Now Hiring Mid-Tier Talent

I recently attended a career fair on behalf of my employer and while I was there I did a bit of research.

Finding #1: Trading companies still have the best swag. (Thanks for the Camelbak, poker chip set, and branded ping pong balls!)

Finding #2: Most companies are not switching up their recruiting tactics, even though the dismal economy makes top talent much cheaper than usual. Ivy League grads can be hired today for the same wages that a few years back were barely high enough to draw students from state schools better known for their parties than their academics. And companies are not taking advantage of this. Why?

I posed this question to several recruiters at the fair and they all came back to me with more or less the same explanation: they had higher turnover among the graduates from top-ranked schools. Those employees would work for a year or two, and then move on to opportunities elsewhere. Students from Party U, on the other hand, would stick around for longer. And turnover, of course, is a bad thing so the recruiters primarily stuck with the less well known schools.

Allow me to summarize their argument: it's better to keep mediocre talent around for a longer period of time than to recruit top talent that sticks around for a shorter period of time.

There are certainly costs associated with turnover, but sometimes the higher level of performance will make up for those turnover costs. After all, is it better to get two really good years out of an employee or 10 mediocre years?