Ryan Englin on Pest in Class: How to Recruit and Retain Good People in Pest Control

I went on FieldRoutes' Pest in Class podcast with Amanda Salvatore to talk about recruiting and retention strategies for pest control companies. And the conversation applies to every trade contractor who feels stuck in the cycle of hiring, losing people, and hiring again.

I started where I always start. The belief that we have a labor shortage is wrong. We have a labor crisis. People want these jobs. They just don't know you exist, or they looked at your brand and decided you weren't worth leaving their current gig for. If you're not attracting good people, it's time to consider that you are not attractive to good people. That's not an insult. It's a diagnosis. And it is fixable.

I walked through the fishing framework I use with every client. Most owners jump straight to "where do I post this job?" That's like waking up Saturday morning and picking a fishing spot before you even know what kind of fish you want to catch. You don't know what bait to use. You don't know what gear to bring. You don't know if you need a boat. The first decision is always what kind of fish you want to catch. In hiring terms, that means building a Core Fit Profile. Define the behaviors. Define the non-negotiables. Once you know the fish, almost every other decision makes itself.

I also hit hard on the difference between a job description and a job advertisement. Your job description is an HR tool. What you post online is an ad. Think about the Corvette Z06. Chevy runs a 60-second commercial showing people loving life, the roar of the engine, leather, G-force. No price. No specs. Do you know how hard it is to find a window sticker for a Z06 online? Almost impossible. Chevy knows that spec sheets don't sell cars. Lifestyle sells cars. And switching jobs is an emotional decision, not an intellectual one. Your job ad needs to sell the lifestyle of working for you, not a bulleted list of requirements nobody reads. Recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR activity.

We spent a lot of time on the four-stage interview process. Pre-qualification first. Check the non-negotiables. Can they be insured? Do they have the license? Don't waste anyone's time if the basics aren't there. Then culture fit. Will this person feel like they belong? Do their behaviors match how your team operates? Then position fit. For pest control, I suggested showing candidates photos of bad installations or infestations and asking them to diagnose what went wrong. Faking a process is harder than faking an answer. And the final stage is the offer meeting, where you sit down and set every expectation before the offer letter gets signed.

I used the marriage analogy I always come back to. When you moved in with your significant other for the first time, you discovered the toilet paper goes on the wrong way, the toothpaste cap never gets replaced, and apparently there is a right way to fold towels. None of those are dealbreakers. But they stack up. Death by a thousand paper cuts. The same thing happens with a new hire. They don't keep the truck the way you expected. They think 7:30 is a suggestion. They're slow on paperwork. None of it is fireable on its own, but you say nothing for nine weeks, then one customer complaint hits and you ambush them with a list. That's not leadership. That's a failure to have a grown-up conversation on day one.

I also told listeners to walk every candidate to their car at the end of the interview. That car interior is what your company truck will look like in six weeks. No question needed. Just observe.

On retention, I made the case that onboarding starts when they apply, not when they show up. If it takes you two weeks to respond to an application, the new hire walks in on day one expecting nothing to be ready. And they're usually right. I coached listeners to stop starting people on Monday. Monday is chaos in every home service company. Start them Wednesday. Monday problems are done. Tuesday problems are done. Wednesday through Friday gives you three focused days to invest in that person. They go home Friday thinking "this was the best decision I ever made." That's the goal of week one. Not productivity. Belonging.

The alternative is what most companies do. Throw someone in a truck, say "call me if you need anything," and wonder why they're gone in six weeks. Then do it all over again. That cycle is expensive. Not just in dollars. In time, sleep, customer relationships, and the morale of everyone else on the team.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on every one of these frameworks on Titans of the Trades. Subscribe for more conversations like this.