Corrections or additions?
This article by Bart Jackson was prepared for the July 11, 2001
edition of U.S.
1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Tips for Recruiting The Mothers of Invention
Alexander Graham Bell was a technical wizard. Bell also
was a businessman. Had he not been both, probably few people would
remember him at all. (They don’t call it Ma Bell because the phone
is ringing.) History has shown time and again that without the swift
lightning of sharp business acumen, the impressive thunder of
technical
invention will just rumble away.
For this reason, the New Jersey Technology Council is putting on its
Regional Economic Growth and Planning Exposition on Tuesday, July
17, at 7:30 a.m. at the College of New Jersey. This exposition is
the second of three regional conferences, with the upcoming Southern
Regional planned for Friday, August 17 in Pemberton. Cost: $90. Call
856-787-9700. The Expo is designed to showcase resources for the
technical
company from first launch through later expansions. Running concurrent
with the host of exhibitors’ booths will be several panel discussions,
including Site Planning and Real Estate; Recruiting and Retaining
Your Talent Pool; and Financing.
“Whether it’s a technical firm or not,” says panelist Tom
Fuller, “the real keys to a successful business are its
management
people.” Fuller has spent the last three decades hunting and
matching
the exact right individual to the exact right corporate need. From
an Omaha childhood, he moved east to take a bachelor’s at Fordham
before working in recruitment for TMP Worldwide and other global
firms.
Five years ago, Fuller founded Epsen, Fuller Associates (www.efasearch.com)
in Montclair. The firm specializes in procuring senior management
for major corporations.
Fuller refers to his firm as “human capitalists focusing on
data-driven
team building.” As Fuller explains his recruitment methods, one
sees the ultimate personal considerations — all achieved with
a fascinating touch of software. Here is his advice for finding just
the right techie for the job:
Identify the need . “We want a guy for this slot withan MBA and four years experience in the field and ah, let’s see…ohyes, and good consumer relations experience.” Fuller slaps hisforehead. This is the type of request executives give search teamsall too frequently. “They are seeking credentials, notcapabilities,”he says. “They fill slots like some sort of recipe for the statusquo.”A company’s very first step in hiring anyone at any level is to veryspecifically define its goal in hiring. Don’t just gobble up MBAcookies,but examine your firm’s total nutritional needs. What do you needto grow? Near term and long term?Analyze performance. “Most people are, after all,creatures of habit,” says Fuller. Occasionally, some new job willpropel a long time plodder into high gear, but that’s seldom the wayto bet. The key here is to analyze more than an individual’s workperformance, and to talk with more than his past bosses. Defininga person’s critical performance capabilities must entail as exhaustivea search as the corporation has undertaken to define its own goals.Panel moderator Terry Williams is founder of a Collegeville,Pennsylvania, recruiting firm T. Williams Consulting. He says,”Alwayschoose the right DNA over the right training.”Watch for behavioral clues . To attract an excited,innovativeemployee, the fit must be total. This includes an attitudinal,cultural,and emotional mesh between the candidate, his fellows, and theemployingfirm. Among other tools, Fuller employs a behavioral assessment testconsisting of an array of questions. For example, in one column thereare five traits: yielding, tenacious, flexible, understanding,unalterable.The candidate simply lists these traits in order of how othersperceivehim. Then in the next column several sets of different traits: forexample, believable, wary, compromising, relentless, courteous. Suchself-analysis spread over large numbers of questions yields a prettygood idea of a candidate’s innate personality — and how it fitswith the company’s requirements.All of this, plus the personal interviews, leads to a report of asmuch as 25 pages per candidate. The process is exhaustive, but it’sa whole lot easier than living with the wrong employee grinding alongsqueakily in the wrong company.Promote the Garden State . Finally, there comes the processof compensation. Naturally, the entire menu of benefits that accompanysalary must be examined. But with the technical industry, relocationoften becomes a major hurdle. Williams notes that the pools of bothtalent and industry in greater New Jersey are already so great, thatoften the relocation distance is minimal and culture shock is slight.Fuller, who has offices in Montclair, Houston, and Austin, says thatgetting some employees to the Garden State is a challenge. “WestCoast people,” he says, “generally do not want to budge.”Candidates from the South are more willing and those from the NewEngland climates are happy to come down where it is warm.Midwesternerstend to be flexible.In addition to recruitment advice, there will be a number ofrecruitment opportunities at the Regional Economic Growth and PlanningExposition as technical talent joins employers in sizing up the stateof technology in New Jersey in the summer of 2001.— Bart JacksonNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
