If you’re a contractor, an important part of running a business is making sure you can find, hire and retain good employees. For the construction industry in particular, there is sometimes a perception among potential employees that these workers are menial laborers digging holes with shovels. Effectively recruiting good workers means not only ensuring you find the right candidates, but also improving the chance that the potential employee will see the work you are offering as something they really want.

Recruitment Drives

As any contracting company grows, it will need to carry out recruitment drives. Your recruitment drive should focus on two important things. The first is that you need to determine just what you need in your new employees. Beyond this, you also need to figure out what you can do to make your particular company look good to those candidates that meet your staffing requirements.

Categorize Your Needs

You’ll want to categorize your company’s needs. For instance, you may have requirements for the following specific categories:

• Manual labor jobs – These could be electricians, carpenters, framers, masons and so on.
• Customer interaction jobs – This could include account managers, sales staff and customer service.
• On-site managers – Large projects require effective, experienced managers with solid management and organizational skills.
• High-tech jobs – Modern contractors need to have employees who are comfortable with sophisticated computer technologies, which could include computer modeling, accounting software or any number of other technologies.

Create Job Descriptions

Once you have your needs worked out, it’ll be time to write out clear descriptions for each job opening. Having this kind of clearly laid out job description will help you better organize your search and speed up the interview process. This description should include:

• Whether the job is permanent or temporary
• The specific skills required for the position
• Professional or educational qualifications required
• Experience and relevant knowledge necessary for candidates

Perform a Recruitment Search

Many contractors now make use of online ads as a way of announcing their job openings and the requirements for those openings to potential candidates. Some of the places where you can put your announcements include:

• Social media sites
• Free classified pages
• Employment websites focusing on contractor needs
• Career centers at schools and colleges

These days, many contractors are making a determined effort in their recruitment drives to bring in a bit of diversity, including both men and women and different ethnic groups. Given the frequent difficulty in finding high quality workers, you’ll want to give yourself every opportunity to attract talent from wherever it can be found.

Conduct Interviews

Depending on the position you want to fill, you may want to call in candidates for multiple interviews. Make sure the interviewees fully understand the interview process from the start.

• Be open and direct about what you need so that you can be sure the candidate can meet those needs.
• Give the candidates a few moments to relax so that you can get the most out of the interview.
• Ask “How” or “What” questions to start the conversation.
• As the interview concludes, let them know what the next step in the process will be – such as a job offer or another interview.
• Don’t forget to thank them.

Offer an Appealing Work Environment

When jobs are plentiful, you’ll probably find that potential employees are evaluating you in the same way that you are evaluating them. This means you may have to increase the benefit your company offers to attract the quality employees you want. This could include:

• Ensuring equal opportunities and open career paths
• Offering enhanced worksite conditions, including extra breaks
• Health benefits and insurance coverage
• Merit-based pay

Also, keep in mind that any potential employee could be looking to continue their education and training during their work so they can advance in their career. What can you offer them in this regard?