Employee Recruitment Techniques

Use these tactics to find the best employees for your business
By Linda Formichelli, Freelance Writer If you're doing everything from answering the phones to charting the future course of your business, chances are you could use some good employees. Recruiting the best employees helps you:

1. Grow your business by having some employees devoted to single functions, like sales or technical support
2. Save money. After all, efficient employees get more done in less time!
3. Keep your customers happy by having a good employee always available to take care of their needs.

 

Recruit online

Taking your hunt for employees online will help you reach more people in less time, and is also great for attracting computer-savvy applicants.
Try: Place ads on online career sites Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com and in the jobs section of Craigslist. At RecruitersNetwork, search the directory of career sites.

Use ye olde fashioned classified ads

Many job searchers, especially for less technical positions, still read the classified want ads in their local newspapers and industry trade journals.
Try: To find local newspapers for the area you're recruiting in, visit ThePaperboy.com, which lists more than 6,000 online newspapers by state. Yahoo! and TradePub.com offer lists of trade magazines sorted by topic.

Go back to school

Universities and trade schools churn out skilled grads who are now looking for work.
Try: Visit Yahoo's directory of colleges and universities, U101 College Search or Trade Schools Directory to find schools in your area. Contact the schools' placement offices to find out how you can list your openings, participate in career fairs or interview for upcoming grads on campus.

Hire a temp

Hiring a temporary employee from a temp agency lets you get extra help only when you need it — and also lets you test out employees before hiring them full-time.
Try: Popular temp agencies include Kelly Services and Adecco, both of which can supply temp employees for everything from office services to health care. If you're looking for help with construction, warehousing, transportation or manufacturing, try Labor Ready. Need a creative type, like a copywriter, graphic designer or marketing professional? Try Aquent.

Be in good form

When you interview and hire an employee, you'll need a full arsenal of forms and checklists. And when you need to reject an applicant, you should send him or her a nice letter. Being rejected is no fun, so why not soften the blow? (Also, you never know if you'll want to contact the applicant again in the future, so it pays to be nice.)
Try: CCH Toolbox's section for Recruiting & Hiring Forms provides forms for employer reference checks, educational record checks and more. The same site offers downloadable sample rejection letters.

• Before paying to post an ad on a job site, check out the current job postings and resumes to make sure that the type of people you're looking to hire use the site.
• Be creative. Fun, descriptive job ads pull a better response than dry ones.
• Test out different job recruiting techniques to find the ones that work best for you. You may have more luck with online recruiting or with your newspaper classifieds. Why spend money when you don't have to?
• Treat job applicants with respect. You wouldn't like to be left hanging, so don't do it to anyone else.