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F R OM T H E F O U N D E R
Solving your people shortage
P retty much every firm owner I talk to tells me the same thing. It’s the number one problem faced by AEC firms today – you can’t find enough people for all of the jobs you need filled. Here’s what you really need to do to get more job candidates for any opening you have, increase your job offer acceptance rate, and speed up the hiring process.
So what are your really going to do about it? Sit around in meetings and complain to your managers? Go remind your HR people who are not trained to be recruiters how unhappy you are with a lack of job candidates? Increase your employee referral fees from $1,500 to $2,000? Increase the number of job postings your firm puts out on LinkedIn? If that’s been your approach, good luck! I don’t see you making much progress in solving this one. Let’s all agree on this: It’s not an easy problem and you aren’t going to solve it overnight. By the same token, you won’t solve it in the long-term, either, if you keep doing the same things. Here is what you REALLY need to do to get more job candidates for any opening you have, as well as increase your job offer acceptance rate AND speed up the hiring process:
1. Hire someone who actually knows something about recruiting. This will NOT be an HR generalist. It may be someone who has worked (successfully) in a real recruiting firm, however. This person knows how to find people using sources other than LinkedIn. They won’t be afraid to contact anyone. And they won’t come cheap! I started working at Carter & Burgess in 1985, and my primary function was recruiting. I was 27 years old and pretty good at it. My first year there, I earned $72,300, including my bonus. That equates to $187,255 in today’s dollars. How many of you would pay that to a 27-year-old recruiter today? And back then, it was an employer-driven job market versus employee-driven. Good recruiters don’t come cheap, especially now. Stop cheaping out and comparing what you have to
Mark Zweig
See MARK ZWEIG, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER JANUARY 24, 2022, ISSUE 1425
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