By RecruiterGuy – Bill Humbert

Running a business is not easy. There are so many moving parts, not the least of which is recruiting (Talent Acquisition or Talent Attraction).

Does your business have a line of qualified candidates (Project Managers, Concrete Superintendents, Finish Superintendents, Commercial Drivers, and Laborers) outside your figurative gates desiring to work with you? If your company has that line at your gates, consider yourself fortunate. Your concrete business is one of 1,000 companies that ‘attracts candidates,’ instead of attempting to acquire ‘talented workers.’

How much money do you spend per year on newspaper ads or job boards to identify potential new employees? How much time is spent selecting the best candidates? How long do those employees remain with you before you need to begin the process over again? How much revenue are you spending training new employees to bring them up to your company’s expected performance quality? Has your business’ employee shortage led you to spend extra money for overtime employee compensation (that may not have been included in the estimate) to meet deadlines?

Wouldn’t it be better to turn that spending into profitability?

My experience includes 8 years working with two general contractors in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore area. My last position was as the Superintendent on a garden apartment/townhouse project in Northeast Washington, D.C. I understand the benefits of having talented labor working on your projects, something achievable by first attracting and securing the best, most qualified candidates.

To transform your company’s loss into a win, examine your recruiting practices. Do they follow this process?

Step One –Identify the NEED for a New or Replacement Employee. Most companies are on target with this first step. Generally, the top organizations ask the managers for some documentation to justify adding to the headcount. This justification can be simple (scope creep, weather, other contractors, etc.)!

Step Two – Create a Job Description that truly describes the expectations for employee success during the first year. For hourly workers, it is important to include how they may increase their wages by adding new skills. This also gives the company a way to measure starting wages for experienced labor (for instance, a candidate already has experience finishing concrete vs. someone with no or little experience in concrete labor).

Step Three – Source Potential Candidates. Consider – if your job description does not reflect the expectations for the first year of employment, your business will source the wrong candidates. Sourcing candidates correctly is more important than simply posting positions online and hoping the best candidates are looking at them. Hint—they are currently working, not looking at online postings or newspaper ads. According to metrics by the career transition industry, only 25% of all labor jobs are filled by responses to job postings or ads. One way to attract new employees is to add a small referral bonus for your current employees. Here you tell the current employees you will pay them a bonus of some amount (depending upon the level of concrete skills or position) for anyone they refer to the company and would enjoy working with again. Be sure to create a time requirement – paying an initial amount after the new employee stays with you for a month. The referring employee then receives the balance of the bonus if the new employee remains working with the company for 6 months (or some other amount of time)

Step Four – Candidate Interviews. Has your business trained your managers how to conduct effective interviews? If not, they have not been trained to identify and select the most qualified candidates.

Step Five – Candidate Offer. The candidate’s offer should reflect where the candidate’s skills and experience fit with other members of the manager’s team (Tied to Interview Training).

Step Six – Due Diligence. Due diligence includes drug testing, background investigation, and reference checks. Skip one of these due diligence steps and the company risks making a bad hire.

Step Seven – Offer Negotiation. Once a candidate has been vetted, an organization may negotiate the offer with the selected candidate. There are tools to use in this negotiation and I can help provide them. Remember titles may differ from contractor to contractor. In the labor market, their skills and concrete experience in connection with specific duties they’ll perform in your company determine their worth to you.

Step Eight –  Close the Candidate. Remember when you last interviewed for a new job? What convinced you to accept the offer? Discuss with the candidate why your concrete contracting business provides them an opportunity to grow, work with a great team, receive benefits and security, etc.

Step Nine – Start the Selected Candidate. The start date to convert the candidate to an employee should be considered roughly the same length as the delivery of a product or service in the sales process.  Each is established by the resources available to produce or prepare and the parameters should be set prior to offering the position, just like they are for offering product or solution.

Step Ten – Onboarding (or Orientation). This is an important opportunity to welcome new employees. Remember first impressions are remembered. Present them with their company hard hat, provide safety training, and discuss your process to grow their skills, as well as their advancement potential, etc.

Step Eleven – Engage Employees. When you engage new employees at the beginning of their employment – and continue to engage with them, you will increase employee satisfaction and encourage employees to engage in return.

Step Twelve – Employee Retention. Why is employee retention important? Considering that a contractor will invest in growing their employees’ skills the talent attraction process is made more efficient and effective when there is less energy necessary attempting to attract and train new laborers when you add more value to your team by retaining them.  Retention of your best employees becomes a huge step in attracting new employees as candidates recognize the loyalty and longevity of your business.

Did you think attracting the best employees was “Just Recruiting?”

The Talent Attraction Process Strengthens Your Company

How do you determine the best Talent Attraction Recruiter for your concrete business? It depends on the size of your concrete company. If your company is small, you may recruit new business and new employees yourself. If your concrete business is large and growing, you may benefit from hiring an outside recruiter. Consider asking these three questions during an interview.

Does the prospective recruiter have Human Resource Recruiting or Professional Recruiting experience? Human Resources is an important function within your company. Successful professional recruiters are sales professionals. Consider – A professional recruiter typically is not an employee of a construction company, but their previous employer is a Recruiting firm, possibly with experience recruiting temporary labor for construction. This type of experience develops skills in developing clients as well as recruiting candidates to work with those clients. The duality and specificity of these skills provide the framework for successful recruiting.

Ask the prospective recruiter to walk you through how they would improve your recruiting process. If their response does not list the steps above, or worse, they suggest finding new boards to place job openings, it is time to thank them for their time.

Ask the recruiter, “Tell me when you used your favorite close to gain an offer acceptance from a reluctant candidate. Describe your close.”

Most companies can improve their recruiting. As the Leading organic search engine result for “Talent Attraction Consultant,” I am happy to assist your business in attracting the best workers. My consultancy will benefit your concrete business by helping you hire competent and qualified employees.  I am RecruiterGuy and having listened to your stories as a consulting member, I am here to not just help you, I will also donate 40% of my fee to the Concrete Foundations Association.  Let’s get to work!