Ryan Englin on Built By Me Podcast: Why No One Wants to Work for You and How to Fix It

I went on the Built By Me Podcast with Taina and Mo to talk about why trade contractors and service businesses can't find good people, and what to do about it.

Here's the truth I opened with: recruiting is a marketing activity. Not an HR activity. Not a compliance function. Marketing. The same process you use to attract customers, defining your ideal target, crafting a compelling message, putting it in front of them where they already are, works for attracting employees. When I help contractors build a Core Fit Profile, we define the ideal employee the same way a marketer defines the ideal customer. Skills, behaviors, culture fit. Then we build the message and the pipeline around that profile.

We talked about the biggest mistake I see in small service businesses. No plan. They wing it. Somebody told them to post on Indeed, so they post on Indeed. A hundred applications come in and they start clicking. No scorecard. No process. No accountability. Then they hire the wrong person and wonder what happened. Every single time.

Taina asked about the pandemic's impact on hiring, and I didn't hold back. Two things happened. First, we divided the entire workforce into essential and non-essential. No matter which side you landed on, the message was the same: your employer doesn't care about you. Second, workers discovered options. The gig economy alone added five and a half million vehicles to the road. People figured out they can make $20 to $25 an hour delivering packages, listening to their favorite music, choosing their own hours. If you want those people back, you have to give them a reason better than a paycheck.

I told them my line: it's not that no one wants to work. It's that no one wants to work for you. Harsh. But true. Look at your website. Look at your beat-up trucks. Look at your two-and-a-half-star Yelp reviews. Would you want to work for you?

We dug into the Core Fit Hiring System and the seven phases we walk clients through. Phase one is always stop the bleeding. Tell me why someone would want to work for you, and you're not allowed to say pay or benefits. Someone always has bigger pockets than you. So what else do you have? If you can't answer that, that's where we start.

From there, we fix the online presence, define core values based on real behavior, clarify the company vision, and then rebuild job descriptions, job ads, and the entire interview process. I walked them through our four stages: a 10-minute phone screen to check for basic fit, a 60 to 90 minute culture fit interview, a position fit evaluation, and the offer meeting where we set every expectation before the offer is signed. You can run all four in a single day. There's no reason to drag this out for weeks.

I also called out core values that are just wall art. If your core values are honesty and integrity, those are table stakes. You don't get to show up to the table without those. They're not differentiators. Your values need to describe how your people actually behave on the hard days.

We spent time on retention. I told them the truth: you solve more than half your turnover issues just by making better hiring decisions. Slow down. Spend more than 15 minutes with somebody. Stop finding time to do it over and start finding time to do it right.

Then we hit employee referral programs, and I told their audience to reassess every one of them. Most referral programs reward the wrong behavior. They turn a referral program into a retention program by only paying out after 90 days. Last time I checked, retaining the new hire isn't the referring employee's job. It's yours. Reward the referral. Train your people on how to have the conversation. Equip them to recruit, not just hand out a name.

I also talked about building a bench. When you stock your own pond, you get to choose what you catch. One of our remodeling clients stopped posting jobs entirely after two years of building their bench. Quality candidates now reach out every week asking when they can join. Another client's biggest problem was that she filled every position and kept getting amazing applicants with nowhere to put them. That's the kind of problem I want every contractor to have.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on all of these concepts on Titans of the Trades.