Hiring good talent is tough, no matter what size of company you work for, but working for a small business can make it doubly so. You lose out on some of the name recognition and the perks that the bigger businesses get. Still, being a small and agile company has some perks of its own. If you want to hire the best talent for your company, here are some steps to get the right person through your door.

Post a great job listing

The first way to get top quality candidates through your door is to post a great job description. A well-done job description should have several attributes:

• Be open and descriptive of the position – Make sure your potential hires know about the company, and some of the types of projects they will be working on. Some potential hires might pass because they don’t know enough about the role, or that it’s a waste of time.
• Describe your work environment – Let them know what kind of place they will be working at. Is it an office, or warehouse, or shop?
• List all the skills and experience needed for the job – This is necessary to filter out the less qualified candidates. Try to differentiate between what is absolutely necessary and what skills will give an advantage to applicants.
• Outline the Day-to-Day
• Avoid bias in the description – try to make sure that your description is as neutral as possible. This is necessary to avoid scaring off employees, but also to avoid legal trouble.
• Make it sound exciting – Give the description some flair with interesting words. Make the applicant excited to work for you.
• Define success in the role – Tell prospective applicants what standard they will be held to when they begin working for you.

When you have checked over the description for any errors, post it on the web. Host it on job boards for small business jobs, list it on your website, and mention it on LinkedIn.

Advertise your benefits

If there are no good applicants, advertise your benefits and pay. Make sure that you offer something that is competitive or even above market rates. The idea is that with higher compensation higher quality of applicants will apply. Be aware though, that if you pay your new hire more than the people currently on your staff you might run into some issues and will probably have to raise your salaries across the board.

Ask for referrals

If you still aren’t getting good enough candidates, ask for some help! Offer a finders fee for any employee, friend, or peer if they can help find a candidate who sticks with the company. A referral is a great way to get someone who has already been partially vetted. They are usually higher quality applicants as well because the person who has been referred tends to reflect back on the person who referred them.

Network

In the same vein of getting a referral, you can network for candidates. Go to events, conferences, or parties and network with your peers. Who knows, maybe someone there just got laid off or is looking to leave their current job. These events are a good way to meet like-minded and qualified candidates.

Use a hiring firm

Finally, use a hiring firm to help find talent. For a fee, they will scour the web looking for people qualified to work for you. They also do some preliminary interviews so they can already make sure that the person is qualified for the job.

Go freelance

If you are still having problems getting the right person for the job, you could hire a freelancer. If there is a specific job that needs to be done, a well-reviewed freelancer can take care of it, often for cheaper than a fully paid staff member could. However, if this task is something that needs to be constantly done, then your freelancer may end up being more expensive than you bargained for. If they do a good job and it is a pleasure to work with them, maybe you could make inroads to making them a full or part-time employee.

It can be tough to attract top talent at a small business, but by following these steps you can ensure that the quality you get will be higher than before.

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