New Hiring Strategy for Skilled Trade Jobs - The Test Job
I've been implementing something that's been pretty successful so I wanted to share with the group. In my business, people need to come in and already have at least one thing they are very skilled at. As most of you know, a lot of construction people have lots of confidence and it's hard to find people that can be objectively honest about their skill level in any given trade. I mean, probably most of us are like that for the things we think we're good at.
I've definitely adopted the hire slow, fire fast mindset but I got so sick of training people on all the systems just to have them not work out after a week.
So I started doing "test jobs" - and it's been working really well. What are the rules? Well first you have to plan it out. It needs to be a 2 person job, that's in their wheelhouse that they claim to be in, and you pay cash for the day. I usually tell them it will be 1-2 shifts like this. I don't require them to do anything in jobber, I don't onboard them normally and I always pay at the end of the day. What am I looking for? Everyone is going to put on their best face but I look for these things as the dealbreakers.
- Did they show up early - if they "caught traffic" on their first day they aren't a planner and it will happen again
- Did they ask questions - are they going to be a robot or are they going to think about what they are doing
- Did they stay on task
- How receptive were they to receiving direction - this is a big one. Not that we need to boss them around or always be right but our manager is in his early 30s so sometimes older guys can not want to hear from them or they just don't like being told what to do in general.
- Did what they said they are good at line up with what actually happened
Now some people still slip through and make it a couple weeks only to be let go again BUT this will help alleviate some heart ache.
I will say I am in California - you are not supposed to do this technically BUT we small business owners and you have to do what you have to do sometimes. I'd say most people actually prefer this to having to do all the onboarding paperwork only for it to not work out so it's not something you'd have to sell someone on.
