How to Hire Employees for a Small Business? 7 Top Tips

Every small business comes to a point when they can’t maintain their growth unless they bring in some new talent. This step can be difficult for small business owners, because it requires relinquishing some delicate responsibilities into unknown hands.

Just like every other aspect of running a small business, though, recruitment needs your full attention. Without the same resources as a big corporation, the task of finding that perfect fit can start to feel like an impossible one.

If you struggle to find a small business candidate by using corporate recruitment strategies, it might be time for a revitalized and personalized approach. Read on for some valuable tips on how to locate and attract someone who is just as excited to help build your company as you are.

Best Ways to Hire Employees for a Small Business

1. Craft a Competitive Offer

Workers are drawn to small businesses for the missions, but they stay because they feel taken care of. A generous compensation package is likely the best way to show prospective hires that you acknowledge the skills they can bring to the table and that you want them to be happy there long-term.

2. Strategize Onboarding

Often, HR teams are so focused on recruitment that they sometimes fail to put effort into onboarding their new hires. However, the reality is that workers won’t stay at small businesses if they feel their training was rushed, disorganized or chaotic.

5 Actionable Tips to Hire Employees for a Small Business

1. Write a Clear Job Description

If you’ve ever been on the job hunt before, you probably feel like you’ve seen everything there is to see when it comes to job descriptions. Too often, they read like carbon copies of one another, reiterating the same bullet-point list of desired qualities and qualifications.

Who doesn’t want workers who take the initiative and know-how to use Microsoft Office, right?

However, what differentiates small businesses from large ones is their needs. Since small businesses are often forced to be a little more frugal when making it through each quarter, their company needs should reflect that.

Aside from what you are looking for, you should also take time in the job description to fully explain what makes your business special.

Workers find themselves drawn to small businesses because of the missions they uphold and the high-quality work they embody. Highlight these aspects so that the person on the other side of the job posting gets a thorough sense of what you are all about and wants to work with you by the time they finish reading.

2. Develop a Smart Recruitment Plan

Recruitment is one area of the small business hiring process where the age-old adage “work smarter, not harder” certainly holds.

While many big companies approach recruitment by simply maximizing their reach and drawing in sheer numbers of candidates, small businesses have to think through their recruiting a little more strategically. Sure, a large applicant pool is nice, but it’s much more important for them to pull in the right candidate.

If something about the workplace culture or team communication is even slightly off in a small business, the negative ramifications can be massive. Since small businesses usually operate with fewer resources at their immediate disposal and a far smaller crew, it’s crucial to recruit individuals who are up for the challenge.

To contact these candidates, you and your HR group should be very intentional about where you post the job listing. Hunt around to see if you can put together a list of smaller, specialized job boards that get a lot of traffic from workers you think would make for an ideal fit.

For instance, there are job boards that are exclusively designed to help individuals network who have small business career goals in mind. The same goes for non-profits, artist communities, and mission-centered organizations.

Tapping into your pre-existing business networks and promoting internally can also be effective ways for small businesses to bring strong candidates into positions who will thrive in the workplace and want to stay for a long time.

3. Read the Resumes Thoroughly

Have you ever hit the submit button on a job application and had that sinking feeling that your cover letter was just sent into an internet void, never to be read again?

It’s probably because most big companies use resume sorting software so that they only have to read a handful of applications picked out for them by an algorithm. All the recruiter has to do is tell the software a few keywords to hunt for, and they never give the rest of the pile another thought.

Take the time to read each application as thoroughly as possible to get a good sense of who the individual applicants really are. Then weigh your options and decide who you would like to bring in for an interview.

So much reading might seem overly time-consuming at the moment, but you’ll be glad you were so careful when that new hire you decided to take a chance on completely surprises you.

4. Make an Interview Game Plan

For the same reasons as the job description, it’s important to make the interview a unique experience for the candidate.

The job interview is equally about the candidate getting to know you as you getting to know the candidate. This means that you and your HR team have to put the best foot forward, as well.

Try to make it more conversational instead of asking the same tired questions at every interview. The best way to do this is to brush up on the candidate’s background and use that knowledge to prepare some specific questions that show you are genuinely interested in getting to know them.

As long as you are maintaining an air of professionalism and organization, feel free to discard the pre-written interview agenda preferred by larger corporations in favor of something more personal. An interview for a small business can be almost like a test kitchen, where both parties get to see how they get along and communicate.

Also, you should try to give the interviewee a sense of where you see them fitting into the company long-term and how you’d like to help them grow. Potential employees like small businesses because the close-knit atmosphere makes them ideal places to learn new skills and the opportunity to wear a bunch of different professional development work hats.

Conclusion

Small businesses often don’t have the time or resources to spare on a lengthy recruiting campaign. They need to find workers who are a good fit, fast.

If you’re a small business that needs to revamp its recruitment practices, then get in touch with ScoutLogic. You’ll be glad you took the extra step to find employees you love to work alongside.

Our top-tier background check service will ensure you only hire the most reputable applicants out there!

Learn more about how we will support your small business and get your free assessment now!

David Garcia

David Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Scout Logic, is an industry leader in the bulk background check world. With his strategic acumen and expertise in the HR sphere, specifically in hiring, recruiting, legal compliance, background checks, and resume screening, he’s an invaluable asset and consultant.

David's counsel extends across the boards of ScoutLogic, YipitData, and Supplier.io, drawing from his impactful stints on the boards of Infutor and Avetta. With an extensive 25-year journey, he champions unparalleled B2B commercial leadership within data & analytics, significantly shaping the HR landscape.