Guerilla Recruiter

Many recruiters are uncomfortable with Guerilla Recruiting. Why? They feel it is crossing the ethical boundaries of fair play. As a recruiter, you can' t think this way. To be a great recruiter, you need to be a Guerilla Recruiter.

Guerilla Recruiting is simply about taking talent from your competitor. Would you hesitate to take a big customer from a competitor? Why would you hesitate taking talent from them?

To survive and prosper in the business world it takes shareholders, customers, and talent. If you lack talent, you will lack customers and shareholders.

To illustrate my point, take a look at the baseball world. What team over the course of baseball history has the most championships? What team draws the most fans (customers)? Even if you are not a baseball fan you should know the answer is the Yankees. How can a team continue to excel year after year? What can a company learn by looking at the Yankee business model?

For starters, the Yankees pay their employees well and know how to hold on to their key players. They are a classic example of how an organization can utilize their pay programs to attract the best talent. If they want a player, they have the compensation plan to attract them. They offer players the opportunity to win a championship by employing a talented workforce around them. Add one of the best managers (strong leadership) in baseball and a great customer base (the fans) and you have an organization everyone is trying to catch up to. This is Guerilla Recruiting in the baseball world.

So what does it take to employ Guerilla Recruiting at your company? First and foremost you need to have great leadership. The leadership must have a strong commitment to make your place of business the best place to work at. Employees must have opportunities for advancement. You need a great compensation plan that includes lucrative bonuses for hitting realistic goals. Tack on superior benefits and you have all the tools necessary to attract the best talent.

Don't be afraid to employ Guerilla Recruiting. Business is about building a strong winning team and whipping your competition. Get the right players on your team and you will be the team to beat. You will reap the rewards by gaining market share and increasing your bottom line. Customers and shareholders will follow and want to be associated with your winning team.

Going back to the baseball analogy, who do you think draws more fans to the ballpark? The Yankees or the Royals? How do you turnaround a losing team into a winning team. Ask the Tigers. They hired a great manager and they aggressively recruited and paid for talent. The result was a winning team. Do you think their attendance increased any? You bet it did! The Tigers experienced a 27% increase in customers (attendance). What changed? They put a better team on the field. Winning starts with TALENT.

Talent = Winning = Customers = Shareholders. Notice what comes first in the equation.

Unfortunately many companies think it starts with the shareholders. They end up in a constant cost cutting mode to improve their bottom line. Eventually the team is depleted of their talent pool and the company ends up being a losing team that loses customers and shareholders.

Be bold and be different. This will set you apart from your competition. Be a Guerilla Recruiter and put your team on the path to winning.