As a small business owner, you might be accustomed to adopting the role of Marketing Manager, Customer Support, IT Services and HR Manager all at once.
When it comes to expanding your business, hiring new people can be intimidating and overwhelming if you have never done it before – so here are some tools to help you efficiently sift through applications.
1. Advertising the Position
Where you should advertise this new position ultimately depends on the role itself.
While it might be tempting to “go big” and post an ad on all the common jobseeker sites (like Seek, Indeed and Jora), this approach is likely to clog your inbox with hundreds of applications – only a fraction of which are remotely suitable or qualified for the job.
By considering which platforms are most appropriate for the type of role (for instance, LinkedIn is a fantastic recruitment tool for corporate businesses), you can refine your search right from the get-go.
It’s also worth educating yourself on Google for Jobs Australia, as this platform is a game-changer.
As SIXGUN’s Senior Digital Marketing Specialist Jeremy Hoskins puts it: “With over 11 million job-related searches in Australia via Google already, knowing how to tap into Google for Jobs when it launches is essential for recruiters and HR professionals looking to get ahead.”
Just like all online content, your job ad must be SEO-friendly if you want anyone to see it. Use an SEO guide for recruiters to ensure your job ad is optimised for search engines, and also make sure it is optimised for mobile, because the amount of jobseekers applying for roles via mobile device is rapidly rising.
Whatever position you are hiring for, chances are there are already social media groups and communities consisting of eligible candidates who are looking for work. Try searching for the job title and city name on Facebook to see if any groups appear.
Now granted, many of these groups are global communities (which can make things trickier) but posting an ad in these forums can drastically streamline the recruitment process, as it ensures that you only receive applications from industry experts.
And finally, it never hurts to get your existing employees to share their company experiences online. By turning your current staff into ambassadors for your business, you can ensure that jobseekers perceive your company as a good employer.
Remember – most applicants will research your company as much as your company researches them. Recruitment is a two-way street!
If the candidate finds that several current or former employees have written favourable online reviews of what it’s like to work for your company, naturally they will be more eager for the job.
There are plenty of non-financial ways to reward and motivate your employees for various behaviours; including their assistance in the promotion of your business and work culture.
2. The Application Process
Once you’ve got your pool of applicants, it’s time to start working through them, assessing them, contacting them for interviews, checking references, and so on.
Zoom’s rise to prominence was undoubtedly accelerated by a sudden and urgent need for remote alternatives to business communications in 2020. However, it is now widely recognised as an efficient and convenient solution to conduct job interviews, conference calls and other meetings virtually, which often saves time.
Applicant tracking systems like Greenhouse use automated features and functions to evaluate potential candidates more efficiently.
Meanwhile, there is a plethora of both background check and reference check tools available for free online, which speed up the process of obtaining all the necessary information from a long list of applicants. This allows businesses to assess each applicant’s eligibility for the role much faster and easier than was previously possible.
There is even an online recruitment tool called Clearbit Connect, which finds contextual information like an applicant’s contact details, social media accounts and current employer information, and sends all this information directly to your inbox, in a neatly compiled email.
3. The Onboarding & Debrief Process
Not only are online resources like Google Forms and SurveyMonkey extremely useful for acquiring some quick, upfront information from each applicant in the initial questioning stage, but it is also an excellent way to receive honest feedback from job applicants about how they found the recruitment process itself – whether they got the job or not.
If you plan to recruit new team members in the future, it is worth creating a feedback form to send job applicants, as the responses will help you improve your company’s own recruitment process going forward.
As for the lucky candidate who does manage to secure the position, software like Organimi and Kissflow can make the first couple of weeks exponentially easier for a new employee.
These (and a whole host of other cloud-based HR tools available online) give the new starter access to every employee’s work-related information and contact details, the company’s policies and procedures, and various other useful information about the role and the company in general. This saves them from asking a million questions, which is an aspect of starting a new job that none of us particularly enjoy going through.
Use these tools in a way that best suits your own personal process and approach to business
There’s no “one size fits all” approach to recruitment. What works for another business might not necessarily work for you. Also, adding an outsider to your team is always a gamble – you never really know someone’s suitability for a role until they’ve already adopted it. However, with the online recruitment tools we’ve discussed in this article, you can:
- Drastically refine your search to only consist of qualified and eligible candidates
- Acquire all the information necessary to form a reasonable judgment of character, work ethic and other factors important to the position
- Ensure your newest employee has everything they need to get off to a winning start, and excel in the role
- Gain insights into how to further streamline the recruitment process for next time
So… ready to expand your team?
“The opinions expressed by BizWitty Contributors are their own, not those of BizCover and should not be relied upon in place of appropriate professional advice. Please read our full disclaimer."
