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O P I N I O N
Paid time off. Really? When recruiting big talent, don’t let little details in the benefits package get in the way of making a winning offer.
I ’m amazed at the need that exists out there for great talent. Firms in the design industry seem to be ramping up on bigger and better projects all over the country. Every firm that we speak with has a tremendous need for gifted engineers, architects, environmental consultants, and planners. Given the current state of affairs it always surprises me when a client, who desperately needs to hire excellent people, is willing to draw a line in the sand on benefits that could easily be modified to attract and hire top candidates.
Randy Wilburn
to offer her three weeks of PTO to start because, “That’s just how they did things.” This scenario may sound familiar to some of you reading this. We see this situation all too often. It could be PTO, the employee cost of health care, remote working possibilities, etc. In the design industry, we deal with a finite number of human resource options. When great candidates are sitting in front of you, work hard to not only sell them on your firm and the opportunities that exist there, but also help them overcome any objections that may come up. Some things can be fixed and some cannot.
I’m reminded of a recent situation with one of our clients. They asked us to find a good project engineer for their growing site development practice. They are in a competitive part of the country when it comes to engineers, and we told them they would probably have to pull out all the stops to bring someone on board. We found a great young woman who works for a competitor in the same local market as our client. She had all the skills required to do the job, and for all intents and purposes would have been an excellent choice.
But there was one problem.
Our client focused on the fact that this candidate received five weeks of PTO, and they only wanted
See RANDY WILBURN, page 8
THE ZWEIG LETTER September 12, 2016, ISSUE 1167
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