As a small business owner, one of the biggest challenges you face is finding and hiring the right talent. And you may or may not know this, but attracting top candidates requires more than just posting job openings online. It demands a strategic approach to talent acquisition that aligns with your company’s goals and values. In this article, we’ll explore a variety of effective talent acquisition strategies tailored specifically for small businesses, including offshore staffing. By implementing these strategies, you can build a strong and dedicated team that fits with your culture, and is committed to driving your business forward.
Define Your Employer Brand
A brand is what people think of an entity, when they come across anything that represents it.
In the case of a company, an employer brand is the reputation a company portrays as an employer. Companies are typically focused on creating a brand that is positively received by customers, but recently, we have seen companies prioritise the reputation they have as employers. They’ve come to understand that positioning themselves as top employers makes it easier to attract exceptional talents.
In order to define your employer brand, you need to understand key elements of your company such as its values, culture, and mission. Having a clear understanding of this makes it easier to communicate it from a perspective that interests potential candidates.
Next, you need to think deeply about why anyone should want to work for your company. What sets you apart from other companies? What do you offer employees? What sort of environment will potential employees be coming into?
Once you truly understand your brand as an employer, the next step is to consistently communicate it across your key touch points. By doing this diligently, you can attract top candidates that are aligned with your company’s culture.
Leverage Social Media
Beyond enabling connections between friends and people with similar interests, social media has become very instrumental in facilitating talent acquisition. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook present great opportunities for employers to share information that can attract potential hires . This allows the company to expand their reach and engage with a wider audience.
Ideally, there needs to be a well-thought out content strategy when leveraging social media for talent acquisition. Employers should create and publish content that highlights themes like employee testimonials, company events and shows the company’s perspective on topics that matter to talents.
Employee Referrals
Employee referrals are one of the most effective ways to find top talent, as they tap into your existing employees’ networks and connections. Encourage your team members to refer qualified candidates for open positions by offering incentives such as bonuses, extra time off, or other rewards. Not only does this save you time and resources on recruitment, but it also ensures that the candidates are more likely to be a good cultural fit for your organisation. To maximise the effectiveness of your employee referral program, communicate its benefits clearly to your team and make the referral process easy and straightforward.
Ps: if your company is already a great place to work, referrals will come naturally 😉
Attend Job Fairs
Job fairs are an excellent way to find new talents for your company. The people who come there are clearly looking for job opportunities, so it’s a perfect avenue for representatives of your company to interact with them and tell them more about your organisation.
Thanks to technology, there are now virtual job fairs and you can decide to host yours and invite candidates to it. That way, your company can hold insightful sessions that help candidates understand more about working with your company.
Offer Competitive Compensation and Benefits
Good talents must be compensated well. It’s a no-brainer.
Large companies can afford to offer huge salary packages but smaller businesses may not be able to. This doesn’t mean that small businesses can’t compete with larger companies for talent, it just means that they need to be a tad more creative with their compensation and benefits.
Small businesses can consider offering perks such as flexible working hours, remote work options, professional development opportunities and wellbeing benefits. These non-monetary benefits can be very attractive to candidates who value work-life balance and opportunities for growth.
When presenting your compensation and benefits packages in job ads, be sure to highlight the unique advantages of working for your company and how these perks contribute to overall employee satisfaction and well-being.
Make your hiring process simple
There’s no reason why your hiring process should be needlessly cumbersome. Candidates have to make applications to multiple companies at a time and if your hiring process is unnecessarily lengthy, they will abandon it and you’ll likely miss out on great talents. To avoid this, ensure the process is simple, from application to the final interview.
To simplify your hiring process, weed out unnecessary stages, reduce complex tasks and ensure your hiring managers are trained to quickly and efficiently make hiring decisions.
You can also consider using automation tools to speed up the hiring process. This ensures that your hiring team is able to speedily identify candidates that are a good fit for the role. It saves your team a lot of time and energy because they spend less time reviewing resumes.
Develop an Internship Program
Internship programs are a valuable tool for small businesses to attract and develop young talent while providing students and recent graduates with valuable work experience. By offering internships, you can identify star talents when they are young, build relationships with them and nurture them for future positions in your organisation. While interns may not have a lot of work experience, they’re vibrant, and beaming with fresh ideas. This can be honed and leveraged by organisations for their success and growth.
When developing your internship program, be sure to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of interns, provide mentorship and support throughout their tenure, and offer opportunities for professional development and growth. By investing in your interns, you can create a pipeline of talent that contributes to your company’s long-term success.
Offshore Staffing
Offshore staffing, a form of outsourcing or remote hiring, involves hiring talented professionals from other countries to work remotely for your company. This can be a cost-effective way for small businesses to access specialised skills and expertise that may not be readily available locally. This is an ideal solution for your company if you’re trying to hire the best talents but have a limited budget.
By partnering with an offshore staffing agency like Arwana, you can tap into a global talent pool and find qualified candidates for a variety of roles and projects. When considering offshore staffing, be sure to carefully evaluate the cultural fit, communication skills, and work ethic of potential candidates to ensure a successful working relationship.
Wrapping up
If you’re a business that’s looking to grow, you need the right people, and you can’t hire the right people if your talent acquisition strategy is flawed.
By implementing the aforementioned suggestions, your business can attract skilled talent, build a star-studded team and ultimately achieve business growth.
Remember, talent acquisition is not a one-off activity but an ongoing process that requires dedication. By continuously refining your talent acquisition strategies and investing in your people, you can create a workplace where employees feel valued, engaged, and empowered to achieve their full potential.
Want to Hire Exceptional Talent? Talk to Us!
At Arwana, we make hiring easy by helping you save valuable time and resources. We can help you find top overseas talents in marketing, design and admin while saving up to £20,000/annum in salary costs. Our services go beyond recruitment – we handle contracting, any related admin and offer training after placement when necessary.
If you’re interested in learning more about what we do, and how we can help your business hire top talent, book a commitment-free discovery call with us.
