Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
We are finding it harder and harder to attract good talent. We are in a large metropolitan area and the economy is strong so candidates are waiting it out when it comes to job offers. We have scanned the market to ensure our pay is competitive. It is, but candidates, especially those with experience, are waiting it out to see what the very best opportunity will be.
Then, we have found candidates who are qualified and interested, but we aren’t sure they will be a good cultural fit. So we find ourselves settling for someone who has the skills and the knowledge, but not the aptitude to work well in our structure.
Is this a common problem? I’ve recently attended a couple of industry conferences and, while there was a lot of discussion on selection, no one had great ideas about how to find the right people. Should we be offering bounties to our own staff who know the culture for running full-page ads? I don’t mind spending money to attract the right people, but I want to make sure we are spending it in the right way.
L.S.
Dear L.S.,
You are not alone! I am hearing this, in my consulting firm, from advisors all over the country and not just those in large metropolitan areas. The problem is definitely exacerbated when there are many other options nearby for the qualified candidate. Your note raises a couple of questions – how to search and design a matching process to ensure someone you find is “right” for your firm.
I have a process I call “360-degree hiring,” which walks through all of the stages of this process.Let me share a few ideas and hopefully there is something here you are doing and (without spending undue amounts of money) you could try some different things:
1. Be sure in your job description or any write-ups you post you talk about the culture of your firm and the type of person who fits well within your organization. I find that advisors don’t really “sell” themselves well. What does it feel like to work for you? How do employees think about their careers with you? What are you doing that is new and exciting? How does your vision come through in the day-to-day? While you can’t put all of this into a short paragraph, force yourself and your team to answer these types of questions so you can weave some of the cultural pieces in right up front. Hopefully this will help to attract more “right” candidates and dissuade those who aren’t a good fit from applying in the first place.
2. Cast a wide but targeted net. LinkedIn can be a great place to find candidates, but one has to be highly targeted. Send individual notes to people who might be connected to those candidates you want to reach. This takes time, but it typically pays off. I recently had a client seeking a very specific candidate in a specific location. I spent time looking at who I knew that could be connected, was in the right area, and so on. I took the time to write notes to these people, and one of them was able to connect me to an excellent, qualified person. If you want to just cast a wider net, I found this article outlining a number of good job posting sites you could review. I have used Zip Recruiter at my firm with mixed success. One area I have found to be excellent is going to talk to the career center at local colleges. You might not want a new college graduate, but schools also have MBA or masters in finance programs, and alumni who are job seeking. Again, I know it might be a hassle to go in person, but if the people in the office know you and can be a champion for you, they can often reach out to specific people who they might know to be a good fit.
3. Be sure to include behavioral and cultural questions early on in the interview process. You want to question early on whether someone is a fit. In too many cases, the firm will do its due diligence and focus on expertise, experience, compensation matching etc. – all of the “data” points. These are important, of course, but weave in the more qualitative pieces too. You mention in your note you have people qualified and interested who aren’t good cultural fits – be sure you filter them out of the process sooner rather than later so you aren’t wasting time on them.
4. Engage your current employees in the process. Make this a team effort. Call them into the conference room and lay out the challenge you are having (they likely know it if they have been involved in any of the interview process). Ask them for ideas – what else can you all be doing to find good people? Can you create a plan and have them engage in parts of it? It might not be appropriate for your entire team, but if possible get as many people as possible to be part of the process of solving this.
Dear Bev,
We have our first full-time marketing person on the team. Our advisors were asking for more qualified leads. The first thing this new person asked is to spend almost $5,000 on a direct marketing list to send letters to people in our local community. I have spent more than I wanted hiring this person (we had to use a search firm to find someone qualified) and I paid a higher salary than I wanted to. Now the first thing is to spend another several thousand to write lettersto people? I know you are a marketing expert. I want to understand the expectations in a new role like this.
J.M.
Dear J.M.,
What are the expectations for this job? Is there a job description? Did you allocate a marketing budget so the person knows how much they are able to spend? Did you choose a candidate that has a strategic view to what they are doing in addition to knowing how to complete tactical execution?
This is a case where a great intention might not have been thought out thoroughly enough to make it a great reality. Be sure to review everything with this new person, including measuring success. Establish a budget so the marketing person needs to pay attention to ROI for whatever initiatives he or she proposes.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. In 2008, she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
