Beware the Land Shark

My husband crunches numbers and reviews financial documents all day long so when he gets home he likes to unwind a little and exercise his sense of humor. We have two sons who provide the perfect audience for Greg’s comedic outlet. Last night, as I was reading to my younger son before bed, winding down for the day, we heard a knock on the bedroom door. After a pause, a voice simply stated "Candy-gram". I burst out laughing at the memory of the Land Shark routine from Saturday Night Live – you children of the 80’s know what I am talking about. 

And just like that, I had an idea for a blog post.  Don’t fall for the Candy-gram when you are working to fill an important position within your organization. The employment landscape can be scary and the process of job filling (or job hunting, for that matter) can make us vulnerable and this is when the Land Shark knocks on your door with a Candy-gram. You don’t expect to be taken advantage of when you working to fill a position in your company, but it does happen. Make sure that when you engage help with filling your staffing needs that you work with a professional, reputable company that was referred to you from a trustworthy source, or that you have researched and gotten to know them BEFORE you trust them with something as important as providing solutions to your hiring needs. Don’t just open the door and let someone in because they have candy.

Staffing is a 100+ Billion dollar industry and there are a whole lot of players in the field with companies coming and going all the time. You cannot be too careful when selecting the right group of professionals to trust to handle your staffing needs; and talent acquisition is one of the most important factors leading to the success or demise of your business. Talent management impacts everything from the productivity of the employees you already have to the brand and image of your company internally and externally. If you hire the wrong people, or hire people in the wrong way, the ripple effect can be huge and the impact can be far reaching.

So, how do you know when to open the door? How can you be sure that there is not a Land Shark on the other side posing as a staffing professional? If you do your homework, it is easy. Here are a few questions to determine if there is more to the person you are working with than a candy-gram.

1. Ask for professional references – who can you talk to that can confirm the professional capabilities of the company?

2. Check them out on line – Google the company, review their website for relevant content, see what kind of impact they have in the community and follow them on social media outlets relevant to you. (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc)

3. Contact the Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau to be sure their service record is clean. If you find something that makes you uncomfortable, move on.

4.  Ask some tough questions…see if they know their stuff. Go ahead, ask them something about staffing and talent acquisition that requires some thoughtful insight and previous experience to answer effectively. If they can’t answer your question, you might be getting a glimpse at the depth of their knowledge.

At a minimum, make sure that you are not just calling an Indianapolis staffing agency to help you with your staffing needs because they brought you a candy jar and a star shaped stress ball. When your position is filled with a less than desirable candidate, your loss in productivity, time and money cannot be made whole with a jar full of candy but you will definitely get good use of the stress ball because you have just been bitten by a Land Shark.

Don’t make a mistake – call That’s Good HR with your next staffing need and go ahead – ask us the tough questions! We won’t come knocking on your door with a Candy-gram.