Recruiting Gone Wrong
Sean P. Mahoney
COMM215
February 13, 2011
Mark Polanzak

Recruiting Gone Wrong

In every recruitment effort, as for almost every other situation, quality is always more important than quantity. There is no more effective tool than proper training. In this case there is no more effective tool for failure than insufficient training. As the legendary Ben Franklin once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." In the case of Carl Robins, and a recruit mishap that may be far reaching, I will be discussing the events leading up to the mishaps and what actions could have been implemented that may have prevented them from happening. You see, Carl, was a brand new campus recruiter. He was tasked with scheduling the indoctrination and initial training for all of his recruits. Unfortunately, he scheduled all of them, at least 15, at the same time and location as an already schedule training. This scheduling conflict is one that could and will lead to other conflicts. The first issue may be that Carl was left to accomplish his first recruiting efforts by himself. This man Carl has to have a certain number of recruits show up to be trained but, it seems like he was not trained on how to accomplish his tasks or goals. This tells us a lot about Carl and the company as a whole. If the company can not train the face of the company on such an important task as proper procedures of recruiting, than how can these new recruits be confident that they will be trained correctly? Now Carl, the recruits, the company and many other moving parts of this procedure are in a very difficult position. You see, Carl realized that along with the training, there were many prerequisites that were not accomplish for each recruit. Carl has approximately, but no more than two weeks to obtain all the necessary orientation manuals, policy booklets, physicals, drug tests, and a host of other issues before the actual corporate training commenced. Some of the concerns could be; how long will it take to print the orientation manuals, policy booklets, will there be a physician available in the next two weeks to accomplish a physical for the 15 plus recruits. What about the drug screenings? Are there available facilities to accomplish the entire drug testing, what kind of tests are required and how long will it take to receive the results back for each individuals test? Let us not forget the recruits in this scramble. Will they be able to finish and submit any missing paperwork? Will they have they time and means to accomplish the required drug testing? Are any of the recruits relocating and can they accomplish the required testing before they arrive at the company’s facility? Only by asking these questions can we appreciate the depth of this problem and how far this problem actually reaches. The actual scope and range of these problems goes far beyond and far deeper than just a scheduling mix up in a conference room. As I mentioned earlier, I believe the main problem with this situation is one of training or lack there of. Let us forget about the recruits and focus on Carl. We can all agree that Carl was not prepared to take on his first endeavor as a recruiter by himself. Carl obviously did not know the proper ways to schedule this most important task. Was he trained on what the proper order or sequence of events should be for this project? Should there have been simple check list created for Carl? There should be a template created that tells the new recruits exactly what needs to be accomplish for each recruit and for each recruiting event. In the case of Carl, he has only been with the company for six months, but left to accomplish this tack alone. There are many procedures that most companies and corporations use these days. I think two of the procedures that could have a significant impact and help correct these problems are, The Mentor Program and a printed Standard Operating Procedure. The Mentor Program is a program that is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person (the mentor) assists another (the mentoree/trainee) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will enhance the less-experienced person’s professional and personal growth. This program guides and teaches the trainee about a specific issue that may arise in every aspect of their position. It help ensure that the trainee is trained and coached on specific skills that will be need to accomplish all the tasks involved in the said position. The Mentor Program will show the trainee how and where to locate the resources they will need and how to use each of the resources. This process also challenges the trainee learn and achieve at a level that is beyond his comfort zone. It will also help accomplish the trainee’s overall development as a needed resource and asset to the company. Another great program the help mend this situation is the development and printing of a set of Standard Operating Procedures. Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are just that. It is a step by step guide to accomplish each task that you are assigned to accomplish. An SOP is a written document or instruction detailing all steps and activities of a process or procedure. The beautiful thing about an SOP is that if you over look something at the beginning of a process and encounter a problem you can always look back step by step through the SOP and discover what critical step in the process was over looked. The SOP is one of the greatest resources we as mentors or as trainees can have and utilize. When used together correctly, The Mentor Program and the SOP, can very well be the answer to any problem that a company faces. When a mentor and a SOP are used hand in hand, the likelihood of mishaps actually happenings are dropped considerable. The combination of these two programs will exponentially increase any trainee’s chances of success and overall help improvement of the company. Could you imagine this case happening if Carl had a set procedure in writing explaining to him precisely what to do in almost any situation? Could you imagine this case happening if Carl had someone there that he could actually consult with on every step and that same person doing some Quality Assurance at certain critical steps of the process? I couldn’t imagine these same basic simple mistakes happening if Carl had these two processes in place and at his disposal. The third and final process that could and should be implemented of something called Constant Process Improvement (CPI), LEAN, Six Sigma, or Airspeed. Whatever the name is you want to call it this process is imperative while discovering any ‘bottle necks” or “constrictions” in this process that caused the dysfunction. This is a process of observation and testing to discover area that may cause problems or to find solutions to area that have already shown problems. When adding this process to the other two processes we have discussed you can see how all three work hand n hand to accomplish one well organize model of proper training and success. Together, SOP, CPI and The Mentor Program the same problem should never happen twice. You see, the mentor should already be thoroughly familiar with the SOP and well versed in the CPI process. When a trainee has the confidence that there are process in place to show him the proper way of accomplishing his tasks and a process to show him his mistakes and how to correct them, his confidence will grow and soon he will be adding his own lessons to that SOP. He will start to observe his mentor during the CPI process and learn how to grow and improve the processes that he is responsible for. Here is no doubt that the reason for Carl’s failure is due to lack of organization, both at his level and at the management level. This stems from a lack of training. If Carl is not trained correctly how can he be expected to accomplish a job that has everything to do with training new recruits? Even though Carl, the company, the recruits and the company’s outside source will indeed feel the proverbial “pain” from this mishap, with the above mention processes in place they will be able to learn from this and ensure that this mistake won’t happen again. With any luck Carl will ad this mishap to the SOP and will be able to pass them on to the person that he will someday mentor. If all goes well that trainee will see a way to further improve on Carl’s process and constantly improve upon it. Training and education have been and always will the foothold or ground work to a good business, or any process for that matter. I will close by quoting the great Colin Powell. He said,” There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

References
Franklin, B. (2011, February 9). Famousquotesansauthors. Retrieved from http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/author/benjamin_franklin_quotes.html
Management Mentors. (2011 February 12). Management Mentors. Retrieved from http://www.management-mentors.com/resources/corporate-mentoring-programs-faqs/
Think Exist. (2011 February 12). Think Exist. Retrieved from http://www.thinkexist.com/english/topic/x/topic_264_4.htm