SkyWater Blog

3 Steps (and a Free Template You Can Use) to Save a Great Candidate

Have you ever been waist-deep in the hiring process with your dream hire, only to have them second guess the opportunity and decide to stay where they are?

Job loss at any time is stressful and disorienting. In the middle of a global pandemic, it seems almost surreal. Yet, all across America this is the reality of COVID-19. Here, in Minnesota, more than 450,000 people have seen their jobs taken away, pared down, or temporarily suspended.

It’s been a long year. For the large majority of us, even with experience telecommuting, working from home has never gone like this before. As an executive recruiter, I’ve always believed that employee experience is the single greatest predictor of employee success and retention. I also believe that the key to understanding employee experience is communicating. Ask good questions, listen intentionally, follow up, role model, observe. But lately, I think that most managers whose employees were abruptly thrust out of the office and into instant telecommuting, it’s growing increasingly difficult to have a good sense of how each individual is really doing.

Over the past several years, the concept of “Employee Engagement” – and the practice of using surveys to measure it – has attracted a lot of attention among managers and the HR leadership who support them.  It’s also generated a great deal of confusion.  What is employee engagement?  Isn’t it just a new name for employee satisfaction?  We keep surveying them but nothing ever changes… why bother?

You could be missing out on receiving exceptional applicants.

We see this often: You've posted an open position at your organization, but you feel as if you haven't been attracting the right candidates to apply. Maybe you've posted the position on sites that don't get the right kind of traffic. Maybe you're having trouble attracting traffic to your own company career page. Have you taken a second look at the job description itself?

Perhaps you're thinking it's about time to review your career path options and explore the opportunities available out there. You might be asking yourself what your long-term career goals are and which employers will match those aspirations to support your career development.

In my last blog post, I talked about employee engagement and how some of the most successful organizations have been able to boost employee engagement, even during uncertain times of change.  Your organization may be experiencing a healthy level of employee engagement, but you also may have a few bright stars who have begun to become disengaged. If that is the case, how do you recognize the signs, and what can be done?

Even when we do notice an employee beginning to disengage, we’re often tempted to bury our heads in the sand, hoping it’s just a bumpy phase that will smooth itself out.

A recent survey conducted by Gallup on employee engagement across the country shows that even as Americans' wellbeing has dropped to a 12-year low in the past month amid the coronavirus outbreak, the engagement of the working population has hit a new high. Despite new working conditions such as work from home or sparse office layouts designed to promote social distancing and slow the spread of the virus, companies are making it work. This begs the question: how is your employee engagement holding up? And if you're feeling like your business may be experiencing a rise in employee disengagement, what can you implement to turn this around?

SkyWater Search Partners has been recognized by Forbes Magazine as a Top Executive Recruiting Firm in its 2020 ranking of America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms. Compiled by analytics firm Statista, this year’s Forbes rankings were based on a survey of more than 18,000 participants. While thousands of firms across the country were considered for inclusion, SkyWater Search Partners was one of only 200 firms that made the list, including only 3 in Minnesota.