A Special Series from north American Wholesale Lumber Association
Tips for Expanding Your Talent Pool
• Talk to your local universities and colleges and attend their recruitment fairs to promote your job or internship opportunities to their students. Target the schools that have the programs related to those opportunities. • If possible, give presentations to specific classes in those schools, outlining your business and discussing the benefits of working there. • Use LinkedIn or other social media platforms to get the word out about your company and engage with potential candidates. • Do research on who you want to recruit, and reach out to them in the way they would like to be contacted. • Before recruiting for an internship program, have a set structure. Savvy interns will quickly notice if the program was not well-planned or poorly executed.
eral of those interns as full-fledged sales and product managers. One of the biggest contributors to success in forming an internship program is getting buy-in from your current employees. Having someone market the program is key, but also having some of the more seasoned team members train and educate the interns is really where the knowledge flow happens. Mentorship is crucial. This also creates a “buddy system” for the intern, where they know they have someone available to ask questions and help them through daily activities and duties. If you’re planning to start an internship program to recruit new talent, make sure it is aligned with the local universities with whom you work. For example, most business schools will give credit to their interns if they are assigned a project from the employer. Get to know your local university’s career services department and interview them to see what they are looking for with their interns. The greatest success we’ve had with Capital Lumber is our relationship with our local universities. They know our company by name, and when a strong candidate comes up, they know to call us first to see if we are interested. These relationships may take some time to build, but are an important part of the process. Additionally, with your program, there should be a formalized structure in place, which includes a 30- to 60day onboarding and training schedule. Also, ensure the
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intern has plenty of work to do that will give him or her hands-on experience and build a knowledge base. Our internships are project-based, so the interns can go back to their classes with a tangible experience. We all remember being interns at one point, and the most depressing thing was that you were responsible for making coffee and making copies—nobody likes that. It is important to us that our interns have something they can put on a resume and are able to present a solution to a problem we face every day. Lastly, once you hire interns, treat them like new hires, not burdens. And always pay them.
Establish a Standard for Success
One of the biggest benefits of working in this industry is, by far, the relationships. With a company that fosters a culture of innovation and growth, a new professional can flourish and make a difference in a short amount of time. The industry has a lot of educational organizations that your younger workforce should get involved in, and NAWLA specifically has created a lot of “Next Gen” opportunities to network. The more involved they are in the industry as a whole, the more likely they will want to stay with your organization. Encourage them to get involved in NAWLA 10 Groups, and send them to training sessions, such as Wood Basics where they not only learn the fundamentals of the lumber industry, but they make lifelong friends they can connect with in the future. One of the most important aspects of all this is to make sure whoever leads your company’s recruiting effort believes in the process. You have to have a good cheerleader promoting your company and sharing why it’s the best place in the world to work. – Bethany Doss is business manager for Capital Lumber, Healdsburg, Ca., and a member of the North American Wholesale Lumber Association’s board of directors.
About NAWLA
NAWLA (North American Wholesale Lumber Association) is the association that delivers unparalleled access to relationships and resources that improve business strategy and performance through sales growth, cost savings, and operational efficiencies for wholesalers and manufacturers of forest products and other building materials that conduct business in North America. Learn more about how NAWLA can help your business at www.nawla.org.
September 2015
Building Products Digest
27