Hiring is one of the toughest challenges that small businesses have to face. As a business owner, the best you can do to make your dream come true is to gather up hardworking and trustworthy people around you.

Adding new team members to your business demands a lot more work than just a series of interviews and documentation.

One of the most common mistakes that small businesses make when hiring is to focus on a single criterion and that is performance. No doubt, the performance of an employee is the most valuable trait to judge quality but most successful business owners disagree with the idea. A quality worker should be judged on performance as well as trust, loyalty, passion, and many other things.

A small business faces a number of challenges and in some cases major setbacks. At such downtimes of the business, the performance alone can not help the business. These challenges call for persistent teamwork from the workforce and that can only happen if yo have the right type of people around you. 

If your business has job vacancies, you might want to review the older hiring methods. Here are some of the hiring tips for your small business that you can use to avoid the most common mistakes. 

Small Business Hiring Tips To Attract The Best

Small business hiring needs as much hard work as an already well-established organization, in some cases, even more. A small business owner is more likely to make these mistakes due to lesser experience and resources to spend for a refined hiring process. Some of these hiring tips are free yet much more effective than those paid tools used in the hiring process of bigger organizations. 

1 – Avoid Hasty Decision

Hiring the right person to meet your expectations can be a little tricky sometimes. Judging a person is a much more complicated process that needs time. Despite the fact that your business needs an immediate addition of the staff, take every single step to ensure that you choose the best candidate. To avoid such a hasty decision, you can also make a recruiting plan while you are setting up your business idea. This will not only save you from making a hasty decision but also takes the burden off at every new hire later in business progress. 

2 -Circulate A Lively Job Description

Your job description is the first representative of your business that reaches potential candidates. A job description can be responsible to attract the best or worst to your company. Small business owners often find it hard to attract the best employees when being up against the relatively bigger organization.

An innovative and lively description can help you in two ways: competing with those bigger companies and finding the right fit. Resonate your brand’s uniqueness in your job description. Tell your applicants that your company has more exciting and progressive ways of work that are going to benefit them for the longer term. If possible mention new skills that you are going to equip your new employees rather than the ones you are already looking for in them.

3-Select The Most Passionate

This is the most important step of the hiring process. The most efficient way to grow your business is to select the ones whose’ energy is at the same level as yours. During an interview, look for the cues that show how passionate the candidate is for the job. The more satisfied an employee is with his or her job, the more productivity this will bring to your business. You can judge the applicant’s passion through an interview.

Look for the cues that tell you:

• how much they are prepared for the interview?
• how much did they research about your company?\
• are they excited during the interview?

Answers to these questions will give you enough information to measure the candidates’ passion for his or her job. 

4 -Use Referrals For Hiring

Referrals help you in different ways. These can be from your existing employees or your relationship with other small business owners in the industry. Such recommendations can save you from the formal interviews and background checks which are time taking. In most cases, the recommended new hires turn out to be the right fit for your business. Such kind of small business hiring can, not only cut the cost of hiring but also cuts you the amount of time which can be used for other productive works. 

5 – Use Social Media

One can not ignore the help that social media has to offer to ease off the small business hiring. Social media is the most advanced and easy-to-use technology that a small business can take advantage of. LinkedIn is one of the most famous and efficient online platforms to find and hire new talent. Facebook is also another platform for small business owners to search for candidates. You can easily contact and interview the candidates online. As small business owners, people are opting for such hiring in great numbers as the service costs much less of limited resources that small businesses have compared to what they could pay for job posting on paid journals. 

6 -Choose A Team Player

Be aware of the difference between a top performer and a team player. A business’s growth or success is dependent on all the team members and not one person. An individual performer can boost the growth of your business in weeks but benefits will be for a shorter term. Always hire a candidate that is concerned about team success rather than individual progress that provides individual benefits.

7 – State The Challenges

Before hiring, make sure that your future employee knows what he or she is signing up for. It’s true that small businesses face several setbacks on their way to becoming a trademark. Your candidate should be cleared of what they are being asked for. One of the most effective ways to do so is to mention such challenges in the job descriptions. Adopting such techniques during your hiring process makes your potential job candidate prepared both during the interview and even after the hiring. Describing the challenges earlier in hiring will keep your hired worker ready for any drastic situation. 

8 – Offer Attractive Incentives & Right Resources

Money is the biggest motivational factor for anyone signing up for a normal job. Attractive incentives can bring a lot of diverse skill sets to your small business. Apart from money, try to set up a firm reward system that promises bonuses and other incentives related to health or lifestyle. A solid reward system has seemed to work more efficiently than any other strategy when it comes down to boost team performances in both small businesses or bigger companies & organizations. 

To offer the right resources means to offer the right type of tools and support to your employees. According to a Harvard Business Review report on teamwork, a well-established supportive culture boosts team ability to be productive by a great deal. In addition, people with the right skills and talent always prefer a place that provides all the right tools and support to their hard work.

For example, if you want to hire a highly-skilled accountant for your business, provide the accountant with the latest accounting software and all the tech support he or she might need to keep track of your books. Mention such tools and resources in your job post. It’s much likely that even an experienced accountant might choose your job instead of some other company that still keeps their accounting books in paper form. 

9 – Promote a Work Culture Based on Islamic Values

As a small business owner, you can highlight that your small business is based on Islamic values.

People prefer jobs with more friendly environments that align with their personal values rather than a high-paying job that is exhausting and conflicting with their personal values. A Muslim small business owner can develop a work culture that centres around Islamic values to their benefit.

While some job candidates may choose based on the size of the organization and the size of pay, attracting the right candidate may just be down to attracting people with the same values as you. Some well-experienced and highly skilled Muslims have left their high-paying, high-flying careers to work with organizations that want to develop and promote Halal products and services.

10 – Be Confident About Your Business

Confidence plays a key role for both employees and employers. While conducting interviews, make sure to ask every type of suitable question to the applicants. It’s important that you ask your employee about anything you find suspicious in their resume. Along with the questions about their past experience and future expectations, you can ask questions about some scenarios related to your business. The series of different answers from different candidates will eventually help you filter out the best candidate from a long list. 

11 – Be A Compassionate Employer

Show your potential that you are a compassionate employer, not only this trait attracts more talent and skills but also attracts a significant amount of Barakah. Workers are more likely to apply for positions where they find flexible employers that understand and compensate for any unpredicted and unexpected work stoppage. Don’t just show compassion but try to develop a whole culture that thrives on compassion. Let your existing employees witness your good side to the new ones. Empathy along with all the above hiring tips will attract skilful labour and Allah’s blessings. 

Summary

Small business hiring, when done in the right way, can boost your productivity. It’s important that you take every step under consideration before making someone a part of your workforce. Prepare a detailed hiring plan while you are implementing the idea of your business. A pre-planned hiring process seems to save you plenty of your resources and time.

Regardless that you have a small business or a well-established company, always prioritize the trust at the top of your checklist for a suitable candidate. Create a work culture that supports, promotes, and thrives on creativity and compassion. Not only promote compassion and empathy to newly hired employees but also treat your already working employees to be the living proof of your healthy and productive work culture. 

Ali Haider Shah

Ali Haider Shah is a business graduate with specialization in market research. He holds 4 years of experience in business writing where he served renowned online publications like “Digital Diplomacy”. Currently working as a business writer and a market researcher.