By now, it is clear to a lot of business owners that a new reality has set in. The tough labor market has not cleared up and isn’t likely to in the near term. If you’re a Pest Management Professional (PMP) owner, you likely need people now more than ever before. But where are the applicants and why won’t they say yes?
It’s time to take stock of your applicant pipeline and find ways to make your company stand out. Everyone is fighting for the same pool of job seekers, which makes the current market an opportunity for you to outdo your competitors.
But first, you have to figure out where you can improve.
A lot of pest company owners get their website up and then don’t think about it again for years. This is a huge mistake for a couple of reasons. First, it makes your company look non-dynamic and stale to have the same content year after year. Second, it neglects the rest of the Internet.
Make sure your website has easy navigation and that the Careers section stands out to visitors. Keep it fresh by updating it with reviews from the internet weekly. You can offer the employees a monetary dollar amount for reviews that mention them, giving them an incentive to ask clients for good reviews. Reviews that mention employees by name show candidates that your employees are highly valued.
Check your profile on glassdoor.com. It’s one of the most-used websites by job seekers to research a company during the job application process. If you have bad glassdoor reviews, they may turn people off. Follow this guide to optimize your profile and remove bad reviews. On other social media, make sure your hiring manager is on LinkedIn and ready to connect to job seekers.
Your job posting itself may be turning off the best parts of your potential applicant pool.
Remember this is now a competition; you’re going to need to work to win over new hires. Mention EVERYTHING your company offers. Take a look at your competitors’ job postings and ask yourself, “Am I beating or at least matching this offer?”
There are a lot of ways to make your job stand out. People don’t want to work weekends, so if you can offer flexibility, it can be a boon to applications. Your health benefits and work atmosphere within the company can also attract candidates.
You may need to increase your pay scale. It depends on local conditions, but you may have a job market where retail clerks and fast-food workers can make $17/hour. You don’t want to barely beat the local fast-food jobs. You also need to compete with the signing bonuses those companies offer.
For a lot of your candidates, their first REAL impression of you will be in the interview. You should be able to manage a candidate’s in-person and phone interviews without hiccups. If you can’t do that, how can they trust you to run an organized office?
Having predetermined questions that are consistent from interview to interview helps make your firm feel more organized. Make sure that you’re setting up for a second interview (if you use one) at the end of the first interview rather than leave candidates hanging. Have your whole organization set up with interview time slots so the candidate can go from meeting to meeting seamlessly.
Candidates want to know they’re going somewhere they can stay for years. You can let them know you support your workers by having a transparent career path for them to follow. If you give raises at 6 months, a year, 3 years, let them know. If you give more money to techs who obtain certifications, that gives them easily identifiable goals with clear rewards for performance.
Layout the job titles they can grow into within the organization. Technicians often become senior technicians or salesmen and even managers and supervisors. candidates need to know you’re willing to allow hard workers to progress down a prosperous career path.
Put your in-house training procedures front and center. Define your training periods and your compensation for those periods. Candidates want to know you’re ready to invest in them immediately.
If a stranger walks into the office, what’s their first impression? Are the rugs clean? Are you disorganized? How is everyone dressed in the office? Where are the interviews happening? What do the trucks look like? Are they clean and wrapped with logos?
Make sure that if you were to take someone for a tour of the workspace, parking lot, chemical room, they would rate it a 10 out of 10 for cleanliness and orderliness.
You expect your technicians to show up to work in uniform and clean. You need to extend those expectations to yourself and your workspace. A cluttered workspace is a sign of a cluttered mind, and candidates do not want to work for a scatter-brained boss.
Good Luck,
PQ
