It’s the height of hockey season and the winning teams and great
players all have one thing in common—they skate to where the puck will
be versus where it already is at any given moment. The great one, Wayne
Gretzky, was known for this trait, with many players that have come
after him emulating this best practice.
In hockey you score by advancing the puck into the goal; in
recruiting you score by having and advancing the right person into the
need of the customer. Therein lies the issue—too many firms make too
many clients hurry up and wait (that’s the equivalent in hockey of just
passing the puck during a power play). So, what do those clients do?
They hedge their bets by spreading the love, giving multiple firms the
order. Everyone loses in this scenario as the client increases their
labor intensity managing multiple relationships while the firms whose
candidates aren’t chosen end doing pro bono work.
The solutions is to have who clients need before they need them. Can
you anticipate every need? Of course not, however, most firms can be
more focused and more prepared for what their customers buy most of the
time. Without exception, every firm I’ve worked with has been able to
identify at least two to three positions they know their customers will
need to have filled. Instead of waiting for the orders, they actively
recruit those people ahead of time. When buyers call, they have who they
want, when they want them. As a result, these firms get more exclusive
orders (sometimes without even asking), more repeat business, and more
closed deals. It should be no surprise that these companies are growing
faster than their competitors who continue to play hurry up and wait.
Hockey is a fast moving, contact sport, and so is staffing and
recruiting. Organizations that actively contact and recruit talent
before their customers need them score more business, simply by playing
the “puck” the right way.