WANT TO WORK AT MY SMALL COMPANY? MEET ME IN THE COFFEE SHOP

When Michael Dwan starts interviewing job candidates, he doesn’t use the phone or an in-person meeting — he texts with them.

“It’s a real-world test of how we actually work,” says Dwan, chief technology officer at Highrise, a business software company where employees including programmers and design engineers work remotely.

The changing dynamics of the U.S. workforce — its shrinking pool of available workers and ever-increasing use of technology — have led some small business owners and managers to be more creative when recruiting staffers. Some like Dwan use messaging or chatting programs to make that first significant contact with a candidate, or social media to lure