The Secret to Hiring in a Tight Labor Market

Many business owners can’t find people to work right now.
Resumes are not coming in.

You’re not alone.

The bad thing about not having any resumes is that you get scared of losing your current employees.

You become desperate. You walk on eggshells around your staff afraid to ask too much of them. You don’t want to discipline them in fear they will leave.

The prerequisite to a new hire becomes whether or not they have a pulse. You hire anyone who is willing to work. You lower your standards.

You give all your power away and now you’re stuck in a business that is being run by them.

But again, you’re not alone.

As a business coach, I’m seeing this a lot since Covid happened. It forced me to dust off my old hiring system I created long ago and to start implementing it with clients.

You can sit there and complain that hiring is an issue everywhere right now or you can do something about it. You can move your attention over to recruiting and hiring. To take it serious in the same way you take gaining new clients seriously. To setting yourself up to have a flow of applicants coming in.

Your applications should flow like a stream not sit there stagnant like a pond. A stagnant body of water attracts parasites, bad bacteria and insects. You want applicants to be flowing and that will solve everything.

Let’s look at one of the best hiring system out there.

The police force

When I was in high school I did an aptitude test that said I should become a police officer.

So that’s the direction I went in.

I joined a college for policing. Just in my program alone there was 350 students.

I remember looking around the gym during one of our exams with discouragement.

I had to compete against all these people for a job.

Then I added up the 2nd and 3rd year students realizing that over 1000 people were probably applying for 50 positions.

I’m a white male and rumour where that they were looking for minorities.

But then I thought about how this was just 1 college. There were at least another 5 colleges in the province making that number more like 5000.

Then I thought about the people applying that are not going to college but were ex military, who worked security, who were martial art teachers.

That had to be a total of at least 7000 applicants.

It wasn’t for me

I never finished that program. Not because of the amount of competition but because one day I was sitting in class looking out the window watching my teacher rush to gather his things from his shitty rusted K car.

He came into class huffing and puffing, threw his duffle bag on the desk and complained about how exhausted he was. How he had to work nightshift and had to deal with all these issues.

It was a pivotal moment for me. I though, this guy is driving a beat up K car. Has to work a part time teaching job to make a living and his work environment sucks with negativity.

Yet here I was a personal trainer making more money than a police officer. I drove a nice convertible car and my work environment was so positive.

So I left college and continued down the route or personal training. Later I opened up a handful gyms and had over 40 employees working for me.

As my business was growing beyond 10 people I started to run into problems with finding personal trainers. Competition was dense and I had no applicants coming in. On top of that I had been burned quite a few times with bad hires. Lessons that cost me tens of thousands of dollars.

I needed a way of getting more applicants.

So I thought back to my college days. To the amount of people competing for this not-so-great job. How people volunteered hundreds of hours just to add experience to their resume. How they even got tutors to get an extra edge over others. How they jumped through hoops to be picked. And when they did get picked for step 1 they would eagerly wait months if not years to get to step 2, 3, 4 and all the way to step 7. How they would easily tell their employers or push aside any job they currently have to get hired for this job.

Now that’s a recruiting and hiring system we can learn from. If you can get 1 tenth of the success this hiring system has — you’re laughing.

Let’s break it down

5 lessons we can learn from one of the best recruiting and hiring systems:

1. Character Over the Money: As for the money I knew this wasn’t a career to get rich but that I would be secure and that was enough. The image I had of being a police officer was the driving force. The character behind it. What it meant for me to be seen this way. It meant doing good for my community and being an example for goodness. It felt honourable to serve others and to catch bad guys. From an employer standpoint it found someone who was connected to the purpose rather than the pay check.
2. Finding The Right Fit: The aptitude test detected that I was a gym guy. That I loved working out. That I was an athlete and warrior spirit that would be likely to take down bad guys. From the employer standpoint it qualified the right person for the job based on the minimum requirements — to be fit.
3. Skin in the Game: Then I paid a lot of money to join a college. I invested in myself in hopes of getting the job. In that education they showed me what the hiring process was like and what I needed to do in order to have a better chance at getting a job. From an employer standpoint, they got skin in the game. They’re financially invested.
4. The Power Dynamic: Simply by calculating that there was 7000 applicants for 50 jobs I quickly realized the power dynamic at play. That they hold the power and I’m lucky if I can get in. Let’s just say I would be proud to say I got this job in the end. From the employer standpoint you get a grateful deeply committed employee.
5. The steps towards the trophy: There was 7 steps in the hiring system. The application, a written exam that included a reading and writing assessment, a physical ability test, an oral interview, a background investigation, a medical evaluation and finally a psychological evaluation. With every step the candidate felt a stronger bond for the job. If they passed all levels, there was a big hiring cerimony with soaked in ritual and tradition. From the employer standpoint you are creating a committed employee for life.

Now let’s compare this hiring system to the average business owner.

The average business owner has no system in place. They receive resumes randomly. They only recruit when they have an immediate need. They ask around without a strategy. They have no process to filter through them other than a hunch.

This way to recruit leaves you reactive and never allowing for sustainable growth. This way of hiring creates uncommitted, half dedicated employees ready to leave with any confrontation of conflict or lure from other opportunities.

7 questions that will help you build a strong hiring system?

1. What is the image your candidate want for themselves in applying for this job?
2. What is the minimum requirement for the job?
3. How can you detect or pre-qualify the right candidates?
4. How do you detect or make sure they’re financially invested in the job?
5. How do you show them the power balance at play?
6. What steps do you take them through to build anticipation and commitment for the job once they’re hired?
7. What celebration ritual do you have in place for when they are hired?

If this has gotten your mind going. I have a hiring system for small business overs that covers it all.

It has been proven to work with my own businesses as well as other business owners I coach in all sorts of industries.

If you would like to lean more book a coaching call with me at coachjeanluc.com