How to Avoid the Biggest Recruiting Mistakes

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Recruiting new hires for your contracting business is already one of the industry’s biggest challenges, so managing your existing employees is even more important. But what do you do when your worst employee is related to you, your best friend, or worse yet— married to you.

In this episode of Cracking the Code podcast, Contractor University faculty members Drew Cameron and Gary Elekes share recruiting advice and personal horror stories from their past to make you a better recruiter.

Audio Transcription (in Beta)

On today’s show, you’re gonna learn all about avoiding the biggest recruiting mistakes.

Now, today we have Gary Alex and Mr Drew Cameron chatting about the biggest recruiting mistakes that all of us make from time to time. They’re also gonna talk about how to avoid them, which is really important. Take it away, fellas. The management becomes laborious because of the poor recruiting. Your job becomes time consuming and tougher because you’ve got the wrong people on the team and you can’t understand why, you know, you keep having to jump in back into the fire.

It’s because You probably shortchange the process up front. And so I want you to kind of keep that in mind. Um, and so these are, you know, what I, what I’ll call the biggest recruiting mistakes, and these are the ones that I will say them. They’re the most consistent. That’s why they’re the biggest because they happen the most frequently.

They’re not the only recruiting mistakes. I’m sure we’re probably uncover a couple others and happy to entertain some conversations and questions from our, our viewers. And I’m going to, uh, you know, draw the Gmail in on, uh, on these as well. And these are not in any specific order, but they are numbered. I think there’s about, you know, uh, about 25 of them or so, but anyway, we make the wrong or easier hire by hiring from within or hiring a relative, right?

Been there, done that, you know, John H. Cameron and sons had two brothers and a sister and a mom, you know, it was actually, it was the family that was there, but, um, you know, I actually, you know, tell the story, had to de hire John twice, uh, Ron on the other hand, my younger brother, uh, unfortunately, both of those guys have passed on.

Uh, Ron was a hard worker. I mean, he was hard and working on the install. He ran our warehouse, you know, eventually. And, uh, I mean, he right up until the end was just a, you know, one of those most solid guys that you could count on. Uh, probably in later years, had he matured, uh, before passing away, he probably would have been an operations manager.

Uh, you know, John, uh, I saw sales management in him, but he was not ready for it. So his younger brother, I got the job after college. As well as the general manager position. John eventually went on to become a, uh, iconic manager, uh, for, you know, for a very large company on the East coast. But those were easy hires.

Cause obviously we were all given jobs from the age of 12, but I’ve gone into companies and I know you have as well, where people. You know, are related, were married and you know, they have no business having the job that they have. And I know one company, uh, down in Louisiana, the, uh, the, uh, the marriage split as a result of that.

I know another company down in Louisiana, maybe that’s how things are happening, things that why you think, yeah, it might be a value thing down there in Louisiana. Uh, had a daughter as a dispatcher and, uh, you know, She she needed to go and everybody on the team told me, you know, that she needed to go and the husband and wife that were Working there, you know, you were reluctant to do it, but eventually they they faced reality So talk about making the easy hire or hiring a relative.

I just hired one of my boys today. That’s right I heard that’s not going so well. There’s a landscape Came to the performance department. You got to get the job done on time. You’re not getting paid. So yeah, we’ll see how it goes. But um, yeah, I uh Many instances where i’ve done coaching and consulting where You know, uh, husband, wife, and one in particular in Chicago when I was a business consultant for Lennox and, and the guy’s, uh, name was Bob and he’s like, listen, I got a problem with my accounting, you know, my wife’s doing my accounting and she’s not an accountant.

She’s not trained for accounting, but you know, she, she wants to control the books and, you know, I can’t fire her. And so I sat down and visited with Bob and I’m like, you mind if we bring your wife in and talk to your wife? Bring the wife in and she sits down and she says, well, I’m only here because Bob can’t hire anybody.

Like, nobody will work for this guy, , I’m just doing the books because I, I have to, like, no one else will do it. She goes, I don’t wanna be here. Yep. And I just kind of looked at Bob and, uh, so the wife left and I’m like, well, you know, this pretty clear what we need to do. She doesn’t wanna be here and you don’t really want her doing the books.

And he’s like, I can’t fire my wife. He’s like, I, I, I sleep with her. He is like, I can’t, he said, you fire her. And I’m like, I’m not firing your wife. Yeah. So. The goal was we had to find somebody to do the books. So the complexities of that discussion, those two just never even talked about it. Like it’s insane that they didn’t have that conversation about what’s going on.

So we get back to the job functions, the org chart, and just the family dynamics. And I think. Family members have to be held accountable to the standard that the job or the role description as hires and accountable to what the culture requirements are. So, you know, you mentioned you fired your brother twice and those probably cultural decisions.

Yes. As opposed to performance performance on the paperwork. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think it’s important that people understand if we have family members in. Uh, it’s okay. It’s a fantastic environment, but they have to be responsible and accountable to the culture and to the business plan and not necessarily look at the family and say, well, I’m related to you because we’re blood.

Uh, because unfortunately what happens is the rest of the organization sees that. Um, in my own experience with Lennox Industries, I didn’t get a job that I had earned literally had spent five years at the top level of every, every metric established in the branch position. And the general manager of the organization called me and said, just need to have a talk with you.

And he said, there’s going to be a promotion and he said, you deserve the opportunity but one of the family members of the Norris family is going to get this job. And he said, just want to let you know, you know, it’s, there’s a level of nepotism here and that’s the right word. And, uh, he said, so I wanted you to hear it from me.

I didn’t want you to be upset that you didn’t get interviewed or hired because they are going to interview you, but you’re not going to get the job. And he’s like, they’re going to give that to the son who is the family member and who will eventually be the president of the organization, which he was eventually.

And, uh, so. That screamed to me that they didn’t care about performance. They cared about their family. And I get that. And I’m okay with that. I’m okay. But obviously I’m not there anymore. So there’s some reasons why people start looking around all your employees kind of know what’s going on, what the culture is about.

So family members, Are terrific, but they have to maintain the level of, uh, discipline, accountability, meritocracy, performance, all those things have to be consistent. And by the way, none of my kids want to come to work for me because they know I’m going to hold them accountable to the stance. Right. I’ll bring it.

Yeah. Dad, you you’re, you’re way too firm about that stuff. Yeah, well, I’ve always said it. Business is business. Get your friends and family elsewhere. That doesn’t mean we can’t have friends and family work with us. But, you know, like you said, I love that you have to basically operate and execute to the level of the requirement of the role and the position.

And while John was a great salesperson, John struggled on the paperwork, you know, um, you know, really Really poorly. And then he ended up paying one of my guys to do his paperwork. And that became an issue. And, and, and my team is looking at him and looking at me and saying, okay, if he’s willing to tolerate this, what can I get away with?

And my team knew that basically, listen, I’m, I’m, I’m as straight laced as you are, you’re probably, you’re probably even straight, more straight laced than I am. But you know, there’s a certain level of excellence and expectation that, you know, that I demand and is required because you all get what you tolerate.

When you start to tolerate little things, You still tell yourself a story around these things. That’s where the, you know, the cracks in the Liberty bell start to show up, if you, you know, if you will. So making the easy hire from hiring within, I’m not saying you shouldn’t hire from within, but is they go through the recruiting process just because my installer or service technician wants to become my next salesperson.

Um, and they, they’ve done well as a selling tech does not mean they become my neck, my comfort advisor. They have to go through the process, just like anybody else would. And they have to be worthy of doing every aspect of that job. Okay. Um, do they have a little bit more of an inside track? Yeah. Um, here’s the interesting thing though, the people that work for me, I say have to be even a little bit more qualified because they’ve been part of the vision, mission, culture, core values, they understand how we operate.

So they may have to be a little bit more qualified than somebody coming from outside the organization. You know, quite frankly, I did expect more from my older brother. My father should have expected more from me when I hired my best friend. To be our, our parts manager, uh, out of high school, uh, you know, Butch had to be, you know, premier, right?

Because they, his friend, his friendship got him considered for the position, his skills and ability got him, got him the position, but I was able to, you know, what kept him in that position? He showed up before anybody else in my service department and he stayed late. He always helped out with inventory.

He worked on the weekends. He did the stuff that my father had us do with his Cameron kids, you know, on the side on the weekends, you know, he showed up. And so people knew that Butch didn’t have his job because he was my best friend. Right. And so that’s what I’m saying is that everybody has to earn their job.

One last comment on that. So we always favor hiring from within as a philosophy, but we, to your point, They have to be equal or better within. So, um, the trick is the org chart, the employee development plan we talked about yesterday, the role description and the metrics, the merits, the performance. So it’s not just about that job.

Um, a mentor of mine once told me, you know, if you want the next job, you have to prove that you actually can do the next job while you’re in this job. Like you have to behave. Into the next job and so that stuck with me and I think that goes right back to Uh culture in that discussion We we want to give you the opportunity to raise up inside the organization, but you have to prove that you’re willing And capable of doing the next job as opposed to just saying i’m entitled to that and I think that Not just family members.

I’m just talking about anybody that’s a team member yeah, and john, you know thought he he deserved the job because he was john cameron jr and also because he was the older brother and You know, my father would basically say, Hey, you know, Drew went to school for this. Drew’s putting in the effort for this.

Drew’s more organized, you know, you know, so forth and so on. Right. And so that’s what it became about. And in reality, bottom line, and here’s maybe something that will be helpful for you that do have relatives in there. At that business, John Cameron senior was the president of the company or the owner of the company.

Um, he was not my father, you know, at work, you know, people call him my dad and this, that, and the other thing. But when people say, Hey, isn’t that your dad? Yes, but he’s not not when I’m at work, right? My brother was not my brother. He was my salesperson, right? And so if that helps you keep, you know, the lines of uh delineation, you know A little bit more clear than I think that’s that that’s what served me hiring for technical Experience and this again the framework a lot of the framework is built around, you know, my experience in hiring salespeople That’s what I really wrote the article on a couple years back But Again, I hire for attitude.

I hire for fit. I hire for chemistry, you know, I can teach them what they need to know And I think the other the easy hire again is the one that has the technical Expertise when it’s looking for a service take a maintenance tech, you know, or a install or a salesperson So a granite again, you could also be saying the same thing when it comes to a bookkeeper So talk about that a little bit.

Well, i’ve i’ve got uh You A, uh, a classic story of hiring the wrong bookkeeper. Okay. So, uh, that’s, I totally agree with you though. Attitude, culture, chemistry, uh, mindset, willingness to learn, you know, coachability, adaptability. Those are the characteristics that we look, we can train people. Uh, uh, now if they can bring some technical experience, that’s fantastic.

Yeah. But yeah, I hired, uh, uh, Andrew and I both Andrew’s probably, you know, rolling over in his, you know, office right now going, Oh my. Um, so we had our CPA. We have an accounting test. Um, you know, we interviewed this guy. We called his references. We checked everything you could possibly imagine. We went through all the same steps that you’re going to tell me to go through.

Uh, but his references lied about it because when we actually hired him, um, it turns out that he didn’t really even understand Davidson credits. And, uh, so yet he was able to get through the accounting test and my CPA, you know, asked him about five or six key questions and he was able to answer those as well.

So. The lesson there is we were really looking at technical competency. That’s what we were looking at. Uh, and it just turned out that it wasn’t a good culture fit. He didn’t last very long, obviously, you know, we’re not very forgiving about cultural problems like that. So we made that transition very quickly and we’ve since rehired somebody that’s a great culture fit.

And we’ve trained that young individual a little bit more on bookkeeping and it’s been fantastic. So technical expertise can be trained on. So once again, I think you need to be careful when you’re looking at technical expertise is the primary reason So culture attitude mindset, all those things are key.

Yeah, these are these are data points, right? No one thing is going to make the make or break the scale, uh here But these are just things to kind of take into consideration So yes, if somebody has a you know The technical expertise along with everything else that we’re looking for in this industry My experience has been that we overvalue technical experience way too much, right?

That’s the easy hire Right. There are skills, uh, and, and, uh, and, uh, skills and techniques and whatnot that can be taught very easily. You go down to, you know, one of the interplay learning, we were talking about that, you know, virtual learning today, you can go down to the ultimate technical Academy of the perfect technician Academy or technical art center and get, get a technician.

You get a maintenance tech in two weeks. I get an installer, you know, trained in two weeks. I can get advanced diagnostics trained in a week, right? Uh, we can. At EGA, we can train you on, you know, customer communications within a week. So we can teach you what it is that you need to know. But the thing I can’t teach you is being a good human, right?

Having a good attitude, showing up on time, right? Those are, you know, some of the things that we do, we just undervalue in my mind. This was the one that, uh, rang true for me at Cameron and sons. My dad always thought he had someone who just thought like him and God bless him. My dad, he’s still with us and he’s down in Florida.

And, uh, he always thought somebody was going to be like him. He liked to hire these guys that had to work ethic like him and thought like him. And I said, dad, the problem I later learned is, you know, the day they stopped. Behaving like you or thinking like you and you realize this person’s not you Was the day you actually de hired them in your mind But it may have been a year or two or ten years later when you finally actually got rid of them, right?

And and realize no one’s going to be like you right? I mean there is only One Gary Alex, right? And uh, and there’s only one Drew. Thank God. Yeah. Thank God. And it’s a good thing, right? Uh, you’re unique and special. I’m unique and special. My mom tells me that all the time. And, uh, she reminded me of that on my birthday a couple of weeks ago, uh, when I got COVID from, from, uh, from Weldon.

But no one’s going to be just like you. And that’s why, you know, when we get into the stuff tomorrow and we talk about the interviewing process and the, and the hiring process. Is realized that, uh, you gotta not be the sole interviewer in this. Now, when you’re small, I get it. You’re that person who’s hiring, you know, hiring everybody when you’re small, but you talk about that a little bit.

Well, I think that it’s something that we actually just talked about last week in our executive team meeting is, um, you know, we’ve got, we’re growing the business. We need some positions we’re hiring. Uh, so we’re staffing to an org chart. And, and part of that conversation was work life balance and kind of a new mindset about that work is a particular event and it’s a thing.

It’s, it doesn’t define who you are, where maybe it’s sort of in your dad and my dad’s generations. Um, that, that did, it, it, it was part of your identity. It was a larger part of the identity. So part of our discussion. you know, where I’m at in my life, I enjoy the extra work. Like it’s not a big deal for me to work 20 hours a day.

I worked almost 18 hours yesterday, probably going to have another 20 hour day today, you know, starting at four in the morning and sort of quitting at nine o’clock at night. Uh, a lot of people aren’t going to be able to do that. So when you say, well, hiring somebody like you culturally, From a mindset point of view, you know, are they, they have the same experiences?

I think I have the same desire, work ethic attitudes. And the answer is they’re probably not. So part of, part of what we try to do is create that culture and say that we’re hiring for the cultural fit. And I have to put those biases that I have about work ethic on a whole. I love that, you know, Saturdays to me or work days, I never really looked at a Saturday other than work day.

I mean, I’m going to work until, you know, the Ohio state Buckeyes kick off. And if Ohio state’s not playing, I’m probably just going to work. And that’s okay. Uh, it’s what I like to do. Uh, most people today are probably going to look at, Hey, I would rather work for 10 hour days and have a three day weekend and have my leisure time and my activities and those types of things.

And the hobbies are more important to me. So I think, uh, that’s one of the hardest things I have to do is to not try to bias or judge people based on the standards that I’ve created for myself. But again, you know, that’s why we are where we are. That’s who we are. So we don’t judge that What I need them to do is I need them to be a great teammate I need them to be great with the culture and I need them to be great with customers Yeah, and if they can accomplish those three things, we’ll work around all the rest of that stuff.

So, um, I’m gonna need more for myself, but I don’t need more from you. Yeah, so I think that’s part of that issue It is and I and I love that, you know, you talk about the bias, right? this You How I learned all this, by the way, was my father gave me the, you know, the, my parents, my mom had been outta the company by this point in time.

But my father, when I, after I graduated college, gave me not only the college degree, my mom and dad put me through college, but after that my dad put me through all of this education, uh, anything that came along, he sent me to, I was at the time like, oh, I got another class. It’s like. But I got this amazing education about what to do and what not to do from people, not only in the space in our industry, but outside the best, the best in class, you know, in any, uh, you know, from all walks of life.

And so, you know, I’m sharing with you what people were telling me is the reason you’re struggling. And I’m like looking at my business and they’re telling me what’s going on. And I’m saying, yeah, we’ve done that. We’ve done that. We’ve done that. And I’m like, That’s what I thought we were supposed to do.

How did you as contractors learn interviewing? I would imagine most of you have not read a book, probably watched videos and have not probably attended a class other than if you’ve done it through your best practices groups. And even up to that point, my father had not done that, nor had anybody else on the team.

So I became that person. My dad gave me all the things that everybody else probably on the team should have gone through. Now we have a resource like EGIA where It is literally google for running your contracting business And so you’re going to have access to this along with other stuff recorded by this gentleman right here The biggest thing that I also found Was the improper allocation of time money resources personnel being involved in the process, you know When you need to hire badly, you’ll probably hire badly And, uh, it’s because you don’t allocate the time.

You don’t plan it. It’s not planned out. So you, you do it in a haphazard fashion. People show up, the phone rings, an email comes through, uh, you know, I worked with one company earlier, uh, at the end of last year, uh, they, they would place ads electronically, uh, and all these. Job postings would show up along with resumes and attached applications.

And these resumes and applications would sit in somebody’s inbox. And when I started to find out we were looking for salespeople, uh, you know, I’m. Asking where are these applications and they told me, Oh, well, they’re in, you know, the sales manager’s inbox, um, you know, through this application that they were using tied to their payroll system.

And anyway, long and short of was some of these applications have been in there for months. I’m like, they hadn’t even, the people hadn’t even gotten a response. You know, and so that to me is sends two bad signals number one It shows us how little we value people and this this opportunity and whatnot how little we value Our company how little we value our customers Um, but it sends a thing a message to these people these people while they may not get hired in my company They are potential customers And it would say to them.

I maybe I shouldn’t do business with these people You know if I need a new heating and air conditioning system Well that we we turned out a realm real quick So you got to make sure you allocate the right time the right amount of money I got people that I we were advertising in a newspaper back in the day pittsburgh post gazette to run a Uh quarter page ad and i’m going to give you a copy of the you know, a version of that ad tomorrow Uh to run a quarter page ad for a salesperson was going to be ten thousand dollars And the owner of this company got triggered by that and I said, well, let me ask you a question I have somebody who hopefully can bring us a million dollars in revenue , and you’re telling me it’s not worth 10,000.

But because they had never run a one ad okay, uh, for that kind of money, they were not willing to kind of spend that kind of money. And that became, you know, became a little bit of an issue. So I finally convinced them to run the ad, and we got 250 responses. He said, I’ve never gotten more than 25 responses to any one of my ads.

I said, now you know why it’s worth 10,000. And so I’m not saying we have to do that today, but again. Think about what is the investment that I got to make and what’s going to be the return on that investment, time, money, energy, as well as I know we’re going to get into this tomorrow more so that getting the other people involved in the process beyond yourself, because I know you involve your teammates in these as well.

Oh yeah, no, the, the, the, the team, I just, um, on the comment about responding to some of those inboxes, um, it’s also a brand. issue. Like people are going to judge your company. And not only are they potential customers, but they’re networked. And in today’s environment, they’re networked on social media. And so everybody has a voice.

And so the ability to write a review or write a post on social media or make comments. Or just generally even in next door, you know, on the neighborhood thing. So I can tell you not to buy from, you know, I’ve seen some of those posts or not to work, even though you’re not supposed to write that and still see them.

So I think you just need to be really careful that your process, not you’re you’re talking about time, money and preparation, uh, just having a tight process so that there is accountability and follow up around those responses. You know, when, when, when you’re not going to move forward with Drew Cameron and we’ve filled the position, we just need to say, uh, Well, first of all, take the ad down, right?

Take it off your website, etc. Take it off LinkedIn, but also respond back to the people and say, you know, we’ve filled the position. Thanks for the opportunity. Awesome content right there from Gary and Drew as always. Now, listen, if you like this episode, want to encourage you to share it on Facebook, and if you want to unlock more premium training content to take your business to the next level, click the link in the Facebook post for a free 30 day trial.

Well, that’s our show for this week, folks. We’ll see you next week here on cracking the code until then. Bye bye for now.