Whether you have one employee or 50, the success of your business relies on the quality of your staff. Most of the business owners I mentor through Business Blueprint want ultimately to have the kind of business where they can feel comfortable to take time away once in a while. This is only achievable if they have great people working for them who they can trust.
Over the years I’ve hired a number of employees and I’ve learned from experience that the process of finding great staff can be made much easier if you just know where to look.
What’s wrong with Seek?
For most of the business owners I speak to, finding a new employee means posting an ad on a job board like Seek.com. Seek is the most popular online job board in Australia with millions of people searching and using it every day.
If you’ve ever used Seek as an employer you’re probably familiar with the process, which goes something like this… You spend hours creating a carefully worded job ad and pay to post it on the site. A couple of weeks later you spend more time sifting through a mountain of resumes to find the handful who are actually qualified for the job, interview them and make an offer, only to be told that your perfect candidate has just accepted a job elsewhere. You’re then faced with the choice of offering the job to a less than perfect candidate or starting all over again.
I’m not saying it isn’t possible to find great staff on Seek, but the overpopulation of candidates, competition for the best talent and the fact it doesn’t give you access to passive job seekers who might not be actively looking for work make it well worth considering the alternatives.
Here are 5 other places you can find great staff without using Seek.
- Social media
Tools like Facebook and LinkedIn are the ideal secret weapons in yoursearch for great staff. LinkedIn lets you search profiles by industry and occupation and once you’ve identified a possible candidate, you can view their skills and experience on their profile, and get in touch with them directly. You can also use social media to advertise when you’re hiring. A Tweet or Facebook post can spread quickly through social sharing and bring you a flood of enquiries from talented applicants at absolutely no cost to you. - Internal promotion
This is a great way to fill a more senior role in your business and it comes down to identifying talent that’s already in your organisation who may want to learn new skills, or who are open to being mentored to get up to speed on a certain area. - Referrals from current staff
Word of mouth is a fantastic way to find great staff, and who would know the type of person who would fit your business better than the people you already have working for you? When you’re looking to hire, it makes sense to ask your current employees for recommendations or referrals. - Target relevant groups, educational institutions and industry bodies
Think for a moment about your ideal employee and where you could find them. It could be industry specific websites, social media sites or Facebook groups, or you can try speaking to education institutions that are looking to place their graduates into specific careers. - Through your website
Even if you aren’t actively hiring, setting up a work for us page on your site where people can send in their details lets you build up a database of potential candidates who are interested in working for you and who you can contact directly when you are looking to hire.
Next time you’re hiring, don’t limit yourself to posting ads on Seek.com. By taking advantage of the many other options out there you can find great staff quickly, and increase your chances of hiring the kind of high quality, trustworthy employees who will help you take your business into the future.
Hiring great staff is essential but your employees are only part of the bigger picture. If you’re looking for ways to streamline your business and get more balance in your life, I can introduce you to plenty of tools and ideas that can help you do just that at my next free New Rules of Business event.
