tenure in Prior Jobs: Tenure at companies is reemerging as a key factor to hiring managers…even me. We had over 150 respondents to our posting but only five had tenure of 5-10 years prior. I ended up going with a recruiter with 10 years of experience at a major retailer here in Dallas, two years in a staffing firm, but 10 years in grocery management. This told me she was dedicated to the company and its brand. Hmmm… our marketing tag is Freeman. Innovation dedicated to your brand. I would say a perfect match. She came from heavy customer focused environments, she had the true recruiting experience to help my less experienced recruiters on how to handle difficult situations. She has worked for us for a month. In that time, she has solidified true business partnerships with key business lines and is receiving rave reviews. Why..because she listens to what her customer wants. Again, I am so excited to have her on my team and know that I have someone who will help our team be successful for some time.

Hire for Growth Potential and a Passion to Learn: My third and final hire over the last few weeks was a recruiter five years out of college where she worked for Gectacular insurance company where customer service was king. Her role was hiring customer service agents along with a few other roles. There was a concern that she had not recruited many types of positions, but I saw a passion for recruiting and from someone who admittedly said they want to learn from me.   It’s a little selfish but I thrive on helping recruiters grow to their potential.  She comes to me when she has questions (they all do) and I not only answer her question, I try to create a teaching moment when it presents itself.  She is doing great so far and has so much potential to take her recruiting skills to the next level.  I look forward to getting her there.

Overall, I have an incredible team who are making great strides.  Each brings a unique set of qualities to the table and will help rebuild solid recruiting partnerships with all of our managers.  For my past recruiters who left over the last year, I hope you are good cuz we are doing GREEEEAAAT!