Hiring Tips for Small Business: How to Recruit Employees | Business

Plan ahead.

Like other aspects of running a business, hiring all comes down to planning. If you’re desperate and have to hire the first candidate you see, you’re unlikely to get the best person for the job.

Instead, give yourself time to create a hiring process. This technique will help you proceed methodically, allowing you to get to know people and attract candidates who appreciate order and organization.

According to recent SHRM research, the average time to fill open roles has fallen from 48 days in 2023 to 41 days in 2024, indicating that companies adopting streamlined, planned approaches are seeing significant improvements in hiring efficiency.

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Direct Costs vs. Indirect Costs: What’s the Difference? | Business News Daily

As the owner of a startup or small business, understanding the distinction between direct and indirect costs is essential when pricing your products or services. When you know the true costs involved in producing and providing your goods or services, you can price them competitively and accurately. Additionally, many costs are tax-deductible according to current IRS guidance, so properly tracking both direct and indirect costs can help maximize your deductions.

What are direct costs?

Direct costs are expenses that a company can easily trace to a specific “cost object,” which may be a product, department or project. Examples include software, equipment and raw materials. Direct labor is also included, as long as it relates to a product, department or project.  For example, when an employee is hired for a project either exclusively or for a set number of hours, their labor is a direct cost. If your company develops software and needs specific assets, such as purchased frameworks or development applications, those are direct costs.

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Hiring Tips for Small Business: How to Recruit Employees | Business

Hiring the right employees can help your company grow revenue, take your company in new directions, and make work more enjoyable. However, making a hiring mistake can be costly – some estimate a bad hire can cost you 30 percent of the employee’s annual earnings, while others estimate the cost to be much higher. Making too many wrong moves can interrupt cash flow, curtail business growth, and cause unnecessary strain on other employees.

Whether you’re looking for in-office or remote workers, here are some small business hiring tips and the best ways to recruit employees.

Small business hiring tips

Remember these tips to ensure you hire the employees who will best fit the role and your organization.

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Is AI a Small Business Owner’s Best Friend? | AllBusiness.com

It’s long been said that being an entrepreneur can be a lonely existence. Small business owners work hard, often leaving little time for a personal life. They crave solutions that save them time so they can carve out some downtime.

According to BILL’s 2025 State of Financial Automation Report, many have turned to automated solutions, especially artificial intelligence (AI). BILL’s report reveals that 73% of those surveyed say they’ve already incorporated AI into how they run their businesses, and 83% expect their dependence on AI will continue to grow over the next two years.

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What Amazon Business Can Do for Your Company | Business

Consumers and businesses are well aware of e-tail giant Amazon.com; many companies turn to Amazon to purchase discounted and bulk items. However, Amazon Business provides tools and benefits beyond low prices and free shipping.

Amazon’s business resources give registered users valuable benefits that are unavailable to regular Amazon account holders. Whether you’re starting a business or have an established venture, an Amazon Business account is a good idea. It makes purchasing corporate items and supplies seamless, efficient and inexpensive, while providing purchase management features, analytics tools and more.

What is Amazon Business?

Amazon Business is a free platform that makes purchasing on Amazon easier, more insightful and more convenient for registered businesses.

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Microloans for Small Business: Learn What’s Available and Whether to Apply | All Business

When you own a small business, you’ll have a variety of obstacles to deal with and needs to meet. The one near-constant, however, is financing.

Like it or not, you need money to make money, and one of the biggest reasons why small businesses fail is their inability to deal with cash flow issues. Even successful businesses that have plenty of revenue sometimes hit a fatal cash crunch at the wrong time. To combat this ongoing issue, business owners sometimes turn to business loans and other financing products, which can make sense if you have a plan in place to pay back your funding plus interest. One overlooked financing product, however, is the microloan.

Most business owners are familiar with the term microloan, even if they’ve never considered one themselves. The concept of microlending has transformed entrepreneurship in countries and markets where the barrier to entry is sometimes as little as a few hundred dollars—though that hardly seems like a useful sum to most U.S.-based businesses.

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AI Will Change Everything in Your Small Business | Small Business Trends

AI will fundamentally change the landscape of various industries. Still, many small business owners are slow to adapt and are ignoring this new technology.

My guest on The Small Business Radio Show, KP Reddy who is the author of “Creating the Intangible Enterprise”, an AI expert, founder and CEO of Shadow Ventures. With a background in civil engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, KP has become a global authority in AEC environments, AI, robotics, automation, mobile applications, and cloud computing.

KP is also the author “What You Know About Startups is Wrong”, debunking eleven popular myths about what defines a top entrepreneur. His extensive experience includes founding and exiting three technology companies to NASDAQ and NYSE,

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Hiring a Lawyer for Your Small Business: When to Take the Plunge | All Business

As an entrepreneur, you spend most of your time focused on day-to-day tasks, like managing your staff, helping customers, and marketing your business. It’s easy for legal concerns to take a backseat—but that can be dangerous. Unless you take the proper steps to legally protect your business, everything you’ve worked so hard for can be at risk.

When does a small business need a lawyer and when is it okay to take the DIY approach? Here’s a guide.

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How to Say Thank You for Supporting My Small Business | Small Biz Trends

Your small business wouldn’t be where it is today without your valued customers. The holiday season and new year can be an ideal opportunity to say thank you and show your appreciation. If you’re looking for ways to say thank you for supporting my small business, here are some ideas.

Why Is It Important to Thank Loyal Customers?

Thanking customers can be an easy way to foster business loyalty. If you show your appreciation in a tangible way, customers may be more likely to continue purchasing from your business and interacting with your content or initiatives.

Top Examples of Small Business Thank You Message to Customers

If you’re looking to build customer loyalty and show your appreciation to your customers, the following ideas may help. Some may work specifically for long-time clients, while others can appeal to both new and returning customers. Here are some ideas and templates to get you started.

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How to Run Payroll for a Small Business | business.com

Doing payroll yourself can be as easy as these eight steps.

Processing payroll by yourself can be complex, and if you’re doing it for the first time, it’s crucial to consult an expert before you get started.

The challenge of processing your payroll is what you may miss. For example, if you enter deductions or file payroll taxes incorrectly, you could expose your business to severe liability. However, you can still process payroll manually – in eight steps – and if you’re a small business owner who employs only a few people, it may be worth learning how to do payroll on your own.

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