Where Can Small Businesses Find Job Candidates?

Top hiring platforms for small businesses

1. ZipRecruiter

ZipRecruiter is one of the best job platforms for employers. It offers several special tools to make the recruitment process quick and painless for hiring managers.

For starters, when you publish a job posting on ZipRecruiter, the site automatically distributes it to over 100 other job sites, including Google for Jobs.

To speed up the process, ZipRecruiter also scrapes its database for resumes that meet your job criteria and sends you the matches. So instead of waiting for candidates to find your job advertisement, you can proactively reach out to them. ZipRecruiter will even integrate into your applicant tracking system to help you stay organized.

Best of all, you can take advantage of a free four-day trial. So if you hustle for those four days, take advantage of all the platform’s powerful tools, and fill your position, you won’t have to pay a penny.

If you decide to subscribe, a basic plan starts at just $16 per day.

2. Indeed

If you’d rather avoid monthly subscriptions altogether, Indeed is for you. Indeed claims its website hauls in over 250 million job seekers per month, making it one of the largest job sites worldwide. Plus, it’s free.

Because so many jobs are added to Indeed every second, you might have trouble standing out from the crowd when you post a free ad.

Fortunately, Indeed offers several filters that job seekers can use to laser in on your company’s open position. And if you want even more visibility, you can buy sponsored ads.

Whether you’re looking for full-timers, part-timers, freelancers or remote workers, Indeed is one of the best free ways to find them.

3. Glassdoor

Glassdoor is Indeed’s sister site, and small businesses can take advantage of both platforms for free.

Indeed is for posting job opportunities while Glassdoor is for building your company’s employer branding and reviews. When candidates land on your Indeed job post, they’ll be able to dig deeper into your company with Glassdoor, learn what you’re about, access salary information and read what other employees and interviewees have to say about you.

Combining Glassdoor and Indeed makes life easier for job seekers and can help lead more qualified applicants to your company.

The sooner you sign up for a Glassdoor account, the sooner you can start collecting reviews. So even if you’re not ready to post a job, it’s a tool that can benefit every small business.

4. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is considered the world’s largest professional social network. It gives employers a more holistic approach to hiring.

In addition to posting jobs for free (one at a time), you can also source candidates proactively through your network.

The bigger your network, the more reach you’ll have.

To fill your positions even faster, you can sign up for a free one-month trial of LinkedIn Recruiter Lite. This lets you search for candidates outside your network using advanced filters. You can curate a list of promising candidates to reach out to within minutes. This is a great way to find qualified candidates that may be interested in your opportunity, but aren’t actively searching for jobs.

LinkedIn Recruiter Lite normally costs $119.99 per month. But if you leverage your free trial, you may not have to open your wallet.

5. CareerBuilder

Similar to ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder is a job site and high-end suite of recruitment tools for small businesses. CareerBuilder is pricey — starting at $219 per month for a month-to-month subscription — but the hope is that the fee pays for itself.

For example, CareerBuilder uses artificial intelligence technology to search its database of over 45 million resumes for potential matches. It then sends a list of candidates to your inbox who match your job criteria, whether they are actively searching for a job or not.

The company also helps get more eyeballs on your job listings by sending out customized emails to active candidates that fit your position.

To streamline the process even further, you can purchase packages that assist with interview scheduling, sending offer letters and setting up employee onboarding.

While more expensive than other options, think of it as an investment. If CareerBuilder’s technology helps you fill your position a few months faster, that’s a few extra months your business can grow.

6. Dice

Dice is a niche job site that focuses solely on tech positions. Competition for top tech talent is fierce. And as a small business, you’re gunning against big corporations hungrily snatching up the most qualified tech professionals.

To help level the playing field, Dice lets you tap into a pool of millions of job seekers looking for tech careers.

Dice costs $495 for a single 30-day job post, with discounts for bundles of multiple posts. This makes it the most expensive tool on the list. But remember, tech talent is in high demand. And similar to any business, low supply and high demand drive up prices.

Dice also offers free resources to learn about employer branding — an essential part of any recruiting strategy. If your branding is on point, you’ll stand out from the crowd and attract better applicants.

7. Craigslist

Craigslist is an often overlooked hiring platform for small businesses. It’s regarded as the largest online classifieds website in the world, with a huge job listings section.

That said, it’s only useful for finding entry-level workers. You’re unlikely to find top talent or executives on Craigslist — it’s just not where they hang out.

But if you’re looking for hourly or part-time workers, Craigslist is one of the cheapest ways to do it. Job posts cost between $10 and $75 in the U.S., depending on your location.

Just don’t expect world-class customer support or high-tech tools. You’ll have to create your own system for staying organized. You can do this by including a link to your company’s career pages within your Craigslist post. That way, everyone applies from the same spot.