How to Fix the Technician Retention Problem | Podcast Ep. 143 | Toolbox for the Trades

Ryan Anglin, you are the CEO of Core Matters and the host of the Talent Tackle Box. Today we're going to talk about interviewing and onboarding. I'm so excited to have you. Welcome to the toolbox for the trades.

Oh, thank you for having me.

I am so excited to get into it, but as always, I'm going to kick this off with an icebreaker. If you had to teach a class on one thing, what would you teach?

You know, I would say that the number one thing that hurts people the most is our inability to communicate well. And I would want to teach a class on communication, but not the typical approach. How do we communicate in a way that people actually will hear us? And you do that by understanding how people receive information. You know, in business we run into this a lot where you've got leaders communicating to the rest of the team and they don't do a good job at it. And part of the reason is they don't understand where the people are at in their life. You know, when you hire somebody, you get the whole person. You don't just get the worker, you don't just get the person punching the clock from 9 to 5. You get the whole thing. If someone's having a bad day, you're gonna need to change the way you communicate to get through to them.

That's so interesting. And just as a little bit of teaser information for our pre interview, you and I talked a lot about marriage and what it means to communicate within relationships. I think that's really important too. Quick follow up question to the icebreaker. How do you figure out how to communicate to people? Is it just checking their moods and seeing what's on their mind that day, or is it something you develop as a skill over time as you get to know someone?

Yeah, I would say for me, it's a skill over time. I am a geek when it comes to behavioral assessments and personality assessments and how to understand what makes someone tick. And so just on someone's mannerisms, the words they use, how they choose to communicate, I can tell a lot about a person and what's going to be most effective for them.

What's your favorite personality test? I have to know.

Oh, my gosh, there's so many. You know, the one that we use with all of our clients is called Pro Scan.

Pro Scan. Okay, tell me about proscan.

It's by PDP and it. I would say that almost all of them are very similar. If you heard a disc, I mean, they're all based on some kind of science around that but the thing I like about Pro Scan is it actually looks at what's called your priority environment, the things that are causing you stress. Because when we are stressed, it exhausts us more, it uses more energy. And if someone's energy levels are low, you can usually look at what's causing them stress to identify how to solve it.

Very interesting. So very much from the work productivity mind. Like view Pro Scan. Right. What's your favorite non work related personality test?

I mean, Enneagram is a real popular one. So.

I never, I always forget which Enneagram I am. I'm Morgan Myers Briggs Gal. Myself. I'm an enfb.

Okay. All right. Yeah, I don't, I, I've taken Myers Briggs, but I don't remember.

Yeah, I'm also a Capricorn sun and a Virgo Rising for any of the astrology nerds out there, which by the way, I'm sure the Venn diagram, the cross section of people who are really into astrology and really into the service industry is just vast. And it's just, it's just an. A niche I have not yet conquered. Anyway, moving right along. Ryan, tell me, how did you get into the trades?

You know, I grew up in a blue collar family. My dad was an owner operator. And I remember going to work with him when I was a kid because I thought I was hanging out with dad. And then he'd always put a broom in my hand. He always have me organizing the shop or doing whatever. And, you know, I watched my dad go through this his entire career and struggled. Most entrepreneurs that get into their trades, they want something. They want something more than what they get working for someone else. They want more time, freedom, they want more money, they want to be able to provide for their family. My dad wanted all those things. And the unfortunate truth was for a lot of these entrepreneurs, they don't get that as quickly or as easily as they had hoped. And what I found is that it's because they don't know how to hire and retain the right people. They don't have people they can trust to give the work to so that they can free themselves up. Time is the only thing that we have that we can't buy more of. And unless you can get other people to leverage their time to help you with those things.

Yeah, 100% agree with you there. On time being the invaluable resource. Right. What trade was your dad in?

My dad was actually in manufacturing. So he was an electrician, he was a plumber, he was in mechanical. Like he had all of those skill sets because he owned and operated his own plant.

Oh, wow. That's really incredible. My dad was a carpenter, and he also was a entrepreneur for a couple years. He had a franchise business. And he commonly tells me, jackie, if I had your podcast when I had the company in the 90s, we'd probably be living a very different life. Maybe we would, maybe we won't, who knows? But I would love to know how, you know, this trade background came into you, developing core matters and being really, really passionate about working with contractors and helping them fulfill this need. So tell me a bit about how you're uniquely poised to support them when it comes to interviewing and finding the right people to delegate to.

Yeah, so just real quickly how I got here is, you know, I did like any good son. And I told my dad, I'm not going into the family business because I watched how stressful it was for him and what he went through. And so I went the college route and went to corporate, did all that, and go, yeah, nope. I am an entrepreneur through and through. So I started my own business. And because I had such a passion for people in the trades and I related to them so well, they didn't play the politics and the backstabbing and the bureaucracy that you have in corporate like, you didn't have all that stuff. It was just, hey, if I have a problem, I'm going to tell you. And it was. It was just so refreshing for me. So I actually started a marketing company and thought, you know what, if I can help these. These companies grow their business, then these owners can get more of what they want. And what I found was a couple years in, the problem was not in finding more customers. The problem is finding enough technicians to take on the extra work from the extra customers. So I had a bunch of clients that were like, hey, you're doing a great job. Too good a job, in fact. I got empty trucks. I can't put text in them. I. I can't take on any more leads. And so either in an act of brilliance and I was just genius in that moment, or just pure insanity and wanting to protect my business, I said, hey, I'll help you solve that problem. I did a lot of interviewing and a lot of recruiting in my corporate experience. And I was like, recruiting is a marketing issue. I'm a marketer. I get messaging. I get how this works. And so we had one H VAC plumbing client. They're like, if you can solve this, let. Let's do it. They had four empty trucks sitting in their yard. And I said, yeah, I can solve it. I walked out of there going, I have no idea what I'm doing, but let's see what we can do. Three weeks later, they call me and they say, we got all four trucks filled and we got two more trucks on the way. You got that many great techs for us? Let it ride. And it was in that moment that I thought that was so much more fun, so much more enjoyable, and I was really providing a valuable service that nobody else was.

Being able to help them do that, that's amazing. So being able to fill those empty trucks in just a few short weeks, I know a lot of people's ears just perked up. And it is more fun. I mean, I can tell just from our brief conversations before this podcast and now recording it now. You are such a people person. You are such. You are so someone who likes connecting with people. I could see you, Fe. You get energy out of it similar to how I do. So I love that for you. And I wanted to ask, like, before we kind of get into some of your methodology, if there was any other success metrics you want to share? I mean, that was a really nice one. You just slipped right in there. For me, you are really an interviewer's best dream, kind of in that way. But anything else that you want to share, just to give the folks an idea of how long you've been doing this and the kind of industries you work with.

So we've been doing it. I've been doing this exclusively for nine years. I used to do both. I was like, hey, when they need customers, I'll help them on the customer side. When they need people, I'll help them on the people side. And I was like, no, no, no, no. But was too much of a distraction. So we've been doing this for nine years, and right before it was 2019, so it was right before the pandemic, we started developing our training and coaching program because I wanted to be able to roll this out to people that weren't just local. I wanted to be able to virtually provide this service across the country and now across the world. And so we started developing the training program and our coaching program about four years ago. And the one thing that was really surprising to me, and I know there are going to be some people that aren't going to like to hear this, but most contractors, most people in the trade, do not have a recruiting problem. They don't have a problem finding and hiring people. They have a problem retaining them. And if you don't believe me? Look at your headcount at the end of last year and look at how many W2s you issued and I promise you, you're going to issue more W2s last year than you had people working for you. We don't have a recruiting problem in the trades. We have a retention problem. Now we solve that by making better hiring decisions. Like, that's a huge part of how we solve it. But then we still need to work on the retention. And so another big stat that we had is we had a client that 140% turnover rate. So, I mean, they're going through everybody they're hiring, plus some every year.

Wow.

And after 12 months of it blending, your system went down to 22%.

Amazing. So 140%.

Yeah. Saves them so much money by being able to do that. Because think of the cost of onboarding, Think of the cost of training. Think of the cost of all those service issues that were caused by all that turnover. Saved them so much money. It was just, it was insane.

Incredible. So 140% to 22%. There's always going to be a little bit of turnover rate because I don't think there's any business on the face of the planet that doesn't occasionally make mistakes. And to what you said at the beginning of this interview, people are people. When you hire someone, you don't just get their worker Persona, you get everything about them. So there's going to always be external factors that contribute to someone leaving a company before they plan to and whatnot. But I think that's a really impressive stat. So you said that we don't have a recruiting problem, we have a retention problem. Hot take from Ryan. And the big thing that we have to focus on is how we're interviewing and how we're attracting candidates. Right? So what should folks keep in mind when they're interviewing candidates?

Here's. Here's the one thing you need to take away from this. And for those of you listening, I know you can relate to, but you've heard before that the first impression matters the most. You've probably heard that people make a judgment about you in the first five seconds of meeting you. And because of that, everybody wants to put their best foot forward during the interview, not just the candidate. I've seen employers do this too. Hey, clean up the lobby. Hey, everybody, park their beat up trucks in the back. Hey, everybody, be on your best behavior. We got this really hot candidate coming in. Everybody wants to put their best foot forward because they Know that they've got five seconds to impress them. Well, guess what? If you're doing that, so are the candidates. They're getting their hair cut, they're brushing their teeth, they're getting dressed in the morning, they're doing all this stuff. So when you're interviewing someone, you have to understand that that is the best either of you is ever going to show up.

Wow.

So it's not going to get better. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen people hire someone go, oh, but they said this thing, and I really think they can do it. They didn't demonstrate that the interview, but I think they can do it. They're not gonna be able to do it. Like, that's the best they show up. And so when you're interviewing, the key is to get people to show up authentically. That needs to be your focus during the interview, is how do you get them to be authentic? To tell you they're not perfect, to tell you the things that they did, to prepare for this, to really put that best foot forward. And the best way to do that as an employer is to be authentic yourself.

Say more.

Oh, again, if you want people to be authentic, you have to be authentic. And people know that if you come in and you say all these amazing things, oh, we've got this and we do this and we do that, they know that's not true. We had a client one time that they lost somebody after about 18 months. And on the exit interview, I'm helping them with the exit interview, and I'm talking to this person, and I think they were a controller in the organization. I go, what? So what was the biggest reason you left? And they said, well, I'm 18 months in waiting for my 90 day review.

It's like, oh, my goodness.

Do employers go in and say, oh, yeah, we do a review at 30 days. We do a review at 90 days. We'll make sure that your salary or your pay is right around the 90 day mark.

And.

And then you never do any of this stuff. And then we get mad at candidates because they lied to us during the interview. You did the same thing. And so being authentic, we had a client that it was funny. He would drop F bombs during the interview and just at random, drop F bombs. And he wanted to see how people would react. And for some people, they got very, very offended. They're like, that's not professional. If I'd have known that, I would have never come here. And I get why he did it. I mean, in his mind. I get how he rationalized that we. We curse around here. They need to be comfortable with the language we use. And so I encouraged him to put drop some F bombs in his job ad. You know the thing you post on. Indeed. I said, let's just swear in there. He's like, you can't do that. That's not appropriate. I'm like, then how is it appropriate to curse to them face to face? Well, well, it's different because not everybody sees it. I'm like, oh, so you don't want to be authentic publicly, but you'll be authentic behind closed doors. And you wonder why you have a hiring problem. Because these people are coming in interesting one thing. But then you're behaving in a way that's different than that.

Wow, that's really interesting. You've got my wheels turning, as I knew you would when I asked you to come here and be a guest. I think showing up authentically as an employer is so important. I'm someone who is very. Autonomy is very important to me in my career. Who really, like, it's a. Definitely a shade, a straight shooter. And mainly because I'm a terrible liar. I just can't lie. It's. I'm. It's physically impossible to me. I start sweating, my eye twitches, the whole thing. But I. I'm trying to put myself in this scenario. I haven't interviewed in a while, but how refreshing it would be if I sat down with the camp with a potential employer and they said, hey, so we're bringing you on board here. Historically, we've done pretty bad at this, and these are some of the areas that we think we can improve and we want to bring someone on to support us. It's not rainbows and daisies and all that stuff. And can I actually share a personal anecdote? And I would love if you could also share some personal anecdotes too, by the way. Feel free. One of my first jobs in tech, I got two interviews in New York is when I was living in New York. And one of them was for this Google Chrome extension, which, by the way, went public and did fantastically. And another one was for this more or less rip off of Foursquare. I don't know if you remember Foursquare, but it's where you would, like, check into places, whatever.

Yeah. Like Yelp or something.

Yeah. And during my interview, they had a keg of beer on the balcony and like, they kind of did a party. They basically, like, threw a party, like, during my interview. Process. And at the time I was 20, 22 or 23, and I'm like, yeah, this is the place I want to work. And it turned out to be total smoke and mirror show. And one of the few, like, moments in my life where I'm like, yeah, I really should have probably gone for that other one learning opportunity. So I'm wondering if you can think of that. I know you're an entrepreneur now, but thinking back to your corporate experience when you were getting hired, like, where you kind of had that, oh my gosh.

It was all smoke and mirrors. It was politics and bureaucracy and rules we had to follow and, and we knew that once someone was in, then we could be more ourselves. And I was the victim of that, waiting 18 months for my 90 day review.

Yeah.

And often come in and I was in banking before I did this. And I would come in and they're like, oh, we have to bring you in at the entry level because that's the rules. Like, we have to bring you at a lower level, then you can work your way up. And I can't tell you how many times I was promised all of these things that never happened. And so I didn't stay in one place very long. But I had one experience. This was with a large Fortune 10 company at the time, huge bank. And they brought me in and they brought me in at the higher level, but they could not tell everybody else that yet because it was a faux pas to bring in an outside person into a leadership level. So they basically what they did was they, they sat me down with my, my manager and the team lead and said, hey, you guys are peers, but I need you to treat him like he's lower. And then in a couple of months, we're going to let everybody know that he's promoted.

Oh, my goodness. And oh, my goodness.

Day three. Day three, we're in systems training and the instructor pulls up the roster of all the people in training. And there's my leadership title, because it had to be that way in payroll. The drama that was created for me day one because my employer didn't want to be authentic and just put out there. This is the best decision for the organization. This is the decision we made. And I'm sorry if you're offended, but this is the way it works. And instead it created years of drama for me.

Oh, my goodness.

It was. I have, I have horror stories. We don't have enough time. There's so many stories about that event.

Maybe, maybe if you, maybe when you come back, we can, we can go back to horror stories.

But I think that's the thing, is that a lot of times employers are so fearful, maybe desperate is the word, that they feel like they have to fake it in order to attract someone to their business. And so that's. That's why I think the motivation comes from. It's like, if I'm myself, they're not going to like me.

Oh, my gosh. Can I just say, whenever I get into. And I've had a few hiring experts on the show, because there's a lot of great partners like yourself that I want to highlight. Whenever we talk about hiring, I swear it's like dating. It's like dating in Los Angeles, dating in New York. And I'm just like, everyone's just being phony. And you have to try and, like, see beyond that. So let's say that you've now convinced your client to show up authentically in their job interview. Maybe as the example you gave, he drops a couple F bombs in his indeed, hiring post. He's being, or she is being honest with, you know where they need to grow. Some things they do well, some things they don't do well. What should now employers be looking for when they're in job interviews? Like, what are some key things that they should be looking for in their candidates?

Well, I think the most important thing is early on, focus on the things that you can't or won't teach. So be really honest with yourself. What are the things you can't or won't teach?

And.

And the list is surprisingly small. We had a client one time that they had a superintendent that was. They were a mechanical company superintendent was working on the interview process. And he had this one question. He loved this question. And I don't remember what the question was, but it had something to do with some obscure part that was on some piece of equipment from, like, 1970. And he believed that if people knew what this part was, they would be able to troubleshoot anything. And okay. And I'm sitting down, I'm like, you guys are passing on some great candidates. Yeah. But they don't know what this thing is. And so we're moving on. And I asked them, I said, do you teach them about this stuff? Like, oh, yeah, it's part of our onboarding. Like, we train them on these obscure pieces and stuff. I said, okay, so you train them on it. So whether they know it or not really should be irrelevant. But let me ask you, how long does it take you to train them? And the CEO stands up and he goes, eight minutes. I go, you're passing on good people because of eight minutes of training that you don't want to do. Like, are you kidding me? And so we have this belief that people have to come to us knowing anything and everything before we're going to hire them. And what's really we need to be focusing on are the things we can't or won't teach. I cannot teach somebody to get out of bed on time. I cannot teach somebody to make eye contact with the customer and not be creepy. I can't teach somebody to double check their work or be safe. Like that mindset. Those behaviors that come through, I can't teach. So let's focus on those things. The stuff you're going to train them, whether or not they know your CRM, whether or not it's funny. I have had people that want to hire CSRs that have service Titan experience. Like, if you don't have service, I don't want you. I'm like, are you going to teach them how to use Service Titan your way? They're like, of course. Why does it matter? What you want to do is make sure they have computer skills. Like, if they're afraid of a computer, that's a different thing. You can't teach that. You know, if they hunt and peck, type, that might be a problem. If they can't take a phone call and type in the ticket, that's an issue. Those are the things you need to focus on. You're going to teach them to use the software your way anyways. So that's what you need to focus on.

So fun. So focus on what can't. What, what won't you teach and what, Say it again.

You said it so much eloquently.

Or won't teach what you can't or won't teach. It's so funny because I'm actually in the process of writing up a job description right now and I solicited feedback and I got some feedback that was must be fluent and blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I can teach all of these things. I can teach all of the systems that we use in my department to produce content and make this podcast happen. But what I can't teach is someone who has bubbly energy, who's a creative mind, who can help me take podcasts to the next level. So I 100% endorse it. You also just made me laugh so hard when you said I can't teach them to not be creepy, but we probably could teach them to be creepy. So just in case anyone out there is trying to run a spooky service business, don't, you know, don't shy away from that. Yeah, I think that's so incredible. And like, these are some just great tips to keep in mind. Showing up authentically as yourself, being mindful that in the first interview that's the best that employee is going to show up as, and then also looking for skills that you can't or won't teach, like the soft skills and being able to, you know, depending on what you're hiring for. Right. Yeah. Let's talk a bit about onboarding. Now tell me your opinion on onboarding.

Oh, where do we start? And how much time do we have? You mentioned earlier and we connected on this on our last call about how having employees is very similar to dating. There's so many. And out.

Yes.

And, you know, I've never met someone that got married and even 50 years later didn't remember their first date.

Yeah, people remember their first date.

Guess what? You have a first date with this potential employee, too. It's called the first interview. They are going to remember how you made them feel, what they were thinking, what their experience was. They're going to remember what happened the first time they met you. Ten years from now, they're going to remember what their interview was like. Just like in a marriage or a relationship, that first date impacts the rest of it. So does that first interview. Onboarding starts the first time you interact with each other. Now, some of you might be thinking, well, what if I don't hire them? Okay, then onboarding ends like the relationship is over. But for those that work out, that onboarding goes all the way back to that first interaction, just like it goes back to that first date. And so not only are you onboarding them from the first interaction through first 90 days, let's say, but just like you hear you have to date your spouse, like, you have to continue to reinvigorate the relationship. So do you. When it comes to your employees, your team, remember, they are people. And when you hire them, you get the whole package. You get their hopes, their goals, their dreams, everything, including their drama and some of their health issues and all these other things. And the good employers work through this stuff and say, hey, I hired the whole package. You're an amazing employee, you're going through some stuff. Let's work through it together. But that also means that they're going to need you to remotivate them. They're going to need you to cast the vision again and keep them focused on what the goal is. They're going to need your coaching and your guidance when it comes to hitting their metrics or, or if they get into a funk because they got something going on at home, like you need to be there to continue to reinvigorate them and reinvigorate that relationship just like you do on the personal side. You're gonna do that here. Now don't get creepy on me and say, well, he's talking about marriage and stuff. Don't get creepy. It's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that people need things from their leaders and if you're not continuing to do those things, continuing to onboard them, continuing to re engage them, you're going to lose them to someone who will.

Yeah, I think that speaks to the importance of transparency, communication, top down communication from the leaders of a company and making sure that. I mean Simon Sinek always says, like, look for the why, why are we doing this? And communicating that to the employees. So I think that's so important and I do, I mean, I think onboarding, onboarding is something that happens throughout an employee's lifespan because while we like to think life's. Well, their lifespan. Yes. I mean. Oh, let me just get existential here. Yes, lifespan. I mean don't be onboarding a bunch of new things but bringing it back to work. Sorry, I went on a philosophical tangent there. Throughout an employee's duration at a company, their job is the nature of business. Their job is going to shift and pivot and flex and it's never going to be perfect. It's never going to be. You wake up every day, you do this task, this task, this task and that's it till the end of time. There's always going to be changes, there's always going to be nuances. And I think it's really important to always like keep the finger on the pulse and make sure that they're feeling heard, seen and understood within their role and they're being challenged in a way that they want to be challenged. Do you agree?

Absolutely. And remember, their needs aren't necessarily going to align with your needs as an employer. They might need something from you that you don't. You're not used to giving them an example. I just came to mind. We just coached a client on this in the last couple of days and they have an employee that's really going through some heavy stuff at home, like really heavy stuff. And it's, it hasn't affected performance, but it's affected the employees. Their psyche, it's just, it's getting to them. They don't feel like they're performing as well. And so it's really starting to hurt their confidence and some other things. And just sitting down and saying, hey, you know what, you're going through some heavy stuff right now. Why don't we do this? Let's modify the expectations we have at you from work so you can focus on getting better at home and taking care of yourself. Because I, I believe if you don't take care of yourself, you're not good to anyone. And so we coach them on how to have this conversation and they're going to modify the work that this employee does until they're able to get through stuff. And I know there's people thinking like, oh, we don't have time to deal with that. Why should we put up with that? Because you know what's going to happen when that person makes it through this stuff? They're going to be the most loyal, most engaged, most productive, hardest working person. Because most employers won't tolerate that. And they'll just say, I need another widget, I need another cog in my machine that's, I'll go find someone else that doesn't have this. But when you hire that, when you hire somebody, you get the whole person, the whole package. And to think that there's someone out there that doesn't have personal stuff that they're going through, you're kidding yourself. Everybody's got it. And so, yeah, being able to have that conversation and being able to provide what that employee needs, which is really someone that they can just trust, that they can confide in, that they can say, I'm going through this, I need some help. You being able to offer that help is going to be huge long term.

Yeah, I 100% agree that actually, going back to some personal anecdotes, I've had that experience in my career where I needed to take some unexpected pto. And the employers that were understanding and supportive during that time are the ones that I stay with longer. That is just a given fact. I don't know if it's because I feel like I owe them something or if I feel safe there. Probably the latter.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, they're going to take care of you when you need it. So law of reciprocity says you're going to take care of them when they need it. And I think that's where a lot of that comes from. And I'll bet you to this day, you could probably give me the names of those employers that took care of you. And it's probably a lot harder to think of the ones that didn't, right?

Yeah, Service Titan's actually one of the ones that took care of me. I've been. This is actually the longest job I've had in my career. Yes. It's a whole other podcast. What we'd have to get into is my history with Service Titan. But do they. They took care of me in some real. During some really tough stuff. So I've always been very grateful for that. Ryan, you've just dropped, you know, Hot take after Truth Bomb for the last 30 minutes. I have a few more questions for you, but I just want to thank you again for your time. I mean, this is. I'm learning a lot and I know our listeners are too. This is a question I had when we were talking about interviewing. What is your take? And I know we're talking about the trades, right. What is your take on testing or doing a proof of requiring an interviewee to do like a proof of concept during the interview process.

So I am not a fan of spec work, but I don't see that happen in the trades too often. That would be where you would take out a technician to a job site and actually have them do the work, not pay them to show you that they could solve the customer's problem. That would be spec work in the trades. I don't see that too often, but I do think people need to demonstrate their competency. Not so much that they can pass a quiz on what's a thingamabob in a 70 year old air conditioning unit. Right. Like, not that, but I do think people should be able to show up. But there are ways that you can have the conversation to understand if they actually do have the experience and the knowledge and maybe not necessarily work with their hands as much. Remember something about interviewing candidates in general. Across the board, 75% of them will tell you that looking for work is one of life's most stressful events. It's on that same list as death of a loved one, relocation, bankruptcy, health, diagnosis. I mean, heavy stuff, looking for work. They're taking a huge risk, leaving in one employer to come to another one. They have no idea what the impact's going to be on their personal life. With that said, that means they're nervous. That means that they're in their head a lot. That means that they might not. They're going to do their best to put their best foot forward. But if you put a wrench in their hands and say get to work, they might not be on top of it as much. And you have to understand that going through this process, it is super stressful, it requires a lot of energy. And the easier you can make this process for somebody, the more authentic they're going to show up. So while I do think you do skills, assess them, I think that you need to be really clear on the things that the underlying behaviors, those things you can't and won't teach. For example, mechanical aptitude. If you don't have mechanical aptitude, which you can take a seven minute assessment online to see if someone has mechanical aptitude, you're going to know a lot about whether or not they can actually do the work. Whether or not you can put a meter in their hands and test things, that's a whole different issue. But I will tell you this. We had a client one time that in their shop they had a busted air conditioning unit and they, they thought it would be fun to take a brand new dead on arrival run cap and put it on the machine and see if people could troubleshoot it. And well, I appreciate the effort. How often does someone come out to a unit, not one, they just was fixed, but come out to a brand new unit for them and there's a brand new run cap and you can tell it's brand new and that's the first thing they go diagnose. And I know there's gonna be a whole bunch of people arguing with me on this right now. Just hear the point. Don't bait them during the interview. They're already under enough pressure and enough stress and everything else. Take out that nasty, corroded, rusted run cap, put that on there and at least see if they can diagnose that. Don't bait them when you're doing skills assessment. I see it happen all the time and I know that employers think, well, I'm being creative but it should be real world. What are they going to deal with in the real world? And yes, while sometimes parts go on a piece and they die quickly, that's really the exception, not the rule. So if you're going to assess someone's skills, assess it in a real world environment what they're actually going to see the majority of the time, not the one offs because we can't make based on their ability to troubleshoot the one offs.

Yeah, beautiful, Beautiful. I also am not a fan of spec work. I didn't really have a reason as to why, but you just gave me a beautiful one. So thank you. Any final words? On onboarding or interviewing.

Ryan, you know, I think the one thing that we didn't talk about that I think is so critical in interviewing and this, this is the. There's a transition between the interview and the onboarding. The. The technical onboarding. Right. Their first day of work and all that. There's a transition that happens once you make the offer. And I. Back to our relationship analogy. There are things that you as an employer do that are going to drive any new employee crazy, and there are things that new employees do that are going to drive you crazy, but they're not deal breakers. They're just annoying. And when we get enough of those annoying things, that's when we go, I made the wrong decision. So what I would encourage you to do is think about expectation setting when you're making an offer. Set proper expectations with your new employee. Ask them to set expectations with you. What are their expectations of you as an employer? And you share what your expectations are of them as an employee. And this is going to seem like the minutiae and the stuff that's boring and why do we need to talk about it? But it goes a long ways. And the relationship correlation is, if you've ever moved in with someone before, you know that there are things that they do or they did that just drove you nuts. Like, how do you squeeze the tube of toothpaste? Does the cap go back on? Which way does the toilet paper go? Like, do we wear shoes in the house or not? Like, these aren't deal breakers in any relationship, but boy, can they be annoying. And when you have a lot of them, they will drive you nuts. That first three to six months of a relationship, imagine that before you moved in with someone, you sat in the driveway and you had a checklist and go, okay, we're going to talk about this. Does the toilet lid stay up or not? Check. You know, which way does the toilet paper go?

Check.

Is the hamper a target, a recommendation? Or is that actually where the dirty clothes go? Check. Imagine that you went through all these stupid little things in the driveway and agreed up front how they were going to be dealt with, how much easier that first three to six months would be. You go through the exact same things with a new employee, and they go through the exact same things with you. So imagine sitting down with them and saying, okay, what happens when your boss doesn't give you all the information you need? That never happens. What happens when you upset a customer and they're blaming you? What do you do? Like, let's just talk about These things that are going to be frustrating, not deal breakers, but that are going to drive each other nuts for the first three to six months of working together. Let's just knock all that stuff out of the way.

Amazing. I love that, actually, because I think one for me is when you get stuck, what is your first reaction? Do you immediately call for help or do you try and troubleshoot it yourself? Because I love working with people that will troubleshoot themselves and then be like, hey, I tried this, this, this and this, but I'm still dealing with this. Yeah, I like initiative with my direct reports, so. So I think that's definitely something for me to think about as I develop the role that I'm currently hiring for now.

And I have a very similar one. I love the initiative, but only to an extent, because. And I tell people, you got 15 minutes to troubleshoot it yourself. If after 15 minutes you haven't figured out, you raise your hand and say, hey, can someone help me? Because what I don't want is someone to spend seven hours troubleshooting and call me at the end of the day and say, I didn't get anything done today because I spent the whole day troubleshooting and I didn't want to ask for help.

Good, good, good, good, good. Edit. Yes. Good, yes. Sanding energy here. Ryan. Ryan, where can the folks find you? What would. If they are interested in your podcast and core matters, what should they do?

Yeah, so corematters.com is where they can find out all about us, what we do, how we can support them, how we can help them. My podcast is on that website as well. In fact, even my new book is coming out in October and they'll be able to get free downloads and all sorts of great stuff around that.

Amazing. Can you drop the name of the book for us?

Hire Better People Faster.

Well, actually, good news for you is because I record these so much in advance, like, it'll be. It'll be very. At the same time that this book is going to come out. So I'm so excited. Ryan, thank you so much for coming on Toolbox of the Trades. I learned a ton, and that always tells me that our listeners learned a ton as well. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this.