By Janea McDonald, Owner, Edge Consulting

You probably obsess over placements, impressions, CPMs, and client retention. But here’s the twist: your people are the first campaign that determines how well everything else works. If your recruitment process is rushed, unclear, or built around “warm bodies,” you’re guaranteeing turnover before the employee ever makes their first sale, hangs their first vinyl, develops their first campaign, gets the first lease signed.

Recruitment and hiring are NOT the same thing.

Recruitment is selection + alignment + long-term forecasting.
It’s choosing the right person for the role and the right person for your culture, your teams, and your business priorities.  Without proper fit you are setting yourself up to be filling the same positions over and over – or feeling stuck with people that are ineffective just because you don’t want to go through the hiring process again.

When the recruitment process is strong, onboarding gets smoother, performance and customer satisfaction improves, and you see success across the entire plant.  When it’s weak? People leave. And they leave fast.

The Hidden Truth

Turnover isn’t caused by “kids these days” (i.e. those generational issues we heard about at IBO in Atlanta), salary issues, or the job being hard. Turnover is usually caused by poor fit from day one.  The person can be a poor fit for the job, a poor fit for the organization, or both.

OOH operates in a unique ecosystem: fast-moving deadlines, inventory pressure, tight compliance rules, field-heavy operations, creative demands, and the need for people who can build relationships in their sleep. Not everyone thrives in that mix.  When you hire someone that isn’t wired for that pace, you set them up to fail.

A strong recruitment process is the difference between:

• An AE who stays 2 years vs. one who stays 2 months
• An installer that actually isn’t afraid to climb vs. one who ghosts after training
• A Manager who grows their people vs. one who burns them out

Effective recruitment leads to retention.

How to Strengthen Your Recruitment Process (Without Slowing Down Hiring)

1. Get crystal clear on what success looks like.
   Not just the job description… the actual real-world success markers.
   What must this person deliver in the first 90 days? The first year?
   If you can’t answer that, you’re not hiring — you’re guessing.
2. Stop hiring for personality and start hiring for competencies.
   The best OOH workers share patterns: adaptability, communication strength, follow-through, and a tolerance for fast-moving chaos.
   You can screen for all of these — if you know how.
3. Treat the candidate experience like the client/customer experience.
   Bad communication costs you good talent. And in OOH, word travels fast. (Have you checked out your reviews on Indeed or Glassdoor? Trust me, applicants are checking and you should be too!)
4. Evaluate cultural fit and cultural contribution.
   Your goal isn’t clones — it’s people who elevate your teams, reduce friction, and want to stay.

When you recruit with intention, retention becomes easier. When your employees are well-matched for your organization your performance, customer relationships, deadlines, and bottom line all get better.

You might not need more people – you need the right people.

The cost of turnover is 30% – 200% of the person’s salary (dependent on their role).  Do you have that in your budget?  I can help save you that cost. Let’s chat.

Join me for a free webinar on February 11, 2026, at 12 pm (CST)): “People Problems in OOH: 5 HR Mistakes You Can’t Afford” (and thanks to IBO for helping organize and for hosting the event).  Register here.

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