Recruitment 101: Hiring Fundamentals for Small Businesses

Hiring your first employee or building a small team is a big step for any founder or small business. This practical workshop gives micro-businesses, sole traders and early-stage SMEs a clear understanding of how recruitment works, what to prepare before hiring and how to find and select the right people without wasting time or budget.

We will cover the full hiring journey, from identifying a need to onboarding, exploring when it makes sense to outsource versus bringing someone in-house, and examining the true cost of hiring and when to expect a return on investment. You will also learn how to define roles clearly, attract candidates when you are not a big brand, run fair and effective interviews and avoid common compliance pitfalls.

Attendees will leave with practical tools, confidence and next steps to support their growth plans.

Setting the Scene: Understanding Your Hiring Context
A short grounding in what recruitment really means for micro-businesses, sole traders and early-stage SMEs. To help attendees understand what approach might make sense for them, we willl cover three practical considerations:

Who Should Do the Hiring (Outsource vs DIY):
When it makes sense to outsource to an agency, when to manage it internally, and how to think about hybrid approaches as you grow.

Employer Brand in a Small Business Context:
How to communicate who you are as an employer, what makes candidates choose you, and how to position yourself even without a big brand or big budget.

The True Cost of Hiring:
What it costs in real terms. Not just focused on agency fees but the investment of time and resources during the process, and the real cost of a bad hire.

The Recruitment Life Cycle
A simple overview of the end-to-end hiring journey, from identifying the need through to onboarding. The aim is to understand the typical order of recruitment and what actions and outcomes businesses should expect at each stage of the process.
Define - Who & What Are You Hiring For?
This section focuses on getting clarity on the role, the problem it is solving, required skills, expectations and how the position aligns/ drives business goals. Getting clear on who and what is essential to avoid mis-hires and ensure that recruitment is structured and executed in a timely, cost-effective manner.
Attract - Getting the Right People Interested
Defining your employer branding is one part of the attraction process; getting it 'out there' is the next stage in order to attract the right people into your business. In this section, we will explore how to write clear job descriptions and adverts that resonate with the candidates you need, and simple advertising channels that work for small businesses.
Assess - Interviewing & Selection
Effective assessment of candidates is critical to hiring the right person for the job. This part of the workshop will develop your knowledge in how to run effective, fair and consistent interviews that help you make informed decisions, avoid bias and create a positive candidate experience.
Hire – Making the Offer & Onboarding
We will cover what needs to happen once you have ve chosen someone: offers, negotiations, employment contracts, onboarding basics and managing the first few weeks.
Recruitment Compliance Essentials - Know your risks.
A light-touch awareness session covering:
• Right to Work checks
• GDPR during recruitment
• Employment status types (freelancer, contractor, worker, employee)
• Avoiding common risks and pitfalls.

Meet the Trainer: Mel Kelly

Mel Kelly has spent years working with talented people who genuinely cared about recruiting well. Throughout her career, she saw the same pattern appear in organisations of all sizes: recruitment teams operating under pressure, with processes layered on top of each other until things became complicated, confusing and harder than they needed to be.

As businesses grew, new technologies were often added as quick fixes, and ways of working evolved reactively rather than by intentional design. The result? Busy teams, slower decisions and inconsistent outcomes—despite everyone’s best efforts.

Mel founded to help organisations step back, simplify and rebuild recruitment in a way that truly supports growth. She works with businesses to understand what’s effective, what isn’t, and where smart improvements can make the biggest difference.

Her focus is on designing recruitment functions that are clear, sustainable and fit for purpose leaving organisations more confident, capable and future-ready than when she first walks through the door.

Eligability:
These small-group workshops are funded by Norfolk County Council and the Department for Business and Trade. They are open to any trading business, freelancer, or charity based in Norfolk, UK.

Due to funding restrictions, only one ticket per company is available initially. If a workshop is not fully booked, a second ticket may be requested the day before the event by contacting [email protected]

New Anglia Growth Hub can help your business access a range of business support services from hundreds of sources. The hub’s IMPARTIAL service is fully funded and provided at no cost to your business and can help you access grants, finance, international trade support, skills, training and a range of other specialist advice from single point of contact.

Our Business Growth Advisers can talk with you over the phone or via Microsoft Teams or Zoom, or you can request a free appointment at your business premises.

Our Business Support is available to all SMEs throughout Norfolk and Suffolk (UK).

To get the most out of the service, call our local business support helpline:

0300 333 6536

Email: [email protected]

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