Finding Strong Candidates
 To keep your staffing business going strong, you need to find the best possible members of two groups: clients and candidates. Clients, you often have to track down, but candidates tend to come to you, especially in these high-unemployment times. But how do you find the strongest candidates?
We're offering a seven-part series on the COATS blog, sharing tips for finding the diamonds in the rough of your waiting rooms.
Part 1: Referrals Just as the best form of advertising is word-of-mouth, the best leads for candidates can come from referrals. A referral takes a candidate from an unknown property to a person with a connection to someone you already know and/or work with. However, not all referrals are created equal. For one thing, the source of the referral should be someone you respect, and they should be referring someone who's not related to them. Even if the source is impeccable, if they're referring their cousin's son, what's his name, that's not such a great referral. Read more -->
Part 2: Employment History Whether presented on a resume or an application, where a candidate has been is often used to gain the most knowledge about where they could possibly go. The years themselves can tell you something about a candidate. Obviously, long gaps between jobs and/or short stays at jobs can be major warning signs. But not all gaps in employment are created equal... Read more -->
Part 3: Unemployment With high unemployment lingering around like an unwanted visiting relative, you're bound to interview lots of candidates who have been unemployed for some time. Some candidates might also have large gaps in their employment history that can't be explained by caring for family members or attending school. So learning how candidates handle unemployment will tell you a lot about them. Read more -->
Part 4: Skills While employment history is often the focus of candidate reviews, skills are just as important-if not more so. As Dan Hedaya pointed out in Joe Vs. The Volcano, "I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?" A good resume will help a candidate get a job, but only skills will help them do the job.
Read more --> | 
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