5 Ways to Make Recruiting Easier

Recruiting. It’s a frustration that many (if not most) Contractors face daily. Simply put, you need more team members…

… and just not more team members but more great ones.

Of course you spend all day every day running your company but it often feels like recruiting could be a full time job!

The answer is NOT to work longer hours to recruit more people; the answer to your recruiting challenges is to streamline your recruiting so you’re working fewer hours but on the right things.

In this article, you’ll read about five ways to make recruiting easier for you so you can build a bigger, stronger team without the constant 24/7 effort that takes up so much of your time right now.

#1. Make A List of Recruiting Sources

How do you currently recruit? Like a lot of contractors, maybe you wait until you have a job opening and you put a Help Wanted ad in the local newspaper or online job listings. That’s fine, but that’s only the start.

The better approach is to collect recruiting sources like kids used to collect baseball cards: keep your eyes peeled for places to find potential employees. Start with the familiar sources you’re used to using (like newspapers or online job listings) and build your list—what about vocational schools or a corkboard at the hardware store or maybe even a donut shop where your competitor’s team hangs out? Make a BIG list and start recruiting from these places constantly.

#2. Recruiting Cards

Your team probably has business cards right now, but let me ask you: what’s on the back of them? If they’re blank (or if the information on the back could easily be included on the front) the consider turning the back of your business card into a recruiting card: add a message like, “We’re Hiring!” and a way to get in touch; as well, add a “Referred By…” line for you or your team to write your name on the cards, then spiff any team member whose referral turns into a hire.

#3. Videos

For some potential new team members, it’s just a matter of letting them know about the opportunity and what it’s like working with your company. When they see how great of a place it is to work, they’ll sign on.

A great way to do that is through videos. Shoot several videos and add them to the recruiting sections of your website. You can proactively answer questions that potential new-hires typically ask, and you can show people what it’s like to work for you. This has two benefits—it can attract more people who are the kind of person you want working for you, and, it can also proactively answer many of the questions that people have about working for you (which can shorten hiring timeframes).

Plus, shooting video has never been easier! No need to get fancy, just use your phone and record yourself answering questions.

#4. Recruiting Events

How long do you spend interviewing people? If you spend 30 minutes interviewing two people a week, that’s an hour. But you probably need to interview 10-20 people to find a couple of people for an open position, right? Well that’s 5-10 hours of precious time you could spend elsewhere.

One of the most powerful game-changers for recruiting in large numbers is: recruiting events. Think of these as group interviews where several people (even dozens, or hundreds) show up at your office at the same time. Everyone comes into a main room and you simply interview them quickly and collectively.

It may sound odd but it’s effective: not only do you get to interview 10… 20… 50… 100+ people in an hour, you also get to see these potential new hires in an unusual situation. (Let’s face it: your one-on-one interviews aren’t the best gauge of how people function in the field, but these new-to-them group interviews can be a powerful way to “stress test” how they function in a situation that they’re not familiar with.)

#5. Video Interviews

Recruiting events won’t remove 100% of your interviews, but they will dramatically reduce the number of one-on-one interviews. Once you do that first round and get a short list of the very best prospects, then you can follow-up with them through video. Use video-conferencing software like Zoom or Skype to get on a call with potential new hires and talk face-to-face. Use these interviews to drill down and answer any final questions each of you may have about what it will take to bring the person on board.

These video interviews are effective because each of you can do them at any time, even from the comfort of your living room on a weekend, so you can actually interview far more people in far less time; plus, the interviews are far more effective because you’ve already answered most of their questions with video (see #3, above) and the recruiting event (see #4, above).

Summary

In the past, contractors may have struggled to spend up to a quarter of their work week interviewing several people for just one position (assuming they could even find those prospective employees in the first place) but with these strategies, recruiting is simplified, streamlined, and automated—your source of new recruits grows, while the hiring process improves dramatically. Result? You suddenly get the ability to scale your recruiting and hiring to bring more great team members onto your team to serve your customers and grow your company.

Mike Agugliaro is a Business Warrior on a mission to change the lives and businesses of service business owners. Mike and his business partner started and grew a struggling home service company into a multi-million-dollar empire before selling the company in 2017. Today Mike is an author, speaker, and mentor; and he's the co-founder of CEO Warrior, a high level coaching and training organization for home service businesses. Learn more about Mike and CEO Warrior at www.CEOWARRIOR.com.