MightyRecruiterIf you are like many other small businesses, you probably don’t have a hiring plan set up to help you bring on new talent when times are good. The recent recession may have put the idea firmly on the back burner for a while, but many industries are seeing improvement and it may be time to expand your business. How do you go about finding the right talent The recession has only increased the available workforce, so finding the best candidates could take longer than ever. Consider the following 10 tips to help you build the best recruiting strategy to help your business bring in the greatest talent possible in the shortest amount of time.
1. Don’t Wait
One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make in the recruitment department is waiting until they have a clear need for new hires until they create a plan. At this point, your need could become so great that you are tempted to hire the first candidate who looks good on paper. This can and often does result in a poor fit for both the worker and company, and only brings you back to square one in the recruitment process after you have wasted time and resources on hiring and training.
2. Know Your Needs
As a small business, it is essential that you have a firm grasp on what your true needs are in the moment, and what they will be in the near and distant future. While you obviously aren’t a fortune teller, you can look to industry and company indicators to see just how many people you will need to bring on to help your company reach demand and expand your client base.
3. Be Realistic
The days have passed when banks would approve short-term loans to help businesses cover the initial costs of an expanded payroll. Today, if you can’t be sure that you have the money on had to cover a new recruit, you are probably not in the right place to bring on anyone new.
4. Wait for the Right Time
While it is important to be prepared to meet your expanding needs with the best recruiting strategy, you can do more harm than good by hiring too early. Like many things in business, your timing needs to be exact to avoid wasting money on unneeded payroll without waiting so long your current employees are experiencing burnout.
5. Account for the Costs of Recruitment
While you could probably find a few decent hires using some of the cheap or free channels available for sourcing new candidates, this is not the time to be frugal. If you want to find the best candidates for the job, you should be willing to pay for what you want, and that includes conducting a broad search with proper firms.
6. Choose a Grown-up
Times have changed, and it is no longer the best recruiting strategy to bring on greenies for more intensive positions. While new recruits will have to learn all your trade secrets and systems, they should be competent in all the other fundamentals of the job.
7. Thin the Pool
These days, you are likely to get hundreds of responses for a single job, so you need to thin the herd in an effective and concise way to streamline the process. One way to do this is to set up a written Q&A to be included along with the application. This is a great way to test candidates’ industry knowledge, critical thinking skills, and communication abilities.
8. Make Interviews Count
A new employee can literally make or break a company, so it is not over the top to have an intensive interview process. Make sure you have well-reasoned, open ended questions that can really tell you about how a candidate will work within your company, with their coworkers and what they will bring to the table. The best recruiting strategy should include at least two interviews.
9. Check References Religiously
A former employer is really the best resource you have to learn what a candidate would be like as an employee. Take the time to make reference checks, and only bring on individuals who get glowing reviews from their previous companies. It’s not worth the risk to take on subpar employees.
10. Consider Contract Workers
While it’s somewhat unconventional, it’s becoming more common to hire contract workers on a temp-to-hire basis. If workers can prove their worth as part of the team, renew their contracts or bring them on as permanent employees.
Finding a new recruit is never easy, but it doesn’t have to be the worst experience of your life either. Use the additional resources available here at Mighty Recruiter to implement the best recruiting strategy and help improve your chances of making the best hires possible.