How to Hire the Right Employee in Your Niche

How to hire niche employees: 5 simple steps

Here are five essential tips for a successful niche recruitment campaign.

1. Write a targeted job description

Your job advertisement is the foundation of the entire recruitment process. If you don’t write your job description properly, you won’t attract the right types of people when you post to a site like ZipRecruiter.

For a successful campaign, follow the typical structure for engaging job ads. Then, go one step further.

Sprinkle jargon and technical language into your description. If a job seeker is qualified, they’ll understand. If they’re unqualified, they won’t.

Also, don’t be afraid to set the bar high.

If you include only barebones requirements for skills and experience, you may receive many qualified applications, but not all qualified applicants will mesh with your team members.

To avoid wasting time interviewing candidates that don’t quite fit, think of extra requirements you can add to repel the wrong type of applicants.

2. Put yourself in the job seeker’s shoes

To write an effective job description, you need to understand the employee you’re trying to attract.

Get in their head. What’s important to them in a job? What are their goals? What inspires them? What turns them off? What does their life situation look like?

Once you understand exactly who you are writing to, you can tailor your message accordingly. If you know what’s important to them, you can remove any incentives they don’t care about, and replace them with benefits they actually want.

If you’re drawing a blank, ask other employees who have similar roles. You can also try to find out where your ideal candidate hangs out online to peek at the conversations they’re having.

3. Post your job advertisement strategically

For a more precise hiring process, try:

• Employee referral programs. Offer rewards to employees who refer candidates you eventually hire. If your current employees are passionate about your niche, odds are they know other people who are passionate about it as well.
• Tap into your network. Share your job posting with colleagues in your field. Ask them if they know anyone who might be a good fit. To expand your network even further, consider using recruitment tools on LinkedIn.
• Post on niche job boards. Some job boards focus on smaller candidate pools. For example, AngelList attracts employees passionate about tech startups, and Handshake focuses on college students and recent graduates.

But don’t rule out the big guys: the giant job search engines, including ZipRecruiter.

With millions of job seekers perusing these sites each month, you’re bound to get the most eyeballs on your open position.

If you’ve never used ZipRecruiter, you can try it out for free, and make your first job post available to a universe of candidates in just a matter of minutes.

4. Use your marketing skills

Many companies pull out all the stops when marketing to customers. But when it comes to attracting the right employee, those marketing skills go out the window.

Search engine optimization, pay-per-click ads, referral marketing, optimized website copy, social media marketing — these are all customer-acquiring marketing strategies that can also be used to hire employees.

Recruitment shouldn’t be an afterthought.

It takes time, effort, and creativity to convince customers that you deserve their business. Channel that same creative energy into convincing employees to work for your company.

5. Don’t forget social media

Social media allows you to instantly tap into almost any niche imaginable.

On Facebook, you can hunt for groups where your ideal candidate hangs out.

On LinkedIn, you can search through millions of professional profiles, filtering for the exact type of employee you’re looking for.

And on Twitter, you can search by profession and easily connect with potential candidates. If they’re taking time to actively build their professional network on Twitter, they’re likely to be passionate about their career.

Lastly, social media isn’t just a place to find talent. It’s also a place where talent can find you.

Many applicants vet your company’s social profiles before applying, so curate a social media presence that will win them over.