13 Best Ways to Find Employees for Your Business
We all know the importance of having good employees. And we know it can be challenging and time-consuming to find employees.
So what can you do, as a business owner, to find top staff for your business? Where are they? How can you attract and find them? What can you do during the recruitment and hiring process?
In this post, we’ll help you answer these questions.
1. Build your business identity
Having a clear business identity not only lets potential candidates figure out whether your business is a good match for them, but also strengthens your reputation.
You can show your business identity via your About Us page and in job ads. State your values, mission statement, and expectations. This way you can attract like-minded candidates.
2. Create a Careers page on your business website
Besides crafting your About Us page, a Careers page can support your business identity tremendously and spread the word that you’re hiring. You can freely express what you’re looking for on your business website without any restrictions from other job sites.
Online job-seekers can easily come across your website when they look for jobs online. If your website is well-crafted and detailed, people can get to know you better, find out who you are, and what you do. They may be interested and apply to your company right away.
3. Have an employee referral program
Your current employees may have friends, family, or acquaintances in their circle that match your job openings. Some people are extremely careful when recommending candidates to your business, so you have a higher chance of finding higher-quality employees.
This way to find employees is quick, easy, and inexpensive. Some businesses have an employee referral program in which current employees are offered rewards for introducing new qualified employees.
4. Ask your customers for referrals
If your business has a mailing list, you can send out emails to share that you’re hiring and ask your customers to refer back to their friends, family, or acquaintances.
Offering small rewards such as mugs, hats, vouchers can incentivize your customers to introduce qualified candidates to your business. You can give them free products or services to keep them with your business longer.
5. Refine your job description
Before going online or outside to seek potential employees, you need a refined job description.
It should include all the information about the position and what you expect from the candidates. And it should be crafted to suit the target employees.
For more information on how to write job descriptions, check out: How To Write a Job Description for Any Position [Template Included]
6. Use job board websites
These websites are one of the most popular places for job hunters and recruiters. Check out ShiftGig, JobsOnTheMenu, and Coffee Jobs Board for positions regarding service industries, and Indeed for other job titles.
Once you’ve posted a job ad on these sites, you’ll receive a large number of applications, so be prepared to process them all. You can create a separate email for hiring only to avoid a mess in your business email.
Job seekers today are actively browsing for jobs on social media sites, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. You can simply post your job openings on those pages and if employees are actively looking, they’ll get in touch right away.
Websites such as Facebook even allow you to customize your target audience to suit your business needs, so you can post job ads and target potential candidates by location, skills, age, experience, etc.
You can join subreddits such as r/hiring, r/jobs, r/smallbusinesses in order to spread the word about your hiring needs.
8. Use signs and flyers
You may think this is an old-fashioned method, but it’s still effective. There might be employees who can’t get much access to digital devices, or older workers who aren’t familiar with the technological advances.
Signs and flyers are also effective because potential candidates aren’t bombarded with all the information on their phones. Your job postings can sink to the bottom of the news feed in minutes.
You can stick signs on your company doors, or pin flyers on public bulletin boards to catch passers-by’s attention.
9. Partner with local universities and colleges
With the large demand for employment, both full-time and part-time opportunities, colleges and universities are wonderful places to look for potential candidates.
Many universities and colleges have career centers that help students find jobs. They may have a list of potential companies and job opportunities, and they’ll help promote new jobs to alumni and students.
List out the local colleges and universities. Then, contact their career centers to see how you can partner with them and get your job ads promoted.
Besides career centers, these institutions also host career fairs. These days are when you can reach talented candidates. So try to find out information about these fairs and how to attend them as employers.
10. Partner with non-profits
You can seek employees via non-profits that support immigrants, veterans, etc. such as Wounded Warrior Project. These workers often work hard to build a better life for themselves.
Besides, these non-profit organizations often provide training and conduct background checks beforehand, so you can certainly find some hard-working and reliable people here.
11. Host a career day at your business
You can contact the career centers of educational institutions to invite students and alumni to come to your business career day. In other words, you host your own career day.
This day is to let potential candidates have a tour of your company, learn about your company culture and work environment, and ask questions.
To avoid interruption to your business operation, you can close your business for a few hours, or conduct workshops and meetings in a private room.
12. Know how to spot talents
Once you’ve attracted a number of applications from candidates, it’s time to spot the right people for your business. This skill, of course, needs some practice.
But you can learn to spot behaviors and traits that identify the individuals as someone who’s trustworthy and suitable for the job. Some traits you should look for include flexibility, autonomy, perseverance, etc.
You should ask questions regarding your company culture to see if the candidate is a good fit. Of course, if an employee doesn’t show flexibility in their job interviews, it doesn’t mean they can’t do the job well. Those skills and traits can be strengthened later on. But it’s still an aspect worth considering before hiring anyone officially.
13. Hire with an open mind
Many employers often assume experienced people are better for their business. Others may follow the adage “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and only look for young staff. Neither is the ultimate hiring solution.
You should look at employees’ ability and attitude altogether, rather than strictly following assumptions. Having an open mind while hiring may help you notice candidates that have more potential than they appear to show.
Let’s start hiring the best people!
The above tips for hiring new employees aren’t too difficult to implement. But you might be surprised that not many employers try them out. By applying smart hiring strategies, you’re one step above the masses.
Just have a closer look at what you’re doing right now and how many ways we’ve mentioned above you can apply. You’ll soon see more qualified applications flooding in.
