-Partners in Practice -

It is as welcome as it is unexpected. You arrive in your office one morning to discover you have been awarded a large, new project you had already given up for lost. This is great news, but it brings challenging consequences. For one thing, staffing has emerged, overnight, as a critically important concern.

The timing of hiring decisions in architectural and engineering practice is an especially difficult challenge. If your firm is like most, you staff to a level as close to full utilization as you reasonably can, and it is not unusual for you to find yourself facing an immediate need to expand. But, how well prepared you are to respond to that need can make a vital difference, one which is likely to influence the character and composition of your practice for years to come. A commitment to strategic recruiting just may tip the scale in favor of stability, strength and continued success.

As reluctant as they are to admit it, many firms take a warm body approach to recruiting and hiring. If candidates show up when their skills are badly needed, they get hired. The critical question of "fit" with the rest of the firm is overshadowed by the need to put people in place as quickly as possible.

Interviewing applicants is difficult enough under the best of circumstances. Under intense pressures of time, it can be more like two ships passing in the night-each trying desperately to outmaneuver the other. Crisis recruiting tends to produce ad hoc hiring.

Ad hoc hiring is essentially a random process. Sometimes it produces a winner and sometimes not. You never know when. Successes are attributed to fate or to the general reputation of the firm, while failures are chalked up to winning some and losing some. Leaving to chance the strengthening of your most important single resource somehow does not seem like all that good an idea.

Hiring the wrong people can carry a high price. In the minds of most clients, the process of design and construction is as important as the project itself. A bad experience with someone on your staff just may make the difference between a former client and a repeat client.

What happens inside the firm as the result of a bad hire can be equally damaging. Morale is easily compromised, the production process easily disrupted. Incompetence may cause serious delays, and employees who do not fit consume valuable time and energy. Counseling, remedial training, and responding to claims are costly consequences.

In an era in which everything seems to call for a "strategic" approach, just what does strategic recruiting really mean? Hiring, of necessity, is a function of workload, but ad hoc hiring relies on identifying and screening people quickly. Strategic recruiting takes a longer-term view: It is a carefully managed process of projecting future staffing needs (for a variety of positions) and conducting an ongoing search for individuals to fill those needs; whether you have an immediate opening or not.

The objective of strategic recruiting is to improve the effectiveness of your hiring practices. Performed well, it should enable you to identify the most qualified candidates. It should also afford you an opportunity to observe those candidates over time to evaluate their potential fit with your firm. How do you make strategic recruiting work? Consider these suggestions:

1. Demystify the process. Self-identified applicants generally outperform all others. The more candidates you can encourage to approach your firm, the fewer hours you will have to spend attempting to locate top performers. To those on the outside, your recruiting practices are something of a mystery. Open up the process and invite inquiries. You should begin to see a greater number of self-identified applicants as a result.
2. Work from a clear plan. Take the time to define and record the responsibilities of the positions you expect to fill over a period of eighteen to twenty-four months. Identify the skills and experience you will be seeking for each. Keep accurate records of all candidates, including a history of their contact with your firm. Then, you will be prepared when you find yourself with a need to hire on short notice.
3. Recruit systematically and consistently. Actively seek potential candidates by participating in professional meetings and maintaining ongoing relationships with design schools and their alumni organizations. Court those individuals who appear to be well-suited for positions which may become vacant or which you may need to add in the near future. Doing so clearly requires a good deal of subtlety, but the payoff can be well worth the effort. The candidate who is informed about your firm and its people will have an easier time saying yes when your offer comes through.
4. Leverage your efforts. Advertising, recruiting visits to local schools, and even word of mouth can be structured to attract candidates for a variety of positions, not just those most urgently needed. Take advantage of the effort you put into recruiting for one position for the benefit of others that may open up in the future.
5. Put your best foot forward. Recognize that good candidates need to be sold on your firm. Recruiting packages sent prior to interviews, organized and well-managed visits, and timely follow-up letters and phone calls are all signs to applicants that they are valued and that they are likely to continue to be treated well once employed.
6. When you are ready, move quickly. Be prepared to make your offer as soon as it is justified, so you can capitalize on the momentum you have built over time. Remember, the best candidates are only a phone call away from taking a job with someone else.

Your hiring decisions will always be something of a gamble because you will never have enough information. A strategic recruiting program, including systematic interviewing and careful research of individual candidates, will provide you with as much quality information as you are likely to get. As imperfect as the process might be, better information tends to yield better results.

The best thing you can do to avoid bad hiring decisions is to consider recruiting to be an activity without beginning or end. A clearly-articulated and well-managed program, made known and understood throughout your firm, will foster the ongoing effort you need and minimize the time you, personally, have to commit to it. It should also produce a more highly motivated staff, strengthen your ability to respond effectively to the needs of your clients, and, not coincidentally, reduce your exposure to unnecessary and unwarranted claims of professional liability.

For inquiries or problems please contact us via e-mail at Earleen Thomas or call us directly at 800-705-7742.
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