GUEST POST: Mary Shores - Want to Take Down Your Help Wanted Signs? Read This.

GUEST POST: Mary Shores - Want to Take Down Your Help Wanted Signs? Read This.

Wan​t to Take Down Your Help Wanted Signs? 

Guest Author: Mary Shores, Shores Communications

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Read This.

It’s no secret that hiring has become a challenge in most industries, and the receivables management industry is no exception. 

When we do hire new talent, we struggle to keep the new hires long-term. For many companies, it seems like new team members are actively looking for the next opportunity that comes along as if our industry is just a stopping point to keep their income coming in as they wait for the career they actually want.

Without a doubt, this reputation makes it that much harder to find the top talent we’re looking for. That’s not to say it’s impossible to hire teams of talented and dedicated professionals. It’s time for a new hiring and retention approach. After all, we need people to want to come to our industry and stay in it long-term to create the next generation of ARM professionals. 

The question is, how do we get to that point? 

I wholeheartedly believe this issue falls into three categories: marketing, onboarding, and company culture.

Marketing to Attract Rockstar Team Members

Before we go through stacks of resumes or put up a job listing, we have to figure out what we want to say in the job listing in the first place. The truth is, what we put in our job ads will make or break the hiring process and will determine whether we receive a high volume of applications.

Many of us fall into the trap of only putting our expectations of potential candidates in the job ad. For instance, we may list only the qualifications, the job responsibilities, and the weekly time commitment. While this is important information to add, we need to put a stronger focus on what we can do for the candidate as well.

According to the popular online job board Zip Recruiter, one of the most important elements of a job advertisement is language that adequately sells the job to potential applicants. In other words, the job ad needs to catch a candidate’s attention as they scroll and motivate them to apply.

In the ARM industry, finding selling points for candidates can feel overwhelming. While we feel proud of our industry and know it’s full of great opportunities, it can feel difficult to translate those feelings into copywriting that will get a candidate to click “apply.”

To come up with compelling writing to add to the listing, ask yourself the following question: what are five reasons you’re proud to work in the ARM industry? Answering that question will be your starting point to pinpointing the selling points you want candidates to see. 

When I completed this exercise, I came up with this list for an entry-level ARM position: no experience required, plenty of room for growth, priceless financial education, lucrative career choice, extremely and valuable experience.



If you can’t think of five selling points right off the bat, that’s OK. Part of my list came from my own experiences in the industry. Other parts of it came from outside perspectives. For example, I borrowed “lucrative career choice” from Greg Ruffino’s 2020 Collector.Live! speech. Ruffino, a trainer at Williams & Fudge, came to the industry because, in his words, he “wanted to get paid.” He says working in ARM is a great entry-level choice because it allows new professionals to gain experience while still making a great income. What a fantastic selling point!

If you have a favorite industry publication or speech, try recycling the best material by adding it to your own list of selling points. Or, you can use my list if it’s relevant to the position. 

The next step is to incorporate these selling points into your job ad. My personal favorite way to do this is to create a concise bulleted list. After all, potential candidates are likely skimming your job ad, so you want the selling points to pop. 

Once you have strong job ads for your available positions, it’s time to move onto the next piece of the puzzle: onboarding.

Onboarding for Retention

The first 90 days in an entry-level position are crucial. In fact, a 2018 survey by Jobvite shows that 30 percent of new hires leave their position within the first 90 days. This statistic is even more shocking when you think about the price of turnover. Gallup estimates that turnover can cost 1.5 to 2 percent of a new hire’s salary. All things considered, onboarding is your best tool to retain the new talent you hire.

From the get-go, your new hires need to feel like they’re valued and invested in. In a recent webinar hosted by AccountsRecovery.net about training new hires, expert ARM trainer LaDonna Bohling says, “Training must be engaging. If an employee doesn’t feel invested in, they’ll look for another job.” In other words, if a new hire feels neglected, unsupported, or stagnant within the onboarding period, their chances of staying long-term and developing within the company shrink. 

Sometimes, we’re so glad we’ve hired new talent that we forget the importance of effective onboarding. As such, we may focus mainly on administrative and compliance training, subsequently putting soft skills training on the back burner. While technical and compliance skills training are a must in our industry, soft skills are equally important—specifically, training on emotional intelligence, communication, critical thinking, and negotiation is essential to make sure our new hires are adequately fulfilling their job responsibilities while still feeling invested in. 

With so many necessary training avenues, I’ve found that for best results, onboarding should last the first 90 days of employment. Many companies have a probationary period during this period anyway, so extending training, professional development, and mentorship throughout the entire 90 days are feasible as long as companies have a replicable and well-documented training program in place. 

For example, at my debt collection agency, we spend part of the first 90 days training on FDCPA, technology, and administrative tasks. We spend the rest of the time putting our new hires through an extensive training program that focuses on soft skills. The training we use explains how the soft skills intertwine with the other aspects of the business. The key here is that the training isn’t overwhelming; it’s broken down into “stacks” of information using the microlearning model to make sure the new hires feel supported and able to digest the information they’re given.

According to research conducted by the German Universities of Applied Sciences, microlearning is a “pragmatic innovation” when it comes to professional development because it stays up-to-date with current information, and supports a variety of learning styles. In other words, when we use microlearning during the first 90 days of employment, our new hires have a higher chance of buying into our strategies and business models, and they’ll be more likely to truly understand the content they’ve learned. This is a win-win—the new hire feels valued and invested in, and the company has a higher chance of retaining this new hire’s employment long-term. 



Walking the Talk with Company Culture

“Company culture” is undoubtedly a buzzword that has gained prominence in the past decade. I wholeheartedly believe corporate culture actually holds significant value beyond its buzzword status, and many other professionals agree. 

For instance, in a Forbes article, digital marketer Larry Alton says, “I’d argue that corporate culture was never really overblown, and is actually becoming even more important as the modern workplace continues to evolve.”

An article from Harvard Business Review also says that people are more likely to be inspired by purpose-driven work than incentive-driven work. And that’s exactly why employees are interested in strong company culture; our team members need to feel like they’re contributing to a greater good, and without a solid company culture, it’s nearly impossible to meet this need. If we want to increase employee retention and reduce turnover in the ARM industry, taking a hard look at company culture sooner rather than later will be a must. 

The question is, how do we pursue purpose-driven culture in the ARM industry? I think many of us already have purpose-driven goals. The problem is, we often don’t know how to explain our visions to our teams.

For example, I’ve been focused on empathetic collections since 2005, and I had to find a way to relay that vision to my team, which was a difficult feat. Everyone was used to collecting a certain way, and since I had a new vision to uplift the consumer experience, I had to find a way to retrain my staff and remain transparent about my goals. I did this by mentoring a few rockstar employees to help me train, creating streamlined, replicable training practices, and implementing weekly challenges to gamify the process and encourage my team to adapt to our new vision. 

The truth is, business owners and executives in the ARM industry are already purpose-driven, and the challenge is to pass that purpose down through meaningful company culture. Teams want to feel like they’re working toward a common, purposeful goal; as leaders, we can make that happen through strategic training and morale-boosting exercises. Once we start focusing on company culture, it truly becomes second nature, and we’re able to replicate it for years to come with dedicated team members.

The Time Is Now

As ARM professionals, we know the value of our industry, and it’s time to share that value with potential talent. Building strong teams may be a long-term process. The good news is, having strong, loyal teams will be worth it in the end.

As we near the end of 2021, it’s a great time to reflect on what talent we want to bring into the industry, how we want to recruit that talent, and how we plan to foster our company onboarding and culture to retain that talent for years to come.

You have the power to build your dream team of rockstar ARM professionals. It’s time to transform hiring, onboarding, and culture to make that happen. 

Interested in hearing an interview featuring Mary Shores with DAKCS’s Ashlee Hyden? Join us on September 23, 2021, at 1:00 PM EST. Register here.