How can you become your own talent scout? You're always looking for that right candidate - you post job ads, connect on LinkedIn, etc., but you find yourself coming up empty. You are just not finding the talent you want, that candidate that displays those important characteristics of competence, team skills, and trustworthiness.

How do you go about finding those top-notch candidates? The answer is to develop a long-term networking strategy of connecting with the best people before you need them. Here is how one CEO does it.

Once a month she meets with the top people in different fields that she has heard about through her recruiters or by word of mouth, not necessarily in her industry. She meets them for dinner and asks them to tell her about their work. She is able to develop a good understanding of the talent culture this way. Over the past 20-odd years, she has met a handful of talent that meets her standards and she has hired them.

She still follows this strategy to this day, and trains her recruiters to follow her lead, and because of this her company has been effective on this front.

What's your strategy for hiring top talent? Do share your thoughts!