The Pitch

I was trying to come up with a more decorative term for this process, but the bottom line is, that when you have attracted and qualified a candidate as right for your organization, you begin a conversation with him that is really a sales pitch. In the end you want him to buy into working for your company. Of course, as in any professional sales situation, the customer should never feel like he is being sold. He should feel like he wants to own your product (or work at your company). As you have all probably experienced, the worst thing that can happen with a great candidate is that he feels that you are trying to sell him a bill of goods, or worse, that you are desperate for someone, anyone to take this job. At worst, he will never work for you, at best, he will use the obvious leverage he has in the situation to milk you for as much money as he can.

Some things that aggressive U.S. companies are doing to deliver pitches to very important or hard to reach candidates are as follows:

• The Golf Game. Recruiters are going to great lengths to orchestrate "chance encounters" such as being put on the same golf team as a highly valued prospect. Bill Glynn, a partner at Southeast Interactive Technology Funds - a venture capital firm - had set his sites on Myles Owens, a senior business development executive at Compaq. Owens was being pursued relentlessly by recruiters looking to capitalize on Compaq's recent slump. Glynn went so far as to organize a conference nearby Owens, invite Owens to speak at it, strike up a conversation with Owens afterwards, invite him to a game of golf that afternoon, and then work on Owens for 9 holes to find what his hot button is, and close a deal for him to jump ship.

• Hiring Fairs. A variation on the old job fair. One of the chief enemies to a recruiter is hiring cycle time. The life expectancy of a hot resume now is 72 hours. Recruiters need to not only identify and qualify the candidate, but try to bring them to closure before he has time to look anywhere else. To answer this need, Lucent Technologies started hosting quick-hire job fairs around the country. Recruiters meet job applicants who have been prescreened over the telephone or via the Web. the candidates are interviewed, drug-tested, and hired the same day if they meet Lucent's standards. Recently, some 6,000 people went through this grueling 12 hour day in New Jersey. At the end of the day, 200 walked out with new jobs and starting dates.

• The CEO visit. One of the weapons that smaller companies have been using to lure top talent from larger companies is a direct pitch by the CEO. This obviously can't be done for every position, but for even those extremely hard to fill tech positions, companies will bring in the Chief Executive, to make the point of how important that person is to the organization.

• Make their existing company a client. Good prospects usually have some feelings of loyalty and kinship to their current firm. One way to make a move to your company feel like a win-win-win situation is to suggest that perhaps the candidate can initiate a business relationship between their old company and your firm, meaning that the old company will still come out ahead in the arrangement.

• Offer to breathe life back into stock positions that have gone under water. This is particularly good when targeting people who are heavily vested in their company, and are "holding on" until the stock reclaims its value.

Training

Training should be a part of your company's culture to at least some degree. An established training program tells a candidate that you invest in your people and that you want to them to advance, and are serious about their growth prospects. Training has, in fact, been cited in some studies as the single most important factor considered by IT professionals contemplating a job switch. U.S. companies are using Training as a crucial cultural cornerstone, but will often have the ability to offer even more training to a specific candidate if it is clear that this is a very hot button for this person. Training can, and should, be used to achieve the greatest leverage possible in attracting a candidate, but also in building the employee into a productive member of your company.

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