In episode 82 of the Rock Solid: Round Rock Business Leaders Podcast, host Bryan Eisenberg sits down with Shannon Black, Chair of SCORE Austin, to discuss actionable hiring strategies for small business owners navigating a competitive labor market. Published July 14, 2026, the episode arrives as businesses nationwide contend with post-COVID hiring shifts, AI-inflated resumes, and the challenge of preserving company culture during growth.
Black, a former math teacher who founded and sold Sunrise Montessori, shares a systematic recruiting playbook developed in response to the pandemic. She advises posting job ads on Sunday mornings rather than Thursdays, explaining, "The best time of the week to put an ad, to place it, is actually Sunday morning... it takes Google and other search engines about 24 hours to go through and pick up the SEO in your ad. The number one time of the week that people look for jobs are Mondays during lunchtime." This timing ensures ads are indexed and visible during peak search periods.
To improve ad visibility, Black recommends using 30 or more hashtags at the bottom of listings to capture SEO without rewriting copy. She also cautions against "masculine" language that can deter female applicants and suggests screening candidates with a 10-minute Zoom pre-interview, asking unexpected questions like "What is your favorite color?" to gauge personality and fit.
The episode also highlights SCORE's free mentorship model, a national nonprofit offering over 1,000 workshops per month and virtual mentor matching at score.org. Black previews an upcoming women's conference, a trades conference on June 13, and a four-day workshop series on valuing and selling a business. She recounts helping a client launch a successful Austin clay studio and points to entrepreneur Desiree Fox of V Wear Love as an example of the idea-stage founders SCORE serves.
Eisenberg shares his own hiring wins after applying Black's tweaks and a lease near-miss resolved by Round Rock realtor Bacha Porter. The conversation underscores the importance of systematic approaches to hiring in a tight labor market, with implications for small business owners seeking to grow sustainably.
