Craft Venture: where to recruit

Happy Monday! Welcome to Craft Venture! Im Brenda from Phydeaux Designs, helping you learn to hire super star employees! Last week, we finished writing our job descriptions. This week, I’ll point you to some possible spots to post your job openings. Because I know this is the burning question on many of your minds, I’m going a little bit out of order (today really ought to be about overall recruitment planning)!

I think the #1 thing that people about to hire want to know is … where to look. Where do you post your job opening to get the most bang for your buck?

The answer is simple:  where your future employee looks for jobs.

When I was a teenager and in my early 20’s, I looked for jobs in my local paper’s classifieds. That was where nearly everyone spent time looking for jobs at the time. However, very few people look to the printed newspaper for jobs now. Times and technology have changed!

You can spend a whole lot of money advertising online, potentially with dismal results. Speaking from experience, spending quite a  bit of money with a huge pile of disappointing resumes as a result will make you very sad.

Although you cannot recruit for a specific age,  race, gender, ethnicity, etc. (more on that down the road), college job boards can be a great source for resumes. Particularly when I need a very part time position, very very entry level, and I can be very flexible with the work schedule. In fact, community colleges are a fantastic resource – just check with your local college’s career center!

If students enrolled in a particular program might chomp at the bit to work in your glass or ceramics studio (say … art students), call the art department to see if they can post something internally. Colleges usually have an actual, physical job board, as well as email lists and virtual job boards. You might be charged something for your posting, but the amount is not likely to be huge.

The absolute #1, hands down, best source for resumes is Craigslist, which many of you are familiar with already. Craigslist is a classifieds website where you can find just about anything, from jobs to used kilns to apartments to furniture to dates. Best of all, Craigslist is set up by country, state, city, etc. I happen to live in the Silicon Valley, so my local Craiglist has about a gazillion jobs posted. Your local Craigslist might not have many jobs posted; if so, you may not want to post yours (if there aren’t jobs posted, who’s going to take the time to look?). Postings currently run $75 US, which has nearly always resulted in a really great hire for me.

But maybe you live in a very small town off the beaten track? Your town likely has a chamber of commerce, a church or two, a grocery store, maybe even a farmer’s market or school? Those are all great places to advertise your job, because they’re all centers for community. Different types of folks will be drawn to each. Your small town may still have a print newspaper and I know my Dad reads his town’s paper from cover  to cover, so I would definitely consider advertising there!

You might be tempted to post on huge electronic boards, like Monster. An ad on Monster is rather expensive – I would definitely save your money for the above possibilities first. If you live in a big city, you could then consider Monster, but even then … it’s really really expensive and you will be lucky to get a few really good and relevant resumes (you’ll be amazed at how many irrelevant resumes you get).

Of course, if you want to hire a high school student and your state/county/city/town allows you to do so, and you’ve met the requirements … definitely talk with your local high school’s job placement/career center. They might even do the screening for you!

Finally, another option is to go through a temp agency. You’ll pay the temp agency directly,  rather than the employee, but they’ll do the screening for you and will send you a new employee if yours isn’t working out. You’ll pay quite a bit more than you would for someone on your payroll, but with any employee there are costs above and beyond pure salary! If you need someone quick and don’t have time to do the recruiting yourself , this may be your best bet.

These are my top few absolute tried and true sites/locations to post jobs. Next week, we’ll talk about the actual posting/advertisement!

Which sources/sites are available where you live? Have you found or advertised jobs on other sites? Share your experience in the comments!

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Image Credit: TGKW; Objetpetita; Emily Corkery