Hiring Tips for SMBs: Advice from Modern Recruiting Experts

Whether you have a modest-sized talent acquisition team or a dozen-plus recruiters on your staff, you can always benefit getting hiring tips from experienced and expert TA pros who’ve been helping their organizations employ great candidates — and at scale — for years.

• We’re not talking about high-level hiring tips (e.g., which job interview questions to ask certain kinds of prospects, how to conduct background checks quickly and efficiently).

Rather, we’re referring to more nuanced guidance that can help your recruiting team members and hiring managers consistently identify, engage, and extend job offers to those you deem the right fit for jobs.

So, let’s jump right in. Here are several savvy hiring tips that can help you better build and manage relationships with candidates and ensure you always find the right person for job openings.

Leverage leading TA tech to find the right talent

One strategy I am using to improve my hiring efforts today is leveraging technology and data to pinpoint the right talent.

By taking advantage of analytical tools, recruiters can automatically match job seekers with positions that are most suited to their skills and experience. This allows employers to quickly identify potential candidates who will be a great fit for the open role, while also saving organizations time and money in the hiring process.

Additionally, I am using data-driven strategies, such as predictive analytics, to identify high-potential leads from a larger pool of applicants. By using these tools, you can quickly identify those individuals who have the highest chance of becoming successful employees within your org. 

Amira Irfan, Founder & CEO, A Self Guru

Diversify where you source and engage candidates

Diversifying the channels used to engage and hire fresh candidates is a great way to bolster your recruiting process, something that has become important in today’s crowded job market. 

By leveraging methods, such as online employment marketplaces, job fairs, referrals, and targeted recruitment campaigns, you can ensure that you’re reaching a diverse range of talented candidates.

• It’s also important to acknowledge the strengths of each channel.

For example, expanding your hiring process by using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn is a great way to give potential hires a sneak peek at your workplace culture. This can be an effective way to meaningfully engage with top talent who might not currently be searching for a job, planting a seed in their mind for the future.

By using various channels and ensuring you have strong career community and social media profiles that stand out, you can promote and post jobs while simultaneously bolstering your brand reputation and opening your business up to more candidates in the future.

Clare Jones, Marketing & HR Manager, OfficeSpaceAU

Get TA/HR leaders involved early in the process

One strategy I use to improve my hiring efforts is getting more involved in the initial stages of recruiting.

In the past, I have relied on my HR team to screen candidates and identify potential interviewees. However, I have found that taking a more hands-on approach can lead to better results. By getting involved early on, I can help ensure that we identify suitable candidates for our open positions.

In addition, I can provide input on what specific skills and qualifications we should be looking for in our ideal candidates. By taking a more active role in the recruiting process, I am confident that we will be able to find the best possible candidates for our open positions in 2023.

Tracey Beveridge, HR Director, Personnel Checks

Implement an incentivized employee referral program

We are improving our employee referral program with a two-part referral bonus.

Successful referrers receive the first part of the bonus when their referees are hired. They get the second part when the referees reach the sixth month of employment. This bonus structure helps with employee retention as it motivates referrers to encourage their referees to stay longer.

To ensure your referral program is successful (i.e., leads to many high-quality hires), it’s vital to ensure you have positive and supportive company culture. Highly engaged employees who are satisfied with your business and in their roles are simply more likely to want to refer candidates.

Kevin Huang, Founder & CEO, Ambient Home US

Use AI to tackle some manual recruiting processes

There’s no getting away from integrating AI into your talent acquisition strategy today. And it’s actually amazing just how sophisticated AI software has grown in a relatively short space of time.

A lot of the hiring process is taken up by manual tasks which, when you actually look into it, can not only be streamlined but improved by AI tech: from writing job descriptions to aiding with some facets of your interview process.

For example, skills-based matching and profiling of potential candidates with their application enables your HR/TA team to have a well-rounded picture of not only current skills of candidates, but future placements into your existing teams.

Dawn Wood, HR Manager, Woodyatt Curtains

Prioritize “power” skills when evaluating prospects

We’re redefining crucial soft skills as “power skills” to combat the growing hard skills gap. Our job postings will prioritize the power skills we seek — those relationship-centered attributes, including strong communication, EQ, professional attitude, and more.

Many hard skills used to be considered “must-haves,” while soft skills were “nice-to-haves” or omitted completely.

• We’re flipping the script on that outdated approach, hiring for the right soft skills, and offering L&D opportunities to bring our hires up to speed on the technical stuff.

As technology and automation grow exponentially, hard skills become outdated quickly. We’re seeing that even if a candidate possesses the right hard skills, we’ll need to retrain them often, so we’d rather hire people with a strong willingness to learn and a great attitude.

Maximilian Wühr, CGO & Co-Founder, FINN

Learn how JazzHR can help your SMB talent team better compete for high-quality candidates. Book a demo with one of our reps today to get in-depth insights into our recruiting software.