Getting the Right Talent for Your Small Business Almost for Free

Talent Acquisition is a major challenge for every business. For Small and Emerging businesses though, it poses as a major hurdle. Almost every conference that you attend or every entrepreneur/ business owner you speak with, they all voice the same concern in terms of acquiring the right talent.

But Why is Talent Acquisition Difficult - the challenges?!
Its not just about hiring people on board and increase the team size. For Small and Emerging businesses, hiring forms a critical aspect of their existence.
Its crucial for an emerging business to hire the relevant and right talent which adds real value to the organisation.

Every growing business faces different challenges, while attracting talent during different growth phases. While interacting with the leading SME's, some of the challenges we have come across are:

1. Finding employees with the similar passion for work
2. Finding employees with the right skill sets
3. Matching compensation expectations
4. Creating the right cultural fit

What Challenges are SMEs Facing With Human Resources?

Many of our partner SMEs across India have shared the challenges they have faced while hiring talent:

1. Reducing Cost of Talent Acquisition
2. Increasing Employee Retention and Engagement
3. Employee Training - making every employee a Go To Market engine for the organisation

SME Empowered - How Can You Address These Business Challenges?

• Reaching out to the right talent and Reducing Cost of Talent Acquisition

Both these business objectives can today be achieved easily and powerfully. Social Networking platforms like LinkedIn and facebook provide a fantastic opportunity for SMEs to connect with prospective employees.

There are many success stories of not only small but also large and established businesses, which are leveraging these online tools to reach out to prospective employees with powerful messages, while engaging them into the business vision and mission.

Large Companies Can Do it, But How Will You Do It?

Large companies have a strong brand recall and hence are able to attract good talent. Well yes, its true, but the trends are changing. We are seeing a shift in employment trends. There is good talent which is exploring new opportunities while working with Small and Medium businesses. This gives them the satisfaction of more responsibility while adding to their learning.

Eg: if you are an apparel retail company and are looking for people relevant to the domain, all you need to do is go to LinkedIn, and search on the top right search bar, for "Apparel Retail" and you will get all people in your immediate network and also in your extended network, relevant to the domain.

But How Am I Saving Cost?

Getting connected to a relevant individual on LinkedIn not only allows you to create a personal connect, but also explore opportunities. You are hence saving on:

1. Time
2. Money

While you are reaching out to the relevant target audience in lesser time, you are establishing a more personal connect and also, as in usual cases you may engage a recruitment agency or hiring to whom you pay the general norm of 8% of the annual salary or the first months' salary, you can now hire resources directly while cutting down on cost of talent acquisition.

On facebook, you can create a fan page of your brand/ company and start sharing interesting information and career opportunities with your organisation, which engages the target audience into your brand's conversation.

Eg: Accenture Hiring in India:

But How Do I Ensure Relevancy and Background of the Talent?

Firstly, you are getting connected to the relevant people in your targeted domain. Also you can search through the "recommendations" which a person you are targeting as your prospective employee. These recommendations are in the public domain and hence a strong check on the credentials of the talent.

To know more on solving challenges related to your Human Resources, drop in a comment to this post and our experts will answer back!!