How to Hire People Who Live Near Your Business

You’ve probably hired someone who looked great on paper and then spent the first month fighting the trip to work. Two buses each way, or a shared car that’s gone by 4:00. Meanwhile, someone who could have walked to your door may never have seen the job.

If people have to come to your address to do the work, where they live affects whether the job works for them. For a local business, a lot of hiring comes down to making sure the people nearby know you have an opening.

I can’t promise a closer hire will stay longer. Most of the numbers I’ve seen on that come from companies selling hiring software, so I wouldn’t lean on them. A shorter trip does leave fewer things that can go wrong between someone’s front door and your time clock.

Work out what near means for this job

Near depends on the shift. Five miles is easy with a car at 9:00 in the morning and hard without one at 11:30 at night.

Before you write the post, find out:

• When does the shift really start and end? If you close at 10:00, when does the last person leave?
• How do your current staff get to work? Ask them. They know which bus runs late and where the parking fills up.
• What’s the nearest bus stop or train station, and is it still running when the shift ends?
• Where do staff park, and who pays for it?

Those answers tell you where to look and what to say. If you want to see this from the applicant’s side, here’s what we tell job seekers to ask about the schedule.

Look for nearby people, but don’t screen for them

Looking close to home is a good place to start. It shouldn’t be the only place you look, and where someone lives shouldn’t decide whether you hire them.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says recruiting can discriminate too. Its example is an employer relying on word of mouth from a mostly Hispanic workforce, which may break the law if almost all of its new hires turn out to be Hispanic. It also says Title VII bars neutral hiring rules that disproportionately exclude people by race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, unless the rule is job-related and consistent with business necessity. In a metro area where neighborhoods differ by race and national origin, recruiting only nearby or setting a distance cutoff could have that effect. Title VII generally applies to businesses with 15 or more employees, though smaller ones may fall under state or local rules. This is general information, and a lawyer can tell you how it applies to you.

So put the job on a site anyone in the area can search, as well as in your window. Put the address and shift times in the post, ask every applicant the same question, and let them decide whether the trip works: can you work these hours?

Put the job where your neighbors already look

Start with the places closest to your door.

• Your window: A sign reaches people who already pass your business. Add the job title, the pay if you can, and a way to reply. “Now hiring” alone makes someone walk in to learn the basics.
• Your staff: Alongside your public posts, ask who they know. Someone who works for you can tell a friend what the job is like and how they get there.
• Nearby schools and community boards: High schools, community colleges, places of worship, and neighborhood boards can all reach people who live around you.

Give the full street address

A post that says “Atlanta” tells someone in East Point and someone in Sandy Springs the same thing, even though your store can’t be close to both.

Put the street address in the post. If you can, add the nearest bus stop or station and where staff park. Someone without a car has to work out the trip before they apply, so give them what they need to do it.

Let people reply from a phone

Someone reading your post on a break should be able to answer it on that break.

A phone number that takes text messages or a short form is enough for most hourly jobs. If the job doesn’t need a résumé, don’t ask for one. Then check your messages and reply soon, since the person may be talking to other employers nearby.

Write one post for each location

If you run more than one location, post each job at the store where the work is. A single post for “all Atlanta locations” leaves the applicant unsure which address they’d be traveling to, and the managers unsure who should reply.

A separate post takes a few more minutes. In return, each one can carry its own address, hours, and contact, and the manager doing the hiring can look after it.

Where WalkableJobs fits

WalkableJobs is a map of jobs across Georgia, densest in Atlanta. People looking for work see your job on the map and how far it is from their home before they apply. They decide what’s close enough for them, and we don’t send anyone to you.

Posting is free today, with no plan, no fee per job, and no charge when someone applies. Candidates reach you directly through your website, a text to your phone, or an email, and we never collect the application or the résumé.

You add the street address of each location, post a job at one of them, preview it, and make it visible when you’re ready. A person checks each request to link an account to a business. Jobs close after 30 days unless you renew them.

I can’t promise you a number of applicants. You can see how posting works and decide whether it’s worth a few minutes.