It's a bit of a cliché, but it's no less true: Great people are the primary strength of your company. Talent is what makes a business develop, thrive, and ultimately succeed.

The race to find the right talent is pretty ruthless these days. Businesses battle it out to locate and recruit individuals who will bring creative and practical talent and experience.

And here's the scary part: your business is up against mammoth enterprises when it comes to the talent stakes. You're competing against the big boys, not just companies your size.

A big key to finding great talent can be learning where to look.

Check out the following tips for staking out and attracting talent.

1. Use social media.

Identifying and recruiting suitable candidates on social media has been snowballing in recent years, so much so that an entirely new phrase has been coined: "social hiring."

Recruiting managers, agencies, and employers are heading to the likes of LinkedIn and Facebook to locate talent from anywhere around the world, without leaving their desks. Be sure to post openings on your social pages. That's the most obvious and important step.

Don't overlook advertising on social media, either. You can set up your own ads. Or, go through a partner: website Monster.com and other recruiting sites have developed ad products specifically designed to share openings on social media to help employers attract candidates. For example, Monster offers "Twitter cards" for job openings. LinkedIn also offers ad products that may be helpful for finding staff.

2. Use recruiting apps.

In addition to using social media channels to dig for talent, the shrewdest of recruiters are using recruiter apps. These can be mobile apps they download onto their smartphones or simply cloud apps they access through a desktop or laptop.

Recruiting apps help employers conveniently reach out and collect resumes from multiple job boards or other places online. But don't worry about being overwhelmed with data. Good apps have intelligence to help you sift through candidates to identify the most suitable ones. The likes of ZipRecruiter, Zoho Recruit, LinkedIn Recruiter, or any mobile app provided by an online job board for employers, can be fantastic for sourcing and hiring staff quickly and conveniently.

3. Develop relationships with universities.

To snap up talent emerging fresh from college, take the time to develop relationships with schools that offer graduate placements and other recruitment programs.

4. Use professional associations to advertise jobs.

If you want to recruit talent in a specific sector or niche, take advantage of professional association magazines and websites to advertise for professional staff. This is especially useful if you need talent familiar with your industry or who have specialized industry training or certifications.

5. Use online job boards.

Online job boards enable employers to conveniently locate the widest range of talent, because they are go-to destinations for job seekers.

Post openings on your own website, Facebook page, LinkedIn page, and wherever else you can reach key audiences where prospective employees may be. But don't forget to broadcast openings to job boards.

If yours is a local position only, then be sure to indicate you are looking for local candidates, or post only in localized sections of a job board. Or limit postings to the job board of your local newspaper or local news site.

6. Look close to home.

Don't miss the obvious. When recruiting for a position, the first place to look is in house to see if any existing employees tick all the right talent boxes.

And here's the most important part: encourage employees to refer friends and neighbors. Let your employees do the staking out for you. Some employers even pay referral cash bonuses if the referral results in a hire who sticks around for at least 90 days. 

7. Let the talent come knocking on your door.

The savviest organizations, big and small, make a strong case for being fantastic employers. A great company culture, a commitment to sustainability, advancement opportunities, or flexible and remote work schedules can each "sell" your company without you doing a thing.

Everyone in your town or industry knows the best places to work. So pay attention to your working conditions, and shout it out. Write about your company culture on your website. Share photos of fun outings and work get-togethers on your social channels. Talk about your commitment to employees on your company blog. Instead of having to work hard to find new talent, it might come to you.

8. Let a recruitment agency do the hard work.

Recruitment agencies are professionals at matching the right candidates with the right job. Instead of ploughing through job boards and LinkedIn profiles yourself, hand the task over to a professional recruitment agency, which will have the right tools, experience, and knowledge to stake out suitable talent quickly and efficiently. While there is some expense here, compared to the time and effort it takes to recruit the right employee, you may see the value of involving a recruiter.

9. Use video interviewing.

Once you find talent, use video to interview candidates. The right IT development manager for your company might be, at the time you are recruiting, located 100 miles away. Don't let distance hinder your recruitment success.

Use advances in telecommunications technology such as Skype and other video options to conduct interviews. A video interview lets you connect quickly, and video is better than a phone call. And what better way to show how "with it" your company is.

 This article original appeared on Inc.