How I find employees that want to work…..
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Forget Cragslist, helpwanted.com, and the others….go get your employees yourself! After years of trying to advertise for employees, I have given up on advertising for job openings. I had to learn the hard way how companies are finding employees. Are you frustrated with Cragslist? The applicants I get out of there are worthless. They are the unemployed that are simply trying to make sure they apply for work to meet the requirements of getting their unemployment check. They don’t even bother to show up for scheduled interviews right? Yep, me too….So I had to change.
Go to your LOCAL COUNTY Department of Workforce Development. Ask to speak to the Department Head. This person is the head of your county program to put people into the workforce. There are many different departments here with the duty of helping people get jobs. Here’s the deal…if you are a Fish franchise owner that has established routes and cleaners regularly earning $500 per week in their job, you are an above average employer that is hiring! These departments are filled with businesses that are looking for minimum wage employees and are filled with minimum wage “SEEKING” candidates….but what they DON’T have enough of is jobs paying what we pay. Keep in mind here that a cleaner earning $500 per week is earning at the rate of $26,000 per year…a very middle class job in today’s workforce environment! Add it up…if you earn minimum wage, $7.25 per hour at 40 hours per week, you earn $15,000 a year before taxes…..jobs paying this are numerous even today. Take a look at the rate your employees are earning, the one’s that “get it” are earning much more than $7.25 per hour.
Once you explain how much we pay, they should roll out the red carpet for you as a local employer. These people’s job is to get people better jobs and they need companies like ours that “aren’t” paying minimum wage! Once we met, she made an appointment for me to present to all departments in the building my brochure, window cleaner’s job description, job posting, and a www.wantagreatjob.com flyer. Just like a sales call, I told them what we do, what we are about, what our current problems were employing people, and what we are looking for. Once I was in, they all really listened and asked a lot of good questions. After this initial appointment, we were asked to come in on a regular basis and hold an employment seminar. My Operations and Sales Manager got our first appointment. They took all the things necessary to apply down to their office. They put us in a private room and our first round we had 35 people come in and inquire. Out of 35, 17 applied. Out of 17, over 10 had the necessary qualifications….out of those, we granted 4 second interviews. Please keep in mind here that it is January in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and we are deep into winter. Under any other circumstances, I would not have got any applications from my usual advertisements.
What’s the difference? The people in these programs WANT to work! They are either not getting unemployment, or simply don’t want to “live” on unemployment, period. With this program, we can call and set up appointments as often as we like, use their facility, and they bring applicants to us….and we find our people! Yes, it’s more work than putting up an online ad, but the return here is tenfold…Good luck! Tony