How to hire the best talent

For a small company, the quality of its employees has a huge influence on its success. But when the pressure is on to hire someone quickly (as is often the case in a small business), mistakes and poor choices are easily made.

When the stakes are high, you need to be sure your new recruits are passionate, engaged and committed to the success of the business.

Fortunately, we have some top tips so you can find and hire the best talent for your company.

Be clear.

Take time to really think through your job offer. Displaying an ambiguous or incorrect job advert will only attract the wrong type of candidate. Clearly define the employee’s duties and be enthusiastic about your company, without overselling it. Be truthful and realistic. Setting unrealistic expectations at this stage will only lead to issues further down the line.

Your website is a powerful tool. Use it to define and portray what your company stands for. This will allow potential employees to understand you more as a business and decide if they would be a good fit.

Take note.

As the saying goes – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Follow your competitors on social media, see what they’re doing, what works for them, what doesn’t. Do they even use social? Are all the job details contained on their site, or do they use job boards? Review their job descriptions – what do they look for in a new employee? It might help you identify skills you hadn’t thought of looking for.

Review what you learn from analysing them, take the best parts and apply it to your business.

Be different.

Where large organisations benefit from having big budgets and a well known brand when recruiting, your small business can benefit from being more flexible and doing things differently. Be unique. Small businesses can often offer different (more appealing) benefits like flexible working, duvet days, pool tables or a beer fridge. This is the opportunity for you to really sell the culture of your business.

You may not have the largest budget, but that shouldn’t prevent you from hiring the best talent. The person you do hire needs to be a good fit for the company culture, so it’s vital that you always keep this in mind in the selection process.

Skeletons in the closet.

It might sound obviously, but you need to be sure you’re not hiring someone who is going to bring disruption and issues to your workplace.

Employment screening offers an objective approach to help you manage the risks when hiring people. Rather than relying on “gut feel” or what’s printed on the candidate’s CV, it gives you clear methods by which to verify stated facts and check the background of a prospective employee.

That way you’ll know if you’re about to hire someone who’s a serial Post-It note thief.

Cast your net.

Recruitment agencies are awesome at finding you the best talent, particularly if you’re looking to hire for a particularly niche role. They have access to large talent pools of candidates looking for that next step, have great knowledge of the market and can really work to sell your company to prospective clients.

But why would you restrict yourself to just one agency? After all, if you were looking to buy a new house, you wouldn’t simply go to one estate agent, would you? You’d use Rightmove or Zoopla and view all the properties on the market, so you know your getting the best house you possibly can for your money.

The same applies to recruitment. Why use just one agency and only have access to their candidates, when there are tools available to open up the whole market, so you can find and hire the best talent, faster?


To find out more and see how it works, book a (no-obligation) demo of Hiring Hub today.