Win the War for Young Talent

"We offer a great career path." "We are a fun place to work." "This is an exciting place to work." Blah, blah, blah. To top college recruits being wooed by many companies, all these statements start sounding alike after a while. What can you do to differentiate yourself? In their book, Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent (Penguin, August 2007), authors Chris Resto, Ian Ybarra, and Ramit Sethi offer 12 assessment questions for companies to ask themselves before they talk with top talent. These questions are designed to help all companies – big and small – recognize what they have to offer students.

1. What do your organization's youngest employees brag about to their friends?
2. What do your youngest employees complain about?
3. What are your organization's core values?
4. If your own child were a new college graduate, would you recommend he or she work for your organization? Why? Why not?
5. What's the best thing your organization does for employees' career growth?
6. What are your recruits doing one, three, and five years down the road? Is this what you want them to be doing?
7. What's the most common reason people give for leaving your organization?
8. What percentage of your organization's employees spend time with coworkers outside of work?
9. What about your work environment makes it better than the one in the movie, Office Space?10. Do the work experiences you provide to interns and entry-level hires actually match what you've promised in the past?
11. How often do your new hires change projects?
12. How much do new hires really contribute to the critical decisions affecting the manufacture of your products or the delivery of your services?

Once you answer these questions, you should know exactly what you have to offer to new hires and how to prospect them. "Knowing yourself well will also help you more effectively focus your recruiting efforts, wasting less time struggling with students who probably won't work out as valuable long-term employees," say the authors.