Discover effective strategies for recruiting top talent to fuel the growth of your small business with our guide.
When you need employees for your small business, it can be hard to find the right people with the right skills. As a budding startup, you don’t have the luxuries that large corporations do — you could be looking for candidates under budgetary and time constraints. If you haven’t made your first hire yet, where do you even start?
The bad news is there’s no one right way to find the perfect employee. The good news is that there are several things you can do to improve your hiring process that won’t break the bank. This guide will provide solid strategies for finding qualified workers. These will start your recruiting process on the right foot, even if you’re operating with limited resources.
Put simply: People matter. The right people will support you as a small business owner and your company’s vision and mission. Good employees often make the difference between a successful enterprise and a challenged one.
Research shows that the key to any startup making it past that crucial first five-year mark is the generation of new clients. When you think about hiring employees, think of how this new hire can use their special qualities to attract new customers.
Few things will drive your small business success more effectively than a solid company culture. Hiring people who align with and support your company’s stated goals drives much more than everyone’s mood throughout the workday. Low employee engagement is estimated to cost companies between $450 and $500 billion each year. Other critical statistics demonstrate the necessity of hiring smart; it’s important to jump into your search for the right people knowing that they will affect everything from your revenue stream to your reputation. The best employees are always those who feel recognized and rewarded not just in pay but also in company connectivity.
So, how do you find the right employee? The perfect employee is going to be different for everyone, and the ideal profile will evolve as your company evolves, but there are overall steps you can take to find a good match. Here, we’ll take a look at the seven steps for hiring the right employees and what each entails:
Defining your company’s mission statement and values will save you a great deal of time in the search for the right employees. These basic tenets of your small business should appear on your company website and in all job postings, be embedded into advertising, and be provided in writing to recruiters.
Your mission statement and values are also the guiding principles for everything you do in your company, and hiring is the first step to everything else. Consider that anyone you hire is going to have an impact on your business’s personal branding and that employee retention contributes mightily to any company’s success. For these and many other reasons, try to include your company mission and values in the interview process to make sure people are a good fit for your team culture from the start.
A clear, concise job description will give potential teammates a good idea of their role if hired. This open clarity serves your employee hunt in two significant ways: It allows applicants to self-eliminate or helps them know which aspects of their past employment to emphasize, and it positions your company’s culture as organized around a common ideal. If the job descriptions you send out into the hiring market are too vague, you’ll get applicants who might be close but not perfect for what you need — and little is more frustrating than a near-miss in hiring!
Your company’s job descriptions should include not just the daily duties associated with the role in question but also how this role will be expected to engage with other company members. You always want to look for partners who complement your business style.
Outline whether the position is mostly communicative, creative, front-facing, back-end oriented, or any other details that will give job seekers a sense of what the job looks like. The more detail you can provide and the more simplistically you can offer it, the greater the job description can become a tool for weeding the field of potential interviews.
Promote the job! If you want to attract good co-workers, post the job where people can see it. It’s also good to post about your company and culture on your social media pages. Media has influenced career choices since long before Facebook and Twitter. Use that digital engagement to your company’s advantage and give people an insight into your culture. This will not only attract people who fit well into your work environment, but also the shares and comments generated by the open position function as secondary advertising for your small business.
Some job applicants look great on paper but don’t translate as well in the real world. Others may have the technical skill sets your position calls for but none of the charisma or people skills that align with what you want for the role.
Hiring decisions should never be made without talking directly to a potential employee. The last thing you want as a team leader is to inadvertently increase anxiety in the workplace by bringing on someone who just doesn’t have the soft skills befitting your open role’s demands.
Be upfront and get on the phone with applicants to make sure they’re worth taking through your interview process. Ask them about their salary expectations and mention any physical demands, time requirements, or other qualifying factors that you deem important to the job being executed well. If they don’t fit the bill on some of the basics of the position, you don’t need to waste time by taking them any further through the recruitment process.
When it comes down to meeting potential candidates, don’t hesitate to get creative and ask fun questions! Think outside the box. Take your interview style in an unpredictable and nontraditional direction. It’ll put both you and the interviewee at greater ease, thereby allowing more truth to show through on both ends.
Rather than sticking to the timeless job interview classics like, “Why do you want to work with us?” or “Tell me about your biggest work failure,” mix things up with questions that get at the marrow of the person, not their work facade. Beginning with humor is often wise, as what people will laugh at tells you much about what they value.
For example, you might start by asking a prospective employee to tell you a joke. This will give you insight into their humor and tell you how well or poorly that joke would be received by the other team members. Other examples of outside-the-box interview questions that could reveal more about a person’s true compass might be:
In a smaller business or consultancy, some entrepreneurs may not want to hire anyone perceived as too corporate. Questions like those listed above help qualified candidates showcase creativity, spontaneity, and the unique inner workings of their minds. They help you, as the hiring manager, quickly see into aspects of the interviewee’s personality that most interest you from the standpoint of the job in question.
Every bit as important to a successful, honest interview is the venue. Meet people for lunch or coffee, have them shadow a current employee, or play a game. Playfulness doesn’t have to compromise professionalism. Conducting interviews in a more relaxed, natural way will help you see how someone behaves beyond the desk. This makes the experience more authentic for everyone and helps you cull candidates who might be too stiff to mesh well with the kind of atmosphere you want your small business to generate.
Even if you love a job candidate from the start, do your homework! Due diligence helps you separate people who do a great job of presenting well on the first days but then turn into other creatures once the newness wears off. Ascertain whether any boomeranging or rehiring on their resume took place for the wrong reasons.
Consult LinkedIn, do a standard Google search, implement professional background checks where necessary or relevant, and make sure to call former employers. You want to speak to people they have worked closely with to get a more accurate picture of who candidates are at work over the long term.
Related: 4 Things to Consider Before Hiring a Marketing Intern at Your Small Business
Putting together great job descriptions for new jobs can be tricky. On one hand, you want your post to feel professional. On the other hand, you don’t want it to bore your prospective hires. A good job description should be clear, easy to read, and descriptive.
Try to see things from a potential candidate’s point of view. If you were in their position, what would you want to know about a prospective job? You’d want to know things like:
Determining your company needs requires more forethought than just saying something like, “I need a marketing expert.” Spend time thinking about the job you’re hiring for. What are the skills that prospective employees will need, and how do they fit into your business goals? This type of planning will make it easier to spot the right resume when it comes along.
For example, if you’re an information technology (IT) consultant working with corporations, a marketer who specializes in business-to-customer (B2C) marketing won’t help much. You need a professional who knows how to appeal to your target audience and who is familiar with business-to-business (B2B) strategies and marketing tools.
Your job description not only needs to attract qualified candidates, but it should also repel the wrong ones. When you’re drafting the summary, try to make the skills and experience you’re looking for as clear as possible in your job opening. However, you should avoid things like jargon and clichés. If you’re looking for a marketer, platitudes like “bleeding edge” and “innovative” are overused and confusing.
Let’s continue with our example from above. The marketing expert for your consultant startup should have experience writing B2B content. They’ll need skills like the ability to write “white papers” and “case studies.” They’ll also need to be familiar with email marketing tools like GetResponse.
Regardless of which job boards you use, you’ll want your job posting to be easy to find. Think about the job title that your ideal hire would type into a job search engine. Would they type “lead generation rockstar”? Of course not. A professional would type in the title of the actual job they desire. Giving your job post a clear title will help you attract a larger talent pool.
When you’re searching for a marketing expert, title your posting with something like “Director of Marketing” or “Marketing Specialist.” A clear job title will increase the odds of the right hire coming to you.
Benefits can be very attractive to job seekers. If you offer things like health insurance, paid time off, or matching 401(k) programs, be sure to include them in the job description. A cool or unique company culture can be attractive to some hires. As a new small business, you may not be able to afford to pay a high salary. To some workers, certain benefits can be even more appealing than a high wage.
Why not offer your marketing hire a commission payment benefit to make up for their low base salary? They could get paid an extra portion of every conversion from their marketing material. Not only would this idea intrigue them, but it could also add an incentive to be more productive. Other perks, like the ability to work from home, can be especially important to new employees during situations like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Great employees are everywhere; you just have to know how to meet them. You can find possible hires online, through networking, or at just about any institute of learning. However, you’ll need to find recruiting strategies for locating and getting to know talent.
Below are some suggestions for where and how to reach possible hires. While some of these options cost money, there are plenty of cost-effective strategies for small business owners. When you find the right hire, they’ll want to learn everything they can about your company. ZenBusiness can help you make a great company website that will educate and impress visitors.
You can network online using sites like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is designed for professional use and allows you to connect with job seekers and see their resumes, experience, and portfolios. After you post your job ad on your LinkedIn page, you can search for professionals in your industry and reach out to anyone who interests you.
In-person networking can be scary for some, but it’s really important. Set up a booth at a career fair or attend a trade conference for people in your industry. If these events get too expensive for your small business, though, you can always network for free with the people you come in contact with daily. You never know if your waiter, bagger, or bank teller has the personality and skills you need. Always be prepared with business cards on hand.
As a small business owner, you’ll likely want to post your job for free on a site like Indeed, Google, or even Craigslist. However, you might have better luck finding quality job candidates if you pay to post jobs on sites like Glassdoor and Monster. On some job sites, you can pay to get your job posting sponsored or advertised.
RELATED: Using Craigslist To Find Work
You might not have enough current employees to start an employee referral program, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find referrals elsewhere. Try using your personal network, or think about connections with family or friends who could be perfect for your business. You can also speak to co-workers or bosses from previous jobs to see if they know anyone looking for employment.
Unfortunately, when you post your job online, you risk getting inundated with applications from unqualified potential candidates. That’s why it’s smart to have HR software to keep track of everything. One type of HR software that helps with recruiting is called an applicant tracking system (ATS).
A good ATS can help you keep up with all of your job seekers. ATSs like Oracle Taleo and Bullhorn can automate processes like scheduling interviews, sending rejection letters, and posting on several job sites. They also serve as a database to store information for all of your candidates.
Schools are great places for finding young, hungry talent. Students are looking to take the next step in their careers. Universities and smaller colleges hold several job fairs and recruiting events every year. Make a call to local colleges to see if you can grab a booth at an upcoming event. Another option is to contact a school’s journalism department to see if they’ll include your job post in their publication.
Depending on the expertise required for your job, you can even try contacting nearby high schools. Some high-achieving students could be looking for a summer job or internship that will look good on a college transcript.
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When you’re trying to fill open positions in your company on a small business budget, you have to get creative. When you don’t have recruiters to meet your staffing needs, it’s important that you make the best of every resource you have. You don’t have the time or money to waste.
Luckily, not having the capital doesn’t mean you have to settle for workers who are less than exemplary. If you write an appealing and professional job post, there’s an assortment of free and inexpensive ways to find top talent.
You’re devoted to your business. Whether you’re a trade worker, consultant, or freelancer, you don’t want to spend precious working hours doing administration. ZenBusiness has business formation services that can make starting and maintaining your business much easier so you can focus on making your company a success.
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Disclaimer: The content on this page is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or accounting advice. If you have specific questions about any of these topics, seek the counsel of a licensed professional.
Written by Team ZenBusiness
ZenBusiness has helped people start, run, and grow over 700,000 dream companies. The editorial team at ZenBusiness has over 20 years of collective small business publishing experience and is composed of business formation experts who are dedicated to empowering and educating entrepreneurs about owning a company.
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