Recruiting Employees

Depending on the position you are trying to fill, there are many ways to find the right employees. Your network and the network of your network is often the best way identify quality candidates with the least cost and even effort. The bonus can be that you that their skills and experience can be readily verified.

Asking your existing employees to share the desired job description with former colleagues or even creating a status saying you’re hiring on social media accounts such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, is a free way to tap into the personal and professional networks of your employees. From fun videos made by your employees on Facebook to insightful articles posted to LinkedIn by members of management, social media platforms let you put out a variety of engaging, employer brand-building content for the best candidates to fall in love with. As an added incentive, you can offer signing bonuses to those in your organization who successfully refer a new employee to you.

Today, online recruiting has taken over from print advertising and there are literally hundreds of specialized sites that can assist you in your search for candidates. By placing ads on job websites such as: Monster, Indeed, Angelist, Scouted, and The Ladders, your position can be advertised to thousands of potential candidates. Specialized online communities and forums, such as Stackoverflow, can identify talented programming professionals online.

Other online recruiting sites could include college/university campus boards for new grads. Instructors of various business-related programs can also be invaluable shortcuts to employee recruitment. Tap into your local college or university’s cooperative training program. You get an employee with current skills and, while it’s a temporary staffing solution, you may be able to hire the person as a full-time employee when he or she has completed the program.

If you can get by without having a permanent employee fill the job, the various hire-a-student programs available can be a great employee recruitment solution. If you have the funds and lack the time for recruiting, a more expensive option is an employment agency (HeadHuntersDirectory.ca lists employment agencies by province or territory).

Employers have recognized that good candidates have employment options and while we think we are the ones assessing them, in fact they are likely assessing us at least as much. There are several ways that companies can increase interest in their enterprise and position. The most obvious is the job description. Rather than just job specs, you will generate more interest if are able to communicate your company’s personality and culture.

Candidates are taking a career risk when accepting a position with your enterprise. You can lower the perceived risk by providing ample evidence in your postings that you are a quality, stable and growing enterprise.

While it can be time consuming to screen candidates, you still want to be able to select from a large pool to identify those with a good fit with the position and your culture.

In addition to identifying talented employees, you need to also attract them to your enterprise. The following are some of the considerations to accomplish this goal.

1. Compensation – Find out what is the compensation structure for this position in the market or industry and try to match it. Startup enterprises often can’t compete with the salaries or benefits that larger businesses or government employers, so they need to be creative in their other offerings. Although providing equity to staff lowers your fixed costs and helps acquire & keep key staff engaged with the enterprise, you may need to preserve equity for funding sources such as family/friends, angel investors and venture capitalists. If you give away too much equity you may end up with a minority share of your own enterprise.
2. Lifestyle – This is important especially if you are hiring younger staff, who may be as interested in the quality of work/life balance that a position offers as they are about the amount of money they make. Access to reasonable housing, location, hiking and biking trails, restaurants, waterfront, etc. can make the difference between your company and another.
3. Culture – Providing an environment where the people love coming to work is key to retaining employees. It also increases productivity, while cutting down costs related to absenteeism and bad work behavior. This may include babysitting and childcare services, flexible hours and work at home options. If you believe you have or plan to have a unique positive culture and can describe it to prospective employees, culture can also be used to attract people to your enterprise.
4. Employee benefit program – It is interesting that even though this was a perk in the past, today it is viewed as a requirement. At the very least it must include dental and medical and eventually even life insurance coverage.
5. Stimulation – Most employees are looking for positions that are varied and stimulating. Opportunities for increasing responsibility, advancement and skill development can all be factored into joining your team.
6. Profit sharing program – This program is better than issuing shares, but still gives employees a stake in a company’s success. For businesses that look like they’re going somewhere, profit sharing programs can be a powerful inducement to people to come work for you instead of for someone else.
7. Signing bonus – While not always practical for a startup enterprise if you are trying to secure staff from another company or if competition is fierce, a signing bonus may tip the scales in your favour.
8. Making an Impact – Feeling that you’re doing something important that might make a difference to the world at large is a powerful motivator for many people, so if your startup enterprise is able to offer this, it’s a major leg up in your recruiting efforts.
9. Personal Development – Talented people are often ambitious and want to be able to learn the new skills that will further their careers. If your startup enterprise can’t offer in-house training and development programs, you can still offer to pay for the training your employees want elsewhere. They may be required to pay back the fees if they depart soon after the training.
10. Volunteer Time – Volunteering has many rewards and many people want to do it but can’t fit as much of it into their lives as they’d like to because of work. So, giving employees some time per week or month to volunteer can be a much-appreciated perk.
11. Casual Work Dress – Unlike big organizations that might have casual Fridays, as a small business you could offer the opportunity to dress more casually all year.
12. Transit Passes – If your startup enterprise is in a place where employees can commute to your premises by bus, train or subway, transit passes can be a much appreciated (and inexpensive) perk.
13. Food and Beverages – Studies have shown that >80% of employees indicated that having employer-provided healthy snack options were a major perk. Healthy snacks are perfect for allowing employees to leave their desk and have a quick bite and re-energize. Many people also love specialty coffees, so providing a decent coffee machine can be attractive to candidates.
14. Fitness – Employees of all ages like to stay fit. If you can’t offer an in-house fitness center, then offer your employees memberships at the local fitness center instead.

Bob Alsip

Over his long career Bob has held senior business development roles in both large corporations and SME in multiple industries including: medical devices and services, software development, environmental products & services and industrial & commercial products. After retirement he helped many organizations as both a consultant for his firm SoftAdvantage and
as a volunteer mentor. Bob is a graduate engineer.