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How Small Businesses Can Hire Great Employees Using a Recruiting Solution

5 min read

Small businesses have to compete with large companies on many fronts, including recruiting and hiring great employees. Big businesses have the luxury of employing internal recruiters or hiring outsourced headhunters. They’re also able to attract candidates with the allure of career advancement, stock options and other benefits.

That being said, many people prefer to work for a small business. Employees work closely together, take on different responsibilities and see the impact their hard work has on the company.

Small businesses can overcome their disadvantages by using recruiting software to hire just like the world’s biggest brands do. In this guide, you’ll learn how your small business can recruit, interview and hire great employees with the help of a quality solution.

Entice candidates and make it easy for them to apply

Every business owner knows their website needs to attract customers. But you should also have a careers section devoted to attracting job seekers. Your company’s website should have an “About Us” page that highlights your business’s history and a careers page that showcases what it’s like to work for your company.

You can then use your recruiting solution to create job listings and post them to your careers page. The software will have a widget that adapts to your company’s branding so your listings match the look and feel of your entire website. You’ll also be able to push them out to a variety of online job boards so you can reach more candidates.

Once a person sees how great it is to work for your company and that you’re hiring, they can apply directly from your website. You can create a custom application with questions that help you understand each candidate’s skills and interest in your company so you can prioritize the best ones.

Recruit the best

Attracting great candidates is only half the battle. You also need to go out and find talented people you can convince to join your team. LinkedIn and other professional networking sites are a great asset for finding people with the skills and background you need.

Using your recruiting system, you can create email templates for communicating with candidates so you don’t have to retype the same messages. When a candidate responds to an email with a resume attached, it will instantly be imported into your hiring software.

Every person who applies to your company will have their own profile stored in your solution. Instead of searching your inbox for a certain message or resume, all your candidate information will be stored in a single place.

Keep your team involved

Once you’ve enticed and recruited great applicants, you then need to bring them in for interviews. Each candidate should speak with multiple people so they’ll meet the team they could end up working with and you’ll have different opinions to consider.

Start by sharing the candidate profiles with your hiring team. Each interviewer will be able to prepare by getting familiar with the skills and experience of the people they’ll meet with.

You can then schedule interviews and candidate assessments in your recruiting and hiring solution. Email requests and calendar invites are often ignored or forgotten but your software will automatically send reminders so you don’t have to. After each interview, team members can complete their assessment through email and it will be imported into the hiring solution.

The best recruiting and hiring software allows you to manage the interview process in one place. You’ll always know how your candidates are progressing through the hiring process and what each team member’s impression of them is.

Interview with a goal in mind

Conducting interviews with a specific goal in mind is how you find the right person for the job. Start by coming up with objectives for the role and the qualifications a person will need to have to accomplish these objectives. You can then ask questions that help you understand if the candidate has what you’re looking for.

However, many small businesses need employees who are willing to step outside their role and handle other tasks that pop up. If this is the case in your business, make flexibility and openness other qualifications you seek out.

Make sure your hiring team interviews candidates with the same goal in mind. You can ask them their take on each candidate’s qualifications as it relates to the role in the post-interview assessments you send out.

Make a great offer and hire a great employee

Once you find your ideal candidate, the last thing you need to do is convince them to join your team. Most of the time they’ll be ready to say yes but other times it will depend on the salary you offer to pay them.

You should determine what you’re willing to pay when coming up with the skills and experience needed to satisfy the role objectives. You can ask candidates what their desired salary is when you create custom application questions in your recruiting and hiring solution. You can then filter out the ones who expect too much and proceed with the others who are within your range.

When you make an offer, some candidates will try to negotiate and others will accept. Don’t make a low offer and expect the candidate to counter. You never want your employees questioning if they’re fairly compensated. Have a maximum number in mind, make a fair offer and be ready for some candidates to negotiate.

Recruiting and hiring software levels the playing field

Small businesses already have a hard enough time competing with large companies over customers. Fortunately they can use a modern recruiting and hiring system to level the playing field when it comes to finding quality employees. Implement the right solution and follow the tips outlined in this guide and your small business will have no problem building a team of great employees.

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