Here's How to Make Your Boss Care About Recruitment

October 8, 2014 at 12:19 PM by Rob Stevenson

On your CEO’s to-do list, how close to the top is recruiting? I can almost hear your sigh from here! Despite being Make Your Boss Care About Recruitment one of the most important aspects of building a new company, or taking a large one to the next level, adding talent often falls by the wayside in the minds of most C-level execs. It’s up to you to show them the added benefit of focusing on talent acquisition, and the huge downside in ignoring it.


Smooth and By the Numbers

CEOs are data-driven folks. They don’t just want to know your gut feeling or your expert opinion as an HR professional. They want to know what’s worked before, what hasn’t, what you’ve tested, and what conclusions you’ve come to. Want to get your boss’s attention? Frame your recruitment metrics as business impact metrics. Here are a handful of links that will either help you shape your argument in the terms your boss cares about most:

http://www.ere.net/2013/01/28/high-impact-strategic-recruiting-metrics-for-wowing-executives/

ERE breaks down 18 key recruiting metrics that will help you put some reason to your recruiting rhyme. It’s going to require some calculation on your part, but the time spent here will make you more efficient and yield conclusions on what your company has been missing out on by putting recruitment on the back burner.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090331091252.htm

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/1787-staff-hiring-diversity.html

Growing a representative team is not just the right thing to do, or in some cases mandated by law, but also offers distinct benefits to the company as a whole. The above studies on the impacts of building a diverse workforce concluded that these teams are more profitable, loyal, happy, and productive.


Proof is in the Pudding

Who do CEOs listen to? Other CEOs, of course! Luckily, many notable organization leaders have been vocal about the high premium they place on adding talent. Pass along the recruitment commentary and experiences of CEOs you know your boss admires, and social proof might just take you even further than data.

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/coladvice/book/bk981106.htm

Here, Steve Jobs discusses why he believes adding top, A+ players was key to his success. He disagrees wholeheartedly with the notion that managers don’t have the time to recruit and claims that it is “the most important job”.

http://blog.entelo.com/8-principles-of-recruiting-from-keith-rabois

Keith Rabois, known best for his role in the Paypal Mafia, as well as at LinkedIn and Square, recently took to Twitter to share his 8 Principles of Recruiting.

http://blog.entelo.com/are-you-recruiting-like-elon-musk-spacex-ceo-reveals-his-hiring-secrets

Another notable CEO who has remained intimately involved in recruiting is SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. From the man himself: “I actually interview everyone at SpaceX personally. And we’re a 500-person company, so that’s a lot of interviews.”

http://venturehacks.com/articles/khosla-recruiter

Vinod Khosla, known best for Sun Microsystems, and currently, Khosla Ventures, riffed on the importance of recruiting a few years back at TechCrunch disrupt. Most notably, he shared the following:

“I was relentless. It took a lot of time. I used to say when I was starting my first company, I was much more of a glorified recruiter than a CEO, or a founder. I really spent probably well over 50% of my time recruiting, and I encourage all entrepreneurs to try and do that.”


If it’s good enough for Jobs, Rabois, Musk, and Khosla, it’s good enough for your boss!


Before you start convincing top talent to join your company, you need to create a unified front within your organization. Often, this starts at the top. If you can get your bosses or CEO heavily involved in recruitment, you will close better candidates, create a better candidate experience, and juice inbound applications by building a meaningful employer brand.

 

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