Small Business Owners probably spend around 40% of their time on tasks that aren’t generating income such as Hiring.
Small businesses especially, aren’t in any position to have time or money wasted.
The cost of a single vacancy in your company could be very costly and for small businesses where there isn’t much cross training, the cost is even more of an impact.
A study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found hiring an employee in a company with 0-500 people costs an average of $7,645.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM’s) Human Capital Benchmarking report, the average cost-per-hire is $4,129, while the average time it takes to fill a given position is 42 days.
Job postings are a good resource for some companies and certain positions. However, a majority of the time an influx of unqualified individuals resumes flood your inbox and you waste hours sifting through them.
The cost of posting a job advertisement varies depending on which resource you are using. Job boards such as LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Monster, and Indeed could cost between $250 and $450.00 for 30 or 60 days.
Before you spend more money on job ads and time-sucking tasks, try a few of these techniques.
Employee Referrals - Ask your current employees who they know that they would recommend to come and work there too. They have a network of people they can tap into for you that you don’t have access to. A study by Jobvite provided some interesting stats on employee referrals:
The average employee could have 150 contacts on social media networks. If you have 100 employees that’s around 15,000 contacts (and possible candidates).Individuals hired from a referral begin their position quicker than those found through job boards and career sites (after 29 days compared with 39 days from job boards and 55 through career sites).Referral hires have greater job satisfaction and stay longer at companies. 46% stay over 1 year, 45% over 2 years and 47% over 3 years.
Word of Mouth - Mention to your friends, family, and neighbors that you are hiring. If you are involved in any networking groups or meetups, spread the word. We all usually know someone who is either unemployed or looking for another job.
Social Media - Of course, your business should have a Facebook Page and/or a Twitter Account. How will anyone know who you are if you aren’t using the newest word of mouth resources? I’m referring to the no-cost social media tools. There’s no cost to start a Facebook Page or Twitter Account for your business. Once you build your audience, spread the word that you are hiring. Also, there are many groups on Facebook for jobs in certain locations where you can announce you are hiring for free and reach an audience who may not see your ads otherwise. You can do a search for the location you are in and jobs on Facebook and you will see the groups listed. Another great place on Facebook to get the word out that you are hiring are the Buy and Sell or Buy and Trade Groups. You can have someone in the company take on these tasks for you to free up your time.
LinkedIn - Although this does also fall into the Social Media category, it’s a different target market. Again, your company should have a LinkedIn page where you can engage with your customers and get your brand out there. LinkedIn has a ton of groups that you can post your opportunities to for free and you can get the word out to your connections by posting status updates.
Colleges, Universities, Trade Schools - Educational Institutions are eager for their students to land a job as quickly as possible after they graduate. Many have career boards where you can post your openings for free and target students about to graduate as well as alumni. Some even allow you to have access to the database of resumes you can search. This is a great resource if you are able to hire for an entry-level position and train them. Another benefit is that students are on the cutting edge of technology and could be a great asset to keeping your small business up to date on social media and other technology that would be helpful in growing your business. Students are always looking for ways to get experience so hiring them as an intern is a great way to get them trained, learn your business and then hire them as a full-time employee.
Using Freelance Websites - Freelance websites are an inexpensive way to hire someone to assist you with short-term projects. You can hire a freelancer to recruit for you. Many of them have access to LinkedIn and resume databases where they can search for the types of individuals you are looking to hire and send you the resumes. A freelancer can also reach out to the individuals and pre-screen them for you. One of the popular freelance websites is Upwork. You can search for a recruiter by location and price range you are looking to pay. This route can definitely be a game changer for you to save you time and money when needing to hire someone.
Engaging a professional recruiting or headhunting service - This is not a free resource, however, with many companies, it’s free unless you hire someone from them. Also, the time you save having a professional do all of the time-consuming tasks of finding people, weeding them out and screening them allows you to focus on your income-generating tasks. Also, they can help fill the position quicker resulting in fewer vacancy costs. It’s an investment well worth it if you can find the right recruiting professional to work with.