Finding the right employees and contractors for your small business can be tough.
Sometimes it seems almost impossible to find quality people to fill the vacancies.
Fortunately, qualified and hard-working employees are out there. The trick is
knowing where to find them.
Want Ads
Local "help wanted" advertising is usually the first stop for small business owners in
search of new employees and independent contractors. There is nothing mystical about these
ads — you provide a short description of the job opening to be listed in your local
paper for a minimal, but set fee.
However, small business owners can make want ads more effective by targeting other key
publications in addition to local classifieds. Trade and industry publications are a great
resource for locating new employees because they are read almost exclusively by people who
are currently employed in your field.
Employment and Temp Agencies
Next to the want ads, employment agencies have been the traditional "go-to" source for
finding new employees. Employment agencies provide employers with a pre-screened pool of
prospective applicants. Temp agencies do the same thing, but with the assumption that the
employer is interested in hiring someone for a very limited time period.
Depending on the type of position you need to fill, a temp agency might be just the ticket.
Businesses frequently use temp agencies to hire clerical and other entry-level positions on a
trial basis. If you aren’t pleased with the person’s performance, simply let them go at the
term. Otherwise, pay a fee to the temp agency and bring the employee on full-time.
Headhunters
Headhunters can help take the work out of locating prospective employee candidates. For a fee
(of course) they will initiate and carry out a search for qualified applicants, usually to fill
high-end, executive-level openings.
Job Web Sites
The advent of the Internet has opened the door to new ways of locating and hiring employees.
Several job Web sites (CareerBuilder, Monster, Yahoo, etc.) have sprung up in recent years to
meet the increasing demand for Web-based employment services.
These Web sites have a number of advantages over their more traditional counterparts,
including their ability to reach a larger applicant pool from a broader geographic area. While
a broader applicant pool can also create some new challenges for employers, your odds of
finding the best possible candidates go up as the size of the applicant pool rises.
Company Web Sites
Many employers overlook the fact that they already have a great tool for finding new employees
and independent contractors — their own Web site. Even if you list your job openings on
job Web sites or other more traditional listing venues, it's important to also post your
openings on your own Web site. Why? Because a posting on your own Web site is not subject to
the same space constraints as postings on job boards. That means you'll have the freedom to
list everything potential candidates need to know about the position, including your company's
history and a detailed job description. In the end, posting this information on your Web site
will save you time because it will weed out unqualified candidates before your mailbox is
flooded with resumes from people who aren't right for the position.
Small Business Advice & Tips
