recruitment
Size Doesn’t Matter
AS A SMALL BUSINESS, YOU HAVE A LOT MORE TO OFFER TOP TALENT THAN
YOUR COMPETITORS – EVEN IF THEY’RE 10 TIMES YOUR SIZE
By Jess Campbell
If you’re a small business owner, you know that attracting – let
alone keeping – top talent can be a tough game. It’s especially
ruthless when your competitors are giants that offer everything
but the moon to all the greatest talent.
One of the worst things you can do as a small business is believe
that you’re not competitive when it comes to attracting the top tal-ent
in your industry. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you’re
not as mighty as the next guy.
Finding and keeping top talent isn’t necessarily about offering a
corner office with an outstanding view, a gym membership and a
parking space (although there are people who value that, and that’s
okay). For a small business, bringing great people onto your team
is about demonstrating that size really doesn’t matter – people do.
WHAT YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT
Sharon Vinderine is the CEO of Parent Tested Parent Approved
(PTPA), a media company that connect brands with a community
of parents and influencers who provide feedback on new products
used by families every day. The company has been around for more
than a decade but employs just eight full-time staffers. Vinderine
says that finding and keeping top talent as a small business can de-pend
on the stage of life that both the business and the new hire
are in.
“As a small business owner, I feel like I’ve run the gamut, like
we’ve been hit with every scenario when hiring. Sometimes, you
can find people who are just done with big corporations. They’re
looking for a change, they want to settle down, they know what
they need to live on and live happily, and they’re good with that.
But then you can have some senior management that, unless they
have a vested interested in the company like a profit share, are
much more difficult to attract, no question,” she said.
With bigger corporations, expectations are usually clear: this
person has that role with those responsibilities. That kind of de-finitive
structure is attractive to some people – but those are not
the people who will be attracted to your small business.
“Depending on the age of the person you’re looking to bring
on, typically if they’re younger, they like to know there are a lot
of rungs on the ladder that they can climb to get to a higher posi-tion,”
said Vinderine. “When you’re in a small company, there’s less
obvious opportunity for growth because it’s less hierarchical and,
very much, everybody does a little bit of everything.”
Of course, there are many people who are attracted to a more
fluid role.
“When you have someone who’s a little more established, has a
family, a mortgage – at that point, I feel it’s a little bit easier to at-tract
great talent because they’re no longer looking to climb the
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HRPROFESSIONALNOW.CA ❚ JANUARY 2018 ❚ 35
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