When it comes time to advertise your job vacancy you have many options available to you. The best choice will be the one that attracts the most qualified and capable applicants to YOUR business. What works for one business may not necessarily be the best choice for another.

Having already created your job description and person specification you should now have a profile of your ideal candidate. Armed with this information you are now able to determine the best recruitment method for your vacancy.

If you have not yet drafted these documents please refer to my previous hub for information on how to do this. I have included the link below.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Recruitment-For-Your-Small-Business-PART-1-Identifying-A-Need

When deciding where to place your vacancies think about your ideal candidate. What method of advertising is going to return you the most qualified applicants for the type of position that you are advertising?

It is very important to get this right. To run a recruitment campaign, no matter how small, is time consuming and costly. You will exhaust financial as well as human resources in the process. So you want to make sure that it is effective.

To go through the motions of advertising, culling applications and speaking with applicants only to find that the advertising campaign has not attracted anyone suitable is frustrating and costly.

When deciding where to place your vacancies refer to your person specification. What type of applicant are you trying to attract? What skills and experience will the applicant need?

The more that you know about your ideal applicant the better placed you are to choose the most ideal method of advertising. For example, placing an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald (one of Sydneys' major daily newspapers) for a junior labouring position will probably not return as many positive responses as a small ad in the employment section of your local paper.

This is why it is so important to complete the job description and person specification prior to placing the vacancy. It may take a little time to prepare, however the advantages of doing so far outweigh the time and effort involved.

In the case of phone applications make sure that whoever will be answering the phone is aware that you have placed an ad.

This is common sense but it is not uncommon for businesses to advertise a position and then fail to inform the contact person. This makes you look unprofessional and your staff incompetent. I was once employed as the recruitment officer for a medium sized firm. The first I knew of the advertisement was when the phone started ringing and the emails began arriving. This may not have posed much of a problem but I had been listed as the contact person!

This is not the image that you want to portray to future employees, customers or the general public. No matter what business you are in you want everyone that deals with you to feel that you are professional and competent. You can help to develop this reputation by being professional and prepared.

This will depend on the position being filled and also on the resources of your particular business. Which method of reply is likely to attract the most candidates:

• written response via email or letter
• by telephone
• in person
• by fax (though dated this method is sometimes still used)

Consider the resources that your business will use in dealing with each of these approaches. Can your business handle the down time that would occur.

For example a newspaper ad inviting applicants to telephone directly could result in over one hundred responses. If you are a small business your receptionist may struggle to cope with the additional workload. If you don't have a receptionist which staff member will be handling these calls? Do they have the communication skills necessary to screen applicants for you?

Likewise, if you are operating a take away food store could you cope with the additional workload that a recruitment campaign will generate? Would you prefer applicants to drop in or telephone?

You need to choose the best method for YOUR business.

The best option is the one that:

• causes the least amount of disruption to your business, and
• is likely to attract the 'type' of applicant that you are after.

Coming Up Part 3 The Interview.