I used to think that working your personal network was the #1 way to find A Players. Today, I think that’s the second best way to find talent.
The #1 best way to find A Players is to pay your employees and managers a recruiting bounty. The average recruiting bounty is $1,000.
Self-made billionaire Paul Tudor Jones told us when we were writing the Who book that his experience is that employee recruiting bounties delivered 4x better results than any other sourcing method. I pressed him and asked, “Prove it!” He said that he had McKinsey do an economic analysis and they found that of all the people who were hired in the preceding period at his company, those who came through the recruiting bounty program cost half as much to hire, and had twice as great a chance of staying two years or more.
I was keynoting a 1,000-person event yesterday in L.A. for a mix of corporate business leaders and small business owners. I asked who offered a recruiting bounty. Only 20% of the attendees raised their hands. Several of them grabbed a microphone and said it was the best way they source talent.
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Fabien Snauwaert says
A question about the scorecard: do you use it also as a job posting?
I can’t offer bounties just yet (hiring my first employees) and don’t have an extended network (worked mostly on my own) so, unless I come up with a better idea, posting job offers or hiring the services of a recruiter will be a must.
What wasn’t clear to me from the book was just when to introduce the scorecard (and info about the company’s culture) to candidates. Too early and we run the risk of disclosing precious information about the company’s goals and metrics; too late and we run the risk of having to sieve through a tidal wave of lousy candidates.