I recently surveyed CEOs and Business Leaders of large companies and small, profit and not-for-profit, and I asked just them just one question: 'What is the single biggest factor that you believe will inhibit your sustained profitable growth into the future?' A, perhaps, surprising 37% responded that it was people - the recruitment, motivation and retention of people that was the biggest factor.

So let's address the first one - recruitment.

I see many, many businesses through a year from the very smallest through to the largest corporate and I am simply amazed how many people still use 'traditional' methods to recruit - maybe a couple of interviews, nothing more ? together with a great reliance on the content of the CV and on references.

You may know that the generally accepted wisdom is that by using these methods you are likely to get it right just 2 times in 5 ie. a 60% failure rate!

Is there anywhere else in our businesses where we would accept that degree of failure?

So we need to be more sophisticated in our recruiting methodology. For example:

When we recruit a sales person how often do we establish directly whether they can sell?

When we recruit an accountant how often do we establish whether they can read, interpret and, most importantly, report on a set of accounts?

There are comprehensive methodologies that will dramatically improve your recruiting success rate and I have been using them for many years. They, of course, take longer and they may cost more, but it is nothing compared with the cost of getting it wrong ? I saw some figures recently that that cost was around five times annual salary!

There's too much to put in an article so I've therefore put them onto a double CD 'Recruiting to Win' - which is available on line at [http://www.rogerharrop.com/orderfrm.php]

Can there be anything more important to the sustained profitable growth of your business than recruiting right?

Roger Harrop is a former quoted company CEO, International Speaker, Business Advisor, Consultant and the author of 'Staying in the Helicopter? - the key to profitable growth'. He is Speaker of the Year with The Acadamy for Chief Executives and a member of faculty of The Institute for Management Studies.

Visit http://www.rogerharrop.com and get your free e-book 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Profitable Growth, But Didn't Know Whom to Ask'