By Don Garrett

With my company, I have spoken to thousands of CEOs and business owners over the years who are frustrated at their inability to find and hire the right people. As a fellow employee, you may even find yourself frustrated by the impact of other disengaged employees at your workplace.
According to Gallup, 18 per cent of the workforce in America is actively disengaged at their jobs; another 49 per cent are considered “not engaged.”
People stay in jobs they dislike for a variety of reasons – apathy, fear of finding another job, etc. – but regardless of the reason, their lack of commitment at work comes at a heavy cost to a company. Estimates from Gallup indicate these employees cost American businesses between $292 and $355 billion annually in lost productivity.
Now try to imagine that one day, as you’re signing off on paycheques for employees who appear unengaged in what they do for your company (and are perhaps even disinterested in your company’s mission), you receive a phone call or email from someone out of the blue that you do not know, and who has not been “networked” into meeting you.
Their message is clear: they have made a conscious decision to offer not only what they can do for you, but more importantly what they want to do for you. They figure that if society allows them to choose a life partner, home, car, etc., why shouldn’t they have the ability to choose their next job?
With literally millions of companies and tens of millions of jobs available locally, it seems logical that they ought to be able to choose, rather than allowing someone who has not followed them around for a single day – let alone their entire career – to decide this for them.
This person was proactive in their job search, forgoing the “I’ll know it when I see it” mentality, and utilizing a method that allowed them to eliminate millions of companies and opportunities that did not meet key ingredients they had defined for their success. Knowing that you may be cynical of their unconventional approach, they ensured their message was clearly communicated that they wanted success for your company almost as much as you do.

Wouldn’t you be interested in talking with this person?
In my career as a jobs expert, I’ve found that by searching for candidates who truly want to be in an industry and share a company’s mission or objectives – as opposed to someone who may have spent decades in an industry without holding any conviction for what they do – you effectively eliminate those workers who will not add (and perhaps even detract) value from an enterprise.
An encouraging 75 per cent of people report that they want to be engaged in their work – they just have not been connected to the right job in the right organization.
If an employee is aligned with a product, service or cause within a company, and believes in the importance of what a company does, they will have strong motivation to ensure its future success.
Resume Not Required helps job seekers to make those connections along with educating business owners about the importance of hiring someone who not only can do the job, but wants to do the job.
Don Garrett is founder and CEO of Resume Not Required based out of Reston, VA. For more information on the company, visit http://www.resumenotrequired.com.