As a teenager growing up in the seventies, I saw each of my four sisters sit at home the night of their respective senior proms, wondering why they hadn't been asked.  All four were (and still are) strikingly attractive. 

At the same time, many of my high school buddies were also grumbling about their inability to find dates.

It didn't make sense to me.  There was obviously a surplus on both sides of the romantic equation, and I wondered why it couldn't be far simpler for quality people in search of the other to connect.

I've been having flashbacks of those times, and they're triggered by coaching my daughter in her job search.  Allow me to explain.

Whitney (22) is graduating on June 7th from Seattle Pacific University with a business degree (emphasis in finance).  Seattle Pacific has a highly-acclaimed business school , and my daughter has completed her undergraduate work in four years and is at the very top of her class with a 3.98 GPA and several impressive honors.  Furthermore, she is extremely reliable and hasn't missed a single class since the 8th grade. She's interned this past year with a burgeoning wealth-management firm in Seattle, and they like her very much. Her husband of one year, Chris, is also graduating from the same school and has been accepted to Pepperdine Law School in Santa Monica, California. So the two are busy planning for a move over the summer, and Whitney has been searching online for a job in L.A. for several months.

With all the noise about the impending labor shortage and lack of skilled/talented young professionals, you'd think Whitney would have a number of attractive offers.  But even though she has strikingly attractive credentials, she has yet to get an offer—or even an interview—and she is getting anxious.
 
"I'm even trying to find job leads on Craigslist, Dad!"

Apparently, there are likely as many qualified young people looking for good jobs as there are good jobs looking for qualified young talent.  The challenge for both parties, as is the case in romance, is finding the right fit.

Some believe that the Internet is the solution to the problem; and for many lonely hearts and job seekers, it has been just that.  Singles find each other on eHarmony and Match.com, and young employees and needy employers find each other on job sites like Monster, Career Builder, and even Craigslist. 

But the Internet hasn't proven to be the Holy Grail and often leads to some very bad romantic and employment hook-ups. Where it may not be too hard to find either a one-night stand or a short-term employee, a lasting relationship generally requires more than a few clicks or an instant message.

Like a lot of her peers, Whitney is of the opinion that her hard work in school should magically trigger a beacon alerting all recruiters that she is now accepting lucrative offers.  While naive, employers are equally misguided if they think that they can fill their pipeline with the right kind of young talent simply by posting job openings online.  As is the case with a blissful marriage, career employment requires more work on both sides of the equation.

To get off the turnover treadmill and gain an advantage in the war for talent, you've got to be willing to go to lengths that your competitors aren't willing to go. (Same applies to you, Whitney.) 

Here are three practices your business and organization need to perfect in order to attract the right kind of young employees:

1. Know what right looks like in your business.  One reason Microsoft, Enterprise Car Rental, and Chick- fil-A, do so much better than their respective competitors in recruiting young employees is they know exactly the type of candidate they are looking for, and they refuse to settle for anyone that does not fit their profile. They aren't going to try to jam a square peg into a round hole.  Because they know exactly what they want, they've become experts in where to search for it. Your recruiting success begins with having a crystal-clear idea of what makes the perfect new hire for each position in your organization.

2. Be aggressive.  Don't wait for them to approach you. Regardless of whether you are looking to hire baristas for your coffee shop or engineers for your manufacturing plant, be aware of everything your competitors are doing to recruit and go a step further.  You've gone all-out to win customers, and the same effort needs to be applied to winning the recruiting game. The days of hanging up a Help Wanted sign and being besieged by quality candidates are long gone, even if the economic slowdown continues.  The best companies are aggressive in their pursuit of young workers, and you can ill afford to sit on the sidelines and hire their leftovers.

3. Leverage Peer Power. Your best recruiters are already on your payroll, and you may not even realize it.  Your existing Gen Why workforce is closer to the talent you are vying for than you will ever be, so get their heads in your recruiting game. Even if you have an employee-referral program, by itself, it's not enough.  Your Gen Whys can help you bolster your company persona on MySpace and Facebook, and they can tell you how to connect and communicate with your targeted prospects. 

Ask your Gen Whys to evaluate your recruiting ads, your application and interview process, and every other phase of your talent acquisition process and give you their candid feedback and opinions.  What you discover will astound you and improve your results. 

As we continue to experience a mass exodus of baby boomers into retirement, it's foolish for any employer to passively wait for Mr. and Ms. Right to knock on their door.

Decide instead to win the war on talent and keep your dance card full by continually reinventing your recruiting methodologies and committing to remain in hot pursuit of the best and brightest young employees to your organization.

Eric Chester, President and Founder of Generation Why, Inc. and The A Game, LLC (The Bring Your A Game to Work initiative), author of Getting Them to Give a Damn—How to Get Your Front Line to Care About Your Bottom Line (Dearborn 2005), and award winning speaker is available through www.GenerationWhy.com or by calling 303-239-9999.