5 Small Companies Hiring Right Now

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- President Barack Obama's jobs plan has renewed discussion on what it takes for small businesses to get hiring, but some businesses are already looking -- and finding it hard to get the talent they need.

In March, we looked at 10 small firms that were hiring. The group ranged from online advertising firms to construction companies to medical device producers.

Six months later, companies looking for employees tip primarily to the online, software and social media space.

"The world is changing. Companies are using social media to a much larger extent," says John Challenger of executive search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "Some of the money in the marketing budget devoted to other ways of reaching their customers is now being devoted to social media. That area is growing because it's making new impact on how companies reach their customers."

Another area is app development, Challenger points out.

"There are a lot of small companies that are developing apps for different markets as technology changes. It's all kinds of different of platforms. There's real hiring going on there, and it's often small businesses that are doing it," he says.

Yet it's hard to find resources, especially in the tech space, due to the competition for talent with larger, more established companies, some say.

Nationally, the unemployment rate may be over 9%, but within the tech space the percentage falls to about 3.3%, says Kathy Harris, managing director of Harris Allied, an executive recruiting firm specializing in placement services for the financial services and tech industries, citing Bureau of Labor statistics.

"That's very low," Harris says. "There is a huge demand."

Here are five small companies looking to hire: