Recruiting with Online Job Listings

If you're looking for good employees, online recruiting can be a small business owner's best friend. Once limited largely to local newspaper classifieds and window signs, help-wanted ads have shifted to the Web in a big way. Online recruiting is one of many places where small business has embraced Internet-based solutions with gusto. The reasons are clear:

1. Placing employment ads online is quick, easy and effective.
2. You can write your ad, post it and have your first responses literally within hours at some sites.
3. You can find specialized talent for industry-specific jobs by advertising on industry-specific sites.
4. You can spread your recruitment net across any area you like – from just you neighborhood or town, to the entire country, or world for that matter.
5. You can cut the time it takes to fill a position by days if not weeks.

Place ads on the major Internet job sites

A few job sites let employers post ads for free, while the best and more widely-used sites charge a fee.
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Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, WetFeet.com and Yahoo! Hot Jobs are all good places for small businesses to post job openings. Monster's fees vary by location; for example, posting a job ad in New Hampshire for 60 days is $295, while New York City is $395. You can also buy in bulk at a discount. Careerbuilder.com charges $389 for 30 days, and also offers bulk prices. Craigslist, an online bulletin board that targets cities all over the U.S., is another popular place to post job ads; you can post for free in most cities. For more job posting opportunities, RecruitersNetwork lets you search their directory of career sites, and Weddle’s offers a guidebook that analyzes various job sites.

Find targeted help via industry-specific job sites

Just about every industry – from high tech to food service – has a job site to help its members find positions, so you can target your ad to the most qualified candidates.
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Looking for an IT professional? Try Tech-Engine.com. If you're seeking a writer, editor, advertising sales person, publishing expert or other media professional Mediabistro.com has become the best place to recruit online. Search for other job sites by industry at onrec.com. Also, look through Business.com's directories for more industry-specific employment sites, such as airline personnel jobs and residential real estate jobs.

Get LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a networking site that helps its 6 million members get connected. You can use the service to find qualified job candidates in your area.
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Post a job on LinkedIn for $95, or you can join (it's free), link up with your friends and colleagues, and use your network to scout for candidates. You can search for members based on keywords or criteria such as industry, title, or location.

Search resumes online

Instead of advertising for job candidates to come to you, with resume database sites you search for resumes that fit your qualifications and contact the candidates yourself.
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Some of the job search sites that let you post ads also have resume databases: Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, both of which charge for database access, let you search by such categories as amount of education, years of experience, and job title. Or try a free service like ResumeSpider.com.

Place an online classified ad

Most traditional newspapers now have Web editions as well and offer online help-wanted classifieds in addition to print ads.
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Find an online newspaper in the area you want to recruit from; ThePaperboy.com lists more than 6,000 online newspapers by state. The article Jazzy Job Ads Attract Lots of Responses on Inc.com has good tips on how to write an ad that attracts the best candidates.

Make your own Web site job-seeker friendly

Put a link to your job listings in a prominent spot on your home page. Keep the listings on your site complete and up to date.
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For more details on creating an applicant-friendly site, check out the article “Is Your Company Web Site Turning Candidates Away?” on Inc.com.

• You can also attract qualified employees through your own Web site. Make sure it gives clear descriptions of open positions, provides simple instructions for applying and offers an easy way for the candidate to send a resume.
• To create a compelling ad, experts suggest that instead of focusing on having (i.e., what experience applicants must have), you should focus on doing and becoming — what the applicants will do on the job and what they will become.
• Have fun with your ads. If you were a candidate and you saw the ad you're about to post, would you apply — or yawn?
• Some job sites, such as CareerBuilder.com, let you "test drive" their resume database so you can see the kinds of results you'll get before you shell out the cash.