How to Recruit Top Talent for Your Business in Innovative Ways

As every entrepreneur knows, it’s extremely difficult to recruit top talent for their start-ups just as it’s difficult for current business owners to do the same for their already established companies.  By owning a start-up, you need to be extremely careful and diligent in your search for top talent and be innovative in your hunt.  You need people who are not only efficient in the way they work but also will be willing to stay with you for the long-haul and hang in there with you and believe in your efforts to make a go of your business.  Entrepreneurs need employees who will help foster and build a corporate culture that are in line with your ideas for the atmosphere and face you want your new business to project to the world.  Searching for top talent has become more inventive especially with the growth of social networking and online resources.  You can use creative ways to find top talent through such methods.  Again, it can be very difficult to find top talent as it’s been reported that six out of 10 small businesses struggle to find employees to fulfill their company’s needs.  So how to recruit top talent in business in an innovative way?  Below are some fundamentals that will help you get there.

While using outside recruiters and headhunters is often still important, many small businesses simply don’t have the money and resources to pay the fees that come along with that type of search.  One way to avoid this is by networking.  Often in social settings, you are able to meet people whose personalities mesh best with your company’s culture.  Networking enables you to meet people in your industry who might know of others they’ve worked with in the past that are currently looking for employment.  Others in your field understand the type of new hires you are looking for and can make strong recommendations and necessary introductions to top talent.

Utilize social media as a way to find top talent.  If you’re not already part of the digital revolution, get involved and quickly!  Social media can help your business reach thousands of people and provide you with a larger pool of candidates and enable you to cast a wider net when looking for top talent.  Twitter and Facebook are two fabulous online sites that are especially excellent for advertising job roles and gaining feedback from your target audience.  Of course, LinkedIn is also a great resource for your recruitment efforts.  It might in fact be the best platform of them all as its more business focused then social.  LinkedIn also provides you with a service where you can actively seek out candidates by searching on specific key words, giving you access to thousands of candidates with the stroke of a keyboard.

Try on campus recruiting at college and university job fairs.  Sometimes it’s not just about experience.  It’s about effort and drive which many young candidates have.  They are eager for work and tend to work hard to prove themselves in a growing company setting.  They have an interest in helping companies build their reputations in the marketplace and reach their ultimate goals.  While you might have to nurture young talent, it’s not an effort wasted.  In fact, you should look at it as an investment and one that is valuable.

You might even want to think about sponsoring workshops for industry professionals.  Hosting seminars for people who are thriving in your niche area is a very effective way to attract top talent.  It gives you the opportunity to see potential new hires in action and get a sense for how their minds work and how they think in terms of strategy and goal setting.

Another great way to attract top talent is by offering internships at your company.  Establishing such a program allows you to identify top talent early on before the competition has a chance to snag them away.  If they do well, give them a sense that they could be offered permanent employment with your company upon graduation.  A college student who is willing to learn and work hard can be molded into an ideal match for your business.  If you are agreeable to putting in the extra time and effort to train them, you can earn very loyal, bright candidates that are highly equipped to help your company grow and reach its future goals.

Create competition in the interview process.  Give a sense to potential new hires that they are in essence, trying to win the job and beat out others.  Consider doing multiple rounds of interviews to make the process seem more difficult to indeed get the job.  If you put the idea in a candidate’s mind that they are competing against others to win the job, it makes them work harder and gives them stronger motivation to in fact get the job.  If you indeed offer a candidate a job after fostering this sort of competition in the interview process, it might make them more grateful that they’ve in fact earned the job and will encourage them to work harder to keep it as they feel it was difficult to get it in the first place.

Illustrate the goals and values of your company to potential candidates.  Show them that your company is indeed a place where people can thrive and have the opportunity to move up quickly through hard work.  Show them that you foster a creative and independent environment where they won’t be micromanaged and will be trusted enough on the value you see in their own skills and abilities to do a good job on their own without constant hovering or them feeling like they’re always looking over their shoulder to please management.

Make sure your advertisements for open positions are thorough and truly lay out what you are looking for in a candidate.  Be specific about skill sets and the attitude needed to succeed at your company.

While it might sound strange, consider advertising at a lower salary and then be open to negotiations later on in the process.  Sometimes candidates with the least strong skills focus solely on the money whereas top talent look for opportunity and growth potential.

Lastly and possibly most importantly, look for go-getters.  It’s no secret that as an entrepreneur, you might not always have time for extensive training of new hires.  Look for candidates who seem to take a proactive approach to their jobs and can learn on the fly and pick up new skills quickly with little direction.  Talented recruits are often those who can shoulder a lot of responsibility without a lot of mentorship.

While it’s often extremely difficult to find top talent these days through unconventional methods, it just so happens that it’s often most effective, particularly for entrepreneurs with limited access to time, money and resources.  Use some of the ideas suggested above and you might find that you are more equipped than the competition to find top talent through innovative ways.

If you’re already an established business owner, what did you find were the most useful methods for finding top talent in a competitive marketplace?  If you’re a young entrepreneur just starting out, what suggestions did you find most useful today?  Leave a comment and let’s start a conversation and bounce ideas off one another.

Here are some articles you might want to check out about original ways to attract top talent for your business:

“Crowdsourcing Hidden Talent: How to Recruit a Diamond in the Rough”: http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/04/business/crowdsourcing-hidden-talent-how-recruit/

“How to Attract Talent to a Small Company”: http://guides.wsj.com/small-business/hiring-and-managing-employees/how-to-attract-talent-to-a-small-company/

“How to Recruit Top Talent”: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/78598

“Where to Find Top Talent”: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-12-16/where-to-find-top-talentbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

Until next time…