Forum exercise: Hiring in a tight labor market

If forum members are struggling to hire great new employees, consider doing this exercise at your meeting.

Opener: Start with two icebreakers as a warm-up:

• Share a time when you/your company successfully recruited a top candidate in a tight labor market. What worked, what didn’t, how did you feel about it
• Share a time when you/your company failed to recruit a top candidate in a tight labor market. What worked, what didn’t, how did you feel about it?

Print these articles in advance, and ask members to read them at the beginning of the meeting:

• https://www.hirevelocity.com/8-smart-strategies-for-hiring-in-a-tight-labor-market/
• https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/how-to-do-hiring-right-way-in-a-tight-labor-market.html

Ask members to rate their organization on each point in both articles on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1=we’re doing poorly and 5=we’re doing this very well.

Use the results of this assessment to choose selected dimensions (or others that emerge from the discussion) and do a deeper dive, inviting members to share what has/has not worked along those dimensions.

Closer: Each member to share one action item, new perspective, or question they are asking as a result of the conversation.

Follow-up at the next forum meeting: What did each member do? How did it work? How are they feeling now?