# General Business Category > General Business Forum > [Question] Where do you find employees?

## Greig Whitton

Per the title, I'm curious about any recruitment tactics that TFA users have employed to good (or bad) effect.

Obvious tactics include recruitment agencies and hiring people within your personal / professional network. However, I am particularly curious to hear about any experiences involving Gumtree and similar channels. 

Success and horror stories are equally welcome!

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## Blurock

Ads in mass media such as Gumtree or newspapers may give you an unwanted response. Do you want 300 applicants on your doorstep?

A recruitment agency can do that for you, but at a price. For a small, startup that may be too costly.

The third option is to headhunt someone with specific skills. It all depends on what you are looking for.

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## Dave A

Nowadays we use Gumtree and the professional and personal network route.
I also have a small pool of CV's from people knocking on the door that sometimes produces a fair prospect.

Gumtree certainly produces responses for anything mainstream - lots of responses. Finding the right candidate becomes a question of how good your sifting process is.
Networking is a bit hit and miss.


I used to advertise all vacancies in the daily papers, but haven't done that for quite a few years now. It certainly used to work well enough, though.

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## HR Solutions

Recruitment agencies such as ourselves are a bit of a cost for a small company starting up, but for an established company we take all the grind and sweat out of it for you.  We sift thro all the candidates, interview them, ITC, Crim check them if you require and send you the top 5 that would be qualified and suitable for the position.

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## Terry Hopper

Your success of your startup depends on working hard and a little bit of likelihood. Through experimentation business owners locate and great the enterprise model, only to become dejected if they are not able to find a staff to help carry out the thoughts. Picking out the great stuff brings about locating the great harmony. The balance many of us business owners seek out is frequently simply just mouse clicks away… buried in a very planet regarding spammers and unreliable, inexperienced staff. This is the directory 10 sites that will help you on your quest to find the great harmony.

*Marketplaces*

1. Elance
2. oDesk
3. Guru

*Classified Sites*

4. Craigslist

*Social Sites*

5. Facebook
6. LinkedIn
7. Twitter

*Job Boards*

8. Monster
9. Jobs.Mashable

*Recruitment Services*

10. Zirtual.

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## IanF

Just for clarity Terry Hopper's IP address shows he is from India. So read South Africa shown as his location with a pinch of salt.

@ Terry I would suggest you be honest with us and tell us where you are from and why you joined the Forum, BTW I am not trying to chase you away.

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## HR Solutions

Lol  @ Terry Hopper ..........  :Smile:

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## Terry Hopper

> Just for clarity Terry Hopper's IP address shows he is from India. So read South Africa shown as his location with a pinch of salt.
> 
> @ Terry I would suggest you be honest with us and tell us where you are from and why you joined the Forum, BTW I am not trying to chase you away.


I would like to interact people regarding business for sale. That's why, I am here.

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## IanF

> I would like to interact people regarding business for sale. That's why, I am here.


What is the business you are trying to sell?

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## pmbguy

I knew he was from India because of the lameness of his posts, grammar and of course his proper English name

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## HR Solutions

> I would like to interact people regarding business for sale. That's why, I am here.



Oh that is cool ................ would you like to buy my business ?

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## Dave A

> would you like to buy my business ?


I was quietly wondering what Terry's budget might be  :Whistling:

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## Houses4Rent

Question: What does it typically cost to use a recruitment agent?  What if none of the shortlisted candicates are found suitable/if the end result is no person is hired? What is the typical process? 

I have an employee (my only one) I am getting tired off. I am now fedup enough to start some action as I realise the situation wont change unless I change it. I am looking to find a manager who can run my small business and manage that employee and free up more of my time. If he does not like it to become second fiddle he is free to leave. Hopefully that will happen anyway if the new man is better as I doubt I can afford both anyway. I am quite happy though to put a new junior admin erson to the side of the new manager. I offered this to my current employee and we have many CV's, but he is just to tardy to get results. He complains about too many things and does not come up with solutions. Everybody must change but him. I reserve that right for me as I am the owner who built this business from scratch 7 years ago. Heck if I find the right manager this business can fly even higher as its modell is unique and remains uncopied so far. 

I am pretty certain my employee does not lurk on this site. Me thinks I can advertise myself under an anonymous umbrella (like a new neutral email address without any telephone number), but I want to look at options too. I even have an old cell number whod enuimber nobody has, but someone would have to answer it and he knows my and my wife's voice. Email only will be just fine.

Actually Terry, do you want to buy my business too?

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## HR Solutions

H4H - the cost varies between 12-15 percent of annual cost to company.  There is no charge to u if u don't like one of the 5 candidates we send u, therefore we try to make sure that we do our job correctly, interview all of them first, vet them check them out thou rally to ensure a good match to your company after meeting with you as well.

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## Houses4Rent

Thanks for the guideline. That sounds like an awful lot of money though. What if a hired person does not survive the probation/the first year or runs away before the probation/year is up?

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tec0 (20-Jul-14)

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## HR Solutions

> Thanks for the guideline. That sounds like an awful lot of money though. What if a hired person does not survive the probation/the first year or runs away before the probation/year is up?



We offer a 3 month guarantee.  Normally if a person leaves after that it is due to the company,s fault, therefore if we have all done our homework properly it is up to any company to keep their staff fir a long term

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## tec0

I found it best to read the fine print before accepting any service. Can anyone actually guarantee an employee will stay? 
What if the employee gets a better job trough a friend? 
What if the employee gets ill or have a serious accident? 

There are just some of the things I would consider before forking over between 12-15 percent. I say this because you have to consider the “possibility” that you may end up paying for something that can be easily lost due to circumstances that truly is beyond your control. 

I would recommend ask the tuff question make sure you get the right answers before you sign anything.

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## Dave A

> We offer a 3 month guarantee.


Hi HR,

Reading Tec0's post, may I suggest you delete "guarantee" from your mind and replace it with "warranty" in general communication. There is an important legal difference between the two, and I expect what you were trying to communicate here was effectively the latter.

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tec0 (22-Jul-14)

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## HR Solutions

> Hi HR,
> 
> Reading Tec0's post, may I suggest you delete "guarantee" from your mind and replace it with "warranty" in general communication. There is an important legal difference between the two, and I expect what you were trying to communicate here was effectively the latter.


Yep you are right - but the "guarantee" I was referring to is due to many factors - We don't just match and place - we do extensive work on the candidates to "match" them to the correct employer by various means.  Our"guarantee" I was referring to is once we have found the right person for the company we will give your money back if he leaves within 3 months.  This obviously is a reflection of how sure we are of the match.  Dave you yourself will know how difficult it is to find staff that are qualified etc etc etc. 





> There are just some of the things I would consider before forking over between 12-15 percent. I say this because you have to consider the “possibility” that you may end up paying for something that can be easily lost due to circumstances that truly is beyond your control.


tec I do not expect you to understand the concept of recruitment agencies.  You have not understood in the past and still do not understand.  

Normally when we place a person that earns R100 000.00 per month a lot of work goes into it, the company is large and understands that they cannot just find that person who is that qualified etc etc and it is time consuming for them and they know that they can rather be doing their own job themselves that they are themselves good at and leave it to people that know how to find people and have the means.

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## Blurock

> Just for clarity Terry Hopper's IP address shows he is from India. So read South Africa shown as his location with a pinch of salt.
> 
> @ Terry I would suggest you be honest with us and tell us where you are from and why you joined the Forum, BTW I am not trying to chase you away.


South Africa is a country, not a place. Is it true that people stating their location as the USA or other countries are usually spammers?

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## Dave A

> Is it true that people stating their location as the USA or other countries are usually spammers?


Quite a few, yes.

But we also get some pretty genuine folk from international, so try not to prejudge just on the location they provide.

What tends to be a far more reliable indicator of looming mischief is what their IP tells the Admin team, and quite often the first few posts.

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## tec0

> Hi HR,
> 
> Reading Tec0's post, may I suggest you delete "guarantee" from your mind and replace it with "warranty" in general communication. There is an important legal difference between the two, and I expect what you were trying to communicate here was effectively the latter.


Agreed, 

Most car manufacturers/suppliers and services use the term warranty as there really is some liability connected to guaranteeing something  :Yes:

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## HR Solutions

Tec I wish I knew as much as you ......

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## tec0

> Tec I wish I knew as much as you ......


 :Cool:

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