Your Top Ten Most Wanted Recruits
SteveEarlier this week the FBI announced the capture of one of the fugitives on its 'Top Ten Most Wanted' list, a man named Walter Williams, who had been sought for a number of accused crimes and interestingly had only been named as a 'Top Ten Most Wanted' person one day prior to his capture. The surge in attention and interest in Williams' case once he was placed on the Top Ten list was considered the primary reason for his rapid arrest, but even at one day, he doesn't get the distinction as being the 'fastest to be apprehended after making the Top Ten' - back in 1969 a man was captured a mere two hours after being named to the list.
Overall, including the now in custody Williams, a total of 500 people have been on this list over the years, with 94% of them eventually getting captured. And while not all of that success can be directly attributed to the attention and following upsurge in tips and calls from the public that generally stem from a case being featured on the list, it certainly has become an extremely effective tool and mechanism for the FBI to bring widespread attention and focus on individual fugitives, and does in most cases lead to their capture.
Excellent.
The Top Ten Most Wanted list is successful as a policing tool because it is well known, it rallies the public behind an important cause, there are often monetary rewards attached to successful apprehensions, and finally, and I think most importantly, it is extremely precise in what it asks. The FBI asks the public for help in finding specific, named individuals. They provide the most recent picture of the fugitive that they can. They publish the relevant details of the fugitive's back story to help paint a more full picture of what citizens should be on the watch for.
Simply put, the FBI asks for help in finding this very person - not someone like him or her, or someone that might have a similar background as someone else unrelated to the case but may be more familiar, or even to find someone who would have been likely to do the same kinds of things that the Top Ten fugitive is accused of doing.
What's the point you might be wondering? (If you have hung on this far, and thank you if you have).
It's that when most organizations go about hiring, and particularly when they try to engage their exisiting employees in the hiring process via referral programs, they are usually not at all precise about what they are looking for. They ask open and murky questions like, 'Do you know anyone who might be a good fit here?' or 'We need to add a few more engineers - here is the job description - do you know anyone who has that kind of background?'
Only in pretty rare circumstances do we or can we engage the organization's current employees to help in finding and attracting specific individuals or can provide candidate profiles that are so precise that employees themselves can more easily identify potential candidates on their own. It would be pretty cool if instead of asking employees to do the kinds of mental and historical exercises that are required to actually succeed at providing hireable referrals, we instead could post a list of Top Ten 'most wanted' recruits like the FBI does.
HR or Recruiting could then slap the list up on the break room wall next to the minimum wage laws poster with a big sign that reads 'Know any of these people? Help deliver one of them to XYZ Corp and a $10,000 reward is yours'.
Could you even create that kind of list do you think? Or maybe you have it already - the Top 10 dream recruits you'd love to convince to come to your organization. And if you do have that kind of a list, is it tucked away in a file on your PC or in a folder of your ATS or is it plastered all over the company in hopes of enlisting your 'public's' help?
Happy Thursday.
Reader Comments (2)
It might be feasible for a CEO position, but can you really have a dream junior copywriter? Or a dream middle manager? You get better results when you can be specific, sure, but if you need to hire 50 people, you can't afford to waste time courting 50 specific people where there are hundreds of other qualified applicants trying to hand in their resumes. Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good, you know?
Sure I think that is a good point. I suppose it seems to me more generally that we always talk about referrals being the best source of talent, but it is not always easy for the average employee to fully participate when they don't know enough details about what the organization is truly looking for.