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February 20, 2024
Jodie D. Dupree, SCCFA President-Elect
A HIRING EVENT
Let’s talk about people or more specifically, employees. We all need them. We cannot run our businesses without them. In every group of employees, there is a segment that is at the beginning of their career, a segment on the end of their career and a segment in between those two groups that is really getting most of the work done. Finding, people, training people and retaining people is the primary job of the manager of any business. It is often the hardest part of any manager’s job because good people seem to be hard to find. You post a job on Indeed or craigslist or one of the other hiring sites and you hope to get a few decent resumes. The down side to hiring that way is applications trickle in. You interview and maybe hire someone only to find out a week later that somebody much better just had not applied yet. If you could only have waited a few more days before pulling the trigger on the person you hired. Time kills deals so you just cannot drag the process on day after day. You have to act but what if what if there was a better way to recruit and hire.
I was recently part of something I had never tried before. A hiring event. Just the word event makes it feel more special and it was certainly that…an event. We were looking to hire a few sales counselors but rather than put ad after ad on the hiring sites we put one ad out announcing a hiring event. We informed people that if they came on a certain day between certain hours we would guarantee that we sat down with them and gave them an interview. What we found was that we got much more response than we might normally get just advertising a position. People felt they didn’t have to play the application lottery and hoped their application made its way to the right person. They didn’t have to wait on a call back or try and do something to make themselves stand out. They knew that if they showed up that day during those hiring hours that someone was going to sit down with them, read their resume and interview them. Guaranteed. We advertised the hiring event on indeed and on our Facebook page (you do have a Facebook page, don’t you?) and on other hiring and job sites. We announced the date and the 6-hour window for the event. We had over 100 people respond and nearly 35 showed up. That seems to be about the hold rate of those who RSVP for the event. Some let us know they were coming and others just showed up. We ended up hiring several from that one day of interviews. It worked so well that a few weeks later we tried it with cemetery maintenance folks. We ended up getting 66 responses from people wanting jobs. We didn’t need 66 new maintenance employees, but we did need 6 and we found them at that one-day event.
To make the event work we need multiple people who could do interviews so no one was waiting for too long. We used a preprinted interview question forms for the interviewer to ask of the applicant and fill out during the interview. There was an initial set of questions and if we didn’t think they were for us we thanked them after the first page of questions was asked and after we had a chance to talk to them for a few minutes. If we did like them another interviewer took over and asked the remaining questions on the form and provided a second set of eyes and ears in the hiring process. After the interview was complete, the interviewers each rated the person as A, B C, or D. Obviously, we were interested in hiring the A folks and maybe even a few of the B’s. While interviews were going on, we handed information about the job and our company to those waiting to be interviewed. In the case of the maintenance hiring event, we had computers set up and ready to go and folks to assist anyone that needed to fill out our online application for a job. Needless to say, both events were a huge success.
The event worked because we compressed the application and interview process down and did not drag it out as we normally do waiting on people to apply. Remember: TIME KILLS DEALS.
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Speaking of time .....
The days are drawing closer for our
annual convention and this year will be fantastic.
We are at the gorgeous, Westin Hilton Head Island Resort and Spa. July 15-17 with sand, sun, golf and tons of information, learning and seeing old friends.
***Register now because early bird registration ends March 31, 2024, and ****book the hotel right away to make sure you get part of the room block set aside for the convention.
Join the SCCFA along with the cemetery associations of Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. I look forward to seeing you in July.
CLICK HERE to take you to the 2024 SCCFA Convention Page
Westin Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa | July 15-17, 2024
We are pleased to partner with these great state associations for our 2024 Convention:
- Cemetery Association of Tennessee
- Georgia Cemetery Association
- Kentucky Cemetery Association
- North Carolina Cemetery Association
- South Carolina Cemetery Association
Booth space is running out! Just four (4) booths still available.
Early-bird registration savings ends March 31, 2024.
Hotel rooms are limited. So, make your reservations today. CLICK HERE
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WELCOME, new SCCFA supplier member, Universal urnS!
BRADENTON, FLORIDA: American Urn Manufacturer has opened their doors for business. Universal urnS is an American made utility urn manufacturer providing the funeral and cemetery professionals with durable utility urns for cremation placements in brick, cored, and mausoleum settings. The rectangle utility urn, cylinder urn, and mauso urn are designed to fit all granite offerings in the cemeteries.
During the pandemic, it was difficult for cemeteries to find compatible urns to handle the demand. Co-Owner Lyle Kobus stated, “When he was approached with the opportunity, he wanted to bring manufacturing back to Southwest Florida.” Working with industry professionals, Kobus and his team of designers and engineers after 2 years have created a custom die made for extrusion to the exacting standards required for the placement in the cemeteries.
Universal urnS, Inc. is looking to market the urns to national and independent funeral providers in the Southeast. Tom Scholz, National Sales Manager for Universal urnS said, “After two years of test marketing we are ready the service the Southeast Funeral Providers in several states. Our service continues to grow with our 3 day to a week delivery. We hope to improve our service to 2 day delivery options available by mid-March.”
Universal Urns, Inc. is a Florida Based urn manufacturer specializing in extruded aluminum utility urns to fit all niche requirements including brick, cylinder, cored wall, mausoleum niche, and ground placement of urns.
Universal urnS | http://www.ssurns.com | 941-224-0956
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