It’s a down economy and the latest employment numbers show the lowest level of unemployment since Jan 2009, but the Bureau of Labor statistics can be deceiving. They’ve stopped counting more that 340,000 individuals that have simply stopped looking for work. Whenever we have a job opening, people naturally assume that because so many people are unemployed, we’ll have a flood of job applicants. I find it to be the opposite. First, as a smaller company, it’s hard to get the message out about our openings. Sites like CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com can run $500 per job posting and only be current for up to 7 days. One solution we’ve found is Indeed.com, which lets you bid for job postings just like you bid for Google AdWords or Facebook ads. You determine how much you want to pay per click when someone views your ad. If you select a higher amount per click, you’re job posting will be seen by more applicants. Also, you can set a daily spend limit, and when your funds have been exhausted that day, your listing will be ‘turned off’. I find this to be a much more economical way to post job listings over a longer time frame to keep the posting fresh for job seekers.
Another place that we post is on local college websites. Most colleges have job boards that you can place listings for free. We’ve had good luck with this angle, however, it means that you applicant will be a young, often inexperienced college grad. Depending on your situation, this is either good or bad. Luckily, again, for us, we’re a small brand growing rapidly, so we can afford to bring in younger, more inexperienced help and work them into the position we need. My other advice is to skip the college job fairs that take hours of your day and cost money and often result in low turnouts or few hot leads.
Those are two ways that we seek out potential job applicants. Our most successful of all though has been through word-of-mouth. Everyone currently employed with us has been found through an existing contact. Mainly because someone else has vouched for the person and we were able to work them in slowly into our company.
It’s not that we won’t hire from an unknown applicant pool, but in the past these pools of people have seemed unqualified, not motivated, and unresponsive.
How about if I send you a request for a job interview, you return it! This happens more than you think. People that I want to interview just don’t come in for interviews. I am not alone either in the quality and quantity of job applicants. CNN Money shares twelve other employers and their struggles to find help in this online piece. My advice to job seekers, don’t forget about the small businesses out there! We are hiring and we need great people!