Let’s be honest. Nobody in the trades starts their business to become an HR expert, but managing the expansion of your team is one of the most important responsibilities you have. Recruiting new team members can be exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time, and it can get really overwhelming really quickly. You obviously want to hit a home run with every hire — if only life could be so easy.
Whether your home service company has five or 500 employees, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to hiring. In Leadhub’s experience with so many home services businesses — and our own hiring process — we’ve learned a few tips to make your hiring process more effective. Here are four things to keep in mind while recruiting for the trades via social media.
Is It The Right Time To Hire?
This may sound a bit basic, but it’s important. The first, key question you should ask yourself is whether you actually need to hire someone in the first place. If you can adjust your current operations to handle your needs without hiring, you may choose to do so first.
Consider evaluating your current employees’ capacity and abilities for opportunities to promote from within or rearrange responsibilities. Be on the lookout for some signs that your team either has room to take on more or that they’re in need of additional assistance.
What Are Some Signs That It’s Time To Hire?
Especially with smaller shops, it’s time to hire when the owner is running jobs and spending time in the field instead of focusing on business operations and growth. In other words, you want to be working on the business and not in the business.
One other common scenario with the trades – especially window companies – is relying too heavily on subcontractors. If your company is at the point where the calendar is booked and you’re depending on subs to complete the jobs, it’s likely a good time to bring that work in house and properly train someone the way you want things handled. This will save your company’s reputation in the long run and prevent negative reviews of work done by subcontractors.
What Are Some Signs It’s Not The Right Time To Hire?
You need to take a good look at company structure. If you’re a very small shop, for instance, with only 3-4 employees, you don’t need a full-time bookkeeper. There are other, more efficient ways to handle that area of the business. You can rearrange the structure of your roles to ensure everyone’s time is being used more efficiently.
If you’re a larger company, you need to ask if you’re hiring simply for the sake of hiring. You may already have team members in house with the right skills and fit for the position you’re creating or trying to fill. This is when a team capacity evaluation comes in handy!
Determine The Personality You Need
Once you’ve determined that you do need additional team members for the role you have in mind, it’s time to make sure you choose the right person for the job. Hiring the wrong person can have massive consequences for your business and create unnecessary stress for you in the future.
Whichever personality tool you use – whether it’s Culture Index, DISC Personalities Test or something else – you need to use some sort of personality index during the hiring process. In fact, this personality analysis will drive the remainder of this process. You need to understand what you want this new team member to be so you can match the different personality types to the position. It’s all about finding the right person for the right seat or job.
For example, office managers or customer service representatives need more social abilities, warmth, emotion and empathy. Meanwhile, a salesman in the home needs to understand money and the different types of buyers – but they’re likely not going to be the best technician. Instead, your company’s strongest technician is likely going to be a checklist and rule follower.
A personality analysis will make identifying these qualities much easier and more accurate! You don’t just want an okay fit. You want a match that will excel.
Will Your New Hire Thrive In Their New Position?
Most importantly, you need to understand how these different personality types will respond to different situations. Here’s an example of a workflow situation involving a client of ours.
The technicians in the home do not sell for this company. The people hired for technician positions have personalities that favor attention to detail, loyalty, doing the right job at the right time and always focusing on what’s best for the customer.
If something needs to be replaced, that technician turns it over to a salesperson whose personality is money motivated, people-oriented and okay with having those conversations with customers.
Knowing what drives these different personalities allows each technician and salesperson to play to their strengths.
On the flip side of the spectrum, here’s a very common scenario in the trades: Let’s say you just hired for a technician position that is supposed to be solely focused on repairs – but the employee you hired has a personality that is money motivated. The team member may not be satisfied with a role that doesn’t play to their strengths.
This is the exact situation that leads to side jobs, which can hurt your business in multiple ways.
Craft The Right Job Description
Once you know the type of personality you’re looking for, it’s time to use that knowledge to craft the job description. You must use the right keywords and phrases to attract the type of personality you want.
Remember the client we mentioned earlier? If they’re hiring for a technician but the job description talks about things like new vehicles, nice uniforms and new tools, they’re begging for a different type of personality to apply.
Instead, that client would want to mention things in the job description about doing the right thing for the customer and finding the right solution every time.
Attracting The Right Candidate
What are some ways you can use word choice in your job description to attract the kind of person who will best fit the role?
If you’re seeking someone concerned with status, you can add a title like manager to the job posting. Meanwhile, a sales tech might want to see a description of pay bumps and strong commissions. Crafting the job title for the type of personality strengthens the applicant pool and gives you better odds of making the right hire.
Posting Your Job Description
Once your job description is ready, where do you post it? With HVAC companies, plumbers, electricians and other companies in the trades, Facebook is still going to be your best bet for finding applicants. In particular, we’ve seen a lot of success with posting an opening to a local Facebook group that’s relevant to your company.
You can also generate interest in your job listing with a small amount of paid promotion. Even a budget of $25-$50 can produce decent bang for your buck in terms of reach on Facebook.
Track Applications With Software Like ApplicantPro
If you’re a business owner, you know what tends to happen when you’re hiring. You get busy – and the ball gets dropped. Hiring out to a trusted partner, such as ApplicantPro, takes care of this problem. They’ll help write the job description, post your jobs organically across all job boards, track the progress and prioritize resumes based on your preferences.
Speaking of process, the order in which you handle the hiring of a new team member is vital. You’ll want the applicants to take whatever personality test you’re using before their interview. Their responses and personality type should dictate the interview questions you ask.
Their personality type will key you in on whether they’re being truthful with their answers or just telling you what you want to hear – and you should always ask for an example, as well, to get even more information.
Hire The Right Person For The Right Seat
In the end, you want to avoid the problem repeated by so many home service companies. You should focus on making the right hire – not a quick hire.
Once an applicant has taken the personality test and conducted their first interview, bring them in again. Maybe you have them do a ride-along with a tech or sit with the CSRs, depending on the position you’re hiring for. Get a vibe check from your team. Once you’re equipped with all this information, you can then circle back to make the final decision.
At Leadhub, we believe strongly in helping our home service clients find the right people for the job. Whether it’s helping with personality testing, crafting job descriptions or running promotion of the listing, we’re an invested partner. Do you need a partner to help you through these scenarios? Contact Leadhub today for a free discovery call.
