This is #7 on the list of questions I get asked most often ($10 if you can guess #1). It’s hard to find good people, period. Everyone complains about this in every industry everwhere so get used to it.

The challenge is that seeking talent has an inverse polarity: The louder you broadcast your job openings, the smaller the ratio of good candidates you’ll get (You may have 10k resumes, but a tiny percentage of good ones). If you want to avoid the misery of long coffee amped nights of resume skimming, put some energy into targeting your efforts.

Here’s some thoughts:

1. Ask the best PM you know. They have the highest odds of knowing people like them, or being aware of any mailing lists or social circles with like minded people.
2. Ask the socialites in your org. People who socialize more, especially within the tech-sector (dork-bot, biznik, linked-in, etc.) have more names in their mental roladex than you do. This is an asset: use it.
3. Use your own network. Recruiting is precisely why team leaders need networks: you need to have a list of people you can call on to help you get the word out. The better your network, the more good relationships you have, the higher the odds your network will deliver good candidates to you.
4. Host a job fair / social at your company. If your network sucks, build your own. Throw a kick-ass social event at your digs, and let it be known that you’re looking. Social events work to your advantage on so many levels: it makes you look cool and friendly (well, if you’re good at it), it draws people you don’t know to you, and opens backchannels with people who fit #1 & #2 above.
5. Grow your own. I’m a believer in underdogs. I like people who might not have pedigrees, but have the right attitude, potential and passion. If you can’t find good PMs, then make them – it takes time, but possibly less than hiring and firing medicore people year after year. Start an internship program: one intern a summer. If you do it right they’ll return to college with great things to say about you, recruit on your behalf, and have high odds of wanting to return full-time when they graduate. Also look inside your organization: who is ripe to move out of a specialized role into being a pm or team lead? I’d set it up a role for new/junior level pms to take on smaller projects and learn as they go. They’ll be willing to learn whatever your culture of PM is, unlike most of the hardened 10 year veterans you might think to hire.
6. Make smart, fun job postings. People forget how much the job posting itself does to filter good people away. Don’t write a corporate HR filtered broom-up-your-ass description if you want fun, dynamic, entrepreneurial, self-driven creative team leaders: that’s oil and water, you’ll turn them all off. If you want people with a sense of humor, put some humor in there. etc. Don’t mislead people (e.g. “you will be paid millions to manage naked playboy model programmers”) but do make the posting a reflection of your environment: use the right kind of bait for the kind of person you’re hoping to catch. If you have a high intelligence bar, write the posting in a way that demands some intelligence just to apply (A puzzle, a game, awareness of particular concepts/books/films, be creative).

But in the end, most people chose to make broadcast job postings because it’s easy, and you never know. Here’s a short list of places to try:

• For UI PMs. This is the project management flavor for user experience or UI work. I’d post to the chi-jobs list, or look for IA, UX, usability and design job lists, and post there. (For some reason I’d bet on a pm who lurks on those lists, over a hard core pm on a hard core pm-list, who claims to be a UI god).
• General PMs. There are various project management sites that list jobs. Be careful. Some PMs fit the NASA, big methedology, big bureaucracy model. Others are the ninja, agile, weby, small team, small schedules, types. Know what you want and post or write postings accordingly. Try allpm.com, ittoolbox.com, or check out this mega-list of pm job boards.

Also see my essay on how to interview are hire people.

Have a tip for finding good people? PMs or otherwise? Please comment.