Monday, June 25, 2007

Decoding How the Other Half Thinks

Ever wonder how some companies manage to fill openings that pay less than the going rate? A just-published article on Electronic Recruiting Exchange offers a laundry list of tactics that job candidates would do well to be aware of. Forewarned is forearmed.

The article by Dr. John Sullivan, a California-based consultant to corporate HR and recruiting departments, is titled, "Increasing Offer Acceptance Rates When Your Company Pays Crummy Wages, Part I of II." That title and the first few paragraphs led us to expect something really juicy – as in, sneaky or worse.

On reading further, we found all its suggestions were completely above-board, even sensitive to the palette of human variation that exists among individual job-seekers. Still, we think candidates can derive value from this peek into what your friendly neighborhood HR officer or hiring manager might be thinking.

Sullivan's 20 bullet points boil down to three central concepts. He's telling corporate recruiters to shift the dialogue away from compensation by focusing on different aspects of the candidate, the role, and the company. When discussing candidates, for instance, he observes,

Huge segments of the population are willing to work for organizations that pay poorly, provided there are other aspects of the offer that are more compelling.

He advises low-paying employers to tell applicants straightaway "that your company seeks people who 'care about the work' and that you purposely do not hire individuals who have compensation as their primary focus." Two employers he cites as "particularly good at this approach to recruiting" are Southwest Airlines and Ernst & Young.

Sullivan plans a follow-up that will tell companies how to package offers to increase acceptance rates, and a list of "non-monetary offer components that often go under-discussed."

If you've applied to any lowball employers, or expect to be on the receiving end of an offer from any employer soon, that's something you won't want to miss.

Increasing Offer Acceptance Rates When Your Company Pays Crummy Wages, Part I of II [ERE.net]

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