Many small business owners started out as independent business owners. After a year or two, some businesses outgrow the owners’ ability to manage them single-handedly. This is when hiring becomes necessary.
Hiring an employee is challenging; you need to know how to discover the right talent. Quite often, small business owners are hiring without proper process well-defined. They usually post job openings – with the recruitment process informally adapted along the way. This can be a problem for your business later. While trial-and-errors are a small business owner’s daily struggle, it’s best to seek help to shorten your learning curve and to discover the best talent for your business.
In today’s Q&A session, we talk about recruitment with Raj Sheth, Co-founder of Recruiterbox, recruiting software and job applicant tracking system.
Ivan Widjaya, Noobpreneur.com (Q): Hello, Raj. Can you tell our readers a bit about Recruiterbox?
Raj Sheth, Recruiterbox (A): Recruiterbox is a resume management and applicant tracking tool which allows anyone involved in the recruiting process to efficiently collect and organize candidates. Designed with the small business owner in mind, Recruiterbox allows users to better manage their recruiting efforts with integrated functions, allowing applicant staging, pipeline management, multi-user engagement, customizable and easily distributed job opening sharing and more. Essentially, all recruitment information is streamlined into one place: Recruiterbox!
Q: Recruiterbox’s lineup of users is no joke: Groupon, Stripe… it seems that you can handle job applications very well: Is sky the limit, with regard to the number of job applications you can manage?
A: Recruiterbox offers different levels of usage so organizations can choose what works best for them. While it was originally designed for small business owners and entrepreneurs, our platform can work for all types of organizations – both large and small. Specifically, Recruiterbox is great for organizations that have up to 200 open job positions.
An organization can host as many job applications on our platform as it sees fit. As far as our ability to manage and host these accounts and applications, we are unlimited in terms of the number of accounts, applications and candidates we can host.
Q: As there are tools and apps which seem to complement your web app, do you support third party app integration?
A: We are currently working on a public API which will allow users to hook any assessment testing results into their Recruiterbox account and also allow them to port data into their payroll/HR systems. We already provide data porting for new users to import their candidate information into Recruiterbox.
Q: Do you have plan to support mobile devices as a mobile app?
A: Yes, we do. We are already tablet and mobile compatible (on the browser), but we will also have a mobile app next year.
Q: Can you share a couple of tips for independent business owners whose business has finally outgrown them and they are now in need of help on how to hire their first employee?
A: I can certainly share my insight for this situation as Recruiterbox started as a three-man show and has since expanded! Establishing a recruiting process is the most important piece of this challenge.
- Many small business owners will immediately think to distribute their jobs in multiple places, but they should resist the temptation to do a blast and instead focus on where their ideal employees live or hangout online. Think about where your target audience receives information from, and, based on that knowledge, be selective about where you post openings. Also, creating thoughtful, engaging job descriptions will make candidates want to talk to your company, helping the process without you having to manually search the web in hopes of stumbling upon a candidate. Ensuring that your post is the best it can be will actually help to weed out the “wrong” candidates – making your recruiting process more manageable.
- Next, look at your top competitors. By analyzing your competition, you might find out what works… and what doesn’t.
- Have the right tools! Technology has come a long way and can be your best recruiting friend. With the right technology, you’ll be able to store all resumes you receive, track your potential candidates, and review your pipeline – all in one place. A tool that helps you keep your recruiting efforts organized in one place will go a long way and will ease your recruiting headache.
- The recruiting process shouldn’t strain your brain. Go through your entire procedure in just a few steps by adding metrics to the initial screening process (reviewing resumes, applications, or any other supplement) to make sure only those best qualified candidates make it to the next round. That way, there are fewer options to pick from – and fewer battles with stress.
Many thanks for your time, Raj!
Takeaway
Just like any other aspects in business, success is found in system. When you have a solid business system, your business can get good return on your efforts. This also holds true in recruitment – if you have a recruiting system in place, hiring process is becoming more streamlined, making it easier for you to tap into the job market and hire the bet talent.
Recruiterbox is one of the software which offers you an ability to retain applicant data, as well as helping you in managing your recruiting campaign. Whichever software you choose, always remember that the best software for you is the one that answers your direct need, no fluff.