Attract & Keep Top Talent in Home Services
Still stuck in a cycle of posting jobs, waiting, and disappointing results? For many contractors, hiring feels unpredictable with changing labor markets, employee expectations, and stale job postings.
On this week’s episode, Kelly Presgrave, President & CEO of Work With Your Handz, breaks down how top contractors bring structure and predictability to hiring. From the one metric that changes everything to smarter job descriptions and how AI is accelerating recruiting without losing the human touch. Learn what it really takes to attract and retain A-players today.
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00:00:00:00 – 00:00:18:00
That will be your number one metric that you want to track. Industry has gone from 0 to 100 on data analytics and what we track these days. You need to learn how to hire superheroes. You.
00:00:18:02 – 00:00:54:00
So welcome back to Cracking the Code and our special epic 2026 speaker series where we’re spotlighting the leaders who will take the stage this February at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Today, we’re joined by Kelly Press, grave founder and CEO of Work With Your Hands, one of the most respected recruiting firms serving the skilled trades. Kelly and her team help Hvac, plumbing and electrical contractors all across the country hire faster, smarter, and with data not guesswork.
00:00:54:02 – 00:01:22:22
At Epic 2026, Kelly will be presenting her breakout session, the data driven Roadmap attracting and retaining top residential and commercial talent. On Friday, February 13th at 9:30 a.m., and today’s conversation will give you a preview of what she’ll share on stage from how data turns hiring chaos into control, to how market intelligence and I are reshaping the recruiting landscape for contractors everywhere.
00:01:23:00 – 00:01:45:14
So let’s get cracking. Welcome to Cracking the Code, Kelly. I was going to say good morning, but it’s good afternoon. How are you doing, David? And I’m doing great. We’re really, really, really fired up, to have you on the faculty this year at epic 2026. We’re looking forward to it. Absolutely. Me, too. I’m excited. Awesome. Well, let’s go ahead and dive right in.
00:01:45:14 – 00:02:21:08
So, Kelly, most contractors describe hiring as unpredictable. They post a job, hope for the best, and often end up disappointed. What’s the first step to bringing real structure and control to that process? It is going to be much like they do everything else according to work with, regard to their calls. It’s tracking the metrics. So if you just post and pray as what we’ll say in an industry post and pray, that doesn’t get you anywhere, hoping a prayer doesn’t isn’t isn’t a strategy.
00:02:21:10 – 00:02:45:13
So, yeah, I would say, even if you’re tracking it on an Excel spreadsheet, if you don’t have an actual applicant tracking system, if you’re posting on indeed, indeed, we’ll track some of those analytics and metrics for you. But you want to be tracking what’s working if your candidates are coming from indeed. Great track that. Look at what your spend is, look at how many candidates you’re getting.
00:02:45:15 – 00:03:06:04
If they’re falling off in the process, where is it? Because you’re not getting to them fast enough? Or is it because, they’re getting multiple offers or, you know, they’re they’re are declining your offer because of, compensation, whatever it is, track all of those things. And then if you’re getting referrals. So maybe you have a great internal referral system.
00:03:06:06 – 00:03:23:15
Track those things as well. How many come from there? So, you know, if there’s if you’re lucky enough to have some good real estate and people walk into the door, that could be an, a strategy as well as if you tend to go to any kind of job fairs in your local community. So, or a trade school.
00:03:23:17 – 00:03:47:22
So as a, for an independent contractor, I would say those are probably the four buckets with the most that they may get, candidates from the, the most where they spend the biggest dollars obviously would be. And Kelly, you emphasize data to bring predictability into recruiting. So what are the most important numbers every contractor should be watching?
00:03:48:00 – 00:04:10:12
First and foremost, time to fill. So if you are, watching that metric and you’re being honest with yourself and you’re, you’re really tracking it, that will be your number one metric that you want to track. That will give you the information that you need in order to do your business planning so that you can reverse engineer onto when I need to hire someone.
00:04:10:14 – 00:04:35:21
So we all know that, you know, a lot of hiring is because, two techs left and, you know, whether someone got hurt and they moved away, or you had a manager leave and they took some people with them, all kinds of things can happen. You can’t always predict everything, but you need to have some some, some, methodology in to say, even if that happens, I know that it’s going to take me X, Y or Z.
00:04:35:21 – 00:04:56:07
Time to get someone in, fill that seat. So, you know, if you can be strategic with it and you’re doing your business planning and you’re putting X, Y, or Z dollars towards marketing, you know, you need these hires. Or if you are hiring green apprentices and you know you want to get them trained up, then you need X amount of time.
00:04:56:09 – 00:05:17:12
So all of these things, if it’s seasonal and it’s, you know, you’re in Las Vegas and you know it’s going to become very, very hot at X time, then those are the things that if you are tracking your time to fill for various positions and you’re being honest with yourself and and truly tracking it, then no matter what the scenario is on Y, you need people.
00:05:17:14 – 00:05:35:08
You can look back on it and say, okay, this is when we can expect to have these jobs filled. So, there are always some variances. There’s always, you know, if you’re trying to hire in the middle of the summer, it’s your, your time to sell might be higher if you’re looking for a people in the middle of the summer in Vegas.
00:05:35:10 – 00:05:56:18
But on average, how long does it take us. So, so you can really plug in those numbers. That would be the number one. I’d say, the cost per hire. So if you know that, you know, again towards that budgeting, if you know you need three people, what does that cost per hire look like? What should I be putting in the budget for that?
00:05:56:20 – 00:06:11:13
Is it going to be all on a job board or do I need to do different things? So what does that look like? Do I might need to run some Facebook ads? Do I need to get out there at a job fair? What are those costs that I’m going to have to incur, to make those things happen?
00:06:11:15 – 00:06:35:14
So really, cost per hire and, time to fill are the big ones. You can also, track sourcing. So where are your candidates coming from? You can track, you know, all those buckets I talked about earlier, but also response rates. So response rates are going to be a big one for the job boards. If you are using I’m not I don’t work for indeed I don’t want to plug them.
00:06:35:16 – 00:06:53:17
But that’s what most people use. They will track all those response rates for you. So, so you really don’t have to worry too much about it. They’ll track it. But, those are those are the things that you want to be tracking. If you don’t have an applicant tracking system, that’s okay. You can track some of it in a spreadsheet.
00:06:53:18 – 00:07:16:01
It’s always easier in and out. Good tracking system. So the applicant tracking systems already have the intelligence of a recruiter built in. Right. And so good recruiters are going to know you got to look at these things and try to adjust. And so how can tracking things like time to fill which I love that term. That’s awesome.
00:07:16:01 – 00:07:38:15
That’s one that, most contractors don’t think about. It’s time. How much time does it take to you for you to fill an empty seat on your bus? Right? Right. So how can tracking things like time to fill or source quality the actual lead source? If you will, for that, for that new applicant, actually impact the company’s bottom line.
00:07:38:17 – 00:08:09:00
Absolutely. It’s it’s, we track so much. I feel like that industry has gone from 0 to 100 on data analytics and what we track these days. So I would say add that to it. It’s, you know, it’s the key to success is at having those analytics and knowing your numbers. So, so for smaller contractors without a full HR department, what’s a simple way to start gathering and using data to make better decisions?
00:08:09:02 – 00:08:40:12
Probably a made depends on how small you are. There are some applicant tracking systems out there that are quite affordable. So, you don’t have to break the bank to, to, to go and find one that does the job. And actually does a great job. You can, you know, integrate it with your website. So now if someone is going to spend a lot of money on Google ad, spend a lot of money promoting your, your brand, if they go to your website instead of just filling out a form, now they can apply to a job.
00:08:40:14 – 00:09:05:17
That should, capture all of those things, including the lead source. And, and I would say really is probably more affordable than you think to get an applicant tracking system. Having said that, if you are a very small company and everyone’s wearing multiple hats and they’re all really busy, you can spend money on something that’s very much wasted because no one’s monitoring that.
00:09:05:18 – 00:09:27:08
Who’s applying? And it’s a waste. So if you don’t feel like you have someone who’s truly going to use it, I would say you don’t really need to invest in that. I would say use the analytics that are on the dashboard or have a spreadsheet and just be, dedicated. Make sure you’re disciplined enough to put the information in the spreadsheet.
00:09:27:13 – 00:10:02:01
So, you don’t have to go out and get an applicant tracking system if you don’t feel like you’re going to, integrate, it’s going to be a waste of money. Right. And so the best case situation there is to hire somebody that can manage it for you realistically. Right. It’s like realistically, if you feel like you’re going to have an ongoing need, you know, there’s a there there’s a cost analysis for using an agency like work with your hands or if you feel at what point do you feel like you’re going, you can sustain and have, a need for a recruiter or if you’re a HR person or if you do have to
00:10:02:01 – 00:10:28:19
hire an HR person or whatever that looks like for where you are in your growth of your business. But, you know, an HR person and a small company could certainly handle that. And you might even be able to, to to have someone else handle it. At the end of the day, if it’s not an ongoing basis all the time, or if you’re in a situation where you hire a lot seasonal, you know, a lot of seasonal work, then that’s where you’re working with somebody like, work with your hands.
00:10:28:19 – 00:10:57:04
Make sense? Sure. So once you start tracking results, the next big opportunity for sure is understanding where the best people are coming from and why they choose certain companies over others. Right. So you’ve said the best technicians aren’t hiding. They’re just not being reached the right way. What does that mean in practice? In practice it means that, most, if not all of the time.
00:10:57:04 – 00:11:21:02
But I would say most of the time who you want on your team is most likely already employed. They’re employed with your competition. So, you know, we have a lot of companies that will come to us, even larger contractors, but they’re independently owned and they will say how can we compete with private equity? I could promise you private equity is having the same issues that you’re having.
00:11:21:02 – 00:11:45:12
It’s it’s really tough out there for everybody. So it’s not like there’s a magic pill or a silver bullet. I would say for, if you’re going to go out and, and, and poach, someone or you’re trying to attract someone to just come to you, then really know your competition. Know your market, know what they’re providing?
00:11:45:18 – 00:12:07:16
They most likely have indeed at out there, they have their benefits on their website. You have other techs that work there. Find out what they’re doing and see if you can match it. If you’re not able to match it, that’s okay. There is a threshold for competitive just being competitive. And then there’s like the extra bells and whistles of what you can give someone.
00:12:07:18 – 00:12:28:10
Do not ever, feel like just because your company is small that you can’t attract great talent. There is something to be said. For as you grow, you’re going to naturally attract more talent the bigger your company gets. And that’s just the way it is. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t have something like an opportunity for growth.
00:12:28:12 – 00:12:51:03
You can’t have a team feel like a smaller culture where set for where team work and individual contribution is recognized. So you might be able to grab talent just by having something that, the other guys don’t have. So what do they have? What can you provide that they don’t? Maybe it’s, extra training and, you can get someone to a journeyman.
00:12:51:05 – 00:13:10:11
You can do something like Food Truck Fridays. We have a, you know, we have a great culture. We’re going to, I’ll get together on Fridays. We do a little training, and we have a bunch of food trucks that come to the to our office. It might be benefits. You know, I can’t give, I can’t cover the whole the whole family.
00:13:10:11 – 00:13:31:03
But I can cover the employee, and I can give their birthday off, and I can give some extra wellness days for them to go do something. It really is, have some flexibility, I would say, with what you’re able to offer. Look at what your competition is doing and think to yourself, what can I do that maybe they aren’t doing?
00:13:31:05 – 00:14:04:17
What can I, offer that maybe they’re not. It’s not always a signing bonus. It’s not always, money. It can be. We don’t work on the weekends. We don’t have an uncle schedule. I’m. I’m flexible in the schedule. I can do for tens. And so there’s all kinds of different things that would resonate with an individual contributor versus, just thinking, you know, hanging your hat on those the things that everybody has on their job description or everything that they offer.
00:14:04:20 – 00:14:31:08
So think outside the box and what might attract people. Very good, very good. And the whole idea of market intelligence, you mentioned a few things already. And you some of your previous, comments like if I’m in Las Vegas, the market’s different than Atlanta, for instance. Right. Or if I’m living out in the middle of the country and I’m trying to recruit people away from the big city.
00:14:31:08 – 00:14:57:09
You know, I might talk about you can be anywhere in town in 20 minutes. Right. Little thing like you don’t have to go. It doesn’t take 45 minutes to go 17 miles where I live, right. Which is the way it is in Atlanta. I just found out yesterday again, reminded why I moved from there. So how does market intelligence, understanding pay ranges, geography and candidate motivation give contractors an advantage in recruiting?
00:14:57:11 – 00:15:19:19
I guess just knowing I would say to your point, knowing your market, what’s going to move the needle for a candidate that’s in Boston, quite frankly, it’s just like the traffic situation in Atlanta. There are some metropolitan areas that that is a huge, deciding factor for people. Being close to the shop is that point. You got to make sure that you’re there.
00:15:19:19 – 00:15:43:05
Technicians can take their trucks on that. You’re, very cognizant of your service area and where you’re going to dispatch them as much as possible. And then if you’re in an area where, I’ll use Saint Paul, which I think is one of the hardest, in the, United States to hire specifically plumbers. But, they have a license requirement for the state.
00:15:43:06 – 00:16:06:17
They have another licensing requirement for the city, and they have an extremely high union presence. And there’s a residential service company on every corner. So you’re in a very, very, competitive market. And, it’s it’s it’s tough out there. So you do have things where people will I don’t want job hoppers. I don’t want anybody. I want top jobs.
00:16:06:17 – 00:16:29:23
Well, in markets like that, it’s quite common for people to job and they actually will job hop with friends. So all job hop together is what we’ve seen. So don’t discount someone just because they are job Hopper. Talk to them about it. Be upfront in the interview. Make sure that you’re having those conversations. Why are you hopping around jobs?
00:16:30:01 – 00:16:56:00
You might find out something really quick that you can do that would be able to retain them and keep them happy and then keep up with their friends as well. So, open up your aperture, I would say. And in places like that, on the flip side, if you’re in an area in a very rural area where it’s really hard to just find people in general, that’s where you need to open your net wider and cast a wider net.
00:16:56:00 – 00:17:21:13
You might be able to find someone in Atlanta that wants to move to a rural area in Georgia because they don’t like the traffic, they don’t mind making less because they want to get out of that metropolitan area. So, think about that. What’s your next closest city where you might be able to grab people from and make it an attractive offer for them to come and, move their family out to a more rural area.
00:17:21:15 – 00:17:45:04
So there’s, there’s I’d say there’s there’s always a we we never look at anything with it. That it’s a challenge you can’t overcome. It’s an opportunity to look at what, some outside the box thinking and what might work. So cookie cutter approach is not the best approach. No, it doesn’t work for sure. There is no one size fits all here.
00:17:45:04 – 00:18:17:15
Is that what you’re saying? That’s unfortunately it’s true. Yeah. So many companies actually think more job postings equal more candidates. But you say that too many postings often lead to less traction. Why is that? Oh, there’s a couple different things that have happened recently. And the, in from a recruiting perspective. And I know it’s it’s might not line up completely with what the contractors constantly hear, which is always be recruiting.
00:18:17:17 – 00:18:37:03
And you hear that and you think, I’m just going to leave my job on all the time. And, and then I’ll have a batch when I go back and try and call people, and it just doesn’t really work that way. And one of the things that is kind of a recent, I’d say, in the last year and a half is people look at them as ghost jobs.
00:18:37:08 – 00:18:56:02
So you’re not really hiring? I’m not going to if they see, even if you refresh your job every 30 days and it looks new to, inter indeed job seekers now that that that’s, you know, they’ve already applied to that job and they didn’t hear back from your team, so now they’re not going to apply again.
00:18:56:02 – 00:19:18:03
And when they call, when you call them, they’ll say, you know, they might feel I applied to that. And you’re just now calling me. It’s been six months, so, I, it’s not that you can’t, always be recruiting, but I would say just throwing your job up and keeping it open, even if you keep budget behind it.
00:19:18:05 – 00:19:37:13
If you’re really not recruiting at that time, it might backfire on you not to say that it will for sure, but it could. So I’d say be intentional. If you’re really hiring for it. That’s when you put it up. You monitor it, you make sure you get the word out. You do everything that you would do. Just like a marketing campaign.
00:19:37:13 – 00:19:57:18
You get on Facebook, you get on all the socials. You let your team know you’re you’re blasting the word out there when you’re actually hiring, that you’re really hiring. You know, it’s interesting, I was taught a principle by a really good business coach back in the day. At least I believe he’s a really good business coach. Guy named Ron Smith.
00:19:57:20 – 00:20:20:12
And, he’s a contractor forever and wrote a book called Hvac spells Wealth. And he used to tell us, he said, look, think about your team as you got eight players, you got B players and you got C players, he says. As long as you have B and C players, if there’s another A player that comes knocking on your door, you have an opening, right?
00:20:20:14 – 00:20:38:13
Because he said your goal should be to get as many players on the team as you can, so you don’t have to think a whole lot about it. And so I think it’s it’s an interesting concept and I hear what you’re saying, but, our philosophy, my dad’s business was our big benefit was we got nine service technicians.
00:20:38:13 – 00:21:00:20
You’re only on call once every two months, which is a big deal for a technician, especially if they’re on call all the time because they’re the only technician where they’re currently working. That kind of makes it tough. And the other was education. You mentioned training. And so forth. I think education for especially for technical people is extremely important, and most people don’t do anything with that.
00:21:00:20 – 00:21:23:23
So besides leaving your lure out in the water too long and not really being serious about pulling the fish in, what mistakes do you see contractors making and how they describe their company or their roles to potential hires? I think the biggest thing we see, and it doesn’t automatically I mean, there’s only so many ways to make a job description.
00:21:23:23 – 00:21:48:03
And I’ve used this term sexy, loosely, but it to make it attractive. So there’s only so many ways you can make an Hvac, job attractive. But, use AI to help you really give the prompt. These are the great things this is. And think about it. Why does someone want to work for your company? What are the wonderful things?
00:21:48:05 – 00:22:18:16
It’s more than the taglines. We’re a family, blah, blah, blah. Like, there’s so much more to a company than that. So really describing, individual contributors get recognized on a monthly basis. We have contests our top technicians make over X. We do provide training. We, you know, whatever it is, we have weekly contests. We, have these, off sites, we go fishing for our top producers, whatever it is.
00:22:18:18 – 00:22:53:11
Put all that in your job description. You it’s a it’s an advertisement. So you need to think of it that way. Yes. Their skills and knowledge. Ability you want. I mean, that old school way of writing a job description still matters. You do want if they need licensing, if they need certain certifications, but, you know, there is there is a company that we, that we spoke with and they were so interesting to me, their, their tagline there they, they were an industrial and commercial, Hvac company.
00:22:53:13 – 00:23:22:02
People who they were the company that that Hvac companies call when they can’t fix it. So their technicians were the people they needed to hire were the best of the best. The training they provided was just off the charts. They were so proud of their people and so proud of the fact that they basically were the Calvary that gets called in when when regular companies can’t fix it.
00:23:22:04 – 00:23:42:18
You know, that’s so cool. And the reason I say it’s so cool is that was our reputation in our local market. It’s like we were those guys, and that’s the reason we were those guys, was because we invested so much in the training and the tools that our guys needed to be able to figure out what was going on and then be able to resolve it.
00:23:42:20 – 00:24:05:05
And, our kind of reputation locally in Columbus, Georgia, about 90 miles out of Atlanta, it was you may not like what they have to say, because it usually involved more money than the other guys that weren’t solving the problem. But they’re right. Right. It’s like is that was our reputation is we’re right. We’re not trying to be cocky about it.
00:24:05:05 – 00:24:27:10
We prove it with performance. We tell you what we’re going to do and we do it. And if we didn’t do it right the first time, we’re going to redo it again. But it’s not going to cost you anything because it was our fault. It didn’t get done properly. You’re in for a technician. I’m going to work for a company that’s the best the next and not just fixes the problem, but is the category that gets called in.
00:24:27:10 – 00:24:52:02
I’m the superhero of the I mean that I mean, that’s that’s that’s who I would want. So those are the kind of things if that’s you put that in your job description. And that’s what attracts people. So so you just mentioned something a little while ago and I think this is so, so important. And you mentioned I use AI to help kind of fix things.
00:24:52:08 – 00:25:16:15
So that’s one of the biggest shifts I understand in recruiting right now is how AI is changing the speed and accuracy of sourcing talent. So it is transforming nearly every part of our business. So what role is it starting to play in recruiting for the traits? In recruiting for the trades? It is, it just like, for, for contractors where they’re seeing it.
00:25:16:17 – 00:25:54:12
Take shape and transform efficiency. It’s doing that on the recruiting side. So, time to, time to hire that metric. We talked about is a competitive advantage. When someone puts response to your job and this is more for active candidates versus passive. So someone is already employed. We can talk about how that changes it. But if someone is active on the market that’s where the AI can really help because it’s going to that’s going to squeeze that time to hire down to its most efficient.
00:25:54:14 – 00:26:14:11
So someone can, as soon as they apply to a job, as soon as they respond to an indeed request, they’re getting a message instantaneously. We’re getting on a call with them. Our, our AI agent gets on a call with them. It can be one in the morning. We’re getting on a call with them. Whenever we’re meeting the candidate where they are at the end of the day.
00:26:14:11 – 00:26:41:05
So if they get up for their job at the 5 a.m., they can have a conversation that they don’t have to wait for, human, to, to conduct an, intake or, an interview. So that’s what we see is the, really it’s that competitive advantage in speed. So if you think about it on the contractor side, they have speed to be able to answer the call and book the call and get the technician out.
00:26:41:11 – 00:27:07:14
It’s the same. It’s just the efficiency and the speed to get to the candidate and meet them where they are on a IT unit, it side. Yeah, it’s it’s super cool. And on the passive candidate side, it is you still want to be fast when you’re responding to someone. It is, an ego thing. For someone who is a top technician, a player, you don’t want to make them wait.
00:27:07:16 – 00:27:33:23
That is, there’s other they they with 100% certainty. They didn’t just reach out to your company or they didn’t just respond to your outreach. There’s other companies trying to poach them. Whoever seems the most interested. And that sometimes is just being the fastest. We want you. We can’t wait to talk with you. So it’s really, it’s the speed with and the efficiency with which you can make everything happen.
00:27:34:00 – 00:27:52:13
There’s not going to be a ball that’s dropped. You know, there’s companies out there that make sure that follow up with your customers, there’s shopping, be all that follow up with the candidate as well. So, we I’ve thought that, you know, technicians in the field would not want to speak with an AI agent for an interview.
00:27:52:13 – 00:28:17:06
I was wrong, they have no problem with it, because on their end, we’re meeting with them where they are. And, you know, they’re they’re turning a wrench. They’re behind the, the windshield. They want to they want to have an interview when it works for them. So this allows that to happen. So interesting. News flash, technicians or technical.
00:28:17:08 – 00:28:42:00
So AI is just a tool. They love tools. Right. And so you just kind of gave a little preview of what I understand. Your team is launching as a new AI powered sourcing platform. So tell us what it does and how it helps contractors move forward. Move faster. Is going to first of all, it’s going to be its own agent just for the job.
00:28:42:02 – 00:29:05:10
So as soon as you tell us what you need, you need an Hvac installer. You need, someone who’s going to be a lead installer, be able to lead the team. They need to have their EPA, 608 or whatever. I’m not don’t quote me in all the licensing, but they need to have these certain things. They need to be able to, you know, have a clean background, a clean motor vehicle record and pass a drug screen.
00:29:05:10 – 00:29:26:23
Some basics they need to have these many years of experience and whatever else it is you tell us for the basics. It is going to, automatically write out a scorecard and it is going to call people in our system who we have a database. So about 200,000 people. So it’s going to call the people in our system.
00:29:26:23 – 00:29:49:18
It’s going to start looking for people on other job boards and in other databases. And as soon as it finds them it’s going to call them. And it’s going to go through that screening. It’s going to hit all those, highlights based on the job description, and it’s going to give them a score. If they get a score of above, three or above, then, we can automatically send that candidate to our clients.
00:29:50:00 – 00:30:11:01
So these are, these are for the, the contractors out there that have a mechanism in place. They don’t necessarily want a recruiter to be doing the full scope of services. They may already have a recruiter. Just that recruiter is having a difficult time filling some of these positions, or they have a lot going on. And maybe it’s not difficult.
00:30:11:01 – 00:30:41:18
Maybe they just have a lot on their plate. So this can augment that. They get a candidate that’s already ready to hit second base as soon as they call them. They’ve already got the scorecard, they’ve got their resume. They know that their their halfway decent candidate. Yeah. So qualified. Right. Triple qualified. So that’s that’s it. The speed and being able to already vet them out and you don’t have to unfortunately I hate to use the word trash, but there’s just a lot of people who who will apply to a job.
00:30:41:18 – 00:31:09:03
And it takes time to weed through, the people who are not qualified or who, you know, we the I cannot at this point, judge, if someone is being dishonest about their background or about their their motor vehicle record. I don’t know if in a five years they’ll be like, you’re lying. I can tell by the tone of your voice, but, for right now, we rely on honesty from our candidates to say.
00:31:09:05 – 00:31:33:07
And, but but it it just speeds up the whole process. You brought up a really interesting thing, though, so how do we keep recruiting personal if we’re going to be I ING them to death? And I’m not saying to death I mean it. I know what you’re saying, and I know that in essence, it’s almost an automated fill out the application type thing.
00:31:33:10 – 00:31:55:18
So it’s it’s using technology to get the the prerequisites identified. And once they get to the next level, I’m assuming it would be turned over for the more personal side of it. Is that kind of the way you see it? Exactly. So if they’re using this, they immediately after they speak with our, our agent, they’re speaking with a human being.
00:31:55:19 – 00:32:17:17
So, for us, that’s our next step in our process. Now, we’re talking with them on the phone for 20, 30 minutes. We’re we’re not just we’ve already pre-qualified them, but now we can be an ambassador to sell to our clients as as the employer choice. So for us, it’s all right. You’re a great candidate. You’re an a B player.
00:32:17:19 – 00:32:39:12
Let’s talk. And so it’s it’s a mechanism for us to get to cut to the chase of being a brand ambassador quicker. And for if you’ve already got that on the, you already got someone in-house that does some of that that allows them to do the same thing. Let’s talk about our offerings. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about why you’re not happy.
00:32:39:12 – 00:32:57:15
Why are we what is it that you’re looking for that your current company is not providing? Okay, great. We can check that box for you. So when can we get you in person? And it just speeds the process. Yeah, but you get the linguistic element still in it, for sure. They don’t always be that for recruiting for sure.
00:32:57:17 – 00:33:23:09
And so looking ahead kind of wrapping this up, how do you see AI and data continuing to shape how the skilled trades find and retain and retain is really important to great talent over the next few years? It’s just I would say, for the retention part, it can help with onboarding. It can make sure, you know, you can use it to help build out your onboarding.
00:33:23:11 – 00:33:47:17
You always want to make people welcome. Welcome. That’s part of I’d say that’s the number one thing for retention that we see within that first 30 days. Are you bringing someone, especially in a player, into the fold to where they feel very welcome, they feel a part of the team. They’re automatically getting ingrained in your culture and being recognized and just having that warm welcome.
00:33:47:18 – 00:34:13:10
So so that’s that’s kind of on the retention side, I would say, for, for recruiting and data, it’s a given. You have to do it. It’s not going to be an option. You’re going to have to do it for me. I see it. There’s it’s just going to increase where we can be more efficient, how we can write better job ads, how we can, just speed things up so that the candidate experience.
00:34:13:12 – 00:34:38:17
Yes, it’s it’s, you know, I would I would equate it for me when I think about I have to call, I have to call Verizon. I, I get nauseous thinking about calling Verizon, and I know I’m going to get your phone tree. I’m going to have to tell my problem to 45 different people before I finally talk to someone who, and I’m picking on Verizon.
00:34:38:17 – 00:35:03:21
But you know what I’m talking about with having to speak with so many different people. So this will be just one more thing where you can actually make the candidate experience. I think it’s it’s better because it’s quicker. It’s, our AI agent has a very nice voice. She, she has a tremendous job. I was so skeptical at first, but I’m completely a champion for it and sold on that.
00:35:03:21 – 00:35:22:07
On how it works. But it’s it’s meeting the candidate where they are. It’s it’s being able to, you know, all those analytics that are tied in with AI. You’ll see where people are dropping off. You can tell if someone is not answering the question if they don’t like this question, if things are falling off at a certain question.
00:35:22:09 – 00:35:49:08
So you can really go through and tailor everything, to a specific role. You know, that’s just where I see it being beneficial. It’s, it’s it’s tailoring the candidate experience, making it quicker. And at the end of the day, that’s better for everybody. Man. This is powerful. This is powerful stuff. Guys. If you’ve ever struggled to find great people or to keep the ones you have Kelly Press great.
00:35:49:08 – 00:36:15:01
Just laid out a blueprint for taking control of the situation. To hear Kelly go even deeper, make sure you join us at Epic 2026 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, where she’ll present the data driven roadmap to attracting and retaining top residential and commercial talent on Friday, February the 13th. That’s a lucky day at 9:30 a.m.. You can learn more and register now at Epic 2020 6.com.
00:36:15:02 – 00:36:29:01
I’m David Hope this has been cracking the code brought to you by PGA Contractor University, where we help you run a more profitable, more sustainable and less stressful contracting business. Until next time, keep on cracking.
