Why Is It So Hard to Find Good Job Candidates? At the most recent meeting of the She Owns It business group, the members followed up on issues raised in previous posts. The conversation then turned to the challenges of hiring, including where to find the best candidates: LinkedIn? Craigslist? Dog parks? Alexandra Mayzler reported that she is no closer to coming up with a catchy new tagline for her company, Thinking Caps Tutoring. Its current one, "students teaching students," no longer fits. Jessica Johnson remains busy managing the challenges of Johnson Security Bureau's large new contract. Those include navigating relationships with the prime contractor on the job - Johnson Security is a sub-contractor - and the agency for which both work. A group member, Deirdre Lord, owns The Megawatt Hour, an online subscription service that helps commercial and industrial clients manage, track and forecast their energy usage and expenses. When we last met, she was scrambling to reach potential customers who faced an end-of-May deadline to apply for a New York Power Authority program that will give businesses access to subsidized hydroelectric power. Since then, the State has carried out a rolling deadline. While the change could cause The Megawatt Hour's potential clients to delay making a decision, there is now more time to raise awareness and get businesses to focus on the issue. As a result, Ms. Lord said, The Megawatt Hour will be better prepared when they do. She said her company has done more education and outreach surrounding the N.Y.P.A. program and tweaked its product, carving out a separate offering that addresses it. "We realized that people making a decision need a lot more hand-holding," she said. Ms. Lord's company has won three new clients as a result of its efforts: a hospital in Brooklyn, a nonprofit in the Bronx, and a Holiday Inn in midtown Manhattan. Will they bring all the other Holiday Inns on board? Ms. Mayzler asked. "We're hoping so," Ms. Lord said. When we last spoke to Beth Shaw, who owns YogaFit, she was wondering how to unload $500,000 worth of unsold inventory, the remains of the company's unsuccessful effort to get into retail. She has since brought in a sales and marketing person whose responsibilities will include clearing out the leftover inventory and helping to simplify the clothing line that YogaFit will continue to offer. "I'd been interviewing for this position for three months - off LinkedIn, Craigslist, and a variety of places," said Ms. Shaw. But she found her hire more serendipitously. "My C.O.O. met her at a dog park," said Ms. Shaw. After befriending the woman, the chief operating officer, Brenda Matsubayashi, was impressed with her background, which included a decade spent in sales at Adidas, and learned she was looking for a change. Ms. Matsubayashi became YogaFit's first C.O.O. when she joined the company three months ago, moving from Toronto to take the job. Ms. Shaw and Ms. Matsubayashi met as children at band camp, and had kept in touch through Facebook. Both attended the party for the opening of YogaFit Canada in Toronto. During the party, Ms. Shaw got a call from her accounting clerk, who said she was quitting and giving two weeks" notice. When Ms. Shaw mentioned that she really needed a C.O.O., Ms. Matsubayashi said she was interested. To see if there was a mutual fit, Ms. Shaw suggested she spend a week in YogaFit's office in southern California to meet the staff, check out the corporate culture, and attend a trade show. Ms. Matsubayashi joined the company soon after that trip, and Ms. Shaw has been pleased. Among other things, she said she appreciates Ms. Matsubayashi's "East Coast" work ethic. Ms. Shaw said she was continually amazed by the poor quality of job applicants in southern California. Trying to hire from there is a "disaster," she said. "Is it because everyone is in entertainment?" asked Ms. Lord. "I think that California - L.A. in particular - attracts a lot of dreamers," Ms. Shaw said. The work ethic is not ingrained in you the way it is in New York, so I try to hire people from the East Coast. Ms. Johnson, who lives and works in the Bronx, says hiring is a challenge for her, too. Johnson Security's last few security guard hires were acquired as the result of a new contract - a new client will often require Johnson Security to take on the staff of the previous security vendor. "It's really hard to bring them in culture-wise because sometimes their allegiance is to the client and sometimes it's to the previous company," she said. The result can be security guards "behaving very badly," Ms. Johnson said. For example, some have lashed out at her office staff, demanding to know why Johnson Security requires them to do things a certain way. Ms. Lord pointed out that, as a family business, Johnson Security has an interesting story. "They don't care?" she asked. They do not, said Ms. Johnson. In fact, it can even be hard to motivate longtime employees. "We'll give them opportunities to move to a different contract with more responsibility, and they're like, "That's O.K., I'm fine where I am,"" she said. Nonetheless, they still ask for more money. "Classic," said Ms. Shaw. She added that there were always employees who just want a check. Finding the good ones is simply a numbers game, Ms. Johnson said. You just have to go through a lot of people. Can you fire the guys you acquire through the contracts? Ms. Lord asked Ms. Johnson. "It's very sticky," she answered. Some are union employees, and some have a good rapport with the client. Ms. Lord wondered if bonuses based on their behavior might help. "We've had discussions about that within the management team, but I don't think that's what moves a lot of our people," Ms. Johnson said. "We talk to them about different kinds of bonuses, and they'll say, "Right, whatever."" "I find that so amazing," Ms. Lord said. "There are all different types of people in the work force," Ms. Shaw said. Good hiring requires you to do a lot of listening during interviews, Ms. Mayzler said: "If you listen carefully enough, people will tell you who they are." There are those who have revealed they would view working for Thinking Caps as a stopgap until they get a job in the fashion industry, for example. There are others who want to teach so badly they are willing to be matched with any student. Ms. Lord agreed with Ms. Mayzler. "Being a business owner is half psychotherapy because you really have to understand what drives people," she said. In coming posts, the owners will share interview tips for employers and thoughts on keeping employees motivated. We'll also catch up with Susan Parker, the owner of Bari Jay, who couldn't attend this meeting. You can follow Adriana Gardella on Twitter.