How to Attract, Hire, and Retain Good People

After more than 25 years of working with HVAC contractors, I have learned quite a bit about the daily need-to-hire challenges. I want to share a few thoughts on what it takes to attract good people into your business. Here are two key points to remember:

There is no shortage of good people. If you think there is then read no further.
You convince people to stay by simply meeting their needs. If you’re not sure how to do this, I have a few ideas that will help.

Attracting Good People

If you want to acquire good talent, then why is your hiring process all about you and not about the candidate? National Comfort Institute has a saying: ‘If you don’t measure, you’re just guessing.’ This statement is just so true.

We measure all the time. Based on the information our company gathers from thousands of job applicants each week (data that we analyze regularly), we know that on average 90% of job seekers who read your job ad leave without applying, and more than 40% of job seekers who start reading the ad for your job end up not completing it.

So here’s the question: Do you know how many people see your job ad each week? Do you know how many people start the process of filling out the application for the position you need to fill? Or how many complete it?

Why is this important? It is data you can use to improve the success rate of your job advertisements. Let’s face it: You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. If you want to attract the best people from within your market area, you must believe in a very simple idea: Simply changing the job ad messaging can have a huge impact on the answers to all of the above questions.

Five Tips to Attract Better People

After years of writing job ads that work, here are five points I strongly suggest you consider if you wish to attract quality applicants from your market through an ad.

Think about what sets you and your company apart from competitors? What is it about your business that will convince someone to quit their current job and come work for you? Hint ‘ it’s not money.
Formal job titles are nice but be sure you keep it simple. Search engines are the name of the game. Having a job title like customer assurance officer means nothing to nearly every job seeker. But customer service is attractive to a large number of job seekers and gives you the largest talent pool opportunity possible.
I have seen so many contractors copy a job description they think sounds nice but, it is incredibly boring and says nothing about them or their company. Job descriptions should reflect your company values ‘ both for the potential employee and the people they will serve.
Be positive about the position. You want to catch their interest, not scare them away. Did you know that 75% of candidates say ‘the appearance of a job posting’ affects their choice to apply?
Watch the job ad tone. This highlights your culture, which I’ll talk about next. The job ad should match whether your company has a laid-back approach or is more formal. It can focus on whether you are all about good employee relationships or maybe casual working conditions. My best advice is to be authentic and not something you aren’t.