Recruiting new employees is an important part of running a business. You want to make sure you have the right team on board to keep things moving along smoothly and successfully. But how do you recruit the right team, especially when you are working with a tight budget? We have some great recruiting ideas for you!
1. Incentivize Your Team To Help Find Their New Co-workers
Let your team know that you are looking to hire and encourage them to reach out to their networks. If you can swing it, offering a referral bonus will help motivate them to get the word out! Not only will this help boost team morale, but good people know good people. Your employees will be excited to work with their friends or folks already in their networks. If they refer someone who ends up being hired, they will get a little boost in their paycheck, and you will have assistance spreading the word about the available positions, with a positive workplace recommendation to boot!
2. Lean Into Your Online Presence
If someone visits your website, will they know you are hiring? Make sure that you are making it easy for interested applicants to apply, do not make them search high and low for the application link! Put it right there on the front page. Make sure you are advertising the positions in other places as well. Listservs are your best friend! Localized and neighborhood listservs, topical listservs, and email lists exist explicitly to share job opportunities with people who want to be hired. It may take some time to find these listservs, so do your research and network with the appropriate people.
3. Advertise Intentionally
It does cost money to post jobs on most recruitment sites, but that does not mean it is not worth it! It just means that instead of posting on every single site, you should choose two to three that make the most sense based on what kind of company you run and what the nature of the position is. To help keep you organised use an applicant tracking system for recruiting to keep applicant details in one place. Compare sites to see how much it costs to post job listings and go from there.
If certain qualifications are needed it should be targeted to vocational or university programs with those degrees. It is likely that those programs may also have job fairs that they would be enthusiastic about you participating in, because they want to get their students employed as much as you want new employees!
Outsourcing this process can help you get the best possible candidates for your budget. Recruitment agencies already have resources and connections for professional search to help them find the right people for the job, saving you time and effort in the process. Your job will be to provide clear job descriptions and specifications, as well as a budget for the recruitment process.
4. Craft A Smart Application
Make sure that you are not wasting staff time looking over pages and pages of applications for no good reason. The application should be succinct, think quality over quantity. You do not need to read multi-page cover letters for someone that does not even have the relevant experience. Create an application that covers the essentials and hits the highlights.
You can also ask people to include their references and do a quick background check as part of the application, so you have that on hand if you choose to move forward with a candidate. You might be wondering, “how much does a background check cost?”, if you’re worried about staying within budget. Fortunately, you only need to pay for the ones you run, so wait until you have your top candidates picked.
It can be a good idea to create a timeframe for how long you will accept applications for, and after that time review your options so you do not continue to pay for the listing to stay up when you have viable candidates who have already submitted.
5. Hire From Within
The best place to find people for mid or upper-level positions is from the pool you already have! Many times, the best candidate is right under your nose, one of your incredible employees who will excel at a new opportunity. Of course, then you have to replace them, but finding entry level team members is often an easier endeavor.
With these ideas in mind, you can hire effectively, no matter your recruiting budget.
*collaborative post