Lessons Learned from my Three-Year College Tour

I’ve spent the past three years traveling around the country touring colleges with our two teenage kids. It sounds way more fun than it actually is! Here are a couple of highlights of our three-year tour.

Two hours participating in an on-campus tour, only to realize that the school we were visiting didn’t even offer the major my son was interested in. When asked, my son replied, “I heard it was a nice school and I wanted to see it.” Then there was the two-hour drive to the school that was located in the middle of nowhere. We all knew, within five minutes, that this was going to be our first and last time stepping foot on this campus. And who could forget the trip to MIT, where for a moment, we fantasized (8 percent acceptance rate) that a child of ours would be attending one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Here’s what I learned from this experience. You need to get real clear on what you are looking for and what’s realistic before beginning any search. You also need a strategy.

I see the same thing happen in business. In fact, I had a similar conversation last week in Boston, when I was facilitating an off-site for a group of business owners. We traded stories of time and money spent searching for the right talent. When asked to describe their ideal candidate, most couldn’t. Sound familiar?

Here how to get clear and put a talent strategy in place before hunting for talent.

Identify your best performers. What traits do they have in common? Are they self-starters? Detail-oriented? Strong communicators? These traits will vary, depending on position, industry, and where your company is in terms of your growth cycle. Once you know this, you can then look for candidates with similar attributes.

Know where your company is headed. Too many people are hiring for today when they should be hiring for tomorrow. Where’s your company going? What skills will be needed to help you get there?

Identify your best sources of talent. Where have your most successful hires come from? Were they employee referrals? Did you recruit them through your college recruitment program or did they come from a particular third-party agency that really seems to get your organization? Go back to the sources where you’ve had the most success. No doubt, there is more talent where those people came from.

Your challenge:

 In one to three sentences, describe the traits of your ideal candidate.  

Ask your hiring managers the same question. Are you on the same page? Note: Don’t accept stock answers like, “She’ll have a college degree or four years of related experience,” as these are not traits. They are hiring requirements, that in many cases are simply arbitrary.

I'm introducing an evergreen talent experience unlike any other and offering a 25% discount for early adapters, who sign up prior to June 30th. I'll show you how to exponentially increase your hiring results, by helping you start a Grassroots Hiring Movement in your organization, as well as how to harvest talent in your own backyard.

?Interested? Let's connect. DM me or email me at [email protected].

? Matuson Consulting, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

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