Essential Guide to Hiring for your Small Business

As much as it is exciting to recruit talents for your small business – to be honest, hiring for your small business is proof that your business is growing and it has the capacity and resources to bring in new staff members to the fold – one can’t deny that it is a tough process. The big companies have it easy. There are set systems and practices to recruit new potential staff members and don’t forget a larger financial capacity.

As a small business, your productivity matters, you can’t afford to waste resources and time in searching for potential employees, yet, your hiring process must help you get the best talents for your small business.

If you’re looking to expand your team, below are some recruiting strategies you can put in place to help you hire the best hands for your small business. These strategies will help you in writing job descriptions, conducting interviews, and training new employees:

First things first: build an employer brand

Employer brand is simply a term used to describe a company’s reputation as a place to work. In other words, it is the perception a potential employee has about the company’s reputation. It is what the company communicates and promotes as its identity to job seekers.

An employer brand is critical to your business cause it helps to attract the right talents and retain them, reduces hiring and marketing costs per hire, improves employees’ engagement and productivity. Here are five tips to help you create an employer brand for your small business:

• Analyse your companys’ culture
• Understand the expectations of the generation of the modern job seekers
• Share your companys’ story and use personalised storytelling
• Ask your employees to be the company’s ambassadors
• Leverage social media
• Share videos focused on employees’ interactions

Use social media platforms

Since its inception, social media platforms have been used by businesses as a recruitment tool. One great social media platform that can make your hiring process is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is said to be one of the largest networking platforms in the world and the most trusted network and business community. It is the meeting point for job seekers and businesses.

According to a recent article on LinkedIn’s statistics for job seekers, “numerous companies already use LinkedIn to hire top talent. LinkedIn has more than 14 million job openings. However, businesses use LinkedIn for many other reasons, such as promoting their brand, reaching the target audience, creating new network connections, and much more.”

Other social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can also be used to advertise your vacant positions and help you reach your target potential candidates.

Get your interviewing skills and techniques right

An interview is a vital component of the hiring process and an opportunity to get to learn about a future employee. It helps you decide whether the applicant is a good fit for the position you’re looking to fill and the company generally. As a business owner and an employer, you should be able to conduct a proper and effective interview by asking the right questions. Adequate planning and preparation, building rapport, steering the conversations along productive lines, developing information from answers, the art of listening are some techniques to a successful interview.

Carry others along

Hiring the right people for your small business to help it grow and achieve its purposes might seem a tiring task. You would rather leave it to the recruitment agencies to do the hard work, but unfortunately, you don’t have the financial capacity to do that. Why not ask for help from your staff? Your current staff was once potential candidates too and they understand the company’s culture. It is advisable to carry them along in the recruitment process to help you find your best hires.

Make use of established relationships

Another effective strategy you can use to get the best candidates for your small business is by reaching out to people you already have relationships with. These are people you’ve done business with, met at networking events, or other business-oriented people you rapport with on your social media platforms. Contact them and inform them of your hiring needs. You never can tell, they might have the right candidate your small business needs.

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