Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.

Who hasn't heard that ancient saying about teaching someone to fish? You may be wondering, however, how it applies here. The answer is that you may have the strongest possible employee selection program available, complete with the best testing, interviewing, and decision-making processes available. This only works well, though, when the fish are handed to you. But what if the best candidates are not applying for your positions?

Then, you may have problems. Fishing is the appropriate analogy here. You may have the best reel, the best hooks, and all the fishing "know-how" in the world, but if you are sitting next to a poorly stocked lake, you are not going to catch the best fish. Here are some questions to ask to determine if your recruitment program is as effective as possible.

1. How do potential applicants perceive your organization? You may need to get some information on this question before you can completely answer, but here are some factors to consider. Do the kind of people you want to attract to your organization view your jobs as paying fairly, to be adequately supervised, and to have good promotion opportunities? What kind of image does your company have in the marketplace? Is a job in your organization viewed as a "last resort" or as a highly desirable position? One way to assess these questions is to consider the quality of job applicants who interview. Also, what percentage of applicants offered a position turn you down?
2. What kinds of recruitment sources do you use? There are many sources available to recruit applicants, ranging from newspaper ads to walk-ins to employee referrals. Although the best sources vary, depending on the nature of the occupation as well as the size of your organization, highly effective organizations find that employee referrals often produce the best applicants. Consider a program such as www.h3.com, which provides an automated employee and personal referral program, at a reasonable cost. Collect data to determine which recruitment sources provide the best value and which sources provide poor value to your organization.
3. Are you making use of the most up-to-date recruitment technology? A variety of new recruitment technologies are being created on a regular basis. At the most basic level, organizations are increasingly relying on their corporate job websites, which are the source for a relatively large portion of job candidates today. Is your corporate job website up-to-date? Is it easy to navigate? Does it put your organization in the best light? Another new recruitment technology, vertical job search, is threatening to make job boards obsolete. Examine www.simplyhired.com, www.indeed.com, and www.zoominfo.com as examples of new recruitment technology that may be important for your organization.
4. Is your recruitment program producing diverse candidates? Organizations will increasingly rely on diverse sources of job candidates, both to meet legal requirements as well as to address labor shortages. Review your recruitment program to assess whether you are recruiting from a sufficiently diverse set of sources. You may need to consider participating in more minority job fairs, focus on minority job boards, and develop contacts with various local organizations such as the Urban League, which have access to diverse labor pools.
5. Are you creating good publicity for your organization? Finally, as an HR person responsible at least in part for recruitment, remember that the best fish migrate to well-stocked lakes. The more positive public relations press you can create for your organization, the more people will want to work there.