How to Amp Up Your Employment Force as Fast as Possible

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delphinium

Rapidly ramping up your workforce when the labor market is flush can be tough. When the labor market is tight, this type of scaling can be much harder. Keeping your business going as you take the time to interview and hire will also take planning. By using a few well planned tips, you can expand your workforce more effectively and efficiently.

Advertise Appropriately

Your advertising needs to be targeted to your intended hiring pool. Do you need help in your packing and shipping department? Hiring students for the holiday season could do a lot to lighten the load on your current staff. If you need help with less labor intensive but fairly simple projects, you may be able to offer short or part-time work to retirees looking to make some extra cash.

If you’re looking to hire degreed professionals, start on LinkedIn. Consider also reaching out to professional organizations in your field; be willing to offer flexible employment to professionals who want part-time or remote work. Finally, check in with nearby universities for students who may be interested in part-time work or internships in their chosen field or industry.

Simplify Your Application Process

Hiring many people will be easier if you have a lot of resumes to review. Ask a friend who has never worked in your industry to hop on your website and apply for a job with your organization. Ask for an honest assessment of where things break down for them. For example, you will want to make sure that

  • resume uploading is quick and obvious
  • the “Apply Today!” link is obvious
  • the online application is quick to load and easy to scroll through

Anyone looking to apply to a lot of different companies will quickly hop off your site if the application submittal process isn’t simple and quick.

Build A Roster Of Freelancers

If you have any projects that can be outsourced to a freelancer, build a routine with those you enjoy working with. Even if you don’t absolutely need to outsource such projects, build a “once a week” or “twice a month” routine with your favorite freelancers so they make room in their schedules for their projects.

When you need to amp up, give them as much heads up as you can provide. Be aware that many freelancers are side hustlers. They may already have a full-time gig. Your ability to get more work from them will be more successful if you can allow them to block out the time for your company alone, so allow as much time as you can.

Hire Temporary Workers

Building a strong relationship with temp agencies can also speed up your process. Instead of posting your own needs and reviewing all those applications yourself, you can contract with temp agencies in Chicago and other US cities to review a large pool of applications and resumes all at once.

A quality staffing agency can help you filter in applications that will suit your current needs. That isn’t to say that all other applications will be discarded; in fact, the ability to customize your application searches is a necessary service that the right temp agency can offer. With the right relationship, you can go back to this searching feature to change up your query and revisit applications.

Create Screening Questions

Create screening questions on your website to prevent your hiring team from being overloaded with applications that don’t serve. This is not to say that you will never review these applications; the next time you need to hire, your needs may be different. However, your current crunch can quickly be focused by creating a “save for later” pool of applications.

The right scanning software can also lighten the load for your hiring team. As you gather applications and resumes, create an internal tracking spreadsheet that will give you information on which websites actually provided you with applicants that were worth your time to review. If you are gathering a lot of resumes and finding few candidates that interest you, you may need to post elsewhere.

Boosting your employment force can also be done by word of mouth. If your employees are happy enough to bring in their friends, you’re doing a lot of things right. Keep doing them and reward those employees to bring in even more quality workers.