You know how the old saying goes, “good help is hard to find”. I beg to differ! It may take a little work, but in economic times like these, there is plenty of good help available! Here are five tips on how to make a great hire.
1) University Career Pages. If you are looking for someone with a degree and a specific skill set, this is a great place to start. Most, if not all, universities and colleges have a career page/center where companies can register and post job openings. Many prestigious schools will even require students to have a certain grade point average to be allowed to utilize these services, which means higher quality applicants! Some universities may charge you to register with them, but it will most likely be worth the cost for the large pool of high caliber applicants.
2) Help-Wanted sites. Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Yahoo! HotJobs are just a few of the plethora of traditional help wanted sites out there. Job seekers everywhere are using these sites to find jobs. Monster.com, for example, allows job seekers to create profiles where they can upload their resumes and information. Then, employers can search for the specific type of employee they are looking for. Most sites allow you to post in specific locations to find local help. Try searching for help-wanted sites that are specific to your area to narrow down your search.
3) Craiglist.com. Thought Craigslist was just for crappy cars and furniture? Think again! Lots of job seekers are turning to Craiglist on top of the classics mentioned above. As an employer, you can create a Craiglist account and post job openings specific to location. You can make your description as specific as you want, and utilize the anonymous email. Make sure you update these posts every few days as they will get lost in the shuffle overtime.
4) Call first. After you have found what appears to be a few good matches, schedule a brief phone interview. Anyone can sound great on a resume or cover letter, so it is important to speak with them. The reason you want to have a phone interview before you take the time to meet face to face is simple; time is valuable. A quick phone call could take 10 minutes, and if you like them, great, and if you don’t, you didn’t waste any of your day interviewing them in person.
5) Be Patient. It is easy to find help, but it takes time to find good help. Don’t rush into hiring the first “great” applicant you interview. Make sure you interview a good number of people, and be patient with the process. There are a few benefits to this. First, it allows you the chance to really evaluate your entire pool of applicants. Also, if it takes time for you to hire, you will be able to assess how persistent your applicants are, which is a good quality to have nowadays. If they continually show interest by following up with you from time to time, it is a reflection of their work ethic.