Tips for Hiring New Employees or Freelancers for Your Small Business

If you’re looking for a permanent employee, here are some things to keep in mind:

Be super clear on what responsibilities and requirements you’ll have for your new employee. Make sure to communicate that well in your job posting.
Work with anyone else involved in the hiring process to create a good recruiting strategy. Where will you list job postings? Who will do the interviews? What questions will you ask?
Develop a pre-screening process. Before doing a full interview. Consider doing a phone interview to determine if the candidates meet the role’s requirements.
Offer a trial or test for job candidates. Have them work through a routine task to see if they can get the job done.
Have a good list of unique interview questions. Try to find something that they don’t have a practiced response for.
Consider doing a group interview. If the new hire will be working closely with certain people, having their input in the interview might better ensure a good fit.
Perform back and reference checks.
Consider hiring interns. You can opt for paid or unpaid depending on your hiring budget.
Pay attention to red flags. If the job candidate displays behaviors list tardiness, poor preparedness, speaking negatively about former employers or being vague about prior experience those might be signs they won’t be a good fit.

If you’re looking to hire a freelance or contractor, here are some good tips:

Know what you’ll be outsourcing.
Create a list of qualifications. What do you need them to already know how to do? What job or educational experience are you looking for?
Establish your onboarding process. This can help smooth the training process.
Write a detailed job description. The more detailed, the more likely you are to hire someone who will be able to do exactly what you want.
Shortlist your favorite candidates. It can be time-consuming reading through all the proposals, but it’s better than taking the first few that come along and end up with the wrong person for the job.
Set up an interview.
Take them for a test run. Have them perform a specific task related to the job you’re looking to hire them for.
Put everything in writing. This ensures both you and the freelancer are protected and on the same page about the job.

Our Top Picks

Easy to use: Indeed

Best features: ZipRecruiter

Most affordable: Fiverr

Find Permanent Employees

General Job Posting Sites

Indeed: All your hiring activities in one easy-to-use dashboard.
ZipRecruiter: Create your job posting with ZipRecruiter and they’ll send it out to 100+ job sites for you. Then they’ll match with candidates and invite them to apply.
MigthyRecruiter: Free recruiting software for business owners. The platform allows you to post up to 29 job boards and offers unlimited open jobs, resume searching, and user accounts.
Monster: Monster not only helps you find the right candidate, but they offer 2,000+ pre-written job descriptions to help you get the ball rolling.
CareerBuilder: CareerBuilder provides access to 50+ job sites, a resume database of over 20 million resumes and the ability to reach out to passive candidates.
Jobcase: Attract, hire and retain employees with the power of our 100+ million-worker platform. They are #2 among US online career services.
The Muse: Find employees that are a perfect fit for your company. The service emphasizes matching candidates with jobs that have the type of company culture they’re looking for.

For Hourly Workers

Snagajob: Access to millions of hourly workers and a powerful applicant tracking system. Great for industries such as restaurants, logistics and warehouses, grocery, cleaning services, hospitality, and eCommerce.
Homebase: Hire, manage and pay hourly workers more quickly and easily with Homebase. They offer services for payroll and employee management as well.
CoolWorks: Reach seasonal employees across the US and Canada with CoolWorks.

For Managers & Leaders

LinkedIn: This platform is a great place to network and find potential employees and freelancers both.

For Tech Jobs

Wellfound: Formerly known as AngelList Talent, this service helps connect top companies and fast-growing startups with candidates who want to help build your vision. They specialize in tech jobs and companies.
Hired: Get instant access to a curated pool of responsive top tech and sales talent actively seeking their next role. Find software engineers, devops, designers, product managers, data analysts, CX managers, account managers, & more.
Dice: Find and hire candidates in the tech industry. They also offer free resources for businesses looking to hire tech employees.

Find Freelancers of All Types and Skills

Upwork: Find freelancers for everything from development & IT, design, marketing, writing, and admin support.
LinkedIn: This platform is a great place to network and find potential employees and freelancers both.
Bark: Find local and online freelancers for everything from accounting, bookkeeping, graphic design, marketing, and more.
Opportunity: Get matched with job seekers who meet your criteria. You can get started with a free basic account or upgrade to pro for an unlimited search radius and multiple profiles.
Fiverr: Similar to Upwork, Fiverr gives you the opportunity to match up with freelancers who can help you outsource different aspects of your business. It’s been around for quite a while, so there may be a larger talent pool to choose from.
Freelancer: Freelancer promises to find someone to meet your needs no matter your budget or the size of the job.
People Per Hour: Connects employers with freelancers to help you get projects done. You can work with freelancers in the US or the UK.
Outsourcely: Connect with freelancers from 180+ countries. They have freelancers for web development, design, marketing administrative support, and more.
Guru: Guru helps connect you with top freelancers. They even boost a 99% customer satisfaction rate.
Hubstaff: Hubstaff connects businesses with freelancers who can help with development, marketing and sales, design and multimedia, writing and content, database and IT, admin, and business consulting. They’re one of the few services that are free for both the employer and the freelancer.

Find Job-Specific Freelancers

Writing

Textbroker: This service offers to connect you with writers to help you quickly get your content written.
ServiceScape: They specialize in helping you match up with freelancers specializing in editing, translation, graphic design, and writing.

Web Development

Credo: Credo is great if you’re looking for someone to help with SEO, marketing, or web development. They help connect you with digital agencies to help you meet your business needs.

Design

99Designs: If you’re looking for someone to help bring your ideas to life, 99Designs is a great resource. Freelances there can help with logos, websites, graphic design, and more.
DesignCrowd: Find a freelancer to create the perfect design you need for your business. They offer everything from graphic and web design to print and outdoor signage.
Zerply: This company claims to help get you in contact with the world’s best animators, compositors, fx artists, modelers, lighters and other CG & VFX wizards for hire.