Last week’s Crosstalk prompted an e-mail from old STL colleague Tony Rowell when I was trying to decide what to write about this week. ‘Recruitment’, Tony said, ‘Definitely recruitment, any business is only as good as its weakest member of staff’.

Over the years we’ve tried just about every hiring method, from newspaper adverts to radio campaigns through Head hunters to Recruitment Consultants and it’s fair to say that none of them are as effective as a personal recommendation.

At STL half of our staff have been with us for ten years of more…in some cases considerably more. In fact four of the team have been around for just about as long as I have and they all have one thing in common - I had worked with them before or they were a recommendation.

In the early days when we were a small company I was scared of employing the wrong person, upsetting our customers and costing myself lots of money. So I figured that it was worth a small premium to get people whom I knew could do the job and the real bonus was that they didn’t need to be supervised all the time…or in a couple of cases any of the time!

That’s not to say we get it right all of the time. Over the years we’ve made mistakes and hired people with fictitious qualifications or skill sets and this is usually when we’re really busy, or in a growth phase, and don’t do our due diligence and take up proper references.

To my knowledge we’ve hired three people with serious alcohol problems over the years, one of whom had to be helped across the road to the office on his first day and another who disappeared at lunchtime every day! At one point we also managed to take on a Field Sales girl who didn’t have a driving licence (not even a provisional), although to be fair she said she thought field sales was office based! Both time consuming and costly.

There was also the time when I was persuaded that we needed a full-time HR Manager, having not had one for the first five years, and on the first day she demanded her own office and a part-time assistant! But we digress; I’ll save HR for another day!!

One thing I can say is that as soon as we knew we’d made a mistake it was always quickly rectified and each time it served as a reminder to us.

These days my inbox is full of mail from Recruitment Consultants (or Flesh Pedlars as my Ops Director calls them) usually telling me that I must interview their outstanding Sales candidate. But I don’t get it, because no salesperson in their right mind should be going through a ‘consultant’. If they’re good and they have anything about them they will research us and make contact directly – not leave it to some numpty who’s on 10%.

Two years ago I was ‘doorstepped’ by a fresh faced graduate who convinced me that we should give him a go in our sales department. We gave him a chance and asked him to complete a lead generation project for us which he did admirably. Needless to say that he’s progressed to become a valuable member of the STL sales team who is adding real value.

We’ve subsequently streamlined the process for Graduates to join STL and earlier this year we were pleased to launch the STL Graduate Sales Training Scheme in association with Samsung. This year’s intake was two Graduates who will learn all about the world of communications from STL and Samsung, whose telephone systems we sell. What we get in return is youthful enthusiasm, a thirst for knowledge and ultimately people who have been trained to do things the STL way.

In any growing business there is a need to find people who can slot in as the company expands and in our case this means a combination of experienced people who are well vetted and of course young talent that we can nurture.

Tony’s right, any business is only as good as its weakest employee.

All the best, Brendon