Ryan Englin on Lead With Trust For Construction Leaders: Hire Better People Faster

I sat down with Sue Dyer on Lead With Trust For Construction Leaders to talk about why the construction industry keeps losing the recruiting battle and what owners can do about it right now.

Sue works with construction leaders on trust-based project delivery, so she sees the workforce pain up close. Her audience is dealing with the same thing every contractor I talk to faces. Not enough people. Too much turnover. And the same broken playbook they've been running for decades.

I walked through five secrets for filling every open position with the right person at the right time. The first one is foundational to everything I teach. Recruiting is a marketing activity. Take it away from HR. Take it away from your office manager. Take it away from your finance department. None of those people think like marketers. They don't know how to compel people to action. Your job ad is an advertisement. Your careers page is a landing page. Your employee testimonials are social proof. Treat them that way.

Secret two is your employer brand. And I don't mean your logo or your letterhead. I mean the messaging. Who you are. What you stand for. Why you do what you do. If someone types "construction jobs near me" and doesn't like what they see when your name comes up, they are not coming to work for you. Ninety percent of people start and end their job search online. Your digital presence matters to candidates even if your customers never visit your website.

I shared the story of a client whose core value became "Give a Damn." They printed it on hard hat stickers, t-shirts, everything. They filmed a video of about 80 guys on a job site screaming it into a drone camera. Productivity went up. Recruiting got easier. The ad said "if you don't give a damn, don't apply." That is what real employer branding looks like. Not "we've been in business since 1942."

Secret three is the relationship piece. For decades, the construction industry has been known for not treating people well. Hire them for a project, lay them off when it ends. No commitment. No investment. And now we wonder why parents tell their kids to stay away from the trades. We conditioned an entire generation of workers to understand that we don't care about them. That is fixable, but it starts with the employer, not the employee.

Secret four is addressing red flags during the interview process. I told Sue that when I ask people to define "good people," nobody says "they can turn a wrench and operate a crane." Every single time, they describe behaviors. Show up on time. Make eye contact. Care about the work. Those are things you can't teach, and they are things you can observe during a four-stage interview process if you build one. I gave a few examples. Schedule the interview for 7:00 AM and see if they show up at 6:50. Walk them to their car at the end and peek inside. That car's interior is what your company truck will look like in three months. Faking a process is harder than faking an answer.

Secret five is setting proper expectations. I told her about the typical first day in construction. The new hire shows up at seven. The superintendent didn't know they were coming. Nobody has their I-9. They sit around for half a day before anyone puts them on a crew. And the whole time they're thinking, "They really cared about me that much that they didn't tell anybody I was showing up." Even if your process is messy right now, tell people what to expect before day one. When the chaos happens and they were warned, it doesn't feel like neglect. When it blindsides them, they quit in their hearts before lunch.

We also talked about the biggest mistake I see across the industry. It's the job ad. The same old boring bulleted list of requirements that hasn't been updated since the 1990s. I used my Corvette example. Nobody sells a Corvette by posting the maintenance schedule. They sell lifestyle. They sell the feeling. Your job ad needs to do the same thing. Sell the company, not the role. Sell the vision, not the bullet points. And make sure your job title is something people actually search for. One client was posting "architectural sheet metal roofer" and wondered why nobody applied. His guys told him they'd search "roofer." That one change alone opens up the funnel.

I also reminded Sue's audience that only three to five percent of job seekers are on Indeed at any given time. Ninety-five percent of the market is somewhere else. Stop fishing in one pond and expecting different results.

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