I had a client recently complain about his prospects demanding to work remotely. He liked the culture he’d built and didn’t like the hassle that came with keeping employees remote. But he couldn’t find anyone with the qualifications that would come to the office as much as he wanted. I had to point out that…

A friend of mine hired his first remote worker recently. The prospect was great on paper and passed all the assessment tests. They should have been a great employee. But being fully remote, she wasn’t a part of last-minute meetings. She didn’t keep up with the day-to-day changes in the business or build relationships with…

Here’s a sad story about a business owner who burned an hour of precious time — for nothing. He met with a recruiter to discuss an opening at his company.  They met for an hour. The recruiter pulled some resumes from her pile. None of them fit.  Not even close “It was like we weren’t…

Before we hired her, one of our employees used to be flooded with LinkedIn job opportunities.  I asked her: How many employers approached you on LinkedIn before we hired you?. She pulled out her phone and kept scrolling. The average was 30 a day. She ignored almost every one.  The Big Myth: “If You Post…

I had a conversation with a former client the other day. We’d been working with him for two years. Most employees we sent to his business burned out quickly Finally, I said enough. I met with the owner. He blamed financial and production problems. I offered a different explanation. “You want to know the #1…

My friend Sue recently asked me to help her attract qualified job applicants for her business. She had plenty of entry-level openings for factory jobs. But she couldn’t fill them.  She used tactics that worked in the past. They didn’t work any more.  She turned to four recruiting agencies to show her how to recruit…

I recently hired a new recruiter who quit after just one week. I had high hopes for this person. They were experienced in the industry in general, and I have a ton of experience in the area I was deploying them into. I even brought on another employee to create a guide based on our…

A few years ago, a senior partner at a law firm called me because he wasn’t sure how to find good employees. The firm had been searching in vain for a lawyer who checked all the boxes. After getting nowhere in their search, they turned to me. As they described the person they wanted, I…

I know a business owner who touted his ability to hire employees based just on their resumes.  “If the resume checks the right boxes, they’re right for the job,” he told me.  He thought he was being efficient. I knew he was being short-sighted.  He didn’t connect the dots between his hiring “efficiency” and his…