6 Free Recruiting Tactics for Startups
Published by bruinbear on Tagged Recruiting, WooMedel.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit Ask Google Netscape Simpy Socializer StumbleUpon Technorati Windows Live Wists Yahoo!
It’s been a couple of weeks since the last post. My lack of activity is mostly attributed to my head being down in the Mac, learning everything there is to know about Woo Media and the Web 2.0 space, not to mention working on the million tasks needed to be completed, yesterday, to move our company in the right direction. Between taking calls with PR agencies and developing the marketing plan for the www.woome.com site later this year, I have been spending a lot of time ramping up the marketing team.
We are intending to focus much of our marketing effort in California for the launch and since I am currently working out of the home office in Los Angeles, it seems to make sense to go out an get the best and brightest from the local schools here in LA. I am in pursuit of a young, hungry, smart, passionate, entrepreneurial type who simply knows how to execute, to fill my #1 priority position for the moment. The Marketing Manager will report to me directly and become immersed in everything there is to know about online and offline marketing. Sure, having some experience previously at an internet company would be nice, however, as I have found over my career, its far more important to find good people than it is to find someone with domain expertise. In this case I believe that to be even more true, since social marketing is in such a nascent place, the methods of marketing continue to evolve virtually everyday so whatever domain expertise someone might have today would no doubt be somewhat irrelevant next week. I need someone aboard this marketing team to be able to “figure it out” regardless of how, when and why the game changes. Below is a link to the Marketing Manager positions
As you can imagine, costs are a significant concern for our “little” startup and we are all, across the board, doing whatever we can to minimize our operational costs without sacrifice to the quality of our work. This is of particular importance when it comes to recruiting. After running an IT staffing firm for nearly 6 years, I know far to well how expensive fees are for a recruiting. Using a recruiting firm to fill a junior / mid-level marketing positions could cost up to $20K, important $$ I would rather have at my disposal for launching marketing campaigns to grow Woome.com’s user base.
As it turns out, with all of the recently developed and even some older recruiting techniques and tools now available, depending on the position, there are few reasons today for a startup company to pay recruiting fees for hiring members of its operating team, unless of course, the specific position are in high demand. With that, I have included the list below of the tools I have used over the past couple of weeks to hire Woo Media’s Marketing Manager and will no doubt continue to use to keep our recruiting costs down and personnel quality up!
• Linkedin – I have used this tool extensively during my deal making days at Shopzilla. I had received lots of job notifications from my Linkedin network in the past and felt it was time to utilize the “job notification service” for my own purposes of hiring. NO FEE to use and you get to send job descriptions to up to 200 contacts within your network. The power of the network shines through using this tool.
• UCLA Career Center – I have circumvented other recruiting tools like Monster. Hotjobs and Career Builder in favor of going direct with local university systems. I know how expensive and ineffective the aforementioned tools are and felt that going directly to the university was an easier way to get this job description in front of the candidates that I am most looking for. Also, not a bad idea to start building a reputation directly with the university for future hiring needs as well which are no doubt on the radar over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, USC is working with Monster to manage their job postings for their students. I think this is a big mistake since young, innovative companies like Woo Media don’t have the funds to post on Monster, limiting the kinds of position for USC students to those of larger, more traditional companies that have deep pockets
• Facebook – I tried out a marketplace listing at Facebook for all of $2. You can target the schools that you want to include the posting for, but since this seemed to be “buggy” when I posted, I went ahead and included in the Los Angeles network. Not much traction from this post thus far.
• MySpace - I tried out a classifieds listing on mySpace. Total cost, $0!! Now I see first hand why the newspapers are struggling. Hard to compete when online offers the same classified listing for FREE. No way that I know to segment and target by university so went ahead so like Facebook, included in classified for Los Angeles.
• Shopzilla Email – as I have written about often on the blog, Shopzilla is filled with some of the most talented, young professionals that I have ever come into contact with. The energy and smarts that just about everyone exudes at Shopzilla is second to none. So, what better way to find candidates with similar attributes for the Marketing Associate position at Woo Media then by reaching out to all of my younger former colleagues requesting that they send the job description to those within their own personal networks they felt were as good as them, if not better. (I am explicitly NOT recruiting current Shopzilla employees, only reaching out to my former colleagues to tap into their highly targeted networks.
• Targeted Email – Of course, this recruiting tactic has been around, for a long time, essentially, since email came into existence. However, sending out a job description to your own personal network directly to those people that you know have great access to the type of people you are looking to hire is one of the BEST ways to create the viral exposure of positions that ultimately lead to highly qualified candidates,
This campaign only began earlier this week, with many of these tactics only having launched a couple of days ago, therefore, it would be difficult to provide an assessment of success / failure for each method so far. However, once I have hired on my two Marketing Associates, I will be sure to add further insight to the blog.
Total recruiting costs to Woo Media, to date $2.
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July 29th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Good article Steven,
Hope the search is proving successful.
July 29th, 2007 at 10:52 am
thanks Otu. i have had some success with a few high quality resumes coming through but still not yet to the point where i am ready to give an offer. if you know of any other recruiting tools I should be using, do not hesitate to send them along!!
July 29th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
search engine marketing for recruitment is another alternative.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Steven,
Great little post on recruiting. I find that word-of-mouth and viral “marketing” or “advertising” is really an effective form of information dispersal, especially these days as more and more applications and portals reach critical mass for their particular niche.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:21 am
thanks juney. i haven’t yet received the extensive number of resumes i was hoping for, but expect to see that ratchet up over the next week since i only sent this out on friday. additionally, i will be changing the title of the position to marketing manager since the positions responsibilities will encompass so many areas of the business, and the position will provide significant levels of day to day ownership of various initiatives as well.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Good article. But do you think myspace or facebook realy work??
August 18th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Hi,
This stuff gives the real information one needs. One can feel like reaching the destination.
Thanks.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Great read. Thanks for the info
November 1st, 2007 at 11:38 am
Never though about using facebook or myspace for this; I think it’s a great idea. I like the tried and true method still of using emails as it is very direct targeted market like you stated
November 16th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Craigslist! Seriously. It’s a place for job hunting with more and more of the tech industry moving to it. I mean, really, it’s free.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Yeh, I don’t think most people on Facebook are prime candidates to join a startup, but LinkedIn is great!
December 16th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Craigslist is also good, albeit it may not be free in LA any more. Does your state employment office offer free listings? Oregon does and it works pretty well. Here newspapers are terrible, and Monster was never worth our money either.
Good post, I have not tried most of these before, I will give them a shot on our next hire.
December 17th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Great list for sites for recruiters. Need to be bookmarked for further use. We have used forums to recruit people for our e jobs mainly part timers and free lancers
January 24th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Linkedin is a valuable place.
I didn’t try facebook until now, but will.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Great resources for low-cost recruiting. PR can be a great sources of resumes. You might consider emailing local journalists about your quest to recruit a marketing manager without incurring much in the way of costs. If they write an article about it, you’ll find you have more resumes than you can handle.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I think myspace and facebook really works for the recruitment. As far as I know, some of my friends found their jobs through the kind of way, also including Linkedin.
March 31st, 2008 at 8:17 am
I think you are in California. Nowadays, marketing is well developed in north America. There should be some specialized websites created for recruiting marketing specialists, including senior e-marketers.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Great IDEAS! : D I agree that Myspace is a fantastic tool to use — and of course it’s free! Thanks for sharing!
April 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Jenna, I am of the opinion Facebook is superior for the purpose of recruiting… of course that’s just me.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I have come to your blog several times. You have not submit your updated articles. But for this one, I have something to add. Now, social media websites are more and more popular. So in some certain cases, the kind of websites also become a place to recruit emarkerters.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I agree with the above 6 tactics. In addition, chatting tools is becoming a means to broadcast recruiting information.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Try craigslist, and use more than 1 city.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Does anyone even look in the newspaper for jobs anymore? I didn’t even know MySpace had classifieds.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Most of people now checking job postings on the websites. But in job center, they will still suggest to call and find information through yellow pages.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:09 am
HI Steven,
What a great idea. I never thought of using these websites as a recruiting source. Blogs is certainly a very good idea of recruiting. This would get you the right candidates and that too at the very low cost. I hope this article goes to some good employers. Great!!!
July 26th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Yeh, I don’t think most people on Facebook are prime candidates to join a startup!
August 1st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Thanks for the resources. I have had great success with Craigslist in the San Diego area you might want to give it a try.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I used to be a Nextel dealer. I like counselor selling, even though I made most of my money selling international “call back” telecom down to Australia. It was a blast, I made enough residual income to “retire” for two years. It is great fun meeting new people, helping them out, and making money in the process!
I found myself having to hire telemarketers. Having to screen the applicants, I found: www.sandman.com/taliban.html I had the candidates watch the clip, then asked: “What three mistakes are the telemarketers making?” Yup, it’s a good test!
Enjoyed your article.
Tom
August 27th, 2008 at 2:41 am
The tactics that are provided in the article are great and they can really help the starters.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Online ads are best. Ad a job seeker, you can have positions emailed to you every day. As an employer, you can filter applicants more easily.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Your site is great and I really appreciate it! I have always enjoyed reading your site.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
#1 tip: recognize greatness
A Recruiting Guide for Startups
by
Dave Lefkow
Apr 18, 2007
Today’s entrepreneur is finding that it’s harder than ever to attract top talent. In the early days of the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, big employers were rightfully scared of startups hiring their people away with promises of unimagined riches, half-day ping-pong tournaments, and lavish parties. It was like summer camp with stock options.
Yet one day the bubble popped, and now startups are feeling the pain. To many employees, working for an established bigger company just makes a lot more sense. And this isn’t just a stability issue anymore. Big companies pay better, on average, and the potential jackpots of an IPO or merger/acquisition now rarely exceed the typical pay disparity.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Great little post on recruiting. I find that word-of-mouth and viral “marketing” or “advertising” is really an effective form of information dispersal, especially these days as more and more applications and portals reach critical mass for their particular niche.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Great article. True, social bookmarking, my space and face book can also contribute . They are sites frequented by a lot of people. Therefore there are hundreds of possible candidates for recruiting there…
September 14th, 2008 at 4:58 am
thank u for ur nice article
September 15th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I must say that these advices are valuable and something that I will look up to.
There is a personal reason, my father had a business too and it was going pretty well. He got complacent and too dreamy and did not stick to the basics like the ones you said and then the day came where it all fell apart.
I had to stop my education and take up work and now I have a start up and trying hard not to make the same mistakes.
September 17th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Great little post on recruiting. I find that word-of-mouth and viral “marketing” or “advertising” is really an effective form of information dispersal, especially these days as more and more applications and portals reach critical mass for their particular niche.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I didn’t know that MySpace has classifieds..:(
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:26 am
In Europe I would use www.xing.com
September 24th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
It is true any one can create a passive income at home,
its no big deal no a days.
You can also start off ,getting forms and all kinds of
legal documents. Its no big deal
there are a lot opportunities out there and all kinds of
other affiliate marketing programs out there, so what
are you waiting for get started.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:37 am
Thanks for the tips! Free things do make a big impact sometimes and this is a good example.
I know some good boys who have a start up and I think that I can tell them this stuff with your permission.
September 27th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I would also recommend Xing.com
Befreiphone Reloaded
September 29th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Some of these tools can really rock and this is one link that can change the way people do stuff!
Thanks!
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:44 pm
This stuff gives the real information one needs. One can feel like reaching the destination.
Thanks.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:47 am
I think your not a wannabe,your writing stuff like these!
October 6th, 2008 at 2:21 am
Xing.com is to opinion much more appropriate for such purposes.
October 6th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Startups hear hear!
This is the post that you would want to read if you wanna feel good about yourself!
October 11th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Linkedin can really make a difference and I think it is something that should be cashed in on.
There are so many other ways like you have mentioned, in the end it is about the will,the passion.
October 12th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I don´t understand why so many people like the LinkedIn Community. It doesn´t look invitating and it´s quite borring, doesn´t it?
October 20th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Great little post on recruiting. I find that word-of-mouth and viral “marketing” or “advertising” is really an effective form of information dispersal, especially these days as more and more applications and portals reach critical mass for their particular niche.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Hi,
This stuff gives the real information one needs. One can feel like reaching the destination.
Thanks.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:13 am
Facebook is not to bad. But sometimes I use my space.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Your Info helped me very much. Thanks for providing it.
I will use facebook.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Thanks for sharing this information useful information for startups with us. Great article…
October 29th, 2008 at 6:43 am
I like your tactics. You just gave me a richly-detailed strategy on how to start-up effectively.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
I find that word-of-mouth and viral “marketing” or “advertising” is really an effective form of information dispersal, especially these days as more and more applications and portals reach critical mass for their particular niche.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
These tips will come in handy as we embark on this new brokerage business. We’ve already experienced some horrors with an assistant we hired. It’s still craigslist for us although we found our recent employee thru referral. Great tips. Good luck to you.
November 8th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Craigslist has been good for me, though it takes several people tries to get it right. I put simple ads in the An Arbor MI CL and get responses from all over the world. Also, you may have heard hire slow, fire fast! Also, think about trying a personality profile such as DISC or using an outside service to help identify the characteristics you need and then hire to those.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:27 am
Great post on recruiting.Thanks for sharing this useful information.Really it is a idea.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:26 am
This guide really helps me a lot. Great article about recruiting tactics…
November 26th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I always use linkdin for online recruiting.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:21 am
I prefer Facebook and MySpace for online recruiting… Interesting article, I’m gonna try the other tips.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Your article is very helpful for us as startups. Thanks for sharing this infos with us!
November 27th, 2008 at 3:26 am
Recruiting in internet allows many new things. For example to have employees abroad. It makes it possible to employ best qualified personal.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:37 am
craiglist is one which helps better.we should recruit the people having good ideas.Thanks
November 28th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
You could just post the positions on the site blog - you’ll get lots of relevant resumes that way!
December 1st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
A post about recruiting and no mention of elance? Say it aint so.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:03 am
You talk about free recruiting tactics… it´s a bit weird, why should recruiting cost money? If you recruite, you offer… not the contrary!
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:22 am
I am actress at the theater and such things like the 5p´s make me smile
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:39 am
Very helpful article for startups! thx!
December 4th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Worthful infos for startups. But why does recruiting cost anything? This is something i don’t understand…
December 5th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I hired a headhunter who makes the recruiting job for me.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:52 am
We also work with headhunters. This makes it much easier for us finding good and qualified people for our company…
December 10th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Headhunters are too expensive for us. As your described in your very interesting post, there are some rules and when we follow them, it’s not so difficult recruiting new staff.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Your article is very helpful for startups and newbes in HR… Great help!
December 10th, 2008 at 6:54 am
We’re actual looking for new coworkers and your guide is a big advise… Thanks so much!
December 10th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Our company is getting much bigger and we need qualified people for different sectors. Your guide show, how to recruite clever. It’s really a big help for us. I bookmarked your article.
December 11th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
We’ve found now a lot of new possible candidates online by a post we set last week in a forum - after I read your post. I think it’s cheapest and most effective looking online…
December 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
We don´t have any problems with recruiting. People only have to show us their know-how. No blabla!
December 16th, 2008 at 4:13 am
you should sell your articles as ebooks, they are very valuable!
December 19th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
This is a very well written article.Easy to follow.I am happy that I came across this.Thank you.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:01 am
Free marketing or low cost is very possible..believe, build, and grow….also once you learn a lot then you can dump some $$ into it because you’re getting what you expect.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:55 am
great gide! thanks its helpful!
January 1st, 2009 at 11:55 pm
hey thanks for the start up tips. Its exactly one needs. and you provided it .
January 12th, 2009 at 4:41 am
I fnd it´s a weird idea of you to think it could be difficult to recruit. If I have a job to give people should run to me and not me to them (?)
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:30 am
Any telecommuting positions available?
February 1st, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Wow! nice blog. i loved reading it. It has lots of information.
Thanks a lot!
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:05 am
Hey Steve, Been waiting for an update to this article. Have you filled the vacancies? any strange and wiered people applied? Keep us updated please .
February 10th, 2009 at 7:20 am
This is a very well written article.Easy to follow.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Excellent article! I suggest a couple other ways to market to and follow up on qualified job prospects is to advertise on Facebook (cost effective) and deploy a marketing automation tool such as Infusionsoft. These tools are great because you can effectively limit the wasted, unmotivated applicants in favor of the ones who qualify.
~Joseph
February 14th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
A greeting from Spain. Passed by this blog by chance and liked his ma and wave energy. Enjoy your meal and continue. King
February 27th, 2009 at 3:23 am
Do you have experience in recruiting in network marketing?
March 1st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
This article looks great.Thanks for Sharing!
March 10th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Interesting advices but not for every sort of business. anyway good articles!
March 11th, 2009 at 2:11 am
It depends on for what kind of business, but Facebook for example is better for private contacts anyway. Xing.com ist a real business platform.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Thanks buddy! I new only once source for startup money and you helped me to get the rest.
Thanks!
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:19 am
Your tips and tactics really would help. Thanks for sharing it.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Good article, but I don’t believe in myspace or facebook.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:36 am
Thank you! These tools are great because you can effectively limit the wasted, unmotivated applicants in favor of the ones who works.
April 25th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Awsome Marketing tips. Thanks. Does anyone use the RainMaker Criagslist Software to market their business?
April 28th, 2009 at 7:01 am
The main issue with a merchant account is your bank’s acceptance of your business industry and your business Model. Also you must be aware of your site contact and customer’s legislation
July 1st, 2009 at 9:36 pm
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