Widening the candidate pool without lowering the bar
If every hire comes from the same one or two networks, you're filtering out half your talent.
Audit where your hires actually come from
List the last 10 hires and how they got to you. If it's all the same channel, that channel is your ceiling. Add one new source.
Standardize the interview
Same questions, same scoring, same order, every candidate. Removes the gut-feel bias that keeps shops hiring the same person over and over.
Make the job ad welcoming to read
Drop the macho posturing and the wall of legalese. Plain, friendly language widens the pool without changing the requirements.
Take your version of this question further
This is one operator-tested angle on the question. Your shop, your size, your trade, and your team change the answer. Ask your specific version inside Ask a Shop Owner to get a response grounded in how owners like you actually handled it.