Are job prospects on the up for small businesses?

Having recently joined Best of Walsall, I attended my first Breakfast Meeting just before Christmas. I was warmly welcomed into the Best of Walsall Community and made to feel at ease which at any level is important.

The one thing that struck me as everyone was introducing themselves and their businesses, was that there were a number who were recruiting and actively looking to expand their businesses.

This is fantastic news as good news does not always sell newspapers or get reported. However, I do have one cautionary tale for small businesses, which is one of the reasons I wanted to tailor a recruitment model to support small businesses.  

I bumped into an old friend over Christmas who ran his own business fitting windows. He was just about getting by, but was concerned about an upcoming employment tribunal in which he would have to defend himself. He had recruited the claimant after being in his business for six months, by putting a small advert in the local paper. He had gone through the CV’s, spent a day interviewing, made his decision based on a hunch, kept no interview notes and had little structured process. I asked him if he had considered some external support from either a recruitment or HR Professional. He said he thought he could manage the process himself, but reflecting on how much it could potentially cost, going forward next time he would get help in a heartbeat to support and guide him.

With that in mind I’ve included five tips that small businesses should think about before starting the recruitment process.

1. Make sure you think about type of individual you are looking for, and put together a job description covering both the skills and the personal qualities that you really want to benefit your business. Make the advert exciting and make potential candidates want to come and work for you.

2. Think about where you want to advertise the role. Not many businesses use print anymore, and for specialist businesses you may want to look at specialist job boards, or you may get lucky advertising through your own Linked In or Twitter profile (no cost involved then).

3. Consider the selection process you want to use, interview, assessment centre, group exercises, etc. Make sure you spend time preparing before you start the process. Whatever method you decide to use though, remember it’s not an interrogation and should be designed to get the best out of your candidates.

4. Look beyond work experience when selecting candidates to go into the interview process, and look at some of their life experiences to see if they can add something different to your business. There is a brilliant interview with Steve Jobs just before his death where he talked about before he joined Apple. He had various different roles and a jagged CV, but one of the then Apple board members looked at what he had done and could see how he could potentially add value (which is a bit of an understatement in hindsight!)

5. Always make sure you keep your interview notes, not only for yourself but to give clear feedback to your candidates irrespective of the decision you make. You want the selection process to be a positive impression of your business and for candidates to potentially still use you going forward.

For a no obligation chat to see how Rainsbury Recruitment & Coaching could support your business then feel free to contact me at mark@rainsburyrecruitment.co.uk or click here to visit mywebsite.