Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1078362
FEBRUARY 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 31 doing this with a lot of companies as well be- cause, again, structural unemployment means it might be cost-prohibitive to get the few peo- ple who could be there. One of my favorite examples is one of the guys in our company was approached by a cli- ent who had a bizarre combination of require- ments. We called them "purple squirrel search- es" as in that person probably doesn't exist. But we also organize our information about people extraordinarily well. For example, we might have 30 variables we've identified about each person so that we can sort our people in 30 factorial ways. 30 times 29 times 28 is a lot. Therefore, my colleague was able to say to that manager, "There are five people in the world who have that combination of skill sets. Two of them have an equity position in their company, and there's not a chance that you can get them. The other three you can get, and this is what it would take." One of the top things people want to know when they turn to us is in confidence is that they're making an informed decision—eliminate the chaos. Johnson: And there's so much of that out there when trying to figure out a candidate, so that's incredibly valuable, especially right now. if you're trying to make sure that you keep the doors open by being properly staffed. And there are a lot of company owners facing that problem. McNabb: Yes. It's one of the reasons that I love this career. We're always six months ahead of what shows up on the news because we're talking to all the movers and shakers in that in- dustry. Then, we get this news flash and think, "I knew about that six months ago." Johnson: What should hiring managers pay at- tention to as they evaluate candidates? McNabb: Every hire should be evaluated in three different ways. For managers looking at the overall strategy, this is a vital consider- ation. The first way that every hire should be evaluated is the total cost per hire. Total cost includes things like postings and ads but also the management hours per hire, travel and other expenses for that manager, training, re- locations, and turnover costs if it's a bad hire. That can be a difference of tens of thousands of dollars very easily. The second way that every hire should be evaluated is the time to fill. If it takes an extra 30, 60, or 90 days, that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. The third way that every hire should be evaluated is the career contribu- tion to the profitability of the company because that can be a difference of millions of dollars. Never lose sight of what's important. Find the most valuable people in the world. Think about your own staff—the top performers ver- sus the average people—and count up the mil- lions of dollars over the course of their career with you. It's an impressive number. Then, find those types of candidates as quickly as possible without wasting any money. If you follow a strategy where you even- tually find somebody, but they're not as good, you might have saved $20,000 or $50,000 by doing that, but it cost you $10 million in the long run. Johnson: One of the take- aways I'm getting is that when it comes to hir- ing right now, we need to be tactical, but the tactics better fit into our strategy. McNabb: Exactly that. The world is changing so quickly that you have to stay on top of that change. That is the number one need that we see from hiring managers everywhere— "Keep me abreast on what's changing. I don't want to be the last person to know about something. Oh, and tell me how other people have solved that problem. Better yet, bring me the people who did it." Johnson: Thanks for having this discussion with me, Terry. McNabb: My pleasure! SMT007