Featured In: Aepiphanni Business Consulting | 6 Techniques to Make Your Small Business Hiring More Effective, Extraordinary Business
May 29, 2018
6 Techniques to Make Your Small Business Hiring More Effective | Extraordinary Business
By Fatima Mansoor
The human resource is considered the resource to create all other resources. And for smaller businesses, the stakes for good hiring are higher because each new employee is a bigger part of their business. For example, adding a new member to a 10-people company means increasing 10% of the workforce. That’s the impact of the new hire for a small business. So you need to be as smart about your hiring as possible. Let’s look at 6 hiring techniques that will make your small business hiring more effective.
1. Measure Passion
Talent and skills will always remain the primary concern when hiring. But you should also consider how passionate the candidates are about coming to work for you. For instance, did they do some research before the interview to learn about your business? How enthusiastic did they look during the interview?
Author and leadership development consultant Kristi Hedges writes about how passion in the workplace is a positive force. While you should continue to reignite passion at your workplace, you should start gauging it with potential hires from their first interview. Passion is what can mean the difference between you remaining a small company and turning into a big name.
2. Leverage Existing Relationships
Sometimes small business owners tend to marginalize this approach. They become too occupied with “uncovering new areas.” So don’t forget that you can often find great employees simply by contacting people you already know. A simple post on LinkedIn about your hiring needs can do the trick as your connections will be in a good position to refer the right people.
3. Provide Incentives to Current Employees
Just like business colleagues, your current employees can also be instrumental in finding new employees. A good way to utilize this channel is offering your team members cash rewards for referring quality candidates that shine during their probationary period.
When you advertise the incentive, make sure the dollar amount is “after tax.” You don’t want them to think they’re getting $500 only to find out they a part of that will go to Uncle Sam!
4. Create a “Shadow” Program
This is where you ask a candidate to come in and shadow an employee at your business for a day. This will give potential hires a sense of the day-to-day operations at your company. Moreover, they will get a good idea of how to function with your current staff.
In case you’re hiring virtual employees of freelancers, set up a video meeting with your relevant staff members so they can discuss the duties and responsibilities with the potential hires.
5. Use Social Media
Businesses should always meet their audience at their platform of choice – this doesn’t just mean consumers, but potential employees as well. When it comes to hiring, social media is the medium of choice for attracting top talent. Kelly Ehlers, Founder and President of social media agency Ideas That Evoke, writes about how smart hiring begins with social media.
Your first stop should be LinkedIn. Complement that by looking into Facebook for any inappropriate postings by the candidates you found on LinkedIn. Follow that up on Twitter by scanning for things like offensive tweets.
6. Consider Hiring Older People
Older people bring a certain class of experience to your organization that you simply can’t expect form the the younger lot. It’s common for business owners to be overwhelmed by the search for the “young guns” so to speak. While you can certainly continue with that, it’s best to complement your staff by having some older, more experienced and accountable people to mentor the young team members.
Richard Eisenberg, Managing Editor of Next Avenue writes about how age-smart business owners see the value of older workers. They also have higher attention to detail and are generally more organized.
Which of the above you have been doing? Hiring the right people is always a priority for the best in business. So keep these tips in mind to make your hiring more effective and continue to build your business into a much better one with each new hire.
Fatima Mansoor is a writer at Aepiphanni, a small business operations and strategy consultancy that exists to help small business owners CREATE | DESIGN | BUILD extraordinary businesses. She specializes in business & entrepreneurship, digital marketing, and health & fitness. Her focus is on creating compelling web content for small and medium businesses form diverse industries. She mostly writes for entrepreneurs and marketing agencies across the US, Australia and UK.
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