Ryan Englin on Rapid Results with Andrew Weiss: Hire the Best People You Never Want to Fire

I went on Rapid Results with Andrew Weiss to talk about why most employers repel the exact people they want to attract and how to fix the hiring process from the ground up.

Andrew and I kicked things off with one of my favorite client stories. A construction contractor came to us buried. They were about to lose a marquee project because four dozen positions sat empty. Their crew was burning out on overtime. The owner looked me in the eye and said he needed 50 people. This was a 150-person company. That's a third of the workforce. We followed the Core Fit Hiring System, and 90 days later they had hired 51 people. All the overtime disappeared, profits came back, and within a year the owner went from 75 to 80 hours a week down to 30. He goes fishing every Friday now. He built a leadership team he trusts. The company became an asset he could sell if he wanted to. That story is the reason I do this work. My dad never got that outcome, and I refuse to watch other families repeat the pattern.

We spent a lot of time on the job ad problem. The thing you post on Indeed is not a job description. It is an advertisement to apply for a position with your company. Treat it like one. People don't leave jobs. They leave managers, toxic cultures, and leadership teams that won't communicate. We all know this. So why does every job ad read like a window sticker full of bullet points and requirements? Think about how Chevy sells the Corvette. They don't lead with gas mileage and tire rotation schedules. They show an attractive couple driving top down on the Pacific Coast Highway. Recruiting is a marketing activity. The ad needs to speak to the emotional experience of working for you, not recite a list of tools and duties.

I told Andrew about the five guys who ran a nine-figure company like a fraternity. Super passive aggressive. That was their culture. I rewrote their sales job ad to own it. Their sales leader read the ad without knowing it was his own company and said, "I want to work here." When they started hiring people who thrived in that environment, turnover disappeared and sales production went up. It doesn't mean passive aggressive is good or bad. It means there are people who fit that environment. The job is to be honest about who you are so the right people find you.

That honesty starts before the ad. Step one is always figuring out who you are. Get clear on your values, your culture, the way your team actually operates under pressure. Not the version you clean up for interviews. I brought up the biggest interviewing mistake I see. The candidate walks in, and the employer spends the first 20 minutes vomiting all over them about how great the company is. Then they start asking questions, and the candidate just regurgitates everything they heard. You gave them all the answers to the test. Stop selling. Start having an authentic conversation. Faking a process is harder than faking an answer.

I walked Andrew through the four-stage interview process. Stage one is pre-qualification. Quick phone screen. Non-negotiables only. Valid driver's license, bilingual if required, whatever the hard lines are. Stage two is culture fit. Will they fit on your team? Do their behaviors align with your values? Stage three is position fit, and this is where I tell people to stop asking questions and start testing behavior. If you're hiring a customer service rep, do the interview over the phone. You hired them for phone skills. See the phone skills. Stage four is the pullback offer. You slide the offer letter across the table, then pull it back. Before they sign, walk through every little thing that will drive both of you nuts. Which way does the toilet paper go? What happens when you don't get all the information you need to do the job? None of these are dealbreakers. But unspoken expectations create death by a thousand paper cuts. That alignment conversation is what keeps people from quitting in their hearts during week two.

We also talked about speed. Most employers let applications sit for 10 days and then wonder why nobody answers the phone. If someone is down on their luck and needs a job, they already found one somewhere else. We teach clients to automate a response that says, "We're busy. That's why we're hiring. Here's my cell number. Text me the time you want me to call you back." That one move separates the 15 or 20 ambitious people from the 100 who applied. And when that text hits your phone, you have a live one on the hook. You call them back immediately.

I wrapped up with something I believe in my bones. If you're struggling to attract good people, you are not the victim. You have control. It might be a tough market. Competitors might pay more. You still find the best people when you take ownership and make it happen. Stop blaming the labor market. Investigate your own process first. And it is fixable.

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