Beyond Craigslist: Who to Hire and Where to Find Them

Once you make the decision to expand your business, you need to make sure you hire the right people. Good employees make the difference between great success and complete frustration. Here are some tips to help you make good, solid decisions when hiring your team1.PAINT A PICTURES OF THE PERSON YOU WANT TO HIREWhat type of employee do you need? Are you trying to hire an assistant or someone who can duplicate what you do? Do you want to mold someone, or do you want someone who can step right in and get the job done from day one? Make a list of tasks you will need this person to do. Do you need someone who’s comfortable networking, someone who writes well, someone who can keep you organized, someone who sells well, etc.?Think about your weaknesses. How might an employee improve your business by doing things that you’re not good at? When I started looking for employees who were quite different from me, the business really took off.2. BE STRATEGIC ABOUT WHERE YOU LOOK FOR YOUR NEW EMPLOYEEYou can find a cadre of potential employees by posting listings in places like Craigslist, Indeed, and Monster.com, but the process of narrowing down qualified candidates will take a long time, and all of these sites charge fees for the listing. I once posted a job listing on Craigslist, and within an hour, I received more than 300 resumes. It took hours and hours to narrow down the list to 10 candidates for phone interviews and then five candidates for in-person interviews. I did wind up with an outstanding employee from it, but it took a lot of time.Social media is another venue to post job openings. I’ve had résumés submitted from posts on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you don’t mind publicly posting your job opening among friends and colleagues, you may be able to benefit from your friends’ networks. LinkedIn, in particular, is a good place to research potential employees and reach out to them directly. If you know the type of employee you need, you can search for him or her in a more organized fashion. If you don’t mind mentoring someone, you can find great employees through local colleges and trade schools. Students will not only be willing to work for a lower wage, but I’ve found that employees who are newly graduated tend to be energetic, full of new ideas, and open to learning my methods and procedures. If you get involved with one or more of the colleges in your area, you can shorten the hiring process by getting to know potential candidates. I have found some wonderful employees after lecturing in one of their classes or being a guest speaker at one of their student organization meetings. Seeing them interact with other students and how they perform in class gave me better insight into their personalities than I could have had during the interview process. I still interviewed the candidates, but the decision-making process was much easier.Someone with experience can be found at networking functions, trade organizations, and conferences. When you attend any of these events, put yourself in a position to speak with lots of people. Always keep in mind the type of employee you need and zero in on some people with potential.Hiring employees may seem like a daunting task, but putting a little bit of thought into what tasks you need to assign to someone and the type of person you’d like to hire can go a long way towards helping you find the perfect match. __Susan Southerland, PWP™, Just Events! Group, Windermere, Fla.