Your business doors have been open for exactly 107 days. And business is s-l-o-w. It’s a small service-oriented business that requires some outside selling of services to doctors and other healthcare professionals. Unfortunately, what you thought would “sell itself,” isn’t. You’ve invested a lot in the business–especially time and money. You know you’ve got a sound business model and don’t want to give up yet, but you’re finding you’re not cut out to be a salesperson. How do you find a good employee with the skill set you’re lacking? How can you find the perfect person to help you grow your business?
Here are three ways small businesses find their best employees:
- Utilizing social media
Enlisting social media and your loyal followers is as simple as posting a status update to your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Out of your thousand or so friends and followers, there’s a good chance four or five of them will share your post, exposing your job opening to four or five thousand additional potential employees, and from them, even more shares and so on… Quick and easy–and free! And if your job sounds appealing enough, you may even snag an outstanding new employee who wasn’t even thinking of a job change.
Besides posting your job on these social media outlets, you can proactively search on LinkedIn for individuals who have the experience and qualifications you’re looking for. This requires a premium account, but is well worth it if you an find top talent.
If you’re especially creative, grab a video camera and go live with your job opening, letting potential employees know why they would absolutely love working for you. You can do this live on Facebook or upload a higher quality video to YouTube.
Social media is an amazing tool you’ll definitely need to utilize if you want to reach thousands of job searchers quickly.
- Creating job posts that stand out
Creating a job post that stands out is vital. Your job post title should be catchy, followed by an introduction to hook potential employees and a paragraph telling your company’s story. Next sell your job opening (list up to three essential requirements of the job, information on job hours, salary, special perks, educational opportunities, etc.) so potential employees know why they would want to work for you and your company or possibly even relocate to work for you over someone else.
With an eye-catching job post all ready to go, it’s time to place it on multiple job boards. There are several places to post–some are free sites, some cost money, and some are a combination of both.
Here are some of the most popular sites: Indeed, Glassdoor, Google for Jobs, university career centers, state and local job service sites, rival employers (headhunters), Flexjobs, Craigslist, Monster, and CareerBuilder. If you only want to post in a few key sites, ask around and find out where some of the best employees found their employers.
- Vetting possible employees
There’s nothing worse than setting aside valuable work time to interview potential employees, only to find they are totally unqualified for the position you’re needing to fill. As important as resumes are, if not done well, they won’t always give you a good indication of whether or not future hires will be a good fit. That’s why it’s important to put job applicants through a vetting process.
The vetting process includes several stages:
Evaluating resumes, cover letters, and portfolios. Focus on whether or not the applicant has the required skills to handle the functional aspects of the job. A great way to assess skill level is to send a list of technical questions for qualified applicants to complete within 24-48 hours. If they aren’t up to speed, it’s easy to eliminate them from the potential candidate list.
Next, focus on the traits they possess. When asked, 350 people described positive traits of some of the best new hires they knew; what emerged was an incredible list of 25 traits of a great hire. If you want a new employee to become your top employee, choose to interview applicants who have the required skill sets along with several of these traits. So how will you know if applicants possess these traits? Some traits will manifest themselves in the cover letter. Other traits will emerge as you require applicants who pass the initial resume review to answer and return four or five written questions within 24-48 hours.
Interviewing potential candidates. When interviewing potential candidates, don’t confuse exuberance with competence. You don’t need to hire the most vocal interviewee, but instead, look for someone who is confident in their abilities, yet humble enough to know their limitations and honestly express that.
The interview process is a great time to to assess the personality of the candidate and his or her career goals; it’s a great time to determine if an applicant is a good fit for your company. You may want to start with a short phone interview to save everyone from wasting a lot of time if it isn’t a good fit.
During the interview, you should be able to get a good feel for whether or not the candidate has been honest regarding their skills and what they’re really like. Ask questions that will help you get a good picture of both. After the interview, don’t wait too long to evaluate the candidate. Make preliminary decisions within a few minutes after the interview to narrow down your choice. Subsequent interviews may be necessary before you make a final decision.
Hiring the best candidate. Once you make your decision and offer the job to the best candidate, there are still areas that need to be vetted: background checks need to be completed, drug test results received, proof of certifications obtained, and even trial periods successfully completed.
You need your small business to grow, yet you don’t have deep pockets. But you can still get some of the best talent out there if you throw wide nets to snag the best job candidate: utilize free social media sites to post openings and attract potential hires; create job posts that stand out (and then place them on multiple job boards); and finally, thoroughly vet applicants to ensure the most qualified candidate and best fit for your company is the person whom you hire.
