Hiring top masonry talent: three steps are involved in this process: finding the right person, selling the individual on your company's opportunities, and closing the deal

Masonry Construction, Feb, 2004 by Jim Midelis

Effective hiring of key individuals is one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of running a masonry contracting business. This fact is largely the result of the decreasing number of young people entering the industry combined with an aging workforce moving into retirement and leaving behind many essential slots to fill within the organization.

Top college graduates with construction management and engineering degrees often get recruited by what they consider the more glamorous general contracting firms, which often makes it difficult to attract these young people into the masonry industry. Finding a quality senior estimator, project manager, or superintendent presents an even greater challenge for masonry contractors.

As the economy picks up and companies become busier, hiring qualified candidates will only get worse. The good news is thai it is still possible to find and attract top talent. It just takes a little more work than in the past and may require a reexamination of the methods previously employed during the hiring process.

In its most simplistic form, hiring consists of three elements: finding someone with the experience and qualifications you need, selling him/her on the opportunity within your company, and closing the deal. Each of the three elements is loaded with factors that can go wrong and have accounted for numerous incidents of hiring the wrong person, as well as missing the opportunity to hire the right individual for the job.

On the other hand, understanding these three elements and using that information to your advantage saves time and money. The process can put you ahead of the competition and ensures that a qualified person shows up who feels good about having made a career move to your organization.

Finding the right person

Getting the right person for the job is arguably the most important--and often the most difficult part--of the hiring process. Look around the office. You can probably guess who reads the classified ads or searches the Internet on a regular basis looking for a "better" opportunity.

Are they the company's top performers? Probably not. Top performers in almost any company are generally satisfied with their positions and are not actively seeking new employment. Very few positions--especially management level jobs--are filled through newspaper or Internet advertising. Most candidates responding to advertisements are probably unemployed or unqualified. But don't give up hope. There are more effective ways to gain access to the top talent you need.

Good people working for you now probably know others like themselves at their previous companies. Ask them. Vendors also know these types of people. But be careful because some individuals are gossipy at times and typically only tell you about people who "are looking" rather than those who are not but are probably the better candidates for your company's needs.

A more proactive and effective approach is to enlist the assistance of an executive recruiter (head hunter) who commits to an exhaustive search on your company's behalf. Check out the individual and the firm before putting an outside consultant to work on a search. Ask for a full description of their processes as well as client references. Don't waste time with someone who can't provide both.

Sell the opportunity

Once a good prospect is identified, put an effort into selling your company's opportunities. This process usually starts during the first interview and--in my experience--is the most poorly handled and frequently overlooked element of the entire process. This phase consists mostly of asking questions about the career interests of the candidate and showing how your company fulfills those points.

Always thoroughly test and reference-check someone before hiring. Remember that if a candidate doesn't leave a first interview with more interest than he had when he/she walked in, you have wasted both of your times. I've seen the whole process die during the initial interview with a candidate who could have excelled with a potential new company if the hiring authority would have done a better job of selling the opportunity.

A top prospect is probably not desperate for a job. The good ones almost never are. In this market, a sharp estimator, project manager, or superintendent with a track record of success has countless options.

Sometimes an employer tells me, "I don't want to do any selling. Either they want the job or they don't." That's fine if you are happy taking a chance on somebody who got fired from the last job or quit because of not being able to get along with others in the workplace. We have all seen examples of poor work ethics and job hoppers.

Besides, while selling the opportunity you gain valuable insight into how the prospect thinks and whether or not you want to hire the individual. It's a two-way street. You have to put on a "selling hat" and a "buying hat."

It is also critical to check out the candidate's work during the course of the interview process. A take-off test is critical if trying to hire an estimator. Use a small section of an old job and go through the take-off together. A lot of knowledge is gained about the estimator's thought process, as well as his/her expertise.