Every company wants to hire superstars: the "Michael Jordan of programming," the "Michael Jordan of marketing," and so on. But people with exceptional talent -- people like Michael Jordan -- don't come along every day. And when they do, it's not easy to persuade them to join you. Most great people have great jobs already: Why is the team you're asking them to join superior to the one they're on now? Plus, great people are rarely "on the job market." Why should they make a change that they weren't expecting to make? Finally, great people know that they're great. They have high expectations for the kind of work they want to do and for the kinds of people they want to work with. The moment they consider changing jobs, their current company -- along with lots of others -- will make them an offer designed to meet those expectations. How are you going to compete?

Professor John Sullivan, head of the human-resource management program at San Francisco State University, thinks about, writes about, and talks to companies about these make-or-break questions. He is the Michael Jordan of hiring, a world-class expert on the new world of work. Sullivan advises a powerful collection of take-it-to-the-hoop organizations -- including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Cisco Systems, and Charles Schwab -- on recruiting and retaining great people.

"There's not a shortage of people," he argues. "But there is a shortage of great people. The competition for the best of the best is incredible. If you want to hire the next Michael Jordan, you have to recruit that person differently, evaluate him or her differently, and offer him or her a job differently. Looking for a job in the old way can be a horrible, demeaning process."

In an interview with Fast Company, Sullivan offers a short course in how to make hiring at your company a slam dunk. He also provides a collection of tools and techniques for turning his cutting-edge ideas into everyday realities.

From Coincidence Hiring to Continuous Hiring

Traditionally, companies get serious about hiring when they have a specific opening: "Our vice president of marketing quit, so we need a new one," or "We want to enter the market for a new kind of computer chip, so we need a team of designers." I call that approach "coincidence hiring": "I happen to need a basketball player today. Did Michael Jordan happen to quit his job?" The odds that he did are not very good. So what are the odds of your landing him?

The companies I work with -- Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Nike, Schwab -- don't want to hire unemployed people or unhappy people. They want to hire people who can make a difference, the best of the best. But those people usually have a good job and are happy where they are. So recruiting them requires a different mind-set. You have to go from coincidence hiring to continuous hiring.

Companies that practice continuous hiring do things differently from other companies. In their approach to recruitment, they try to mirror how they approach the rest of their business. They say about the hiring process what they say about each of their products: "We have to make it exciting, we have to make it fun, we have to make it fast -- and we have to keep innovating all the time."