How Small Companies Can Hire Without a Recruiter: A 90-Day Plan

Small companies can hire without a recruiter by treating hiring as a short project with one owner, a written role and scorecard, a few reliable sourcing channels, a consistent screening and interview routine, and a fixed decision date. Spread across about 90 days, it is manageable alongside a normal job, provided you keep a simple record.

Why a plan beats good intentions

Most small companies hire in bursts. A founder or office manager gets busy, a role opens, and hiring happens in the gaps between everything else. CVs sit unread, interviews drift, and the best candidate accepts another offer while the team debates. A recruiter solves this by owning the process full time. Without one, a plan has to do that job. The plan below runs for about 90 days, from deciding to hire to a new person's first weeks, and it is written for a company with no dedicated recruiter and a hiring manager who has other work. It is one example schedule, not a rule. Some roles will move faster and some slower, so treat the weeks as a starting point and adjust them to your own market and role. Labour law and hiring rules differ by country, so check local law before you write job ads, ask interview questions or make offers. For the tool side, see our overview of /recruitment-software and, if you have no budget yet, /free-applicant-tracking-system.

Before week one: decide who owns it

The single biggest risk is that nobody owns the hire. Name one person who is accountable for moving the process forward, even if several people help. Name the hiring manager, who decides what good looks like and makes the final call. Name a backup, so a holiday does not freeze the process. Agree three things in writing before you start. The budget, including pay range, advertising costs and any tool you will use. The deadline, as a target start date. And the decision rule: who has the final say, and what happens when interviewers disagree. Then book the interview slots in advance. A diary with blocked time makes it far more likely that things happen on schedule. Also decide where the record will live. A shared spreadsheet is a fine start. Whatever you choose, every candidate needs a name, a source, a stage, the date of the last contact and a note on the decision. That record is what protects you from losing good people and from being unable to explain a decision later.

Weeks 1 and 2: define the role and the scorecard

Spend the first two weeks on clarity, because every later step depends on it. Write down why the role exists, the three to five outcomes the person should deliver in the first year, the must-have skills and the nice-to-have ones. Be strict about the difference. A must-have is something you would reject a candidate for lacking. Then write the job description in plain language with the pay range if your market and local rules allow, the location or remote terms, and what the first months look like. Our template at /job-description-template gives a structure. Next, build the interview scorecard: the four to six qualities you will rate, with a short description of what a strong, average and weak answer looks like. Decide the interview questions now, so every candidate gets the same ones. Finally, agree the stages and the time limit for each one, such as screen, first interview, task or second interview, then offer. Doing this early feels slow, but it saves the weeks of confusion that follow when the team discovers they wanted different things.

Weeks 3 to 5: source and attract

Now find people. With no recruiter you will rely on a handful of channels, so pick the ones that fit the role instead of trying everything. Common options are your own network and team referrals, a careers page or apply link on your own site, relevant professional communities, general job boards, a university or training programme, and direct outreach to people whose work you admire. Post the role in two or three places, not ten. Make it easy to apply: a short form and a CV upload are better than a long portal. Tell people what happens next and roughly when. Reply to every applicant within a few days, even if briefly, because the way you treat applicants is a small advertisement for your company. Keep a note of the source of each candidate in your record so that after the hire you can see which channels produced good people. Keep the ad open for a set period, such as two to three weeks, and avoid screening every application the moment it arrives. Batching the work into two fixed sessions a week uses far less time than reacting to each email.

Weeks 5 and 6: screen consistently

Screening is where a small team without a recruiter loses the most time and makes the most unfair mistakes. The cure is a fixed method. Take the must-haves from your role definition and check each CV against them in the same way. Mark each must-have as shown, partly shown or not shown, and write down the evidence, such as the line in the CV, so that your reasoning is visible. Do the first pass in one or two sittings. Move the strongest into a shortlist, put the unclear ones on a hold list with a note of what you need to know, and send polite replies to those you will not progress. A short phone or video screen of 15 to 20 minutes can check the basics, such as availability, pay expectations and motivation. Avoid rejecting on a single point that is not a must-have, and avoid judging on style, school name or gaps without asking. If volume is high, a tool that scores CVs against your must-haves and quotes the lines it used can help you get through the pile, as long as a person reviews the result and makes the decision.

Weeks 7 to 9: interview and compare

Run the interviews in a tight window, ideally within two to three weeks, so candidates are compared fresh and do not drift to other offers. Use the same scorecard and the same core questions for each person. Have each interviewer write their ratings and notes before discussing, so the first loud opinion does not shape the others. Then hold a short debrief and record the decision and the reason. A practical task or work sample, related to the real job and limited to an hour or two, often tells you more than another conversation. Keep it fair: give clear instructions, a time limit, and feedback. Avoid unpaid projects that amount to real work for you. Allow candidates to ask their own questions, because the quality of their questions tells you something, and because they are judging you as well. Take references only for finalists and with their permission. Throughout, keep candidates informed. Silence for ten days is the most common reason good people withdraw. Our guide to the feedback form at /interview-feedback-form shows a simple layout you can copy.

Weeks 10 and 11: decide, offer and close

Decide within a few days of the last interview. If two people are close, ask what evidence would separate them, and gather it quickly rather than waiting. Before the offer, confirm the pay, start date, working pattern and any conditions, such as references or right-to-work checks, which differ by country, so check local law. Call the candidate first with the good news and the main terms, then send the written offer promptly. A template helps; see /offer-letter-template. Give a sensible window to reply, and be ready to answer questions or negotiate within the range you set. If the first choice declines, go to the next candidate on your record rather than restarting, which is a good reason to keep notes on strong runners-up. Tell the unsuccessful finalists personally, with a specific reason when you can, because small-company reputations travel fast. Record the final outcome and the reasons. Once the offer is accepted, confirm the start date in writing and plan the first week so that the new person arrives to a laptop, a login and a welcome.

Week 12 and beyond: onboard and review

The plan does not end at acceptance. Between the offer and the first day, stay in touch with short messages, send any paperwork early and tell the team who is joining. On the first day, give the person a clear plan for the first week, an introduction to their manager and a buddy. Set expectations for the first 30, 60 and 90 days in writing, based on the outcomes you defined in week one. At the end of the period, hold a review. Then spend half an hour reviewing the hiring process itself. How many days did each stage take? Which source produced the best candidates? Where did candidates drop out? What would you change next time? Write the answers down and store them with the role record. This review is the step that turns one painful hire into a repeatable routine, and it is also the evidence you need if you later want to justify a tool or a part-time recruiter.

The 90-day plan on one page

Use this table as a checklist. The weeks are an example schedule and can be compressed or stretched.

If you hire for several roles at once, run the same plan in parallel but stagger the start weeks so that one person is not screening and interviewing at the same moment. If a stage takes longer than planned, change the date for the whole plan openly rather than letting it slip unnoticed.

Common mistakes and a worked example

The usual mistakes are starting without an owner, writing a vague job description, changing the must-haves midway, screening by gut feeling, interviewing with different questions each time, going silent on candidates, delaying the decision, and skipping the review. A worked example with example numbers: a ten-person company wants to hire one operations coordinator. In week one the founder names herself as owner and the operations lead as hiring manager. The ad goes live in week three and receives, as an example, 60 applications. In week five she checks each against four must-haves in two sittings of 90 minutes, shortlisting 8. She holds 15-minute calls with 6, invites 4 to interview, and runs a one-hour task with 3. The team of three scores each on the same six-line scorecard, meets for 30 minutes, and decides within two days. An offer goes out in week ten and is accepted in week eleven. The example time spent by the owner is about 40 hours in total across 12 weeks. These figures are an illustration only, not a benchmark, and your own volumes and hours will differ.

Where Rezumz fits

Rezumz is a hiring workspace for small and mid-size hiring teams, and it can act as the record and the routine in this plan. You write the job, and it lists the must-haves it found so you can confirm them. You can collect applications on the job's own apply link, or upload CVs, or import a CSV. Each CV is scored against the must-haves with the supporting lines quoted, and you decide who moves on. It schedules interviews, collects scorecard feedback from each interviewer through a personal link, shows the team's decision, and handles offer letters with approval and a simple electronic signature. Rezumz does not reject anyone for you, does not post to job boards, and is not a replacement for an HRIS or payroll system, so it is not aimed at large enterprises with deep systems needs or at teams wanting one-click multiposting. Pricing: a free plan with 2 free candidate analyses; $29 a month, $199 a year, or a limited $499 lifetime; and a Team plan at $79 a month or $699 a year for up to 10 teammates, which suits teams of 4 or more recruiters. See /pricing and try /demo.

When this plan is not for you

If you will hire dozens of people a year, a plan owned by a busy manager will not hold, and you probably need a recruiter or an in-house talent partner. If the role is highly specialised, senior or scarce, such as an executive or a niche engineer, an agency or search specialist with an existing network may find people you cannot reach. If you cannot give the process even a few hours a week, the honest choice may be to delay the hire or pay for outside help. And if the real obstacle is that the role is not clearly needed or funded, no process will fix that. For everyone else, a clear owner, a written scorecard and a fixed calendar go a long way.