10 Small Business Recruiting Hacks to Attract Top Talent (Guest Blog)

Expedition HR is excited to share a Guest Blog to kick off March from Abel Johnson with Hidden Talent, an Expedition HR partner.

Abel is the owner and Chief Recruiting Officer of Hidden Talent, a boutique recruiting firm that specializes in providing personalized, high-quality service to both clients and candidates. With over a decade of experience in recruiting and human resources, Abel has worked in various roles, from Corporate Recruiter to HR Business Partner to Director of Human Resources, earning national and regional HR excellence awards along the way. His expertise spans high-volume recruiting, strategic hiring, performance management, and employee engagement, allowing him to deliver customized solutions that meet the unique needs of each client.

How NOT to Compete with Large Businesses for Talent

In 2025, attracting and hiring top talent can sometimes feel like a luxury rather than a necessity, especially for small businesses. They face many barriers when competing against large corporations for talented people. These companies often pay more, have better benefits, cool perks and a visually attractive “workplace culture.” For small businesses this can be overwhelming, daunting and even feel hopeless. I often hear owners ask, “How can we compete?” To which I reply, you don’t. Let me explain…

Sure, competing with a large corporation head-to-head is nearly impossible. If you both post a job for a Project Manager role, they undoubtedly will pay more. But this doesn’t mean they win, and you lose. This narrative is limited and doesn’t allow you to open your mind to the possibilities of competing on many other levels. The name of the game is not win or lose, but rather a win for you and your business. The type of talent who is attracted to large corporations, lots of money and business titles may not be someone you are looking for in your business. This doesn’t mean they are bad people; it just means those things are important to them at this time in their lives. That can, and usually does, change over time and throughout their career.

10 Ways You Can Attract Great Talent

1. Grow your employer brand

   Create various channels by which you can tell your company story, services, mission and values. Utilize social media when possible and ensure you are creating consistent content that’s important to you and your target audience. This won’t provide instant applicants, but over time you will win over potential talent whose passions and skills align with your own. 

2. Create a referral program

   Encourage and reward your current employees for people who they can refer to your company. Great talent typically spots other great talent and chances are they know someone who fits what you are looking for.

3. Write a unique job ad

   Don’t fall trap to the practice of taking a long and boring job description and pasting it into a job ad and posting it. Take the time to spice up your ad. Ask yourself “If I was looking for an exciting role, what would catch my eye when reading an ad?” We always ask job seekers to customize their resume to the job, but how often are we customizing the job ad to the ideal candidate we are seeking?

4. Ensure you have a stellar hiring process

   If you don’t have an official hiring process, create one now! If you do have one, ensure it is written down and everyone knows what it is. Take time to audit your process and ensure it is timely, effective, fair and creates a good applicant experience. There are so many ways to do this, far more than we can touch on here. (Reach out for more information.)

5. Hire for attitude and train for skills

   Admittedly, as hiring managers we naturally want to hire the best people with the most experience. But these two things are not always the same. The best people don’t always come with a long history of work experience in your industry. Look for talent who bring intangibles to the table; coachability, hard work, honesty and dedication. At the end of the day no two jobs are the same and so the time you need to invest into training someone will always exist. The question is whether you want to invest in someone who already has the personality and attributes you want.

6. Offer flexibility

   A mistake I see all the time is the rigidness companies place on schedules and in-office policies and practices. Don’t get me wrong, there are jobs that require this for various valid reasons. But for those that don’t ask yourself “why am I asking this as a requirement?” You may find that it's more about you wanting to control or manage your people due to fear of them not working. I would argue that empowering your employees and giving them trust upfront does wonders for the team's morale and actually increases overall happiness and thus, performance. 

7. Create a top-tier onboarding program

   Ah, the achilles heel of successful recruitment. Ensure your recruitment doesn’t end at an offer, but a smooth transition to onboarding. You have done the work to get this great talent, now ensure you keep them on the hook. Create a personalized experience where their schedule is clear, their desk is ready, their logins work, and they feel warm and welcome on day one. 

8. Gather feedback regularly from your employees 

   Don’t assume you know why people work for you and what motivates them. Ask them. Ask them regularly as it changes. Take those real and honest answers and market them in your recruitments. This is the answer to the candidate’s question “why should I work for you?”

9. Build a pipeline of talent (Always be recruiting) 

   Just because you don’t have an immediate need to hire someone, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your eyes out for talent. Create a drobox on your website where interested candidates can still send you their resume. If you’ve built a strong brand, great talent will always be asking if you’re hiring, even when you aren’t.

10. Live your company culture from the top down 

    One of the most popular reasons great talent leave organizations is because of a terrible boss or an organization who doesn’t live up to the professed culture. Culture is not something you put in a frame on the office wall. Or a pool table you have in the lunchroom. It’s how leadership treats their employees daily. It’s a personal connection they make to each worker. It’s the gratitude employees feel from their leaders. It’s the simple yet strong stuff.

So how do you compete?

In the small and simple things, in places the big corporations are dropping the ball. Take advantage of the underrated yet powerful applicant experience and ensure it's the very best you can give. Be personal. Be transparent. Be kind. The ultimate measure of your company culture is not only how you treat the finalist you hired, but more importantly, how you treat the humans behind the resumes you didn’t hire. It is dangerous to assume that because they weren’t a fit for this role right now, they won’t be a great fit for another role down the road. Their experience matters too, and chances are they will move on to tell others about their interaction with your organization. Do your best to ensure they convey positive things to others. This becomes your company brand and a powerful recruiting tool for future hiring.

Happy Hunting!  

NOTE: We do not offer recruiting services at Expedition HR. Hidden Talent is an Expedition HR recruiting partner. 

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