Employee Recruiting: Kicking it Up a Notch

Imag­ine the fol­low­ing: You are hap­pily work­ing at your desk. The phone rings. You pick it up to hear an unfa­mil­iar voice say “Hey (your name).” “Google is inter­ested in inter­view­ing you for a job.” You are flat­tered, but say “Thanks, but I really enjoy work­ing here at (your busi­ness name).” The voice then responds by say­ing, “I under­stand you love your job, but I will give you $600 just to inter­view.” “Inter­ested now?” Well it may really hap­pen to you, sooner than you think. But why would some­one pay just to inter­view you? Let’s step back for a minute.

For a com­pany to be suc­cess­ful, it is crit­i­cal to have the right peo­ple. Ask any exec­u­tive “What makes your busi­ness spe­cial?” and chances are most will reply, “Our Peo­ple.” Some are gen­uine in stat­ing this, while oth­ers just like to pay lip ser­vice to the masses. Still, if peo­ple are the most impor­tant asset that a com­pany has to offer, it stands to rea­son that a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment should be made in find­ing and keep­ing the best avail­able tal­ent. (Think South­west Air­lines) How does one do this? Tra­di­tion­ally this has been done via head­hunters, word of mouth, clas­si­fied ads, online job boards, or recruit­ing / job fair events. Well the times they are a ’ changing.

NotchUp.com is a new site where peo­ple can post their pro­fes­sional infor­ma­tion con­fi­den­tially. Prospec­tive employ­ers then search for the right can­di­dates, and offer money in exchange for an inter­view. The site claims to be designed for peo­ple who are 1. happy at their cur­rent job, 2. Good at what they do, and 3. Not look­ing for another job. Talk about turn­ing things upside down. Sur­pris­ingly, there is a poten­tial for employ­ers to actu­ally save money by using the ser­vice through a reduc­tion in pay­outs to pro­fes­sional recruit­ing firms. Com­pa­nies like Yahoo (who runs HotJobs), Google, and Bar­racuda Net­works are listed as clients on the NotchUp site. Cer­tainly this is a remark­able approach to employee recruiting.

Why do I think this is a good idea? First, I love the fact that it is totally dif­fer­ent. This is a new approach — a pur­ple cow. It will get peo­ple talk­ing and it has the poten­tial to change the recruit­ing game com­pletely. Sec­ond, I am a firm believer that one should invest in good tal­ent. It is the best mar­ket­ing tool avail­able. If it takes a few hun­dred bucks to get time with a top level prospect, spend it. As Jim Collins says, “Get the right peo­ple on the bus.” Third, the idea that employ­ers are seek­ing out the hap­pily employed, means that smart employ­ers will want to go an extra mile to retain good tal­ent. I wish this would have been around a few years back when I was down­sized out of a job. At that time, I went on so many inter­views, that had I of been paid for them, I would now be retired — or at least rich.

It will be inter­est­ing to see if “Money Talks” when it comes to find­ing the best and bright­est. What do you think of this con­cept of pay­ing peo­ple for inter­views? If your phone rings, will you be inter­view­ing for dol­lars?
Thanks to Heather at CIO.Com for the arti­cle that led me to NotchUp.

Recruit­ing Firm Pays Can­di­dates for Job Inter­views — CIO.com — Busi­ness Tech­nol­ogy Leadership