The best potential employees aren’t looking for a job because they’ve already got one. That’s why you have to poach them.

In close to thirty years of my professional life, I’ve only had two job interviews. The rest of the time I was poached by one company while working for another.

There are lots of reasons why finding the right people is hard, but if you want your business to be exceptional, your staff must be exceptional people. It takes work but it’s worth the investment of time.

I had to remind someone of this while on a multi-city speaking engagement. At a talk in Sydney, Australia, a member of the audience commented, “What you don’t realize is we have a really tight economy in Sydney right now, and there are just no employees out there. We have the lowest unemployment in forty years.” I replied that I felt her pain—in Vancouver, we were at the lowest in fifty years! But honestly, I asked, what difference does it make? Even in tight job markets the great employees still exist, they’re just working somewhere else.

Poach them!  Show them why working for you is WAY better!

Every company has them.  Most CEOs don’t know who they are.  In fact most companies miss the diamonds sitting right in front of them.

Instead of going outside your company and recruiting people, companies need to really get to know their own people first.  Every company has diamonds in the rough.

The other day I met with an employee from a well known Vancouver company.  The employee is fantastic.  Yet due to some internal politics they are being kept in ‘their box’ and aren’t getting any visibility with the CEO and leadership.  Shame.  Because if the leaders don’t quickly see what this person has to offer a) they’ll leave and b) someone else will ‘hire a superstar’ from outside.

CEOs should be spending time each week getting to know the talent they have 2-3 levels beneath them on the Org Chart.  CEOs should be figuring out who they have on their bench that are not being challenged yet by their VPs & Directors.

Years ago I found numerous employees who were diamond in the rough but worked in completely different business areas than they do now.  By spending time with them on the floor, going for coffee with them, getting to know their personal dreams, and as Tom Peters challenged us to do in his book In Search of Excellence with MBWA (Management By Walking Around), I uncovered the diamonds.

Who are your company’s diamonds?  Who will find them first?  You or the competition?

Your job during one-on-one interviews is to sell the candidate on joining your company without appearing desperate, and grilling them to see if they can handle the pressure.
You’re a salesman/interrogator.  You want them to like you, but also to feel vulnerable.

This may sound harsh, but it’s very effective: my goal when interviewing someone is make feel like they won’t get the job, yet make them want it more than ever.  This will pay off when it comes time to negotiating a salary when you offer them the job.