According to research conducted for the 2025 Canada Salary Guide From Robert Half, more than half (49%) of Canadian small business hiring managers expect a lack of experienced candidates to be their biggest hiring challenge. If you’ve led a small business hiring strategy, you know all too well how tough it can be competing with larger and more resource-rich companies to secure skilled talent.But recruiting for a small business can be easier than you think. By taking a creative, comprehensive approach to compensation and drawing from effective employee retention strategies, small business hiring managers can place themselves and their organizations in a highly desirable position to attract skilled candidates and keep them on their teams for the long term.
Here are four hiring and recruiting strategies for small businesses to help you add more power to your small business recruiting efforts:
When interviewing candidates, make sure to highlight the many benefits of working for a small business. For example, because your staff is lean, your employees often perform functions beyond their stated job descriptions. That business need can translate into a career booster for motivated professionals, enabling them to rapidly acquire new skills and develop a broad range of abilities.Also, because your small business is likely low on hierarchy, talented employees can quickly advance to positions with more responsibility. That can help keep their job satisfaction high, and employee turnover low.
No company shares a job posting expecting candidates to tick every box, but small business hiring managers in particular can turn this into an advantage by focusing on soft skills such as communication, collaboration, and problem solving during the interview process and hiring for potential rather than experience.Indeed, our Salary Guide research found that small businesses are more open to less experienced candidates than their medium and large counterparts, with 38% targeting individual contributors with 0 – 2 years of experience (versus 27% of medium and 32% of large) and 60% looking for 3 – 5 years of experience for director-level roles (versus 21% for medium and 24% for large).
After salary, the top reason cited by Canadian professionals – more than one third (36%) – for seeking out a new job is better benefits and perks. The number one perk they’re looking for, mentioned by 65% of respondents, is flexible work schedules. In fact, 34% of employees who aren’t seeking a new job don’t want to give up their current level of flexibility.Small business hiring managers know this and are more likely than their medium and large counterparts to offer certain perks such as flexible work schedules (97% versus 90% and 95%) and company-subsidized meals or snacks (92% versus 84% and 90%).
Salary should still be part of your small business recruiting strategy. Want to make sure you’re paying your workers competitively? Check out the 2025 Canada Salary Guide From Robert Half.
It’s likely that playing to the above strengths is why Canadian small business hiring managers expect to spend less time than their medium and large counterparts hiring for open roles.While tips can be helpful, learning how to hire as a small business can be tough. If your search is taking longer than expected, consider reaching out to a talent solutions firm like Robert Half for support. In addition to providing ready access to a deep pool of talent, our recruiters can provide advice on best practices in each of our practice areas: finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, administrative and customer support, and legal.
Bringing in contract professionals can also help keep your projects moving forward and ease the burden on your core staff during a candidate search; you might even end up hiring them for full-time roles.
