Published July 2003

Take time to fish out best from deep applicant pool

With unemployment at a nine-year high, there is no doubt that this is a “buyers’ market.” Jobs are scarce, and it is not unusual for a routine job opening to attract hundreds of applicants — often, thanks to the Internet, including many from distant U.S. and even foreign cities.

The imbalance of applicants compared with job openings leads to considerable market power in the hands of management. The existence of that power, though, raises an important question: What do companies really get out of their increased clout in the job market?

Unless management uses it properly, the answer is: not much.

The natural instinct of management faced with an army of applicants for every job opening is to feel that they are in hog heaven — and to behave accordingly. Some employers adopt a level of arrogance and lofty disdain that would fit perfectly on the gatekeeper for the latest trendy club. In other firms, applicants are treated as supplicants, very much like those seeking a favor from the Godfather.

But experienced managers know there is a fundamental rule covering recruiting and staffing: Good people are hard to find. And though you might not think so, it isn’t any easier to find good people in a recession than it is in a boom.

That is one reason why we shouldn’t get carried away with our own importance when a simple want ad produces an avalanche of resumes. A more important reason, though, is that we all build our character through habit. And if we get into the habit of treating job applicants disrespectfully, our behavior will spill over into the way we treat our existing workers. Sadly, this is part of our all too human nature.

The ease with which we form habits, for example, is one reason why good basketball coaches put the second-stringers in the game when their team holds an insurmountable lead. It isn’t motivated by some quaint sports chivalry about not running up the score. It is that coaches don’t want their team members ever to be on the court playing with anything less than a 100 percent, all-out level of effort, and that is hard to do when you are up by 30 points with seven minutes to go.

Outsiders might think, “What difference would seven minutes of coasting make?” But good coaches know human nature and just how easy it is for a bad habit to take over — and how quickly we lose our edge.

So, as managers, it is important for us to maintain our respect for the people who want to join our team. Just because there are 50 of them now, instead of the five we had to select from last time in the spring of 2000, nothing fundamental has changed. If we don’t sustain our level of respect, the fact that we have a rush of applicants for every job opening could turn out to be a negative influence on management and, eventually, the company.

The buyers’ market of today has some potential for damage, then, if it encourages management’s bad habits, but it also offers some opportunities to improve our companies in a way that will help their long-run effectiveness — by strengthening the team.

The single most important thing that an applicant-rich job market brings management is time because of reduced pressure to “close a deal” with an applicant before some other employer does.

At a minimum, this additional time should mean that you involve more people in the screening and interviewing process. Even if yours is a small business, bring in the one or two team members the new person will be working with most closely. Let them help you screen the resume and applications. This will help you make a better decision, certainly, and will also help them to recognize the strengths of your existing team.

More important, though, use the interviewing process to reinforce the team goals and the company’s mission to your own workers. Invite team members to be present at interviews, both to listen and to participate. Whatever your company’s strengths and dreams are, make sure that they are explained to any applicant being interviewed — and in the process, of course, this will reinforce those ideas in your own team members.

The slow job market allows you, as the manager, to discuss the candidates with your team, and to assess how well each applicant’s skills, strengths and weaknesses might or might not fit in. Drawing them into the hiring process will yield both better decisions and a stronger team.

In the end, companies will receive no automatic benefit from the “buyers’ market” or a flood of job applicants. The potential benefit is there, but like so many other things, it takes good management to make it happen.

James McCusker, a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant, writes “Your Business” in The Herald each Sunday. He can be reached by sending e-mail to otisrep@aol.com.

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