How to recruit during a savage hiring drought (…and how we saved the farm!)

When Victorian dairy farmers, Jim and Nancy, attended one of my masterclasses last year they were close to giving up their business. The 70-year-olds owned one of Australia’s largest herds, and were exhausted. Chronic staff shortages meant that after years of running a highly successful business, the couple were now milking every day and hadn’t taken a holiday for several years. They’d been advertising for months but Jim’s take was, ‘there simple aren’t any good people out there’.

It’s a common complaint but one that I’ve never bought into. I asked the couple to show me a copy of their recruitment ad which was in the usual generic style – role title, responsibilities and selection criteria for the job. This type of ad worked well in the twentieth century when there were lots of people in the job market and the focus of ads was to screen ineligible applicants out. When there are only a few people applying however, this is a useless technique. Nowadays effective ads are those that focus on what applicants want, not just what the employer wants. Like a good fisherman we need to bait our hook carefully, not just keep throwing our line in, hoping that a fish might eventually land itself.

Jim and Nancy’s problem wasn’t the scarcity of applicants in the marketplace, it was simply that they hadn’t outlined any benefits to attract good people to apply. ?We worked together to design a new ad. First, I had to transform some of their fixed ideas. For instance, coming from an era where full-time was the norm, they hadn’t realised that there is a large untapped labour pool of part-timers that many businesses aren’t targeting.

It’s also important to give people an indication of what they will actually get paid. (I trialed this for a year and found that I got almost zero decent applicants when I didn’t mention $ in the ad.) We also talked about actual skills needed. The couple had always looked for experienced workers but after reviewing the role in depth, realised that milking was a skill that could be quickly trained. Suddenly we had a whole new focus for the farm recruitment campaign. Here is the final ad:

The result was outstanding. They received the most responses from any ad they’d ever run and employed 6 part-timers within a week, filling all their vacancies. One was the cleaner from the local school who said she’d rather milk cows, than take on extra cleaning shifts. The retired farmer next door also signed up for a couple of shifts because he missed working with his own animals. The extra milkers meant the couple also had additional relief staff to cover unplanned absences and holidays too. Sure they had a few more people to manage but the payroll stayed the same and this extra administration was a small price to pay for a successful, well-run operation and the ability to reclaim their lives. Speaking to Jim a year later, the change was so profound that they’d just bought the property next door. Not bad for a couple who almost gave up the farm!

Are you busting your butt implementing people strategies but not getting the outcomes you want? Or just looking to improve your expertise? If so, come along to a PCAP Tribe meet-up – a 2-hour space where people who are passionate about people come together, and learn transformational hiring, inspiring, engagement and retention practices (you know, those ones that aren’t taught at university).

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