Top 10 tips for recruiting new hires

Recruiting is a common opportunity for pest control companies, whether related to a company’s growth or replacing a key team member. In today’s challenging world, I hope you find these recruiting tips helpful:

1. Sell the career, not just the job. Working in pest control has many benefits, including stable year-round employment, company vehicles, health benefits and enjoyable work. Having job autonomy, working outside and other perks are also key benefits to our industry. Finally, pest control has many opportunities for promotion, including significant career-focused leadership roles.
2. Speed matters. Responding to applicants within 24 hours, and having applicants interviewed within 72 hours, shows your desire to provide these career opportunities quickly, while leaving a strong impression on your future team members. 
3. Use technology. With video technology readily available, interviews can be scheduled timely and be face-to-face. Using video, hiring decisions can often be made during the interview or increase the speed in scheduling a second, in-person interview. 
4. Highlight safety and training. Applicants may worry about chemicals and related safety issues; therefore, stress the safety of industry products and the significance of training in their overall health and safety. Using wording such as “paid monthly training” can be helpful. 
5. Use testimonials. Video and written testimonials are great selling tools for both technician and sales recruiting. Real people sharing real stories about real jobs raises interest and motivation in applying and working in our industry. 
6. Recruit women intentionally. Working directly with women’s groups and featuring women in recruiting-related advertising and video testimonials can assist this effort. Many leaders in our industry, including our company’s president, Scarlett Nolen, have advocated for recruiting more women in pest control. Her testimonial, as well as other leaders in our industry, can be effective recruiting tools. 
7. Make retention a focus. One of the best “recruiting” tools is to not need replacement team members to begin with. Keeping a satisfied workforce brings benefits such as enhanced customer relations, stronger technician skills, better sales and many more benefits. Improvements in routing, scheduling and communication make retention easier, and can help eliminate the need for recruiting replacement team members. 
8. Provide referral bonuses. Referrals often bring friends, family or acquaintances to your recruiting process. Referral hires often help retain both the person hired as well as the person who referred them, especially if either of these team members are tempted to look for another job or just quit after a difficult day. Referral bonus payments can be staggered to further incentivize the new recruit to stay longer.
9. Find multiple recruiting sources.  Are you located near a community college or a technical training school?  Do you have other community resources for posting jobs?   Any of these and many more “alternate” sources for applicants can be helpful.
10. Point out the physical nature of the job. Don’t be afraid to communicate to applicants that the job is often physical in nature. This can be attractive to many applicants, knowing that they are out in the field and essentially getting a daily workout just by performing their inspection and treatment responsibilities. Plus, for any applicants who do not appreciate this part of the job, this can screen them from consideration in an early part of the recruiting process. 

Bonus tip

Don’t forget the “800-pound gorilla.” Especially for smaller pest control firms, you may think working with Indeed.com (currently the largest source of applicants and job leads) may be difficult or complex. At Truly Nolen, we source hundreds of jobs a year from Indeed, and we find it to be an exceptional recruiting tool. Take the time to understand this platform and get comfortable with their requirements. This may provide strong results for you. 

In short, recruiting on a small or large scale can be challenging. Devoting resources to both retention and recruitment provides the talent you need to maintain or grow your pest control business. Hard work, focus, attention to detail and meeting your applicants’ needs can help your recruiting effort and business thrive!