Small firms lack the skills to recruit new staff, according to a new study.

Bibby Financial Services found that more than a third (36%) of small firms find it difficult to recruit skilled staff, while a study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development also found that more than 40% do not receive any applications for some vacancies.

One in five appointments by small firms are made after seeing just one or two candidates.

Small and medium-sized enterprises SMEs should re-evaluate their recruitment training requirements, says Bibby Financial Services chief executive David Robertson .

“Our research shows that despite owners and managers conducting more than five million interviews each year, 79% of those interviewing candidates haven’t had any training to help them interview or recruit staff,” he said.

Norman Mackel, education and training chairman for the Federation of Small Businesses, has called upon the government to provide human resources training for small businesses to help improve the standard of recruitment.

“Small businesses do have a difficulty when it comes to recruiting because they don’t have a human resources department,” he said.

“They don’t necessarily have the skills or the time and money to do intensive training or psychometric testing.”