Finding and keeping good people has recently been rated the number one business problem facing American CEO's.

But what is your company doing about it? Many people still harbor the pervasive misconception that human resources is an administrative function. Most often it has been relegated to the bowels of the company as a necessary evil. If this is the case in your organization, you are in serious trouble.

Can your company reorganize itself around the new reality - the "selling" of jobs? Your mission is to market and sell job openings at your company to consumers - potential job applicants interested in working for you. The new HR equation is simple:

Recruiting = Sales & Marketing

D emo (click here)

The following sales and marketing basics should help you to get a new perspective on this critical area.

Determine your value proposition

Take a hard look at what your company has to offer. What, if anything, makes it an attractive place to work? Is it your culture, industry, geographic location, outstanding compensation packages, interesting technical work? Be critical about these factors; you may be able to fool yourself, but you can't fool your job candidates for long. Start by asking this question of your existing employees as well as business partners and clients. You may be surprised at the answers you get.

Define your target segments

Based on the value proposition that you have identified, define the segments of people most likely to work for you. Try to make these segments as specific as possible and different from each other. Imagine the prototypical person in each class. What are they like? What is their age, sex, stage in life, interests and hobbies? Are they hard charging and individualistic people fresh out of college, or perhaps stable and experienced mid-career people with families? Walk a mile in their shoes and try to envision what is important to them and how work fits into their overall life. Are they more concerned with making a difference, having stability, or doing fun and interesting work?

Refine your marketing message

Having clearly envisioned people in each target segment and understanding their psychological needs and views, you can effectively convert your value proposition into things that they passionately care about. An important point here is to tightly target the people in the target segment. Resist the temptation to be everything to everyone (e.g. "We offer a challenging and rewarding working environment for motivated self-starter team players"). Distill your message into specific themes that resonate with your target segments. It does not matter if people outside of your target segments do not respond to the message or are even turned off by it. They are not likely to end up happily working for you anyway. By contrast, for your target the message should draw the response "Hey these people really understand me!"

Define your advertising mix

Once you have refined your message consider the best avenues for reaching the target segments. Should you use general interest publications, job boards with specific audiences, industry publications, local special interest group, special events such as job fairs or social mixers with a theme? Ask your existing employees which publications they read, what organizations they belong to, and which activities they participate in. Try to adjust your spending for each publication and activity based on its reach and degree of targeting. Reaching a large audience is not always best, especially if your target segments represent only a tiny subset of it.

Improve your web site

9 out of 10 job applicants will visit your web site at some point in their job search. It serves as 7/24/365 gateway to your company. Make sure that the web site has high production quality and is not "cheesy". This is often the first impression of your company. Recent surveys of college graduates indicate that one in four will reject a company simply based on its web site. Make sure that the "careers" section of your site is featured prominently. It should not be hidden several layers down in your site. Add your new marketing messages and supporting information about culture, benefits, and other information of interest to job candidates. And most importantly, create a relationship with not only the "active" candidates, but also with the vast majority of anonymous and uncommitted "passive" candidates who might be interested in future job opportunities.

Measure the results

If you can't track it, its not real. Don't confuse being busy with being effective. You should be measuring the basic "vital statistics" of the recruiting process and continuously improving them. These can include: time to fill an open position, cost of acquiring applicants via each advertising channel, cost of acquiring an employee. Collecting this information allows you to make rational decisions about expenses such as print classified advertising, job boards, recruiters, and HR support personnel.

Happy selling…

Tim Ash is the CEO and founder of CareerScout.com. He can be reached at tash@CareerScout.com

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