FMS Best Practices
Store Management Recruiting By Paul Adams, Paul Adams & Associates
The most impactful best practice relative to recruiting store management is a thoroughly conceived and detailed plan for recruitment.
Recruiting is as much about selling your brand as finding qualified candidates to hire. Making sure the prospect knows about your company’s history, culture, policies, values, benefits, expectations and opportunities for personal growth are important in helping the recruit decide if they would like to be a part of your organizations.
Recruiting top notch candidates demands a proactive approach. Successful companies have clearly defined values when recruiting or promoting. The values of an individual determine whether or not they are hired or promoted. In order to attract these candidates a company needs to develop a dynamic recruitment/interview plan and process. Important values found in successful retailers include: teamwork, desire to learn, willingness to serve others, ethical standards and holding themselves and others accountable. Successful recruitment plans include the following elements:
Recruitment Strategy
Successful companies start by making lists of both short-term and long-term management needs. Gathered from existing management and company associates, this information is the basis for developing a recruitment campaign with a well-defined plan for meeting a company’s management requirements now and in to the future. Consider your company’s growth expansion plans and whether current managers are facing retirement age.
Job Descriptions
First impressions are important; you may never get another chance to impress a candidate. A job description is more than a list of skill; it should be able to convey to the candidate the values of the job to the customer, company and candidate. An excellent job description defines roles and responsibilities.
A collaborative approach with input from management and associates within the company will certainly yield a better job description. Some elements of an outstanding job description include:
- Brief description of the company and its mission
- What the day to day work environment is like
- Details of the exact challenges of the job
- Key aspects of company culture and company values
- A short list of job requirements – be specific
- Outline of salary and benefits information.
As a guide, take a look at a company’s current top performers and model your job description after their traits and try to duplicate your own successes. Understand what makes someone successful in your company.
Interview Process
Strong retailers rely on a collaborative approach to interviewing candidates. The interview process should consist of several interviews with different members of the company’s management staff coupled with Human Resources interviews. Outstanding interviews should include:
- Why would someone want to work for your compan
- A few relevant facts about your company’s successes and/or market positio
- Key aspects of your culture and company values
The best interview processes emphasize objectivity and tries to keep the guesswork out of the process.
The best interviews have a set of questions prepared in advance. These questions are used by all interviewers. The questions should center on work related issues and how the candidate would respond to problem solving situations. Simulating day-to-day tasks and how the candidate will respond is an excellent way to gauge strengths and weaknesses in the real life environment.
Keep an open mind and focus on the skills the candidate brings to the interview process. A candidate who may have been a good fit for one company does not necessarily mean they would fit well at the next company.
Best Practices for College Recruiting
Some companies have found the college campuses as the best source of finding a strong candidate pool. Successful college recruiting focuses on the long term and not just the short term for results. The key to success with college recruiting is establishing and maintaining a relationship with the college Career Office. These offices will most likely offer career fairs, on-campus recruiting, job postings and other services.
Be sure to select colleges that offer majors that fit your needs. Also consider the quality of their programs and the location of the college.
Social Media in Recruiting
In this age of instant communications, social media is playing a greater role in recruiting management candidates. More companies are recognizing the value of social media in building their employer brand in the minds of potential candidates. These companies know they need to connect to the Millennial Generation to drive interest in career opportunities. So you need to connect with the media these young people use the most- social media.
- Your company should create and maintain Facebook, Twitter and Google company profiles.
- Keep it personal – have contacts established on these social media sites and respond when questions or inquiries occur.
- Keep your company information and job opportunities up to date.
- Provide some insight into your company not found anywhere else.
- Sell them the sizzle of why they should work for your company.
- An added benefit is it’s a relatively low cost form of recruiting.
When developing your recruitment strategy, take into account the use of social media and see if it would make sense. It should add value to your recruitment effort and provide an avenue to develop your candidate base.
A Few Additional Tips for Recruiting Store Management
- Have a well-defined benefits package prepared and be able to cover the key points during the interview process.
- Take note of the candidates’ communication skills both written and verbal.
- Written: Resume, emails, etc
- Verbal: Phone conversations, interview proces
- Keep your website up to date and curren
- Check References – Actually take time to check out references. Even though they may not be able to provide much information, listen to their tone and how they might express their responses. This can provide insight into the candidate
- Most importantly, know what your competition is offering. Do a little research and investigation to know what the competition is offering to sell their sizzle. What do you offer that your competition doesn’t?
Excerpted from Determining Potential Career Paths for New Hires; Refining the On-Boarding Process, 2014, National Grocers Association. Written by Paul Adams, Paul Adams and Associates.
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Paul Adams, President, Paul Adams & Associates, pauladams100@comcast.net