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Tools to Tap into the Local Talent Pool: Recruiting for Small to Medium Sized Businesses

As your business grows, your capacity to meet the demands of your customers must grow with it. One of the hardest things about expanding your business is finding the right people to facilitate your company’s growth.

The hiring process is different for small and medium-sized businesses than it is for large businesses. The main difference is that you don’t have the kind of time or revenue to dedicate to hiring personnel that big businesses do. You have to approach the recruitment and hiring process differently to remain on time and within budget. Continue reading to learn about tools that can help you tap into the local talent pool.

Job Fair

Job fairs are a great opportunity for hiring managers and job seekers alike. For recruiters, its a chance to take in a high volume of resumes and meet people on the spot. For job seekers, it’s an opportunity to fill out as many applications as possible in hopes of landing that dream job. It’s kind of like speed dating for the job market.

Holding a job fair of your own is an excellent recruiting tool, but you can also set up a kiosk at a job fair being held at a local school or mall. The main goal is to get as many qualified applicants as possible to apply for the open positions in your company.

If you do decide to participate in a job fair being held by someone else, then you may not have the time to perform on-the-spot interviews, but you can still schedule some for the future. With GoodTime interview scheduling software, applicants can actually schedule their own interviews, which greatly speeds up the hiring process.

Social Media

It should come as no surprise that social media is a powerful recruiting tool. For millennials and Gen Zers, it’s like a whole universe unto itself, and if you want the best candidates, then you have to tap into their universe. Recruiting on social media is one of the best shots you have at reeling in the most qualified candidates.

LinkedIn has become one of the best recruiting tools there is. It’s a social media site for professionals and recruiters and has burgeoned into a premier site where recruiters and prospective hires meet.

If you set your team of recruiters free on social media, then they just may bring in more fish than your net can hold. With peer-to-peer (P2P) texting technology like Peerly, each of your recruiters can send thousands of messages per day to potential new hires. You can also use Peerly to collect data through questions and surveys. Check out peerly.com to see what else their P2P texting technology can do for your company.

Online Job Boards

Advertising is still one of the best ways to lure in new candidates for your open positions. One of the drawbacks of advertising is the cost and the possibly disappointing return on investment.

When you place an ad in the classifieds or online, there is no way to weed out who applies for the job. You may end up spending more time sifting through unqualified candidates than you spend talking to the best job candidates. One way to limit applications from candidates who don’t meet your standards is to use online job boards to advertise your job openings.

Indeed and other online job boards are an excellent way to advertise an opening in your company. Job seekers create a profile and the job boards show them jobs that are the best fit for their experience and qualifications. When you post an opening on Indeed, you simply list the qualifications you require, and that will cut down the number of applications you get from applicants who don’t meet your qualifications.