Whether you’re preparing for your busy season or need to fill vacancies in your staff, hiring employees is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Putting the right people on your team affects everything from your day-to-day operations to customer satisfaction.

In a competitive job market, it can feel difficult to find qualified candidates, especially when many operators are trying to fill seasonal positions at the same time.

We recognize this issue and are here to support you with three ways to find top talent. 

1. Create a Permanent Jobs Page

A great first step to reach your hiring goals is to add a permanent jobs page to your website. Even if you are not hiring at this exact moment, you should feature what positions will be available during your busy season.

For instance, if Julie is passionate about kayaking and is hoping to work at your kayaking business starting in June, she may look at your website in the few months prior.  

Furthermore, if you want to hire for the month of June, it is critical to give yourself a month or two to collect as many applications as possible. This will be key to hiring the best possible candidates.

Once you create your job page, there are a few items you should include for each role:

• Job descriptions that have as many details as possible
• Responsibilities that each role has
• Qualities you are looking for in each candidate (for a tour guide, start here!)
• Hours they will be expected to work each week and how scheduling will work if they get the job
• How the hiring process will go (i.e. how many interviews will occur and if it will be in person or over the phone)
• Benefits and vacation time
• Any other perks that will make someone want to work at your company (i.e. fun staff outings)

Pro Tip: Create an FAQ section for commonly asked questions that will apply to all roles. For instance, “do I need special training to apply?” or “is this a seasonal position?”. You can add to this section as you begin conducting interviews and find out what candidates want to know.

2. Post Jobs in the “Right” Places

Expand your reach for quality candidates by posting each job in other places aside from your specific site. 

Online Job Boards

There are a lot of online job boards out there, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, CoolWorks, Ziprecruiter, Adventure Job Board, and others. Conduct research to find out which pages will be the most successful for your specific listings. 

You can do this by searching for similar positions in your area. For instance, Google search “haunted walking tour guide in New Orleans” and see which job boards pop up first.

Social Media

Presumably, your audience on your social media pages are fans of your business and industry. You can post about your open positions with a link to your jobs page so more people will see the openings. Encourage current employees to share as well!

Aside from your own social media pages, consider posting your jobs on Facebook or LinkedIn Community Groups. These choices should be relevant to your specific business. For example, if you are looking for new hiking tour guides in Colorado, search for Colorado-based hiking groups to post your open positions in. 

Printing Flyers

This one is an oldie, but a goodie. You can print out flyers with the details of your open positions and post in local coffee shops, bus stations, and more to find local candidates. 

Pro Tip: Print a QR code on the flyer that candidates can scan and be taken directly to the jobs page on your website. This will streamline the process and make sure all of your applications are online and in the same place. 

3. Be Selective in Your Hiring Process

Once you’ve posted your open positions, you’ll likely have a lot of options for each role. Now is the time to be selective. 

Ask yourself, “who is my ideal candidate?” If you’re in a time crunch or worker shortage you may feel tempted to try and just fill the positions with whoever applies. But this can lead to turnover, especially if the candidates aren’t the best fit for the role and struggle to perform their tasks. 

It’s important to get the best people into each opening, so be picky! If you do a good job creating your listing and posting across channels, you should have a big pool of candidates where you can find the right person for the job. 

That being said, we know you may be in a hurry and need to hire right away. Ensure that you have a plan to thoroughly train each new team member. This is what will lead to higher retention, which is critical during a worker shortage. 

Overall, when you are looking to hire this season, think about your ideal staff member and cater all content to them. You can always be particular when picking your staff, but make sure you have the resources, training, and incentives to back it up.