It's Time to Address This Small Business Need ASAP

Work at some small businesses tends to pick up naturally during the summer months. If you run a restaurant with an expansive outdoor patio and waterfront view, then you may find that your busiest time is between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Similarly, if you run a retail shop in a beach or lake community, you may find that customers keep pouring in during the summer because they're in the area due to vacationing there.

It's for this reason that small businesses commonly need extra hands on deck during the summer. Challenger, Gray & Christmas says that teens are looking at 1.1 million summer jobs this year. And while that's actually a decline from previous years, it still spells opportunity.

However, if you need to staff your small business for the summer, you should really get moving quickly. Colleges will be letting out for the summer break any day now, and you want to line up some employees before all the students in your community are committed to other employers.

A good strategy for hiring help

At this point, you don't have a lot of time to find summertime employees. So if you're going to post a job, here are some pointers to help ensure that you get quality applicants:

• State the requirements clearly. If experience is needed, let that be known. And if you're willing to train newbies, say that, too.
• Explain what the commitment is. Will workers get flexible scheduling? Will there be preset hours every week? And will the gig run the entire summer? (Keep in mind that if your busy season lasts through Labor Day weekend, many colleges resume before then.)
• What wage will you be offering? If you don't want to stick to a specific number, at least offer up a range so that prospective summer employees know what to expect.
• Is there the potential for ongoing work after the summer? Some college students may want to line up a job now that they can continue with, albeit at a reduced pace, once their studies resume. If that opportunity is available, make it known.

Questions to ask prospective employees

Chances are, you don't want to have to repeat the hiring process midway through the summer. So your best bet is to ask prospective hires the right questions from the start to make sure you find the right people for the job. Some questions you may want to incorporate into your interview are:

• Why do you want this job and what are you hoping to get out of it? Note that some students might simply say "I want money to put in my savings account," and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
• What schedule can you commit to? It may be that some applicants are taking summer classes and can't necessarily work all day, every day.
• How many weeks can you work this summer? Even if you need 12 weeks' worth of extra help, it may be worth it to hire someone with a great attitude and experience for 10 weeks if that's all they have available. But you probably don't want someone who can only work for seven or eight weeks.

Addressing your summertime staffing needs is something to take care of right away. So if you're behind in that regard, get your job listing up as soon as you can and carve out time in your schedule for interviews. You may also want to specifically see about publicizing job openings at college campuses nearby (or via online job boards connected to those schools) so potential candidates are made aware of them.