Creativity, flexibility, and resourcefulness are the keys to finding, hiring, and maintaining an at home workforce. 4 Walls, an internet-based apartment guide business I co-founded, underwent a brainstorming process to assemble our unique workforce. In addition to more traditional methods of finding employees, we made use of family, friends, and employees from past business ventures.

Family
Greg, our Webmaster and source of all things creative, is my first cousin. Greg, like many people in the wake of the dot com bubble burst, couldn’t find a job despite his degree in web design. He started part-time at 4 Walls, and is coming up on his third anniversary working with us full-time. He likes to work at home because he is nocturnal. He works a few hours during the day mainly so the rest of us can reach him. However, his best work is done between 11 PM and 3 AM.

Former Employees
Jackie, our COO, worked with me in my last two businesses - we have about 10 years of history working together. At first, she wasn’t sure about working from home. She was nervous about feeling isolated. Now, she has a one year old child and appreciates the flexibility her work from home position offers. We have also recently welcomed Rich, a programmer who worked with Jackie and I at Know It All. He was looking for part-time work, and since he lives over an hour away from our office, the at home position was the perfect solution.

Craigslist
Beth, our office administrator and Brenna, our project manager, were both recruited from Craigslist. We have had good luck hiring entry level, part-time, IT and administrative personnel from Craigslist. We have had less luck when looking for accounting and sales people. Craigslist is free, so it’s a no-brainer to post your positions. Plus, unlike newspaper ads or web-based job boards, Craigslist gives you plenty of room to describe your position and any conditions of employment.

Employee referrals
Nancy, who helps us with a lot of administrative and research tasks, is Beth’s aunt. When we asked Beth to post the ad for the position, she recommended her aunt. It’s no surprise that Nancy worked out. Beth was able to accurately describe what it was like to work at 4 Walls to Nancy before she started. Plus, we find that employee referred candidates tend to be stronger than people we find via our advertising efforts.

We have a great at home work staff, and you can, too. When you’re looking to add to your staff, tap your social network first. Then, use free online job boards. When these methods fail, resort to the more expensive, old fashioned methods, including newspaper ads and fee-based Internet job boards.

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