Newsletter
March 2023
Recruiters for the Copier Channel® for more than 30 years, Copier Careers® has been the only recruiting firm exclusively dedicated to connecting Copier Channel employers with experienced service technicians, copier sales representatives, sales managers, service & operations managers, controllers, support staff, and MPS/MNS experts. Start your month off right with Newsletter November 2022: Copier Channel news and career advice. Search copier jobs now.
The Top 5: Tips to Streamline Hiring
Despite all expectations, the job market is as hot as ever. Some employers tell us they’re getting applicants but they still have a problem sealing the deal. Our response is always the same: you have to move faster! If you’re attracting candidates but losing them partway through the process, use these tips to streamline hiring:
- Commit to 48-hour max for follow-ups. You have to move fast in a tight market. Your communication should never lag beyond a maximum of 48 hours at every step of the process. From job applications to phone screens to interviews to rejections or job offers – do not leave your candidates hanging or they will go somewhere else! If you’re working with a recruiter, treat them the same – recruiters need feedback from you on candidates they sent so they can keep looking for good matches.
- Keep your interviews efficient and progressing. Each interview should progress each candidate closer to making a hire. Do not make your candidates go through the same introductory interview with three different managers. Get your schedules in order and have all interested parties in that initial interview. The next interview should get to the heart of the position with rigorous vetting of the candidate and the company (remember – the candidate is interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them). You should be able to make a decision after this interview. If not, the third interview should be entirely focused on whatever pain points are blocking a decision. If you commit to quick follow up and efficient interviews, you can move a great candidate from application to accepting your offer within a few weeks.
- Know what you need vs. what you want. Seems obvious but isn’t. Many employers think they need a perfect candidate and then wonder why they can’t make a hire. Each job has skills that are absolutely necessary from day-one and others that can be taught. Hiring managers need to know which skills belong to which category. Do not reject a solid candidate because they’re missing 10% of the job’s skill set. Employers have to plan to train new hires because there are simply not enough candidates to be choosy.
- Get creative. The traditional candidate pool for this industry is small and shrinking each year. Sure, you can try poaching someone from a competitor now (and know they’ll do the same to you) but what will you do in ten years? Every employer in the Copier and Office Solution Channel℠ has to find a new source of candidates. Reach out to professionals in adjacent industries like IT or medical technology. Create entry-level positions for young people and plan to train them in the skills you need. Assess your hiring practices for artificial limitations – is your company rejecting candidates because they’re truly unqualified or because they’re different from your current employees?
- Be honest. Ideally, you want to be able to demonstrate to candidates that your company has its act together. But if you can’t, be up-front about it. Tell them what areas your company wants to improve, how this role will help, what you need from them to make things better. Sell your candidates on being part of the solution. Some will, understandably, walk away but those candidates would have quit after you hired them so you didn’t want them anyway. If your company or department is a fixer-upper, you want candidates who like a project, who can handle difficulties, who want ownership in new policies and practices. If you’re honest about the job, you’ll attract the candidates who can do that job. Isn’t that the whole point?
Check Out
Open Positions
Check Out
Our Monthly Poll
Monthly Poll
Take the Newsletter March 2023 Poll!
How quickly should employers respond to job applications?
- Within 3 days (43%, 6,164 Votes)
- Next day (24%, 3,390 Votes)
- Within the week (21%, 3,082 Votes)
- Same day (10%, 1,438 Votes)
- Within two weeks (2%, 308 Votes)
Poll Results
Februrary 2023 Poll
What do you think of noncompetes?
- As an employee, I hate them – they limit my options (54%, 8,475 Votes)
- As an employee, I don’t mind them (19%, 2,982 Votes)
- As an employee, I’ve haven’t signed one (13%, 2,040 Votes)
- As an employer, I need them to protect my business (7%, 1,099 Votes)
- As an employer, they’ve kept me from hiring good candidates (4%, 628 Votes)
- As an employer, I don’t use them (3%, 471 Votes)
Featured Comments:
- “There are situations in the business world where a non-compete is important, keeping someone from changing low paying jobs is not one of them.”
- “I think this is very much a two-sided argument. As someone who is an employee but is sitting in a management position, I can see both sides. Noncompetes do prevent employees from moving to the competition. But from the employer standpoint, their purpose is to prevent talent from taking their knowledge of company operations directly to the competition. Both sales and service reps have a working relationship with their customers, which they can easily take to their new competitive employer. We’ve seen it happen here several times. We had one sales rep go to a competitor selling the same product and visit their same customers, acting as if they still worked for us. One specific customer called us for support on their NEW machine that we had no record of selling them.”
- “In my opinion, an employer in the United States does not have the right to force an employee to stay at their company when the employee feels that he/she would get better wages, benefits and working conditions elsewhere – even in the same market. Fortunately for technicians, we occasionally run into techs from other companies. We talk. Employers claim competitive wages – we know how ‘competitive’ they really are. There are actually some employers who treat their employees very well, as they should. Working conditions also go a long way to retaining talent.”
- “I can see non-competes in a R&D setting but in the copier industry it seems kind of lame. From a copier tech point of view it just seems to be a way for the company to keep you stagnated. If they want to keep that top-end talent it’s simple: Pay them.”