8 Tips for Hiring Construction Workers

With the unemployment rate at 4.1%, many employers are finding it difficult to hire workers. In construction, it’s worse. The need for skilled construction workers outweighs the available market. With the increase in construction projects and the lack of construction workers, projects are estimated to take more time and businesses are under strain. These eight tips will help your company hire the best construction workers to complete your projects on time and budget.

1. Improve Your Job Posting

The right job post will attract more potential workers to your company, and you should always be posting. Job posts have to be clear on the position available and should be posted to various places. Posting the job just on your company’s career page won’t get you enough hits. Using professional job sites, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites to promote your job posting will widen the net. The next step in connecting with potential construction workers is explicit in your post – Please share with qualified candidates. This will help amplify your job posting among larger groups. The more specific in the position details you are, the better candidates you’ll attract.

Highlighting the cool technology (cloud-based Project Management, Mobile Apps, etc.) new employees will learn in your job posts may be the difference in winning 5-star recruits.

2. Professional and Standard Interviews

Interviewing is an effort by both people to find a good match for a position. That’s why it’s important to conduct professional interviews. Interviewers that seem bored or that are too easy to read might subconsciously alert interviewees to what they want to hear. Also, you must have the right standard questions that provide you with enough information about the candidate. Sometimes the best way to interview candidates is to hire a professional interviewer. They know the right questions to ask for your company and the job.

3. Character Matters

Finding skilled construction workers is essential, but there are other things to consider. Precisely, does the candidate fit your company as well as have the necessary skills? Through on the job training, most people can be caught up on your standards and needs. However, if you hire someone who has the right skills but not the temperament for your team you might have problems. You don’t want to hire someone who will war with your foreman or managers. This is why hiring for temperament and character is so important. Employees represent your company, so individuals with poor character may reflect negatively on your brand, and hurt your company longterm.

4. Does the Person Fit the Role

Knowing what specifically you’re looking for stops many hiring errors. If you’re looking for a field worker, it’s important to hire the person best suited for that job. You don’t want to put a supervisor in a field worker’s position, or vice versa. Another item to consider is to take into consideration a prospect’s career goals. Young workers demand a career path.  If they’re interested in specializing in something or moving into a supervisory position, it’s important to consider that in hiring. You don’t want to push someone who’s disinterested in that position.

5. On-The-Job Training

Theoretically, you’re hiring someone who has all the necessary skills you want and performs to your standards. But who doesn’t want to learn new skills, or refresh the ones they have now? Offering on-the-job training is a great option for ensuring that your hire will work to your standards or higher. New employees always have a week or two where they’re trying to learn the ropes, so why not use that time to train. It also identifies those who can do the work and are interested in learning more, both traits you want in an employee.

6. Don’t Skim on Checking References

A common misstep in hiring a construction worker is that the hiring manager never follows up on any references. Believing that someone wouldn’t put references on their resume that might hurt their reputation isn’t true. People will put references on their resume whether they’re good or not. Following up on one or two can save you many headaches down the road. Background checks and scans of candidate social media pages are also prudent steps for reference checking.

7. Hours and Benefits Matter

Everyone who works in construction is interested in having more hours. If you don’t have enough hours for everyone at the company to work 40 hours or so, your current employees might choose to look elsewhere. Also, having competitive benefits, hours, and pay will attract more potential workers to your company. Many young people nowadays want to have a work-life balance, so being open-minded and flexible will attract younger employees.

8. Technology for Construction Workers

Advancing your technology stack to improve productivity and profitability will not only help your business but help attract the new-age workers.  As it relates to hiring, you may also want to upgrade your website, so it looks cleaner and more intuitive.  Describe your company philosophy, and highlight excellent work.  But, also highlight the advanced technology individuals will use every day to build commercial projects.  These are tech tools – Cloud-based and mobile applications that new employees will use on jobsites or in the back office.

Highlighting the cool technology (cloud-based Project Management, Mobile Apps, etc.) new employees will learn in your job posts may be the difference in winning 5-star recruits.