Employee Management for Small Business. Lin Grensing-Pophal

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      The function of recruitment advertising is to attract qualified applicants. If your ads are not on target, you are going to fail in your initial efforts at recruitment. You need to know specifically what kind of person you are looking for and be thoroughly familiar with the job requirements and specifications before you develop your ad.

      You are most likely to get a large response if you run employment ads in your weekend newspaper, but there are some exceptions. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, runs a special section on Tuesdays devoted to employment advertising. Other papers may also have special days that you should be aware of. You can bet that the job hunters know about them.

      Most employment ads are run in the employment section of the classified ads. However, you might also consider running a display ad in another section of the paper. For instance, if you are looking for a manager or supervisor, you might want to run a display ad in the business section. If you are looking for someone for real estate sales, you might advertise in the real estate section of the paper. Some papers have separate career listings in business sections or other sections of the paper for professional and managerial career opportunities.

      Be innovative. And remember, there is no reason why you can’t advertise in two or more sections of the same paper, using a combination of approaches.

      Another popular means of attracting potential employees is through the use of trade publications that are geared specifically to a certain trade or profession. The one drawback here is that most of these publications are monthly and have long lead times for advertising. You might need to have your ad ready three months in advance before it will even appear in one of these publications.

      3.4 Campus recruiting

      On-campus recruiting is provided as a service to students by colleges, universities, and technical schools. Many companies are taking advantage of these opportunities to interview prescreened, qualified individuals.

      Campus recruiting is an effective way to fill entry-level positions. To find out more about campus recruiting in your area, call the placement offices of the colleges, universities, and technical schools near you.

      3.5 Job fairs

      Job fairs are becoming an increasingly popular source of job candidates. Generally organized by industry, job fairs are like trade shows that provide employers with the opportunity to meet interested job searchers in a particular field. For instance, a community might sponsor a “small manufacturing” job fair where area manufacturers would be present to provide information on their company and their personnel needs. The job fair would be advertised in the community, drawing those individuals interested in the type of position being represented at the fair.

      3.6 Recruitment open houses

      While job fairs generally provide a number of employers with the opportunity to meet potential job candidates, holding an open house for your own company provides you with the opportunity to present your job opportunities exclusively to a group of interested job candidates. Recruitment open houses can be a good way to attract a large number of candidates, particularly if you are adding a large number of new positions or are opening a new facility. Advertise your open house through area newspapers and through notices at local universities and technical colleges.

      3.7 Recommendations and referrals

      At any company there is a proliferation of recommendations and referrals from existing employees. This is certainly a way of adding applicants to your files and, particularly in today’s competitive environment, can be an excellent way to obtain qualified leads.

      Many employers view referrals from existing employees as a great source of potential job candidates. Why? They feel that if an employee is willing to go out on a limb to offer the name of someone for employment, that employee is going to have a vested interest in seeing that this person performs well. It is unlikely that an employee will recommend someone who will not be successful on the job.

      3.8 Walk-ins and unsolicited résumés

      Walk-in applicants should not be dismissed out of hand. It’s not at all unlikely for a qualified person to make the rounds in person rather than submitting an application.

      Similarly, you should give due consideration to all résumés received when you are making hiring decisions. Give the same consideration to all applicants regardless of their source.

      3.9 Job hotlines

      If you frequently have positions open, it might be a good idea to set up a job hotline where potential applicants can call in to check on job openings. Establishing a hotline is simple and requires a minimal investment in terms of time and money. All you need is a telephone line tied to a recording of available positions. Beyond this you need only advertise the existence of the job hotline and make sure that you keep advertised positions up-to-date.

      3.10 The Internet

      The Internet (in particular social media) has dramatically changed the landscape when it comes to recruiting employees. More and more employers and hiring managers have turned away from classified advertising and even job sites like Monster.com in favor of other options, including the use of social media applications such as LinkedIn and Twitter for both active and passive recruitment.

      Only a few short years ago, most companies focused on the local newspaper — or, for some positions, regional or national trade journals as the best sources of job applicants. All that changed, though, when online recruiting became prevalent and companies began turning to the Internet to search for candidates, using their own websites as well as the many online job boards for recruiting. Today, these job sites proliferate, but they are finding themselves challenged by social media, a rapidly emerging opportunity that HR professionals and employers are turning to for recruitment.

      There are, no doubt, more people using the Internet than ever before. No longer frequented only by “college kids,” the Internet is now relied upon by a vast number of individuals, spanning every age and interest group imaginable. And, over the past 12–18 months, social media sites have virtually taken the world by storm — it’s difficult to open a paper, turn on the TV or talk to a friend or colleague without finding the word “Twitter.”

      The benefits of online recruiting are cost, convenience, and reach. More people can be reached more quickly and more cost effectively than through the more traditional classified ad route. Ads can be posted in “real time,” pulled, or changed at a moment’s notice. And, online recruiting can help to minimize administrative burdens for the Human Resources staff. Having job information online, readily accessible at any hour of the day or night, helps to cut down on calls to the HR departments asking about openings. HR departments can also automate their recruitment processes, downloading résumés received online into databases that can be accessed by managers and used to streamline tracking and response time.

      The “big boards” — like Monster.com —have fallen somewhat out of favor with recruiters, primarily because of the massive amounts of responses that are received, many not appropriate for the job advertised.

      But, there are other online options that can prove fruitful for companies large and small. First among these is your own website. Your website is a natural starting point for posting available jobs. In addition, your site offers you the opportunity to share information about your company, its benefits, its culture and philosophies, etc. In short, it is your opportunity to “sell” your company as a great place to work and to encourage interested people to submit an application. Many sites also offer the ability for job seekers to request updates when jobs for which they’re qualified become available. This can be a great way to stay in touch with candidates even when you don’t have any immediate openings.

      Beyond your own website, there are countless opportunities to share job postings through the websites of other related organizations — or sites that represent areas job seekers