Most contractors start as self-employed and work solo, but there’s a point when your business gets traction and you need employees or subcontractors to keep the train moving.
For example, it’s hard to stay on the daily hustle while also doing the finances, planning your marketing efforts, and replying to every message or call you get – even though all of those functions are essential for a contractor business.
This is where hiring employees becomes the better choice. It will allow your business to grow as you delegate tasks and take up more jobs, all without going insane from trying to do everything yourself.
Where to find talent
The first step is to get yourself a lot of potential candidates for the job. Naturally, you can advertise locally and by word-of-mouth, but it might take a while for you to find great talent.
But there are online resources made specifically for hiring that make it easy for you to advertise a position and for candidates to find it. And more often than not, people that show interest are already looking precisely for the kind of job you’re offering.
LinkedIn is the most popular social network for work-related discussions and resources. They have a robust platform to find and advertise open positions, so be sure to take advantage of it. Give as much detail as possible so that potential candidates can find this position easily!
Glassdoor
Another excellent resource to find jobs, meaning you can sign up and advertise an open position. Glassdoor offers a unique feature that allows users to read anonymous reviews about companies they worked for, thus helping others decide if they want to work there too.
Indeed
Another way to find and advertise jobs, all you have to do is to sign up and post your opening. Indeed has one of the largest databases in the world in the sheer number of users, making it very likely to find candidates.
Workable
Workable isn’t just a website for advertising jobs, it’s actually a product designed to streamline this entire process. With it, you can post positions on hundreds of different websites at once, manage social media ads for these positions, and receive AI-powered recommendations to filter out candidates. Mostly used by large companies that hire in bulk, but it’s still a great tool to be aware of.
Filter out unlikely contenders
When you have a good number of applicants, it’s time to go through them and leave only the ones you intend to get in touch with.
For this, I highly recommend using a sheet or an organization app like Evernote or Trello for the purpose of separating your applicants into tiers. Typically, the best way is to use three categories – you can call them whatever you want, but it boils down to:
- Applicants you are very interested in
- Applicants you may return to if necessary
- Applicants you have no interest in
If you find applicants that are missing the requirements you asked for, live in a different area, or simply aren’t qualified for the job for any reason, that’s an easy skip. But all others you can separate into your favorites and the ones that you will return to in case your favorites don’t work out.
This creates a simple way to track your progress and keep things organized!
Schedule interviews
Now that you have your best applicants selected, it’s time to schedule interviews.
You can start with a video call to ask the most basic questions and get a feel for your applicants, and if it really works out, then schedule an in-person meeting as the final deciding factor.
There are plenty of options for video calls, here are some of the ones I’ve recommended before:
Also, don’t forget to read this guide on how to always have perfect video calls!
What applicants want from you
It’s fairly obvious what you need from applicants, given how most of that is outlined in the job description from which they found you in the first place. But even if you don’t hire someone, there are a few steps in courtesy you should consider.
First, if you end up not hiring someone you directly contacted, it’s a courtesy to send them at least an email saying that you moved on. It never feels good to give bad news, but you wouldn’t want to be the one waiting on a reply that never arrives after the employer got in touch with you and probably got your hopes up, right? It’s more polite and sensible to give them the news than to leave them waiting.
Second, even if an applicant doesn’t ask, they will want to know about salary, employment conditions, and benefits you can offer. Get all of this info ready to weave into the conversation when necessary.
And finally, respect their time. When you start the process of looking for applicants, you should be ready to make decisions quickly. Don’t leave people you’ve talked to just hanging, because not only is this a red flag for them, they will more than likely move on if you take too long, costing you a potentially great employee.
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