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Hiring Hack: Recruit And Hire Better People In 2024

Furniture World Magazine

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Interview with Bill O’Malley

In some ways, says recruiter Bill O’Malley, it’s still a difficult hiring environment, and store owners are getting caught off guard. O’Malley suggests creative ways and new tools to help fill your next open position.

“Here’s the good news for staffing retail furniture stores,” said Bill O’Malley, the president and founder of Connector Team Recruiting, a specialized search firm that works with furniture, mattress and electronics companies. “The Great Resignation is pretty much over. People are not quitting and retiring at the same level that they were during COVID. The phenomenon we called the Great Reshuffle—a large increase in people moving and changing jobs—has also slowed, from about 10% at the height of the pandemic to an estimated two percent by the end of this year.

“There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that we’ve moved on from a situation where job candidates were firmly in charge to one where employers have more leverage. That being said, there’s still a lot of churn out there. I recently read an article by Daniel Shapero, the COO of LinkedIn, ‘It’s Time to Prepare for the Great Reshuffle 2.0,’ which said that 85% of people in 2024 are considering a job change.”

O’Malley observed that “in some ways, we are still in a difficult hiring environment for furniture retailers that will challenge them to improve their recruiting and hiring practices.”

Succession

“Furniture store owners continue to be surprised and unprepared when a key employee decides to leave or retire.

“Some think they are prepared, but if I asked a typical storeowner if they have a succession plan to replace, for example, their merchandise manager, they might say, ‘Well, we hired a talented buyer we thought could take that role, but they left the company because they didn’t see a position opening up for them any time soon.’

“Recently, I completed two searches for retailers to replace key employees who left unexpectedly. Both were long-tenured employees, and, in both cases, the owners were caught off guard and unprepared. My feeling is that there had to be signs, but the bottom line is that no useful succession planning had been done. If this sounds like your operation, it’s time to focus on this important area.”

Career Advancement: O’Malley explained, “Gone are the times when career advancement was the most important consideration for managers . People don’t want to pick up and move their families across the country to land better jobs.

“That’s a big change from when I started. Baby boomers would go almost anywhere to advance their careers.”

Ask your people to help: “If a promising employee lets you know they are considering leaving because they don’t believe they have a realistic career path in your operation,” O’Malley said, “the first step is to address their concern. The next step is to ask them, ‘Who will replace you when you get promoted?’ Challenge them to take responsibility in order to ensure a smooth succession.”

Don’t Avoid Millennials: “Retailers need to pay attention to demographics and focus their recruitment efforts on millennials, born between 1980 and 1994. Most are in their mid-thirties, and the oldest have hit 40, so they’re good candidates. Many of my clients have a negative view of this group. They would rather hire Gen Xers. I don’t agree with this generalization.”

Interview Questions: “When I interview candidates, including millennials, I ask them about their college experiences. Did they spend their college years productively or partying? Did they work part-time, and if so, what did they do? Or did they do both? Did they ever get fired? We all know people who were wild in school and became rock stars in the business world. Even getting fired from a part time job is not necessarily a bad thing if they learned from past mistakes and course-corrected. Those early life experiences can be good predictors of how they will manage their early careers. Drop any age-related biases because there are great people to hire from all generations.”

“If you are recruiting hourly workers day in and day out, you should use tools and resources in these ATS systems to ensure a steady stream of better candidates.”

Use AI Recruiting Tools

“Many useful artificial intelligence-enabled recruiting tools can save time, increase effectiveness, and help you recruit like never before,” enthused O’Malley.

“The obvious place to start is with writing job descriptions. After writing a job description that includes company highlights, information on what the candidate will need to do for you, qualifications, perks and benefits, use an AI platform like Chat GPT to optimize it and get it ready to post to a job board or on LinkedIn.

“Internal recruiters who aren’t in tune with AI’s power sacrifice job performance. Predictive analytics have been around for a long time, but adding artificial intelligence takes it to a new level.

“Candidates are looking at you as much as you are looking at their backgrounds and social media: Like any other social media space, LinkedIn isn’t effective if it’s just used occasionally. You either really get to know it well, or you don’t. I encourage my clients to ensure that their LinkedIn profiles are up-to-date and look good.

“It’s an interesting coincidence,” he recalled, “that yesterday, I found that two of my clients’ corporate LinkedIn pages were essentially blank. I doubt that any of the 300 million LinkedIn users in the USA, including job seekers, would take those companies seriously after visiting those pages.

“A LinkedIn company profile is free and should have, at a minimum, information consistent with a retailer’s brand identity, its mission and links to a careers website page.

“There’s a good chance that potential hires will also find and look at your current employees’ pages. It’s not ideal if your warehouse manager’s LinkedIn page telegraphs dissatisfaction with your company. Candidates, especially millennials and younger demographic groups, do lots of research. There’s nothing wrong with that. They should be looking at your company as deeply as your company is looking at them. I recently wrote a newsletter devoted to creating a company page on LinkedIn and a blog post on how to harness the power of LinkedIn (bit.ly/45vCtxu).”

LinkedIn AI Tools: “LinkedIn is an excellent way to do passive searches to find people who fit a profile and might be interested in working for your company. The idea is to network with these people and enter them into an applicant tracking system (ATS).

LinkedIn will search over a billion listings to help you find people who meet specific search criteria. Now, part of the LinkedIn formula is to use AI and listings and produce 25 candidates a day that match your search criteria. ZipRecruiter has its own model, as do Indeed and other job boards.

“If you are a retailer in a small town in middle America, consider looking for people who have roots in your community or perhaps graduated from a nearby university. These folks are more likely to be willing to return. I call them ‘boomerangs.’”

“Those early life experiences can be good predictors of how they will manage their early careers. Drop any age-related biases because there are great people to hire from all generations.”

ATS Systems

“Furniture World readers can benefit from using an applicant tracking system (ATS). When I worked for Levitz early in my career, ATS consisted of an alphabetical file containing prior applications. When a position opened up, I would thumb through the file cabinet to see who we’d interviewed and liked but couldn’t hire. Now, that time seems like the Dark Ages.

“Today’s applicant tracking systems electronically store applicant information. At their best, they can be used to keep in touch with solid candidates, integrate with LinkedIn, and help answer questions, such as:

  • What potential candidates are still viable?
  • Which people should we re- contact?
  • If they were the second-best candidate we interviewed for a position, are they worth contacting again?
  • Who turned down our previous job offer but might be approachable now?

“There are many ATS software solutions. I use one designed for professional recruiters, but furniture retailers are more likely to choose ones that integrate with their payroll systems. I’m uncomfortable recommending specific ones, but I am familiar with Paycom and BambooHR.

“A good full-search recruiter,” O’Malley observed, “should conduct appropriate and legal background checks, judge candidates on their engagement levels, negotiate with them and act as the face of the company who hired them. But if you recruit hourly workers day in and day out, you should use tools and resources in these ATS systems to ensure a steady stream of better candidates.”

Flexibility

“Remote work is still in vogue but less important than one or two years ago. If a job posting mentions a ‘flexible work environment,’ there will be a 35% increase in job posting engagement.

“Let’s say a candidate comes in for an interview and is told they will get two days off a week and must work almost every weekend. That may not sound so good, especially if they just left a retail job where sales managers, general managers, etc., were part of the rotation. Retailers that are flexible in their thinking are more successful at recruiting younger profile candidates. If you are losing good people, find out why. It may just be due to a lack of flexible scheduling.”

“In almost every case there’s a wide disparity between what retailers think salaries are, versus current market rates—anecdotally, roughly 10% to 20% higher.”

Salaries

Surprising Pay Hikes: “Pay structures have changed dramatically,” he continued. “In almost every case, there’s a wide disparity between what retailers think salaries are versus current market rates—anecdotally, roughly 10% to 20% higher.

Competition for Workers: “I recently saw an ad on LinkedIn for a general manager position at a grocery store offering $125,000 to $140,000 base pay plus bonus or stock options.

“Candidates often tell me that raises at their current company haven’t kept up with the cost of living, and they feel underpaid. Most store owners are coming to realize that to attract great talent after losing a long-term employee, they need to pay more than they ever paid before.”

Illegal to Ask: “It’s no longer legal in most states and the District of Columbia to ask about job applicants’ salary histories.

“Instead, ask candidates what they expect the job they are applying for to pay. Most will respond by providing the information. This is a great way to provide feedback on what the market rate is today.”

Hourly Worker Issue

Just about every furniture retailer is struggling to find hourly workers. “In the grocery store mentioned previously,” O’Malley said, “the range for hourly workers was $16 to $25 to start. There’s no shortage of people looking for jobs in the furniture business. What’s changed is that they are getting very particular about where they are willing to work.

“To compete, retailers need to have industry-leading recruiting practices for line workers. And, since many young people want to work for socially responsible companies, it’s important for furniture retailers to focus on and promote those aspects of their businesses.

“Socially responsible companies have a leg up when competing for younger hires, many of whom want what they do for a living to be valuable. I’ve seen it all. On the one hand, some retailers erect informational walls inside their showrooms, touting what they do for their local communities. Other retailers don’t even mention that kind of information on their career page—it’s crickets! Usually, those same companies also still require candidates to download a PDF document to fill out, scan, and send it to someone in HR. It’s a pet peeve of mine. What millennial or younger demographic is going to do that?”

“Candidates occasionally tell me they wish a storeowner had stopped talking so much about themselves and their company and instead asked them a few more questions.”

The Perennials

“After people retire, some decide they miss full-time work, but more often, they become perennials: 55 years old or older, who want to work part-time on a set schedule. These are not the kinds of employees you can call to cover when someone gets sick. However, they are generally great people and reliable workers who are likely to show up to work every day they’re scheduled.

“Perennials shouldn’t be hired to fill highly-skilled, full-time positions or replace warehouse workers. However, they can be productive in other areas, including sales floors, which can be highly territorial. Care should be taken to ensure that full-time employees don’t feel that, for example, a perennial working 24 hours a week gets to cherry-pick prime working hours.”

Don’t Lose Touch with Alums: “It’s a good idea to maintain a Facebook alum page so past employees have a special place to communicate. The page can be a source of full-time or part-time workers and referrals, a place to share information, and maintain past relationships.

“Many of the most accomplished furniture retailers I work with have integrated older workers into their operations. They’ve cracked the code and figured out how to staff their stores with a flexible blend of people from different demographics, including part-time workers—perennials and college students.”

“Perennials shouldn’t be hired to fill highly-skilled, full-time positions or replace warehouse workers. However, they can be productive in other areas, including sales floors, which can be highly territorial.”

Better Interviews

“In the current recruiting environment, it’s urgently important to have a thoughtful and structured interview process. If you don’t have five to six really good questions ready and show up carrying a folder so you look prepared, you’ve missed an opportunity to put your best foot forward. It’s just crazy,” O’Malley observed, “how some retailers treat interviews as an interruption of their day. They wing it instead of taking time to prepare.

“Candidates occasionally tell me they wish a storeowner had stopped talking so much about themselves and their company and instead asked them a few more questions. Additional interview faux pas are showing up disorganized, walking an interviewee into an office that looks like a train wreck, and appearing more interested in getting to know them personally than finding out what a candidate might do for the company. These are the types of horror stories out there.

“Be prepared to answer tough questions. Let’s say that a candidate for a C-suite level position heard a rumor that a retailer might be sold to private equity.

“Prepping ahead allows for a response like, ‘Oh, no. We don’t plan on selling to private equity. That rumor is ten years old and has nothing to do with us now. If you want to speak to my controller, they’ll gladly give you a high-level overview of how our company operates financially.’

“Interview training can help. Furniture World readers can go to Connector Team’s “Freebie Library” to download “Interview Like a Pro” (www.connectorteamrecruiting.com/free). There are separate versions for candidates and hiring authorities.”

Conclusion

“Besides challenging yourself to improve recruiting and hiring practices using the suggestions in this article,” O’Malley concluded, “remember that the role of company culture in attracting and retaining workers cannot be overestimated. It’s almost impossible to recruit people who love the culture of companies they already work for. Try to become one of those companies.

“There is a lot of activity in the retail recruiting and hiring marketplace. To maximize your chances of attracting the best candidates, apply time and creativity to your recruiting efforts. The best managers always have somebody in mind to fill their next open position.”


Questions about the topics covered in this interview with Bill O’Malley can be directed to Bill care of editor@furninfo.com.

Furniture World is the oldest, continuously published trade publication in the United States. It is published for the benefit of furniture retail executives. Print circulation of 20,000 is directed primarily to furniture retailers in the US and Canada.  In 1970, the magazine established and endowed the Bernice Bienenstock Furniture Library (www.furniturelibrary.com) in High Point, NC, now a public foundation containing more than 5,000 books on furniture and design dating from 1620. For more information contact editor@furninfo.com.