Hiring is a stressful process that is time-consuming and expensive. Hiring the wrong person is such a costly mistake, that many small business owners try to do things on their own until they’re forced to hire someone. If cash is short, but demand is high, this doesn’t work as you can fall short of fulfilling demand, ultimately costing you money. Putting in a business credit application early to acquire funds for additional hiring can help you anticipate the need for a new hire, but it doesn’t keep you from making the mistake of hiring a bad hire, which eats up the money quickly. Luckily, today, some of the risks are easily managed, especially during a recession that has an abundant labor force available. The perks and benefits necessary to retain quality talent aren’t as essential and temporary contract workers and freelancers are becoming more the norm, rather than the exception.

Simple Strategies To Locate and Hire Quality Talent

Here are few strategies you can use to make sure the next time you’re getting ready to hire, that you have a set plan to weed out good from bad candidates, and ultimately choose the right person for your company.

Advertise in unusual places – The conventional wisdom says that you want to advertise where you get the most exposure, like Monster.com or your local newspaper. At a time where millions of people are out of work, advertising your job here will only accomplish getting completely spammed by everyone, regardless of whether they are qualified or not. Seek other avenues, like trade magazines, online groups, your company website, recruiters, social networking, and through word of mouth with your employees. Weeding out spam applications by advertising in the right places is going to do a lot to reduce the expense of hiring.

Use telephone screening first – Anyone can do an initial screening to determine how a person presents themselves on the phone and what talent set they have before asking them to do a live interview. It doesn’t have to be done by the hiring manager, although that is often the case. A personal assistant can help to screen candidates and forward only those that appear to be viable to the hiring manager.

Give them a skills test – It’s easy to lie in order to be hired, and in today’s competitive markets people are willing to say just about anything to get hired. The proof is in how well they perform, so don’t just look at their certifications and awards, ask them to complete a sample skills test. If you hire through a temporary agency, many of them require testing to ascertain the skill level of their labor force, and that’s one less thing you have to do yourself.

Hire on a temporary basis first – Use a temporary agency to locate quality talent, or look at a freelance board to locate people. These people are willing to work part-time, temporary, and don’t require that you provide health benefits, or unemployment compensation should they not work out. If they do work out, the negative is that they may not be available for subsequent projects, if they’re very popular. At that point, you can see what it costs to hire them out from under the temporary agency and offer them a full-time contract.

Reduce the interview process – It’s popular to make an employee go through many rounds of interviews, but this impacts the efficiency of your other workers. If there really is that much time to do interviewing, instead of adding to work that directly increases your bottom line, you’re probably top heavy already. There’s no need to hire someone else. It’s a waste of your time, and theirs too. Try to keep the interview process simple, and streamlined. Besides, if they’re brought on as temporary workers, you’ll find out from day-to-day interaction whether they’ll work out. If they don’t, they’re just not hired full-time. If you find you do need multiple experts to verify a candidates skills or demeanor, turn to professional recruiters.

Use professional recruiters - These people want to find quality talent that will net them a fat commission. If you are detailed with what you want, you can hire an army of professional recruiters to help you with your staffing needs. Make sure they have their own screening process, and how thorough it will be. Work only with recruiters who are knowledgeable about your industry and its specific needs. Check credentials, and don’t assume that all manner of background check has been run. Make employment and commission conditional on passing background checks, like criminal and credit histories, if that’s important in your industry.