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36 FEDA News & Views ATS Logistics / Restaurant Supply Division 20-years experience shipping equipment & supplies to the foodservice industry Zero administrative expenses or fees Custom Freight Solutions utilizing super-regional & national partners Rate shop the best carriers in N. America for most desireable service lanes at reduced rates Deliver to more 1-2 days points with LTL's lowest claims rates When you must have a truckload, you must have ATS Parcel ground service that is customizable, reliable and more cost-effective Explicit delivery receipt to eliminate unplanned accessorial charges Full-visibility on web routing with immediate vendor compliance Real invoice audit including weight & class comparison to spec sheets In transit expediting & damage control Call Thomas Pine 614-725-9095 Service is the only thing we have to sell. Making the Right Hire continued Sealing the Deal Making sure you have the right person for the job is only the first step in ensuring a successful hire, cautions Purdue University's Kathy Newton. "We are no longer in an era where all a manager has to do is hire good people and pay them a fair (or almost fair) wage to keep them working for you," she says. "A good manager must do that, plus provide a blend of benefits and company culture that work together to do what essentially boils down to keeping people happy. You've got to have a great place to work, great managers and a good environment to work in. You can't find loyal employees, you've got to build them. eight people a day that I've found, and if I can get two people out of those eight that are interested in possibly joining our company, I'm happy." R.W. Smith also maintains a career page on the site, so inter- ested candidates can seek out Fitzgibbons or scan the profiles of other staffers. And, the distributor owns at least five job slots it uses to post openings. A word of caution: There's no doing LinkedIn half way. "It's a huge time commitment," says Fitzgibbons, who recommends attending LinkedIn's annual three-day Talent Connect confer- ence to help companies maximize its recruiting potential. "There are super-user customers there to share best practices and help you run reports and do different kinds of searches," she says. "But most of the learning comes by doing. When I first started, that's all I did for about a month. It's really a robust system and if you don't learn how to use it, you're going to spend a lot of money and not get a good return. The first year we used it, and I really knew what we were doing, we hired eight people off of LinkedIn." "We tend to drag out the old, and I mean old, worn-out job advertisement." Beegle recalls finding one of his best hires while vacationing. "My wife and I were on a gambling trip in Northern Indiana and the gentleman behind the counter had exceptional cus- tomer service and exceptional people skills," he says. "He even phoned and had a bus make a special trip to pick us up after we'd just missed it. We started talking and it turned out he had inside telephone sales experience. I said send us your resume and he did. He's been with us five years now and he's in the top echelon of producers. "We're always looking, even on a gambling trip, and we don't wait for the timing to be right because we have room to expand. That's been one of the keys to finding top-notch talent." According to Purdue's University of Industrial Distribution professor Kathy Newton, many small businesses are not as fortunate because of a simple lack of knowledge. "I really think that a whole lot of what's missing is just basic education on good hiring skills," says Newton, who also specializes in workplace management. "Many managers do not know how to properly screen applicants, ask the right questions during an interview or recruit. You should always be recruiting and you have to have a plan. Instead, we tend to drag out the old, and I mean old, worn-out job advertisement that starts with 'we are a 101-year-old company. ' That's not very exciting." Another area where small business owners err—talking too much during the interview. "You have to remember that the candidate should be talking at least 80 percent of the time in an interview," says Newton. "Otherwise, they start asking us questions and guess what, we like to hear ourselves talk. There are books out there on guerrilla tactics and job warfare that teach candidates to get the recruiter talking so that they will like them better." To drive home the point, Newton turns to a recent encoun- ter with a grad student, who couldn't wait to share an epiph- any of sorts. "She came into my office and said, 'I've got the perfect answer to an interviewing question I know they'll ask. What's your biggest weakness. My answer is I'm too much of a perfectionist.' "And I said, 'isn't that interesting. Well, give me an example of how being a perfectionist was a detriment to you in your class assignments or in your last job?' Now that's a probe."