November 22, 2021

Top Recruitment Strategies for Small Businesses

Sam Caucci

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Small businesses need to compete with large companies, not only for business but also when looking to acquire top talent. With that being said, the scales are not always tipped in favor of larger organizations. In fact, some candidates prefer to work for a small business.

Small businesses are able to overcome any disadvantages by using recruiting techniques and software to help them during their hiring process as any other brand does. These are some strategies small businesses can use to help them during their recruitment efforts.

Look for passion, not just skills.

While skills and talent can be an asset to your company, they could be quite useless without passion. It’s important to make sure that a candidate is passionate about showing up to work for you each day. For example, is it clear that they did some pre-interview research about you and your organization to help inform themselves before meeting with you? Do they seem enthusiastic about being there? 

This passion can help you evaluate whether or not a potential employee really wants to come on board for your company, or if they are just looking to get any old job. 

Use referrals to your advantage.

You can usually find new employees just by contacting people you already know and have relationships with. Call up some of your business colleagues, or try posting out an update on LinkedIn to let your contacts know that you have some hiring needs.

You can also ask your existing employees if they know anyone they would like to refer who might be a good fit for the position. Referrals can serve as a great way to add another level of screening potential candidates before interviewing them. If your trusted employees recommend a previous colleague or friend who has great work experience, this gives you more confidence knowing this applicant will do good work if hired. On the other hand, hiring a stranger means there is less certainty about their work ethic and if they would fit in with the team. 

One helpful way to encourage employees to submit referrals is to incentivize it with a referral bonus program. If one of your employees refers to a candidate who eventually gets hired, you can give the employee a reward like a gift card, vacation days or monetary compensation. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but it can help make employees more willing or more excited to recommend people that they know will be an asset to the company. It also tends to pay off, as research shows that hiring through referrals can save companies in fees that would otherwise be spent on recruiters and job postings. 

Help attract more candidates by making it super easy for them to apply.

All small business owners understand that if they want to attract customers they need to have a website or storefront that looks well put together and inviting. The same goes when you are trying to attract job seekers. Make sure that your company’s website and social media platforms have information that highlights your business’ history and that you have a careers page where candidates can find job openings and other information about what it’s like to work for your company. 

You can use recruiting solutions that can help your job postings to your careers page, where qualified candidates can easily apply and find out more information without them needing to go searching for it. Then, you can set up some custom forms and applications that can help you better get to know each applicant and their skills and interests, so you can prioritize the most promising ones. 

Post job openings on niche-related job sites.

It might be easiest to post your open positions on job websites like LinkedIn, Monster or Indeed, but as a small business your posting could get lost in the fray. It can be difficult to stand out on these popular job websites when you are a small business, so it could be worth looking into posting on niche job sites. 

Niche job boards can offer a great channel for small businesses to connect with their ideal candidates. They also offer three main benefits:

  • Candidates on niche job boards have already expressed their interest in your niche.
  • Niche job boards will typically allow employers to customize and highlight strengths more, since they were developed for a specific sector or job type. 
  • Niche job sites also typically have less listings and fewer big brands posting on them, this helps give small businesses a chance to stand out. 

There are hundreds of niche job boards out there online and finding the perfect one for your small business will all depend on your industry and your recruiting strategy. Using a niche job board doesn’t mean you need to limit yourself. You could still use other, more traditional methods in conjunction with it.

Write better job descriptions.

Although writing better job descriptions doesn’t count as its own strategy, making this subtle change can help you improve your recruiting success quickly. Finding high-quality candidates means you will need to write high-quality job descriptions that will attract them to your company. Job boards have thousands of postings, and it’s not too easy to stand out from the rest. However, it is if you write a great job description that catches all of the right attention. 

Good job descriptions are detailed yet clear. They describe what the job entails and what they want in a potential candidate. It’s good to keep your job description straight to the point so applicants are comfortable reading the whole thing. It might be a good idea to ask your team to help write the job description so it will be as accurate as possible. 

Small businesses have their hands full competing against larger companies. But, by using the right hiring solutions they can start to level the playing field when it comes to hiring the right employees. If you stay persistent and follow the tips found in this article, then you’ll be able to build a great team of employees in no time. 

Level up your hiring and employee onboarding process with 1Huddle. 

At 1Huddle, we offer cloud-based employee gamification software that can easily adapt to any employee recruitment or gamification strategy you want to implement at your workplace. You can customize your content for a seamless experience and all of your employees will be able to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. You can use our gamification platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your gamification strategy next. 

Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your workforce? Request a demo today.

Sam Caucci, Founder & CEO at 1Huddle

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