A proactive approach to recruitment for small business 

In recent years, we’ve seen major shifts in how companies hire, who they hire, and what will give them the best chance at securing the highest quality talent. As a hands-on recruitment partner, we’ve made practical suggestions to help you reframe your hiring process: 

• Hiring for potential; 
• Generating “recruitment leads” with social media; and, 
• Speeding up your hiring process with mobile recruitment tools to increase your chances of a successful hire. 

These proactive solutions remain key to your success in 2023. We’ve gone into a little more detail below about how you can turn strategies like these into real goals for your business, to help you hire quicker, better, and in less time. 

So, what’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘out’ for small business hiring? 

Recruitment trends to capitalise on in 2023

In: Prioritising skills over experience

What does “5 years of experience” mean? Does it mean they are 3 years more qualified than someone with 2 years of experience? Does it mean they have more talent? More ability? Does it mean that they are ready to start the job immediately upon hire?

What more and more organisations are realising is that it doesn’t necessarily mean any of those things. 

Experience is not exactly the same as talent, ability, or capability. It is not proof of strength, on its own. There are even situations where it can be a disadvantage, as they may not be agile enough to adjust to your new needs.

Skills and potential, on the other hand, are universal. Maybe the person has less experience, but they demonstrate that they can learn quickly and that they’ll be able to competently do the job. It’s also good to consider that all new hires – including those with 5, 10, or 20 years experience – take weeks if not months of training and handover to adjust anyway. 

Finding people with the right skills is the new way to hire, especially when the labour market is tight. 

Out: Posting generic job ads

People are no longer desperate for work. The best talent is already employed and, if anything, they are trying to find an organisation that speaks to them, one that makes them truly consider leaving their current job and finding a home somewhere new.

An engaging job advertisement is your most important tool to attract new candidates. You need your job ad to be written in a way that is unique to your business, and you need it to excite people to work with you, kind of like you are trying to sell them a product. 

Although copying and pasting a generic job description from the internet will save you time, it’s not going to attract highly motivated, skilled candidates to your role. You can learn to optimise your job ads like a pro, or you can get expert advice on how to market your vacancies most effectively from one of our recruitment consultants. 

As a small business, you can offer unique qualities and benefits to your new team members. If you offer a close-knit team or a flexible culture, candidates want to know that! Pay transparency is important, but marketing your uniqueness will go a long way to entice candidates who resonate with who you are. 

In: Extensive onboarding, training, and handover 

Recruitment doesn’t stop at the hire. Extensive onboarding and training is the best way to make sure your new hire not only thrives at the job, but stays. 

Along with training and handover, the first few days with your new hire should be spent sharing your business’s story, and inducting them into your culture so that they feel supported professionally and socially. It goes a long way to build trust and lines of communication that will help your new team member to feel like they belong, and like they are empowered to be highly productive in their new role. 

Try to support your new hire with handover notes that outline key processes and procedures, what to do if things go wrong, who to ask for certain kinds of information. Plan ahead to spend a lot of time with them particularly in the first week, and ongoing to check in and ensure they feel comfortable in their first few months. 

Here’s a guide to onboarding your new hire to help you. 

Out: Targeting only active job seekers

When recruiting, there are two groups of candidates to consider: 

• Active candidates, who are actively looking at job boards for new roles, making applications and scheduling interviews; and, 
• Passive candidates, who are not actively seeking a new job, but could be interested in the right opportunity if they come across it. They might browse job boards occasionally, but they’re not actively applying for roles. 

Your unique job ads will help you grab the attention of the active candidates, but it helps to have a plan for attracting passive candidates, too, particularly when the labour market is so tight. 

Reaching out to passive candidates directly can be very effective, particularly when you can follow it up with really engaging information about the job and the benefits of working with your business. 

If this kind of outreach is a little bit time-intensive for your team, we do offer a digital headhunting service that can be used in conjunction with our standard recruitment service to help you expedite the process. Combined, the package helps you to pool together active and passive candidates, and make even better hiring decisions on account of having more options. 

In: Maintaining relationships with ex-employees

Sometimes, the talent you need is the talent you had. We’re in an era where people leave companies for things like more money or more excitement all the time, even if they generally like their job. This isn’t the same market as a few decades ago, where employees were loyal or felt like they couldn’t experiment and try new things.

This change in attitude can be beneficial to your business: it means that an employee that leaves your organisation may be more than willing to come back, and that person may be exactly what you need. Often, hiring “boomerang employees” as we affectionately call them, can reduce the time taken to onboard and train, as they may remember a lot of your processes and procedures from days gone by. 

We highly recommend maintaining positive relationships with all of your ex employees, as you never know when one of them will be open to returning. 

Out: Ghosting unsuccessful candidates

We live in a connected world, with online reviews, social media, and so much more. It is not only bad ethics to forget about unsuccessful candidates – it can be harmful to your business and your hiring efforts. 

Those “ghosted” candidates now have a voice they can use to discourage people from joining your team. 

It’s best practice to contact each and every unsuccessful candidate to grant them the closure of knowing which of their opportunities are still on the table. A simple, empathetic email can show immense respect and create a more positive experience for the candidate, which reflects well on your business. It could also leave the door open for future hires – ask talented candidates who happen to be unsuccessful if you can add them to a mailing list for future opportunities with your team! 

In: Speeding up your time to hire

Imagine that you are a highly-skilled candidate who is in high demand in the current market. You find a job that appeals to you and you apply. More than a week passes before you are invited for your first interview. More than a week passes before the second interview. You are offered the job, and told that you’ll start a few weeks later. By now, you’ve waited more than a month to see if you even have a chance at this one job. 

What would that make you think about this organisation?

You might think they are disorganized, or that the position is not a priority. 

And what might happen in that time?

You’ll be scheduling other interviews, and fielding other job offers. You’ll become less passionate about working for the first organisation. You may even decide to stay at your current job because things aren’t taking off. 

Speeding up the time to hire is critical for businesses that want to stay ahead of their competition. At Recruit Shop, we ensure a fast and efficient process that gets results. We have the resources to spend time keeping your candidates engaged and well-informed as you make your decision. If you want to discuss how we can help you improve your recruitment process without breaking the bank, you can request a callback here. 

Out: Trying to do it all yourself, if you’re struggling 

Recruit Shop works closely with small businesses like yours to achieve real results. If you want to capitalise on these recruitment trends but you’re not sure where to start, we can work with you to create a robust recruitment campaign that meets your needs. 

You can reach out to our team today on +61 1300 901 721 or send an email to info@recruitshop.com.au with information about your vacancy and the kind of candidate you’re seeking. Alternatively, you can request a callback from one of our recruitment specialists to chat about your goals in detail.