One sure fire way to gauge how well your organization is performing in this campaign is to ask yourself a very simple question:
" Are we understaffed ? " If your day-to-day operations are being hampered by a shortage of key people, you are losing the war ! Most recruiting plans of "attack" are defensive in nature. That means heavy reliance is placed on electronic or printed mass media and /or job fairs. Ad's are bought and you "hope and wait." In terms of finding truly talented people, Job Fairs can be best described as candidate mining as you are hoping to find diamond in the rough. If you did find a gem at the fair, so did all of your competitors. A defensive posture has never won in any competitive environment; not in sports, politics or in business. The War for Talent in a candidate driven market must embrace a hard-hitting stratagem; yet avert possible litigation and negative public exposure. 
The wrong way to fight a Talent War Some companies wanting to "save" outside recruiting fees have aggressively contacted and hired top people directly from their competitors. Much the same way an "outside" recruiter sometimes contacts candidates. This practice has rapidly and routinely fallen into disfavor by jurisdictions throughout the country. As a result, many of these same organizations have fallen victim to very costly "tortious interference" lawsuits filed by those competitors. It would have been exceedingly cheaper for those companies to enlist the aid of an "outside recruiter." Common mistakes of a typical Recruiting "Plan of Attack" When has an internet job board, classified ad, your web site or a job fair actively pursued an employed candidate that you'd love to bring aboard but that individual was not looking ? Those methods are a good rudimentary start in terms of recruiting, but these tired old war horses will only win some of the battles. Not a war. Moreover, you have spent your hiring dollars and there are no guarantees. As a hiring manager, HR professional or corporate recruiter, you owe to it your career and your company to deploy methods that will capture the attention of "Type A" candidates; not those people who have the idle time to respond to job ads. Your ad's and everyone else's. The Secret Weapon If you are truly committed to victory, understanding that your competitors would love to have a shot at your best employees is the first step. Abandon recruiting from a traditional point of view. You need to map a plan to out flank your competitors for talented people. If you are truly concerned about filling key positions, then it is necessary to modify your thought process and to view this from a top performing candidates perspective. That may be easier said than done, but is precisely what a top notch Recruiter excels at... Read More | 
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THE TALENT WAR
