Salary Doesn't Have to Be Your Selling Point

Yes, it's true that the "big bucks" make a good recruiting tool, but some companies either don't have the money or don't believe it's good business to base their efforts on offering large starting salaries as their primary selling point.

Kim Giglio, a senior consultant in recruiting, staffing, and diversity at the Weyerhauser Company in Federal Way, Washington, has a few strategies that can help your company be a successful recruiter, even when you are not the highest bidder.

"The bottom line really comes down to thinking of your employment proposition as a marketing challenge," Giglio observes. "This means that, just like there are companies that choose to compete and have real high quality at a premium price, there are also companies that are more value focused and know there is good quality at lower prices."

The real challenge, then, says Giglio, is to be very clear on what it is that you have to offer employees, and then go about finding those individuals who have interests and needs that are lined up with what you can offer them. "For Weyerhauser, that means from the beginning, focusing on what motivates those candidates who meet our minimum qualifications," she explains. "And then matching what we can deliver against what it is they really want. This way, we can focus on those candidates who are really viable."

Giglio says pay cannot be completely ignored; you need to be in the ballpark for your region or industry. But you don't have to use-up your entire budget hiring that one special candidate.

"We look at it kind of the same way the Seattle Mariners do right now," she says, referring to a baseball team that has prospered despite losing star players like Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez in the free-agent market. "We have decided not to go bankrupt competing for just one player. We are not going to create huge, internal equity issues, which could derail our existing salary structure, simply because a candidate has an earning history or a perception that their market value is well beyond what we have agreed is the market value for the position."

Branding Your Company

The key to branding your company for prospective employees, according to Giglio, is determining "what you are offering employees in exchange for their talents. One of the best examples of managing employment brand and targeting a message is AmeriCorps, the government volunteer program. Its brand is 'Less Money, More Reward.' It targets service-oriented college students who typically don't have a lot of baggage, if you will, and they can afford to take low-paying jobs and do something meaningful for a couple of years before going into corporate jobs."

Identifying your brand means really grasping how you are perceived and what attracts people to your company. Also important to the process is understanding why people leave your company, because that gives you a clue of where you may not have made a good match.

Weyerhauser has surveyed its new employees for the last two years in order to find out just what they think of the company. "New hires can be an excellent resource for you in terms of telling you what candidates think of your company. We ask them things like what initially attracted them to our company and how their perceptions of Weyerhauser have changed, now that they are on board," Giglio explains. "We also ask them to describe our company as if they were telling a friend about it.

"What was really interesting is the response we received from this survey. It was an e-mail survey, and we were expecting a response rate of about 10 to 20 percent. Instead, we had around a 70 percent response rate, and they were very candid in their answers. They gave us several ideas for themes for developing our brand, and so, we are in the process of planning a recruitment advertising agency review to help us develop the actual messages."

The themes that came through for Weyerhauser were ones of integrity and camaraderie. "People come to work for us because of the feeling of community, both at work and outside work. We have offices in a lot of rural areas, and we find that these employees like the sense of being a part of these communities."

Educating Candidates

Developing a brand for your company is one thing, but you may still be faced with that crowd of applicants that believes money is the only real benchmark.

"In college, there is so much hype; it's all about upper mobility, challenge, and money. They want to know right away what their starting salary is going to be," admits Giglio. "So, we do two things on this front. First, we explain to them the real worth of their benefits. We show them the value of the benefits package as a percentage of their base salary. We explain that, yes, their base salary may be $30,000, but then you tack another 25 percent on top of that in terms of benefits. We also point out to them that they are not paying taxes on most of these benefits either.

"The other thing we do is to be up-front about salaries. Sometimes candidates are playing games. I especially find this to be true of college students or inexperienced candidates. They have read all the headlines and know they are in demand, so they figure they have nothing to lose by asking for an outrageous salary. "Instead of just writing them off at that time, I send up a trial balloon. I explain that we have an established salary grade for each position based on what the candidate brings, and I tell them they should expect the salary to be in that range. Then I shut up and let them mull it over.

"Sometimes they come back and say they could take less money, or they tell me that location is really an important factor. It gives them a chance to let you know they are willing to work for less than they originally asked for."

There are times, notes Giglio, when experienced candidates ask for more money than the pay grade allows. "More often than not, I find that if you are dealing with reasonable candidates, one of two things will happen. First, they will come back and say they can't take that salary. At that point, you agree that there is not a good match and wish them the best, sending them off feeling good about how they were treated.

"The second thing that can happen is that they come back and say they could take less if we can work out some alternative arrangements. They may be interested in something like a signing bonus, coupled with the understanding that they can, in a couple of years, work themselves up to the salary level they wanted originally. And if you have a company that is growing and has a mature workforce, like our company, you may very well be able to show these candidates that the future holds a lot of possibilities for them, depending on their performance."

Two final suggestions from Giglio: "It's not rocket science. The most obvious way to fill jobs on a smaller budget is to retain the people you have. The second most economical recruiting method is to consider an employee-referral program with rewards."