Finding Good Employees
Some of the best resources available for finding great candidates.
Finding good employees is crucial to most businesses. The better the
employees, the more likely the company will be successful.
Similarly, bad employees can cost a business incredible amounts of time,
resources and money. So it pays to take the time at the beginning to find the
best candidates for the position.
What are the best resources for finding great candidates? Here are some
ideas:
- Temporary personnel agencies. Temporary employment agencies
can provide you with virtually any type of employee--accountants,
programmers, sales personnel, secretaries, word processing staff and
much more. With temporary employees, you get the opportunity to check
out their performance, with the possibility of hiring them on a
permanent basis. The only downside is that the temporary employment
agency will charge you a fee if you do hire one of their temps
full-time.
- Employment agencies. There are many agencies that will
supply you permanent employees for a fee. They will have a long list of
resumes and likely will have done a screening and reference check of
the individuals.
- Headhunters. For
executive-level employees, you can turn to executive search firms, often
called headhunters. Be prepared, however, to pay a significant fee
(typically one-third of the first year salary of the employee), payable up
front when the employee is hired.
- Internal candidates.
Look at your own employees to fill vacant positions. There may be one who
is ready for a promotion. You have the added benefit of already knowing the
work habits of this person. Plus, the candidate already knows the
organization. Promoting from within is also good for employee morale, as
other employees will see opportunities for advancement.
- Bounty rewards. Some
companies give a 'bounty' reward to employees for recruiting
candidates to the organization. These bounties can range from $250 to
$1,000, depending on how difficult it is to find employees to fill the
position. Even though this bounty will cost you, it's going to a good
cause -- your employees -- and is still less costly than an outside
agency's fee.
- Your Web site. Post
your open positions on your company Web site. This will attract general
job seekers, as well as those who use your Web site and like it. Plus,
anyone who applies for a job listed on your Web site should be
well-informed; unless your Web site is still under construction, it should
contain a wealth of information on your company.
- Want ads. Want ads are
a traditional way of getting your message to a great number of potential
employees. These can be included in local newspapers, trade magazines, The
Wall Street Journal and the National Employer's Weekly.
- Job Web sites. The Web
contains a great number of sites that have job postings, want ads and
resumes of prospective employees. One good way to find these sites is
through Internet search engines, such as Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, Snap
and Yahoo.
Source: http://www.allbusiness.com