Not every business has the luxury of a fully functioning HR department. But that doesn’t have to be a terminal disadvantage, as fitsmallbusiness.com discovered.
If you’re a small-business owner with no HR department, recruiting and advertising job openings yourself can be a real drain on time. For credibility with small business owners, who may be skeptical of traditional HR advice, fitsmallbusiness.com reached out to a business contact, found other business owners through HARO, and approached their own in-house startup experts, like co-Founder David Waring, who likes to use Indeed to find employees.
In terms of the ordering of the list, ideas that came up time and again found their natural spots near the top. As head compiler, staff writer Laura Handrick explains, “These are simply best practices in HR, but sound so much more doable when a business owner explains the recruiting idea in their own words to a peer.”
However high or low on the list, every small business looking to grow will find something, likely several things, on the list to help them get on their the way.
Top Three:
1. Incentivize Current Employees to Refer New Talent
Barry Maher, Founder, Barry Maher & Associates
As someone who’s consulted on hundreds of hires, my favorite tip for finding great employees is to motivate your current employees to do it for you. A bonus of some kind or a cash award for every prospect recommended who is then hired, and lasts a significant amount of time, say a year or six months, often works great. Your current employees know what it takes to do the job. They have a vested interest in bringing in people who will make the workload lighter, not heavier.
2. Contact Mutual Connections
Laura Gross, Founder, Scott Circle
I go to my personal network to find good employees. My friends, colleagues and former colleagues know me well and they know to recommend the right type of candidate who would be a good fit with my PR firm. I also use LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook if we are interviewing a candidate I don’t know to see if there are any mutual connections I can ask.
3. Contact Vocational & Trade Schools
Lauren Fairbanks, Owner, My Digital Remedy
I own a chain of iPhone and laptop repair shops called Digital Remedy Repair, and we’re always hiring tech-savvy phone and computer techs. Because most of our jobs are entry-level, we reach out to the local community technical colleges that offer IT and hardware courses. These students tend to be familiar with some of our more basic repairs, and have a good foundation for learning more complex repairs.
Here is the full list of the 29 most creative ways to find new employees.
