Published
Jul 22, 2024
In the post-pandemic world, businesses were forced to upgrade processes and technology to stay alive. Sadly, the hiring process never got the memo. It's time to make hiring a strength in your business.
Small Business
Chris Miller
Founder and CEO
MyRecruiter was founded to help small businesses grow. We believe that people are the heart of every business, and getting them on board shouldn’t be an endless challenge. MyRecruiter simplifies the process for businesses to find, screen, interview, and hire the right talent more quickly than any other recruiting method. We offer a significant upgrade to how small businesses hire, saving them valuable time and resources.
Equally important, we understand that the recruiting experience can often be frustrating for both applicants and managers. That’s why we’ve designed MyRecruiter with a modern, automated recruiting approach that is user-friendly and leaves a lasting, positive impression.
The Idea for MyRecruiter
The idea for MyRecruiter came from reading an article in the Austin Business Journal. Having been in enterprise HR software for two decades, I was ready for a change. I wanted to start my own business using the knowledge I’d gained from helping companies all over the world, and the article was my lightbulb moment. It told the story of a restaurant in Lakeway (just outside of Austin on Lake Travis) that had been around for years. The restaurant was successful, offering great food and a welcoming environment whether you wanted to grab a bite by yourself or take the kids after school events or games. It reminded me of some places my family took me when I was a kid in the small town where I grew up.
Unfortunately, the restaurant closed because it couldn’t hire enough people to support the business. The owners were heartbroken, and, frankly, so was I. This was the spark for MyRecruiter, a solution designed to streamline small business hiring by automating recruiting for small businesses.
Recruiting Automation for Small Businesses
After spending a career working with big businesses such as Disney, Nissan, GE, and Morgan Stanley, I had a strong desire to work with small businesses. Why? My family is full of entrepreneurs who have started their own businesses. I’ve always admired the grit and determination it takes to make a go of it day in and day out. While big companies have a mountain of resources, small businesses drive the economy, often with little more than sheer will. I deeply admire their resilience and passion.
Consider the following:
There are 33.3 million small businesses in the U.S., making up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses.
Small businesses employ more than 61.6 million people, constituting about 47% of the private-sector workforce.
Small businesses are responsible for creating more than 1.5 million jobs annually, accounting for 64% of all new jobs in the U.S. each year.
Those are big numbers. With such a significant hiring volume, most small businesses don’t have the luxury of big HR departments or dedicated recruiters. Instead, hiring is mainly done on the front lines by the owners, operators, and managers already wearing a dozen other hats required to keep the business running. This is where recruiting automation can significantly help, providing cost-effective recruitment solutions that save time and resources.
The Pandemic Changed How Businesses Operate
Let's go back in time a few years to the pandemic. Needless to say, it changed everything. So many businesses were lost while others held on by their fingernails. Once things returned to “normal,” the social and economic climates changed, and businesses had to adapt and modernize to remain alive and competitive. While many areas have seen significant tech advancements, HR and recruiting have remained manual and outdated.
Interestingly, one of the main complaints of business owners is that they can’t find enough people or the right people to hire, with 37% of small business owners reporting unfilled job openings and 45% identifying hiring as a significant challenge. This is a clear indication that traditional hiring methods are no longer sufficient and that automated recruiting solutions are needed.
Small Business Technology Upgrades During the Pandemic
Point of Sale (POS) Systems:
• Pre-Pandemic: Many small businesses relied on traditional cash registers and basic POS systems.
• Post-Pandemic: Businesses adopted advanced POS systems that integrated inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM), and online sales platforms to streamline operations and improve customer service.
Inventory Management:
• Pre-Pandemic: Manual tracking and paper-based inventory management were common.
• Post-Pandemic: Businesses implemented automated inventory management systems that provide real-time tracking, reduce errors, and optimize stock levels.
Online Ordering and Delivery Services:
• Pre-Pandemic: Limited online ordering options and reliance on in-person sales.
• Post-Pandemic: Significant investment in online ordering platforms, third-party delivery services, and curbside pickup options to meet changing customer expectations and safety requirements.
Curbside Service:
• Pre-Pandemic: Rarely used by small businesses.
• Post-Pandemic: Widely adopted as a convenient and safe way to serve customers, supported by mobile apps and online scheduling tools.
Digital Advertising and Social Media:
• Pre-Pandemic: Limited digital advertising and social media use, with a greater reliance on traditional marketing methods.
• Post-Pandemic: Increased investment in digital marketing strategies, social media engagement, and online advertising to reach customers spending more time online.
Remote Work:
• Pre-Pandemic: Remote work was uncommon in small businesses, with most employees working on-site.
• Post-Pandemic: Adoption of remote work technologies such as video conferencing, collaboration tools, and cloud-based systems to support a remote or hybrid workforce.
The market completely changed, and businesses had to adapt to survive. Despite significant upgrades and advancements in customer-facing systems, services, and processes, how companies recruit and hire talent is stuck in the past. This oversight has led to lost profits, high employee turnover, and customer dissatisfaction due to understaffing issues.
Continuing with the same old methods will not produce different results. Upgrades need to carry over to recruiting and HR just as they’ve done with the rest of the business.
This is where MyRecruiter steps in, offering a mobile-first automated recruiting platform built for small businesses and the people they hire.
Let’s explore the industries that MyRecruiter is helping first - retail, hospitality, and volunteer recruiting.
Recruiting Automation for Retail, Hospitality, and Volunteers
Retail and Hospitality
Our goal is to transform how all small businesses hire, starting with the retail and hospitality sectors. Helping nonprofits with volunteer recruiting aligns with our mission of doing good by changing lives in communities. Let’s look at the characteristics of each.
Recruiting automation is a natural fit for industries that constantly hire. Retail and hospitality are two such industries, and both share many similarities:
Annual Turnover Rates: Both industries experience high turnover rates, fluctuating between 60% and 70%.
Seasonal Hiring: They rely heavily on seasonal hiring to manage peak periods.
Flexible Staffing Needs: Both sectors depend on a mix of part-time and full-time staff to accommodate flexible staffing requirements.
Front-Line Hiring: Most of the hiring is done by front-line staff, who often wear many hats and juggle different responsibilities.
Recruiting automation is an essential tool for these industries. It helps to streamline the recruiting process, dramatically reduces the recruiting workload for front-line staff, significantly improves candidate communication, and reduces hiring times to hours or days rather than weeks. MyRecruiter is designed to meet these specific needs.
Volunteer Recruiting
Helping nonprofits recruit staff and volunteers is a personal mission of mine. The mission took its roots when my wife and I adopted four absolutely incredible siblings. This adventure has been the hardest and the most gratifying thing we’ve ever done.
Austin has an incredible support network for foster and adopted kids and their families. Austin Angels is one of the nonprofits that has supported us from the beginning with mentors, activities, leadership camps, and a host of other wonderful things. They have supported hundreds of families and thousands of kids across Central Texas through the generosity of volunteers who sign up to be mentors (the Dare to Dream program) or family sponsors (the Love Box program).
The Austin Angels program has changed our lives, and through MyRecruiter, we intend to help the Angels team recruit and onboard more volunteers to change the lives of thousands of families and children.
Recruiting volunteers has many similarities to retail and hospitality:
High Turnover Rates: Volunteers often leave due to personal commitments, lack of engagement, or burnout.
Seasonal and Event-Based Needs: Many volunteer roles are seasonal or tied to specific events, requiring organizations to ramp up recruiting efforts at certain times of the year.
Diverse Volunteer Base: Volunteers come from various backgrounds, ages, and skill levels, making tailored recruiting approaches and management strategies necessary.
Flexible Commitment Levels: Volunteers often prefer flexible schedules, contributing as their time allows. This requires organizations to offer adaptable opportunities and manage fluctuating availability.
Volunteer recruitment poses unique challenges for nonprofits, similar to the hiring issues faced by the retail and hospitality sectors. High turnover, seasonal needs, and the diverse nature of volunteer work require a strategic approach to recruitment and management. MyRecruiter is poised to address these challenges by providing advanced, user-friendly tools that streamline the recruitment process and enhance the impact of volunteer programs.
Bringing Recruitment into the Modern Age
In conclusion, MyRecruiter is here to bridge the gap in recruiting technology for small businesses and nonprofits. By addressing the specific needs of retail, hospitality, and volunteer recruiting, we provide tailored solutions that streamline hiring, improve the candidate experience, and reduce recruiting workloads for front-line staff. Stay tuned for our upcoming posts, where we will delve into the specific features of MyRecruiter and share success stories from businesses like yours. Together, we can transform how you recruit and create a brighter future for your business and community.
Stay Connected
Subscribe for updates and our lastest posts.