Q. Where do you look
for these employees?
We would love to get
everybody right out of
their university degree,
so people that have master’s in accounting, master’s in tax or people
with law degrees, that’s
who we recruit out of
college. Some of them
come here as interns to
get work experience
before they graduate, and we’re
very fortunate in that virtually
every intern that we’ve brought
in has come back as a full-time
employee after graduation.
Some we bring in directly as
they’re graduating from college.
The inexperienced people
are people that we get to
teach. It’s the most organic of
the organic growth. We hire
people, and we teach them
about our culture, our values,
our vision, our beliefs, and
they’re not bringing a lot of
baggage with them.
Q. What is a common
recruiting mistake?
People, when they recruit,
they tend to try to find people
who look like themselves —
similar backgrounds, similar
experiences, similar demographics even. I think the most
important thing to remember is
that the success of America is
more dependent upon diversity
and the integration of immigrants into our society than any
other country in the world.
When you go on campus, you
have to have an extremely open
mind, to look at candidates who
perhaps don’t have the same
background as you and, in fact,
in some respects, their backgrounds may be difficult for you
to relate to. They might actually
be from a foreign country themselves, or they don’t speak
English as their primary language, or they didn’t participate
in the same activities you did in
college.
Q. How do you make sure
you’re targeting the best
graduates?
The most important thing is to
spend time on campus with the
staff and the faculty. Help teach
classes, help give presentations
in front of the honors societies,
pitch in — the schools are
always looking for firms to help
support the activities to make
the students’ and the faculty’s
life more interesting on campus.
Then you’re very likely to
develop a good relationship with
the placement department, with
some of the key faculty, with
some of the professional honorary societies. Those organizations and people can really get
you in touch with the best students, and you get a chance to
interact with them in a more
informal way than the kind of
high-stress, one-on-one interview.
If you just think you’re going
to go down to some school and
somebody’s just going to give
you the secret handshake and
tell you, ‘Here are the top five
students. Go get ’em,’ you’re
crazy, because it doesn’t work
that way.
For those that put in the
effort, you get the reward.
HOW TO REACH: True Partners Consulting, (312) 235-3300 or www.tpctax.com
