What’s a great hire worth to you? Gold or maybe a diamond or a nice emerald? There’s no question that finding the right person for the job is like finding a precious gem. We often forget that – and how hard it really is to find that gem.

I was reminded over the holidays as I took my family to the North Georgia Mountains for a quick sightseeing day trip. During our journey we stopped at a roadside gem mining attraction.

As we pulled into the parking lot we noticed a dozen or more tables lined with a variety of gemstones ranging in color and size. I parked the car and we hopped out with the excitement of finding beautifully colored gemstones, perhaps one or two we can have made into a piece of keepsake jewelry.

If you’ve never been, here’s how it works at most of the roadside gem mining attractions: First you purchase a bucket full of sand (spoiler alert: with gemstones magically scattered throughout). Next you place several hand-shovels full of sand into a wood-framed screen. Finally you allow running water to separate the sand from gemstones revealing your treasure.

This process goes on until your bucket is empty and all of your gemstones have been uncovered. My kids had so much fun finding their treasure, and they truly found some amazing gems. One or two of which could become a stunning ring or pendent.
Once we returned home that evening and took stock of all the gemstones uncovered during the afternoon’s “mining” activity, it struck me how easy the gem mining attractions made it for my kids to finds gems from a bucket full of sand.

The chances of us finding gemstones by simply filling our own bucket full of sand found next to a stream is very unlikely. Not to mention it would have required hours upon hours of finding the right location, shoveling sand and sifting through the sand and rocks with the hope there is a gemstone to be found. My back hurts just thinking about it – not to mention the vision of disappointment on my kid’s faces.

Then it hit me: How you can ‘mine’ for talent, spend hours and days, and never find that gem. As employers embark on the process of hiring qualified employees they must sift through resume after resume from a number of sources; whether through job postings, resume databases, social media, etc.

The hope is there will be a few gemstones (qualified candidates) to be made into a valuable asset (employees) after separating the buckets full of sand (resumes) from the rocks (potential candidates). You get the picture.

If that same employer decided to use a candidate sourcing solution, like recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or even a staffing company, they could be provided with a much smaller bucket full of sand and gemstones. And over time, you can forget the sand, as more and more gemstones are provided with less and less sand to go through.

So what are you doing with that shovel? The time consuming process of candidate mining doesn’t need to be so hard. Find a professional prospector (RPO provider) and start hiring some gems.

This post was written by Craig Fouts, sales director for Yoh’s Aviation and Defense vertical. Craig brings his knowledge of aviation, aerospace and defense to Yoh’s customers to help them find gems for a variety of engineering, skilled trades and professional positions.