What You Really Need to Recruit and Hire Top Quality Employees

Hiring employees for your small business: The Facts

SMB meaning: SMBs are small businesses (0-100 employees) to midsize businesses (100-999 employees)

No matter how long your biz has been around, the pandemic will have shifted your hiring processes.

Whether you’re getting used to hiring remotely or want to take advantage of increased candidate pools, now is the ultimate time to take a step back and rethink the ways you attract, vet and onboard new employees.

But before you dive deep into creating a killer recruitment strategy, let’s take a minute to go through some of the hard facts of hiring as an SMB.

When would hiring a new employee be a smart move for a small business?

If you’re considering taking on a new employee—congrats!  

New employees = business growth = success! 👏

But before taking the plunge, you need to make sure you have your ducks in a row and that you’re doing this for the right reasons.

Here are a few examples of what to think about before you write that awesome job description:

• Can you afford it? Do your financials show strong growth over time? Does your cashflow forecast look good?
• Do you really need an extra pair of hands? Have you checked-in with your employees to find out if they need support? Are your current employees clocking extra overtime?
• Are you missing out on new clients? Could an extra employee help free some time for growth plans?
• Do you have new services that need new skills? Are you missing a skillset?
  

If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, it could definitely be time to hire a new superstar for your growing team.

What is the average cost of hiring an employee for a small business?

The cost of a new hire varies from business to business—but there are some awesome sums you can do to figure out how hiring could roll for you.

You’ll need to consider the costs of:

• Hiring team and HR costs
• Recruitment marketing and job advertising fees
• Background checks
• Onboarding and training costs
• Salary and benefits

Once you’ve figured out the cost of hiring, take a look out how much revenue that employee will make for your biz. The difference between the two numbers is what you’re looking to find.

Check out our must-read ebook on 6 Simple Ways to Calculate the ROI on Your ATS for some quick sums to help figure out your cost per hire.

How to find quality new hires in the new normal

It’s time to say goodbye (at least temporarily) to candidate searches of old, because—and this is crucial—the way candidates look for jobs has changed too.

In other words, post-2020 you need to cover new ground to find out where those unicorn candidates are lurking. 🦄

• Go remote: Since the pandemic hit, remote is the new awesome. Candidates know it, the competition knows it, and you know it too—right? To really smash this one outta the park, you need to hit the online job boards and get your remote hiring process streamlined yesterday.‍
• Post on diversity job boards: Inclusion is everything post-2020, so it’s time to get to know the best diversity job boards and make sure you hit them on every recruitment round.‍
• Test out virtual hiring events: Getting potential candidates through the door is a great way to get to know them before they apply—but as Covid taught us, that’s not always possible. Instead, invest in a virtual event platform to host memorable online get-togethers and show potential candidates you got this hiring thing down.

How to make your small business hiring process more agile than ever

Use smart tools to boost your hiring credentials

If you really want to make your hiring processes sing (and trust us, you do), an ATS is the only answer. 🎶

This dedicated hiring tool allows you to automate time-consuming tasks, connect with thousands of potential candidates at the click of a button, and even create reports to show what’s working (and what isn’t) so you can improve and grow at every turn.

Power BI forerunner, P3, is just one example of a company that knows a smart tool is the best way to build a resilient hiring process—and the pandemic proved it.

“[During the pandemic] we actually increased the size of our team,” says Kellan Danielson, President and COO at P3.

As an SMB with zero HR bods, Kellan and CEO Rob Collie are the hiring team. But with a million and one other hats to wear, they couldn’t do it without the help of an ATS.

“We don't have an HR department—we’re it. Before we invested in an ATS, we would either be bogged down in hiring, or we would forget to contact candidates for days at a time,” he says.

How you can do it too: Figure out how a sparkly new ATS could work for you with this free download: Applicant Tracking System Checklist .  

Focus on inclusion

The 2020 #BlackLivesMatter protests shone a light on the importance of inclusion—and diversity in the workplace quickly became a mainstream topic.

As research continues to prove diversity’s positive impact on business growth, more SMBs are focusing on creating long-lasting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and building inclusive company cultures.

But it’s not always simple.  

Brittany Ryan, Founder at Pointed Copywriting, explains why the spotlight needs to remain firmly on DEI: “Brands should openly address systemic racism with the same weight and gravity as the coronavirus crisis. But the truth is, most brands don’t speak up because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing.”

For Brittany, the answer is to create a strong vision and stay true to it.

“We’re a remote team but we know that doesn’t automatically mean we’re a diverse team. When new positions open up, we aim to stay true to our values and focus on finding candidates who bring a genuine culture add,” she says.

She and her 5-person team use Breezy to make better hires, faster.

How you can do it too: Treat diversity as you would any other part of your business and create tangible goals you and your teams can aim towards. Even better, commit to learning more about diversity hiring and sign up to our Inclusive Recruiting Mini-Course with DEI expert Stacey Gordon, MBA.

Create a people-first hiring process

With a massive 63% of job seekers saying they’d reject a job offer because of a bad candidate experience, it pays to build a human-centric employer brand.

Laura Mazzullo, owner of New York based boutique recruitment firm, East Side Staffing, says, “In 2020, talent acquisition (TA) professionals recognized they were working on lean, understaffed teams and were facing real burn-out. 2020 was a challenging year and many in TA were victims of lay-offs due to the pandemic.”

Laura believes that small business hiring in 2020+ is all about people.

How you can do it too: Commit to people-first hiring by improving the wellbeing of your hiring teams and creating a great candidate experience for potential hires.

As hiring gets smarter, talent pros are discovering that people-first hiring wins every time.

Whether it’s looking for new ways to connect with potential candidates or boost your company culture via diversity hiring, the opportunities to take small business hiring to the next level are everywhere—and the right tool can give you the time and space you need to grow.

It’s not easy to bounce back from something like 2020, but the more challenges you overcome, the more agile your business will become.