Every so often I have NPCs visiting my stronghold what employment I've searched all around and can't find them where are they so I can give them employment employment

You can recruit them through the Stronghold hireling menu, they get added to that list. They only show up standing/walking around the Stronghold if you've hired them. 

You must build barracks to be able to recruit hirelings.

Cool thanks so much I never thought to look there.....are they better than those you can normally hire.

Is that above the 8 henchmen you can hire......in other words if I hate all 8 and then comes someone looking for employment and hire him does that mean oil have 9

Is that above the 8 henchmen you can hire......in other words if I hate all 8 and then comes someone looking for employment and hire him does that mean oil have 9

No, you must fire one of that 8 you hired.

Cool thanks so much I never thought to look there.....are they better than those you can normally hire.

 

They generally are, yes. They tend to give bigger bonuses to Prestige and Security (and are tougher in a fight, when (manually) defending the stronghold), but cost more as well. Some of them also give a really big bonus to one stat (usually Security), but a penalty to the other, so there it kinda depends on which stat you want to boost more. For example, there's one that gives +6 Security but -6 Prestige; he's way too cool not to get though (gets posted right in front of the main keep too), although you do need to take the right path in a particular quest to get him. 

 

Cool thanks so much I never thought to look there.....are they better than those you can normally hire.

 

They generally are, yes. They tend to give bigger bonuses to Prestige and Security (and are tougher in a fight, when (manually) defending the stronghold), but cost more as well. Some of them also give a really big bonus to one stat (usually Security), but a penalty to the other, so there it kinda depends on which stat you want to boost more. For example, there's one that gives +6 Security but -6 Prestige; he's way too cool not to get though (gets posted right in front of the main keep too), although you do need to take the right path in a particular quest to get him. 

 

 

Is there generally any benefit to increasing one stat over the other ... e.g. security over prestige? I always looked at those kind of mercenaries as a zero-sum game, not really bringing anything to the table.

I never checked into the details of their effect too far, but essentially higher Prestige helps attract attention to your Stronghold, basically it determines the chances of stuff happening. And also the kind of stuff, for example getting higher-level adventures requires having a high enough Prestige. Note that this goes both ways, higher Prestige also increases the odds of bad events and attacks happening. Higher Security basically offsets that, though again I'd have to check into it further to be able to say anything about the details.