A Handbook to Hiring for Small Businesses

As a small business owner, you know how crucial your team is to transform your vision into reality and drive growth. 

Indeed, every employee in your operation plays a vital role in your ongoing success, from handling day-to-day tasks to supporting long-term expansion.

But finding the right talent is tough, especially when you’re up against larger companies with more resources. 

In this article, we’ll share hiring tips for small businesses just like yours. You’ll learn how to strategize, promote, onboard, and retain top talent—empowering you to recruit, build and maintain a strong, effective team.

Challenges of Hiring for SMBs

In your small business, hiring challenges can stifle growth and cause missed opportunities, affecting your ability to compete and achieve lasting success.

This is an issue common to most SMBs: Almost 99% of small business owners find it difficult to recruit qualified employees. 

Below are the three biggest hurdles that stand in the way of small businesses wishing to build a strong team: 

• Limited resources: Larger companies with bigger budgets can offer higher pay, extensive benefits, and more perks that many small businesses cannot match. Moreover, without a big marketing budget or well-known name, smaller businesses find it harder to stand out to prospective candidates.
• Time constraints: As a small business owner, juggling daily tasks and client needs makes it difficult to focus on hiring. This can lead to slower hiring processes, resulting in potential loss of top candidates—and contributing to heavier workloads, burnout and turnover of existing staff.
• Finding specialized skills: Small businesses often require employees with specific expertise, but many struggle to find skilled workers. In fact, a study found that only 50% of job seekers meet basic qualifications for open roles, which makes the available talent pool feel limited and harder to navigate. 

Thankfully, there are effective strategies to overcome these obstacles.

In the sections below, we’ll guide you step by step on how to optimize your hiring process stage by stage, even with limited resources, brand visibility, and time.

Identify Your Hiring Needs

Before jumping into the hiring process, it’s crucial to first assess your current team’s skills. Doing so can help you pinpoint any gaps or areas where additional support is needed.

Start by recognizing tasks that are overwhelming your employees or consuming too much of their time. For instance: 

• Are certain administrative duties taking time away from core business functions?
• Do you find specific areas of your business lack in specialized expertise, such as marketing, operations, technology, customer service or finance?
• Are there any areas where your team struggles to meet deadlines or handle the volume of work effectively? 

By recognizing these pain points, you can more effectively identify and define the role you need to fill.

Next, clarify all the responsibilities the new hire will take on—and what impact you expect them to have on your business. Consider how their skills will complement and enhance your existing team, helping to eventually alleviate strain and propel your small business forward. 

Also consider whether the position can be done remotely, especially if the role requires specialized skills that may be hard to find locally. By opening it to applicants in different cities, states, or even countries, you can broaden your talent search to find—and secure—the specific expertise your small business needs.

Create Job Descriptions

Now, it’s time to create a well-crafted job description.

Here are a few best practices to help you write a standout listing: 

• Use straightforward job titles: Ensure the job title accurately reflects the role and its responsibilities. Avoid vague or creative titles that may confuse applicants (e.g., “Chief Fun Officer”). Rather, opt for titles that candidates are likely to search for.
• Make it clear, concise, and clean: Use bullet points and short paragraphs to make the description easy to scan. Meanwhile, steer clear of jargon and overly technical language, which can distract job seekers from key details.
• Highlight key responsibilities: List the primary duties, so candidates understand the day-to-day expectations.
• List “required” and “preferred” qualifications: Specify the essential skills, experience, and education needed for the job. Then list any additional, desirable qualifications.
• Share growth opportunities: Highlight the potential for career advancement within your business. Whether it’s through training programs, mentorship, or chances for promotion, communicate how your company invests in employees’ long-term success. 

One other thing you should absolutely include in your job descriptions is your company culture. Also known as “corporate culture,” it plays a huge part in defining your employer brand, and is a primary consideration for the majority of job seekers.

To help candidates understand your culture, communicate why your company is a great place to work. Highlight all the characteristics that make your establishment unique from competing businesses, including your: 

• Corporate values, vision and mission.
• Work environment.
• Team dynamic(s).
• Employee-friendly policies.

By referencing your company culture across all job descriptions, you can help potential candidates quickly determine if they align with your values, and ultimately attract candidates who are more likely to thrive in your workplace.

Keep in mind, you don’t need to start from scratch when creating job descriptions. With numerous job description online templates available, you can quickly and easily craft clear, effective listings. 

Maximize Your Hiring Reach

Now that your job description is ready, it’s time to spread the word and attract top talent. 

Success begins with knowing where to promote your job openings.

Here are some powerful recruitment strategies to help you reach the right candidates—some at no cost, others for a small investment:

• Company website: Assuming you have a website, this is the first place to pop your job description up. Ideally, you already have a careers page where candidates can easily apply via an online form or email. 
• Social media platforms: Use channels like LinkedIn to promote job openings, driving interested parties towards your website for more details. You can also invite potential candidates to engage with your company via social media, in a more personal and interactive way.
• Online job boards: Post job listings on platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor, which help you reach a broader, more diverse pool of candidates.
• Professional networks: Tap into industry-specific networks and associations, where experienced professionals may be seeking new opportunities. Keep in mind, however, that membership in these networks may be required to post job openings.
• Recruitment agencies: Partner with recruitment experts (aka “head-hunters”) who specialize in sourcing candidates for your industry or role. This can save you time and effort by outsourcing the search process.
• In-person events: Engage with post-secondary institutions and attend career fairs to connect with emerging talent. These events allow you to showcase your company culture and directly engage with potential candidates for current and future roles.

Meanwhile, don’t overlook the power of employee referrals. When candidates are recommended by current staff, businesses can dramatically cut hiring times and save thousands of dollars.

What’s more: Referred hires tend to demonstrate better performance, generate higher profits, and stay longer than non-referred hires.

Master the Interview Process

The interview process is a key step in ensuring a candidate fits your small business. It’s about evaluating skills, but also about checking whether the candidate aligns with your unique company culture. 

While large companies may outsource this part of the hiring process, smaller businesses often lack the resources to do so.

If you’re managing interviews in-house, consider using technology like automated scheduling software and AI-driven screening platforms to streamline the process.

Meanwhile, here’s how to make the most of this critical stage: 

1. Screening Candidates

Screening resumes and cover letters is a crucial first step that narrows the field. Focus on relevant experience, skills, and genuine interest in the role and company.

Once you’ve shortlisted potential candidates, consider doing phone screenings. These short calls—often no more than 30 minutes—offer a simple, efficient way to ask key questions, assess communication, and determine cultural fit. Plus, they are relatively informal, making them less stressful for candidates than in-person interviews. 

Phone screen interviews offer a multitude of benefits—chief among them, time- and resource-savings, as a result of quickly eliminating those who aren’t a good fit before you move to the more formal interview stage.

2. Conducting Face-to-Face Interviews

A face-to-face interview is ideal for thoroughly assessing a candidate’s experience and qualifications. These interviews can take various forms, including one-on-one, panel, or group.

Regardless of the format, it’s important to prepare questions that assess both skills and cultural fit. Balancing these factors ensures you’re hiring candidates who will contribute to the long-term success of your business.

Whether conducted in-person or online via platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, each interview format has unique benefits.

When interviewing for a new job, Americans strongly prefer in-person meetings over virtual formats. Offering an in-person interview option can positively influence a candidate’s perception of your company. However, they can be time-consuming for all parties and limit your business’ reach to local candidates.

On the other hand, virtual interviews offer flexibility, plus they can speed up the hiring process.

3. Evaluating Candidates

For small businesses, minimizing bias in the hiring process is crucial to ensure fairness. When objective criteria are used—such as qualifications, experience, and cultural fit—it helps eliminate personal preferences that can lead to unfair decisions.

Moreover, this approach allows for a more accurate evaluation of each candidate’s potential. 

Background and reference checks are also essential tools for diving into a candidate’s past performance, work ethic, and professional reputation. You can conduct these checks by:

• Verifying employment history.
• Reaching out to previous employers.
• Reviewing criminal records or credit reports (if applicable).

According to one study, as many as 70% of workers say they have lied on their resumes, with 37% admitting that they lie frequently throughout the entire recruitment process. This reinforces the need to perform thorough checks to confirm that candidates are indeed qualified.

Onboarding New Hires

Onboarding involves much more than paperwork: It’s your chance to make new hires feel welcomed, valued, and connected to your company culture. A solid onboarding plan includes team introductions, policy training, and setting clear expectations from day one.

For small businesses, a stellar onboarding experience is a smart investment. It helps new hires understand their role and how they contribute to the team—setting them up for long-term success while improving the return on your hiring efforts. 

In fact, research shows that 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three or more years if they have a positive onboarding experience.

Ultimately, a smooth onboarding process not only boosts employee retention—it also strengthens overall business success.

Retaining Top Talent

Making sure your employees stick around is just as important as hiring the right people. 

After all, it costs less to keep good employees than continually having to find new ones. Various studies find the average cost to recruit a new employee in the U.S. can range anywhere between $4,100 and $7,600.

Once you’ve hired a great employee, you may then worry about the possibility of losing them—especially to a larger competitor offering higher salaries.

But employee retention is about more than just money. By adopting the following strategies, you can help foster a culture where employees always feel valued, respected, and connected to their work: 

• Maintain a positive environment where open communication and collaboration are at the core of everything you do.
• Regularly recognize and celebrate employee contributions with rewards, feedback, and public acknowledgment.
• Offer perks like health insurance, paid time off, and retirement plans to balance out lower salaries.
• Provide opportunities for professional development, such as training or mentorship, to nurture skills and turn potential into long-term talent.

These efforts will show your team that they are appreciated, helping boost their engagement and motivation to stay within your business.

Hiring Your Dream Team Just Got Easier With Bitty

As a small business owner, you know how vital the right team is to your success. By taking a strategic approach to hiring, you’re not just filling roles—you’re investing in the future growth and strength of your company. 

At Bitty, we’re here to support you every step of the way. In addition to small business resources, we also offer fast, hassle-free revenue-based financing, giving you swift access to funds so you can hire top talent to accelerate your business growth.

With Bitty, you receive instant funds and make repayments as you earn, letting you focus on expanding your business without the burden of traditional loans.

Don’t let a lack of capital hold you back from building the team you deserve. Apply for Bitty funding today—and let’s take your business to the next level together!