Even though the Great Recession is far back in our rearview mirror, the recovery has been painfully slow, particularly for small businesses. Small business owners have not gone on a hiring spree, in part, because they have learned how to get along without some of the positions they eliminated during the recession.\u00a0 Also, because the recovery has been so slow, owners have been mistrustful of the sluggish economy and uncertain that it would support a larger payroll.\u00a0 As a result, many small business owners are only now considering bringing on new people.\u00a0 But having made the decision to hire, they now complain, \u201cI can\u2019t find people with the skill sets I need.\u201d\u00a0 If that\u2019s your complaint too, please continue reading below for some thoughts about hiring wisely.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime spent on hiring is time well spent.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ~ Robert Half<\/em><\/p>\n Consider how much time and effort professional sports teams invest in recruiting. Obviously, a lot.\u00a0 They have armies of scouts at college and even high school games looking for that future Hall-of-Famer.\u00a0 They watch endless hours of film for the same purpose.\u00a0 And they need to watch the rosters of all the teams in their sport to see who might be on the trading block and who might be entering free agency.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what percentage of a sports franchise\u2019s revenue is spent on recruiting, but I\u2019m sure it\u2019s not insignificant.\u00a0 So apparently, a sports franchise attaches great importance to getting the right players on the team, but shouldn\u2019t other businesses be equally determined to get the best “players” possible on their team?<\/p>\n Large corporations do spend a bundle on recruiting. As a portion of revenue, they may not spend what their sports brethren do, but still they may devote significant HR resources to pouring through resumes, interviewing, attending job fairs, and visiting college campuses.<\/p>\n Not so with most small businesses. Most small business owners don\u2019t worry about recruiting until there\u2019s an opening that needs to be filled.\u00a0 Then they scramble to find who they hope will be a satisfactory performer, bring him or her on board, and keep their fingers crossed that it all works out OK.\u00a0 Then they put their recruiting hat back in the closet and forget about it until the next time they need to hire someone.\u00a0 Unfortunately, such a haphazard recruiting process causes a small business owner several significant problems:<\/p>\n The problem is, recruiting and hiring are two different, distinct activities. Recruiting is the process whereby we carefully define what we\u2019re looking for (skills, knowledge, experience, personality traits, etc.), identify individuals who fit our definition, and begin a preliminary dialogue with them.\u00a0 Hiring is simply the act of bringing someone on board when the time and circumstances are right.<\/p>\n Small business owners will complain that they can\u2019t afford \u201crecruiters\u201d the way a sports franchise or a large corporation can. And they\u2019re right . . . they can\u2019t do it the way the big boys do it, but they can<\/u><\/em> do it, only differently.\u00a0 Here are some thoughts.<\/p>\n Years ago, I had a friend who was a small business owner and was also his company\u2019s top recruiter. He didn\u2019t carve out time to devote to recruiting, he just did it as part of his normal daily routine.\u00a0 He might notice a server in a restaurant who seemed to have good customer service instincts, an energetic stockboy at the grocery store, another parent he might meet at his daughter\u2019s soccer game, a friendly teller at the bank, or the just-graduated-from-college kids of his friends and neighbors.\u00a0 In all these situations, he would strike up a friendly conversation, offer his business card, and say something like, \u201cI\u2019m always looking for people like you.\u00a0 If you\u2019re ever interested in exploring a career change, I hope you\u2019ll call me.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, not everyone called him, and of those who did, not all of them came to work for him, but enough did to make it all worthwhile.<\/p>\n Why not be like my friend? It doesn\u2019t cost anything except a bunch of business cards, and it doesn\u2019t take any time since you\u2019re only doing the things you\u2019d be doing anyway.\u00a0 It just requires that you be sensitive to the people who cross your path and who exhibit behaviors that would fit well in your organization.<\/p>\n Then double down. Ask your managers to do likewise, and after they get in the habit, have them ask their direct reports to be 24\/7 recruiters.\u00a0 If you think it would be appropriate, offer a bounty to anyone who recruits someone that actually gets hired.\u00a0 See?\u00a0 Now you\u2019ve got any army of recruiters out there just like the big boys.<\/p>\n This is just one idea for making recruiting affordable for a small business. With a little creative thought, you can probably think of others.\u00a0 The point is, just as you want your sales force to always have new prospects in their sales funnel, you also want to have new employee prospects in your recruiting funnel.<\/p>\n I guess I would paraphrase Robert Half and say, \u201cTime spent on recruiting<\/u><\/em> is time well spent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even though the Great Recession is far back in our rearview mirror, the recovery has been painfully slow, particularly for small businesses. Small business owners have not gone on a hiring spree, in part, because they have learned how to get along without some of the positions they eliminated during the recession.\u00a0 Also, because the<\/p>\n\n