How do you move up the corporate ladder? Sure, you can be a real hotdog and get a boost by sneaking around playing politics, but that backfires just as often as it succeeds in moving you up. Or you can concentrate on being productive, but I’ve seen a lot of hands-on, very productive people get stuck in one place for far too long.

In my view, the only sure way to get a chance to move up is to become known as someone who can spot talent. Bring in a quality team who can be there to replace you when your chance comes, and upper management will not hesitate to give you a shot at the next rung. It’s an ability that will carry you to the highest places in your organization.

Put a Plan in Place To Spot Talented Hires

I have a number of good friends at companies in senior management roles who I know have succeeded in great measure because they’ve found a way to become a “people magnet” of sorts. In other words, their employers have benefitted just by their inclusion in the hiring process. In every interaction they have with prospects, they leave a powerful message behind about the good reasons for joining the team.

I asked one of my contacts, a senior vice president and chief operating officer of a mid-sized CRO, for her advice on the recruitment process. Her first guideline is to try and get more mileage out of your Human Resources staff.

“I’ve been with companies in which the H/R department is given very little respect by hiring managers,” she told me. “But even in those organizations, it’s possible to find someone there you can take under your wing and who can be trained to know what you like, what you look for.
Recruiting is a big job, and you’ll need help. If you can’t go out and hire a third party, you’ll need a friend in H/R. Treat your human resources person like a valued partner and you’ll get a lot more accomplished.”

A Difference Between Applicants and Candidates

Here’s another key aspect of this woman’s personal plan for recruiting . . . She recognizes and embraces the difference between applicants and candidates.

“Human Resources sometimes has the view that anyone and everyone who applies for a job with our company is an applicant. They’ll treat people whom I’ve sourced through friends the same way that they treat people who come through the online application process. You need to ensure this doesn’t happen,” she cautioned. “A candidate is something very precious. There are often too few of them.”

She added, “When you’re working as H/R does with so many applicants all day long, you start to see people as cogs in a process instead of valuable, potential hires. They know that if they run an ad, they’ll get hundreds of responses. But it’s my view that as a company, we can’t treat every resume like it came in as an unsolicited web application.”

So what’s the difference between an applicant and a candidate? Companies often treat “applicants” like they are a dime a dozen. Inexpensive web ads and online applications yield applicants with a very low perceived value. Unfortunately, when a resume comes in from an outside source, perhaps the hiring manager’s own networking process or an outside recruiter, this same “low value” thought process prevails.

The hiring manager who wants to really empower the hiring process recognizes that involvement early on with a prospect can make the whole process warmer and more personalized. Treating your best applicants as candidates and not applicants means that you provide a personal touch . . . this can be what separates your open position from the other jobs that the best people are likely looking at.

The Personal Touch in the Pre-Interview Process

Here are some things that you can do to fine-tune your recruiting process. Anyone at any level, a supervisor or a vice president, can make recruiting more productive by following a few basic steps. These include:

• When arranging an introductory phone interview (always a good idea, even if they are local), set up a mutually agreeable time for the call and then be extremely punctual. I suggest a non-standard time. A 7:15 p.m. call that comes in right at quarter past the hour does a great deal to tell that candidate how you perceive the importance of the call; it commands instant respect.
• Ask the candidate to commit to a follow-up. In that first call, close the conversation with a request (if you’re still interested, that is). Perhaps there was a topic that didn’t get addressed because of time constraints. Find an easy assignment and then get a commitment from him or her (“Jim, send me a couple of paragraphs on your views of our cell line and how it differs from the work you’ve done. When do you think you can have that to me?”) You will learn a good deal about this person by taking that step. It says something about their interest level — and helps you identify the achievers.
• If moving forward to an interview, ensure that you are perceived as the candidate’s champion for the day. If you don’t communicate with this person before they arrive, it will be H/R who does. While that’s OK for general communication of details, it will lack the personal touch. Be the one who sends the agenda off to the candidate . . . It is your involvement that makes the difference in attracting the best people to the firm.

The Personal Touch on Interview Day

Interviews are costly. The cost of travel for your candidate is nothing compared to pulling your team together for a day. As a result, you want to do everything possible to ensure the day is effective. Here are my suggestions:

• Make sure that you never leave a candidate on his own the night before an interview. If he is coming in the day before, grab a team member and join him for dinner. Make it informal and fun, a good chance to see if this is the kind of person you’d like to work with. Leave him with a folder to look at that night: detail about the area, realtor brochures, Chamber of Commerce materials on your city, etc.
• Whatever you do, do not start the candidate’s day with a trip to the Human Resources department. You are this person’s host on interview day; first thing, meet her for a general overview of how the day will go and provide some background on people she will meet.
• Don’t let your junior team members go blindly into an interview or they’ll ask your candidate questions like, “Where do you want to be in five years?” Every interviewer should be well prepared. Consider having each explore a different area of your candidate’s background and experiences, sharing what they learn when you debrief as a group.

Closing the Deal

By developing a stronger bond with your candidates before and during the interview process, you’ll be in a better position to negotiate closure to your hiring process once you’ve made your selection. Your candidate will feel more enthusiasm for going to work for you, which will be reflected in the offer discussion.

In conclusion, find an H/R colleague who you can work well with, but consider the process as one that you own — and not something exclusively run by H/R. Treat the people you meet during the recruitment project with the respect due any candidate, and when they come in to visit, give them every opportunity to see why working for you and your employer would be their ideal next step.

David G. Jensen is Managing Director of Kincannon & Reed Executive Search (www.krsearch.com), a leading retained search firm in the biosciences. You can reach Dave at (928) 274-2266 or via djensen@krsearch.net.