Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / Stop Hiring Firestarters - Copy This Simple System For a Loyal, Skilled Construction Crew

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Stop Hiring Firestarters - Copy This Simple System For a Loyal, Skilled Construction Crew · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

• 0:00
  Fixing mistakes cost more than hiring right.
• 0:03
  Most contractors spend more time putting out fires than
• 0:06
  preventing them. I'll show you a proven system to
• 0:09
  stop hiring wrong in the 1st place.
• 0:12
  Hiring the wrong person doesn't just cost you money, it costs
• 0:15
  you morale, reputation, and Peace of Mind.
• 0:18
  You're going to find out how to stop hiring fire starters and
• 0:21
  start building a team that works hard, stays loyal, and actually
• 0:26
  wants to be there. Most contractors miss at least
• 0:29
  one of these steps and that's where the trouble starts.
• 0:32
  Before you post anything or take a single application, you need
• 0:35
  to get clear on exactly who you're hiring.
• 0:38
  What does your best employee look like?
• 0:40
  What are their values, goals, strengths and deal Breakers?
• 0:44
  I can remember just, I just interviewed two different
• 0:47
  people. I interviewed a few people, but
• 0:48
  there's two final candidates that I was trying to debate.
• 0:51
  Who is going to be a better fit for this position?
• 0:54
  We're hiring for a crew leader to manage one of our site crews
• 0:59
  and I was stuck. Both were good candidates, both
• 1:01
  had good experience, both were pretty similar on paper.
• 1:04
  But the reason I ended up going with the one who actually worked
• 1:07
  out phenomenally is that it reminded me very much of a
• 1:10
  previous hire that I'd had working for me for about 3 years
• 1:14
  at that point and just was an outstanding employee and did a
• 1:18
  great job. And that's kind of when I
• 1:20
  started Clue in that hey, I should really be fine tuning who
• 1:24
  specifically is a good fit for this job.
• 1:26
  And you know, what do they look like?
• 1:27
  What type of person are they, What kind of morals, what type
• 1:30
  of attitude, you know, cultural fit, all of these types of you
• 1:34
  know, specific skills or background experience.
• 1:36
  Get a real clear picture of who this person is.
• 1:40
  If you want to get an ideal employee avatar sheet to work
• 1:44
  through this with specific things to get a really clear
• 1:47
  idea, check out the links in the description below.
• 1:49
  We've got a a sheet there that you can download from here.
• 1:52
  You're just going to have a much better idea of who's going to be
• 1:55
  the best fit for this position. So the next step now that you
• 1:59
  know who the ideal candidate type of person avatar is gonna
• 2:03
  be that you're gonna hire. Now you need to write a job
• 2:06
  wanted ad that speaks specifically to that person and
• 2:10
  helps attract that person from all the the people that you're
• 2:13
  going to be promoting this, you know, job ad too.
• 2:16
  You want to have a really strong title, just as any headline or
• 2:21
  you know, this is an advertisement.
• 2:22
  You need a strong title that's going to grab someone's
• 2:25
  attention and let the right people know that hey, this is
• 2:28
  for you. Be really clear in the job head
• 2:31
  of the expectations, what they're gonna, you know, pay
• 2:34
  that they can expect the culture, the values of your
• 2:36
  company. You don't want it to be generic.
• 2:38
  If if you're creating generic job wanted ads, you're going to
• 2:41
  get generic people applying. So keep it a little bit out of
• 2:45
  the norm, a little bit fun. Let your the personality of you
• 2:48
  and your company come through to make sure that you're you're
• 2:50
  finding that that right person. You also want to make sure that
• 2:54
  you include a do not apply to people that are the wrong fit.
• 2:58
  So they're specific types of people or deal Breakers.
• 3:02
  Make sure you mention that in the ad.
• 3:04
  Do not apply if you know you don't have a license or you
• 3:07
  don't have three years of experience or you've never been
• 3:09
  in a leadership position before. Whatever the criteria, make sure
• 3:13
  that you're very clear on what you want and what you don't
• 3:15
  want. From there, you're going to post
• 3:17
  it out as far as you can get. So just as you, you know,
• 3:20
  marketing your company, you're gonna want to reach as many
• 3:22
  people as you can with your job wanted ads.
• 3:25
  You're going to want to put it on multiple listing sites, put
• 3:28
  it on social media. You're, you know, wherever you
• 3:31
  can push it out to make sure you get it out there as well as your
• 3:35
  e-mail list. So if you got an e-mail list,
• 3:37
  hey, create e-mail. We're we're looking for this
• 3:40
  position. If you know anybody, please, you
• 3:42
  know, forward this this link for them to apply your existing
• 3:46
  employees have some sort of a referral program where if
• 3:50
  anybody refers someone to the company that ends up becoming an
• 3:53
  employee, maybe you kicked them back, you know, a couple 100
• 3:56
  bucks there day off or or something like that and paid of
• 4:00
  course. And this is a great way to
• 4:02
  expand the reach and make sure that you're pulling from a wide
• 4:06
  enough pool of people to actually find the right
• 4:08
  candidate. Another thing that a lot of
• 4:09
  people don't realize is that when you're searching for
• 4:13
  somebody and you're you're listing on these sites.
• 4:15
  If you're just listing on the job one wanted sites or job
• 4:19
  listing sites, you're only reaching a very small percentage
• 4:23
  of the actual good candidates out there because a lot of them
• 4:26
  are going to be working in companies.
• 4:28
  Good people typically stay with good companies and they stay
• 4:31
  with them for a long period of time.
• 4:34
  So if you're looking for good, loyal, skilled employees, you're
• 4:37
  probably going to find them in other companies.
• 4:40
  Now here's the problem. How do you how do you get, you
• 4:42
  know, people from those other companies?
• 4:44
  The way you want to do this is have a database.
• 4:47
  So everybody who's applied previously for certain positions
• 4:50
  is little bit of tech set up here, but it's not rocket
• 4:53
  science. And feel free to reach out to us
• 4:55
  if you want to help setting this up.
• 4:57
  But essentially anybody that's applied for a previous job and
• 5:01
  maybe, you know, six months or a year, 2 years down the road,
• 5:03
  you're, you're hiring for that same position because you're
• 5:06
  growing or that person's moved on or whatever.
• 5:08
  You should have that list of people that you can then send an
• 5:10
  e-mail to you of, hey, you applied for this position
• 5:13
  previously. If you're still looking, you
• 5:16
  know, please or if you, if you'd like to reapply, please reapply
• 5:20
  at this time. You'll find that there could be
• 5:22
  people that maybe weren't quite the right fit at the time, but
• 5:26
  now a year later, they've got an extra year of experience or what
• 5:28
  have you. And now you're able to pull from
• 5:31
  this much wider pool and have a much better idea of finding the
• 5:35
  right fit for your company. So the application start pouring
• 5:39
  in. Hopefully there's not an
• 5:40
  overwhelming if you're getting overwhelmed with applications
• 5:42
  you need to tighten up your job wanted on.
• 5:45
  But there's this critical step between that and the interview
• 5:48
  that a lot of contractors are missing that can save you a ton
• 5:51
  of time. And if you want this complete
• 5:54
  system with, you know, documentation and everything
• 5:56
  already built out to you, you're going to find it in our
• 5:58
  contractor growth system. This is a great program.
• 6:02
  Again, check out the links in the description below to apply
• 6:04
  and get signed up for the program.
• 6:06
  It has all this done for you ready to go and you can just
• 6:10
  implement it in your company with our our guidance as well.
• 6:13
  So the critical step is doing some sort of a pre screen call.
• 6:18
  So this is going to be about a 15 minute call.
• 6:20
  They're gonna any potential applicants you're going to
• 6:23
  narrow it down to maybe, you know, 5 to 10 good applicants.
• 6:26
  You're going to call each one of them.
• 6:28
  Do they answer the phone? Do they get back to you if you
• 6:30
  leave a voicemail? You're pretty much assessing
• 6:33
  their communication and you're going to ask them some deal
• 6:36
  breaker questions. They have a license, they have a
• 6:38
  vehicle. What's their, you know, does it
• 6:39
  work history match what they have on their resume?
• 6:42
  What are their goals for the for the job?
• 6:44
  Like is, is there alignment there?
• 6:46
  So this is just a quick chat and it gives you that that ability
• 6:50
  to see, is this someone that's worth actually taking and going
• 6:53
  into a proper interview with? Or does it seem like someone
• 6:57
  who's not worth the time or some sort of red flags came up and
• 7:00
  you just leave it at that. So the interview is where you
• 7:03
  measure who this person really is, not just what they say they
• 7:08
  can do. And that's really what you're
• 7:09
  differentiating in an interview. They've already impressed you to
• 7:13
  some degree with their resume and that pre screen call how you
• 7:17
  know you want brass tacks. Who is this person?
• 7:19
  Are they going to be a good fit and a good interview
• 7:23
  questionnaire and process is gonna help determine that.
• 7:26
  So you want something that's standardized so then you can
• 7:29
  really compare people against each other as well as in-depth
• 7:33
  enough to make sure that you bring in the right candidate.
• 7:36
  So ask questions that test their, their team mindset of how
• 7:40
  are they going to handle being a part of the team?
• 7:42
  How do they deal with conflict and resolution?
• 7:45
  Are they accountable? Do they take pride in their
• 7:47
  work? I'm going to, I'm going to give
• 7:49
  you 2 questions here. You know, we've got like a full
• 7:51
  template of of this with believe it's 10 to 15.
• 7:55
  It's very specific questions that draw out amazing answers.
• 7:57
  But these these are two ones more cultural.
• 8:00
  So tell me about a day on a past job site that you felt
• 8:04
  especially proud of. What made it a good day?
• 8:08
  So I love this question because it it gets them to tell a real
• 8:11
  life story and something that they're proud of, you know,
• 8:13
  completing a project, maybe they learned something new.
• 8:16
  Maybe it's really challenging my, myself, I can remember being
• 8:19
  on these, you know, putting up rafters as one day working,
• 8:22
  working for another company before I started my company.
• 8:25
  And we essentially have to get the Raptors up on this huge
• 8:31
  warehouse that we're putting up and we need them all up because
• 8:33
  we didn't want them to fall down.
• 8:35
  And it was kind of snowing, sleeting, raining, windy.
• 8:39
  We were at the good 1214 hours at least.
• 8:41
  And we got it all done. And you know, it was pretty
• 8:44
  proud to, to see it all standing afterwards and putting in that
• 8:47
  hard work with I think we had about 8 guys in our crew at the
• 8:49
  time. So get them to tell your story
• 8:52
  of something they're proud of. This will help you gauge like
• 8:55
  what are they proud of? And are they actually in
• 8:58
  construction because they enjoy it, or is it just on their job
• 9:01
  to make a buck? The second question I'm going to
• 9:04
  give you here is one that does more with skills and really
• 9:07
  figuring out is this person skill?
• 9:09
  I I've definitely hired people that said, I've got lots of
• 9:13
  experience. I've been doing this for
• 9:15
  whatever 234 years. And you get them on the site and
• 9:19
  it's like, what are they doing right?
• 9:21
  They're making rookie mistakes and they're asking you a ton of
• 9:23
  questions. So question that I like to ask
• 9:26
  in interviews, tell me about the last time you framed the wall or
• 9:31
  install flooring, whatever, you know, kind of position you're
• 9:35
  hiring them for. Tell me from layout to finish,
• 9:38
  you know, planning to finish. What was your process and what
• 9:41
  tools did you did you use? So at this point, they're going
• 9:44
  to tell you, well, you know, if, if I'm going to be framing a
• 9:48
  wall, I'm going to, you know, check the plans.
• 9:50
  If you're the measurements, do whatever.
• 9:52
  You don't cut my, my studs, my plates, you know, they're going
• 9:55
  to go through the process. These are the tools I used.
• 9:57
  And then from there, if it's really generic and it's like
• 10:01
  short, you want to dive in and, and like, can you like elaborate
• 10:05
  on what you mean by this? And if they can't really go down
• 10:10
  to the nitty gritty of specifically, like in their
• 10:12
  head, what they, what they need to do in order to build or
• 10:16
  install this, this thing, you can probably come to the
• 10:19
  understanding that they're not really that experienced with it
• 10:23
  or they can't really articulate it, which is another red flag of
• 10:26
  it's one thing if you've done it and you're good at it, but you
• 10:29
  want people that can communicate, that can tell step
• 10:32
  by step how they can do something So they can mean other
• 10:34
  people, so they can learn things And, and that communication is
• 10:37
  there. So this is a great way to assess
• 10:39
  how skilled they are and how well they can communicate about
• 10:42
  specifically what they do and the steps to, to accomplish
• 10:46
  tasks on site. Now, both of these questions
• 10:49
  were real life questions. And these are the type of
• 10:50
  questions you want to ask is something in real life.
• 10:53
  You don't want to say, like if you had a problem with a
• 10:56
  coworker, how would you handle it?
• 10:59
  They can pretty much make up any story, right?
• 11:01
  Because what if, Well, I would how would you want to handle it?
• 11:05
  And instead ask something like tell me a time you had a
• 11:09
  disagreement with a coworker or you were upset with somebody
• 11:12
  that you were working with. What happened?
• 11:14
  How was it resolved? Now they have to like tell you
• 11:17
  something specifically and you can get a clearer picture of
• 11:20
  their history of actually what they did, not just what they say
• 11:24
  they would do. Right?
• 11:25
  So there's, there's a big, big difference.
• 11:28
  All these different questions, you wanna be scoring them on
• 11:30
  some sort of scoring systems. Usually 1 to 5 is pretty good
• 11:34
  and have some criteria around it.
• 11:35
  Like 1 is kind of vague or didn't give a good answer. 5 is
• 11:39
  like give multiple answers or was really detailed or in depth
• 11:42
  or communicated well. And from that scoring, that's
• 11:45
  how you can kind of assess across different people.
• 11:47
  Because after you've done 345 interviews, you're going to
• 11:51
  forget what people say. You may remember the kind of how
• 11:54
  you felt about it, but that scoring criteria needs to be
• 11:58
  standardized across multiple people so that you can give a
• 12:01
  good clear picture of of what's going on.
• 12:04
  And then if you're hiring someone really important, even
• 12:09
  just like anybody that has any sort of leadership position or
• 12:11
  even a highly skilled person, get them to meet someone on your
• 12:15
  crew. You don't need your crew or a
• 12:17
  manager to necessarily interview them.
• 12:19
  You'll typically be doing the interviewing less.
• 12:21
  You're a larger company, HR people or we do have specific,
• 12:25
  you know, managers who are going to be making that decision.
• 12:28
  But that said, if you are hiring someone like a project manager
• 12:32
  or office manager, even a crew leader or site Superintendent,
• 12:36
  you you're going to want to have some of the other managers
• 12:39
  leaders on your team have some FaceTime with them.
• 12:42
  Just talk with them 1015 minutes and and get them to tell you how
• 12:47
  do they feel about the person? Do they think that that person
• 12:49
  was a good fit? And things like this, because
• 12:53
  you only have one way of looking at things and you can often the
• 12:57
  people kind of closer to the the front lines, if you will, will
• 13:00
  be able to assess other people in a certain way and see kind of
• 13:04
  culturally and skill wise, if that person's actually good fit.
• 13:08
  Now, if the candidates checked out and everything and you
• 13:11
  fireproof them, as far as knowing if you hire them, they
• 13:14
  should be able to do the work without, you know, having you
• 13:17
  pull your hair out on site because you got to fix
• 13:19
  everything or they're just learning super slow.
• 13:22
  Before you make them a job offer, you need to verify
• 13:26
  everything. And I'm so surprised how few,
• 13:30
  how many people skipped this final, The most important step
• 13:33
  when you get to that finish line.
• 13:35
  I remember talking with the client of mine and he just was
• 13:38
  excited about this new guy that he hired.
• 13:40
  And about 3 or 4 weeks later we're on another coaching call
• 13:45
  and ask about, hey, how's that new hire?
• 13:48
  He's like, Oh no, he was horrible.
• 13:50
  I had to had to fire him. And I found out that this other
• 13:54
  contractor I know actually had hired him like last year and had
• 13:58
  the same experience. So that would have been one
• 14:01
  phone call to pretty much save all that time and not have to go
• 14:05
  through the process again because now we need to hire
• 14:07
  another person. So do your due diligence.
• 14:11
  You need to call 2 to 3 references.
• 14:13
  Ask them, you know, would you rehire this person?
• 14:16
  How did they handle it pressure? What was the team dynamics with
• 14:20
  them and the team? What were their strengths?
• 14:21
  What were their weaknesses and their real key one and the next
• 14:25
  like extra level is who else could I speak to that could that
• 14:30
  could tell me about this person? So especially if they're at a
• 14:33
  larger company or if they know somebody else around this
• 14:36
  person, maybe they'll refer you to, hey, you could talk with my
• 14:40
  project manager if you really wanted to or whatever.
• 14:42
  Not everyone's gonna gonna know someone.
• 14:44
  Usually they'll say no, but sometimes you can get just that
• 14:47
  extra viewpoint from different people inside a company that
• 14:50
  that that that person's worked with.
• 14:52
  The next step is to Google them, search their name online, pull
• 14:56
  them up on social media, Facebook, Instagram.
• 14:58
  Most people have accounts on social media and you kind of get
• 15:02
  that inside. Look at who this person is
• 15:06
  outside of work. Of course you want to have your
• 15:08
  filter on as far as like, you know, people do what they do
• 15:12
  outside of work and that's perfectly fine.
• 15:14
  But if if it's coming up with some like really big red flags
• 15:18
  or you can, you know, you kind of get just a better feel and a
• 15:21
  more more holistic view of someone from from those extra
• 15:26
  resources and then check their consistency.
• 15:29
  Have they had five jobs in the last two years?
• 15:32
  You should have caught that in the resume place.
• 15:35
  But are they consistently as well through the references with
• 15:40
  what they told you in the interview, what you see on the
• 15:42
  resume and what the references say that they are like or the
• 15:45
  jobs that they've had or the experience they have?
• 15:48
  Is everything matching up and aligning.
• 15:49
  If there's there's holes or missing or maybe they said
• 15:52
  something, but then a reference said something else, you know,
• 15:55
  red flags can pop up. And then if, if necessary, you
• 15:59
  can run a background check just to make sure that you know, they
• 16:02
  don't have any dark history and stuff like that.
• 16:05
  I definitely think about, you know, giving people second
• 16:07
  chances, but you should know if you know, if you need a
• 16:11
  background check again, critical hires, this is this is important
• 16:14
  for Congrats. You've just eliminated a lot of
• 16:17
  fires that you don't need to put out.
• 16:18
  If you work and use this hiring system, Hiring right is only
• 16:22
  half the battle. Managing clients the right way
• 16:26
  is just as critical. Click this next video to learn
• 16:29
  how to avoid chaos, set clear expectations, and eliminate the
• 16:32
  biggest client fires before they start.