Recruiting that Works
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Let's talk about recruiting.
First, there is nothing stopping every single person in your organization from being a part of your recruiting efforts. The reason they don’t is that they are not being empowered to do so.
In most construction companies, people view recruiting as either a) HR's job, b) something their boss does, or c) a recruiter's job. All of these are, unfortunately, missing the mark because they ignore the best potential recruiting resource that you could leverage: your people. They have the best understanding of who would fit your culture and, as a result, are usually great at recommending potential hires to your organization.
Second, do people understand that most recruiters take a ~$30,000-ish fee on every single person that they place? I’m actually a fan of a recruiter in certain situations, and have genuinely seen good recruiters place high-level managers successfully.
But if your strategy is to solely use recruiters to get new people, then you are guaranteeing that you will spend an extra $30k - $100k+ per year on bringing on new people (who may or may not work out!).
Third, wouldn’t you rather your people have that money instead of a recruiter? If so, then you would do a lot better to offer an internal referral program to your employees where you give them a $5k check six months after someone they referred has stayed and proved themselves to be a great part of the company.
Fourth, teaching your people to recruit is really not challenging.
It ultimately comes down to helping them realize that all they have to do is go to their job site meetings, networking events, and heck, even the normal places they go in their personal lives, thinking about whether or not the people they meet would potentially be a good fit for your company. If they go into every interaction thinking about making friends and then evaluating them across whether or not they would be a good fit on your team, they will start to notice opportunities from places they never expected to.
One of our customers hired a very successful estimator when the general manager went to buy a new car, and he thought that the salesperson he was working with was just amazing. He casually dropped the idea of the person coming to work for him, and all of a sudden, he had this new great fit on the team that brought a lot of really good energy to their estimating team.
Fifth and finally, it's worth noting that there is negative unemployment in construction, which means that there are more job openings available than there are people to fill them. At the very least, this should motivate you to start building a recruiting ecosystem within your business.
You will find that the people coming to you from most recruiters are typically people that other companies do not want, and that's why they are on the open market. You're much more likely to get a great potential recruit by building relationships with people and catching them on a bad day, where they finally say that they are fed up with their company.
In summary, if I were running a construction company, I would:
Empower my team to become recruiters
Create an incentive program that rewards employees for referring new employees to the company
Train my team on how to build good, real relationships with people while always evaluating them against a criterion of “would this person be a good fit here?”
I hope that helps.
Spark Notes:
Recruiting shouldn’t just be HR’s job — every person in your company can and should be part of finding great people if they’re empowered to do so.
Relying solely on recruiters is expensive, often costing $30k+ per hire, and those candidates may not always be the best fits.
Instead, invest in your own team by offering referral bonuses — let your people earn that money while helping you build a stronger culture.
Teach your team to always be on the lookout for talent — in meetings, networking events, or everyday life — because the best hires often come from genuine relationships, not job boards.
