How To Attract Top-Notch Talent

1. Take a close look at your human resources department. Is it viewed as a necessary evil within your corporation? This is a department that perhaps has the most important job responsibility within the corporation and the one that is forced to react quickly, especially when hiring dollars and budgets are scrutinized so closely. It is tasked with the impossible and wears many hats, including: mind reader, psychologist, middleman, problem solver, keeper of confidential information, background investigator, corporate cheerleader and messengers of good and bad news. Take a moment and look at the Human Resources department within your organization. Try to spend a day in that office. If that's not possible, gather the head of the department and a few support people and discuss what their job function is, vs. what it should be.

2. Review your expectations of the human resources department. Do you see it as handling all the administrative aspects of recruitment? The staff composes and proofreads job descriptions for online job postings and reviews, screens, catalogs and routes incoming resumes. It has a checklist with the latest corporate requirements, education levels needed and buzzwords to search for on incoming resumes. After reviewing hundreds of resumes in a day, only a handful of resumes make it to the hiring manager--no wonder they can't get people hired.

The HR department that employs recruiters and empowers their department to make contacts and hiring decisions on their own is probably the most successful model to date. Professional recruiters develop relationships with the hiring managers, employees and candidates very quickly. They are the first line resource for the company when it comes to the hiring process. Their job entails establishing the benchmark for job descriptions, employment models, conducting phone and face to face interviews, making job offers and selling the benefits of their employer. They might be incented on their success in the hiring process or rewarded at year-end for their accomplishments. They are the ultimate corporate sales person that tells the corporations success story over and over again. They are proactive rather than reactive. Their quota is ongoing, perhaps never being met but always moving towards the bottom line.

3. Remember what your HR charter is. Your human resources department performs an important function within an organization, especially when it comes to directing the staffing efforts of the corporation, enforcing employment laws, and when it truly protects both the employee and the employer. But it is a difficult role to define for a corporation, regardless of the industry. Take a look within your organization, ask questions of your employees, get involved with HR associations to see how to make your HR team stars. You will only benefit from doing so.

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