How to Generate Top Applicants for Your Business

Armando Lopez, Ramsey Solutions' senior executive director of HR, explains to host John Felkins how even a high-profile company like Ramsey, with 24,000 applicants year-to-date, struggles to fill specific roles and has adapted its hiring process. The core problem is generating enough qualified applicants to create real choices, avoiding desperate hires that lead to turnover. Lopez stresses that the best outcomes—hiring humble, hungry, smart people with the right skills—require active and passive efforts to build applicant flow, combined with treating candidates well throughout.

Why Applicant Choice Matters

Without multiple qualified candidates, leaders compromise on hires they later regret. Lopez notes that interviewing from scarcity biases you toward "hoping it works out" rather than selecting rigorously. This desperation is common, especially when ads or signs yield few responses. The psychology here ties to decision-making under pressure: abundance allows objective evaluation against cultural fit and skills, while scarcity forces suboptimal picks. Even in a softening economy boosting applications at Ramsey, most aren't qualified, underscoring the need for targeted flow to enable choice.