Linkedin is great for salespeople and more advanced roles inside your office like HR or Marketing. I have hired all three of these positions using the Linkedin Job Postings.

This is designed for genre recruiting because it delivers your posting as a recommendation for people that fit that genre. If you are looking for a marketing person, then you’ll be able to attract a chunk of marketing people because that genre fits into the framework.

It doesn’t work for a lot of management roles. I tried to hire an HVAC Service Manager from this and that’s not really a genre that Linkedin catches (it was a total waste of money)—And it costs upwards of $400+ to post a job on Linkedin.

In many ways, this is my secret weapon of choice, but I’ll spill the beans here. Posting is fine and it’ll bring you candidates, however, calling people that are offering plumbing, HVAC or electrical service is where you’ll really excel. I cold-called all of them weekly. I told them, “I just want to tell you what our company is all about”—more on this in a bit. These people aren’t job hunting, but they do feel alone. They don’t have a network of people that can empathize with their situation. Many of them would actually sit down with me because I was in the industry.

I hired many people from my cold calling efforts. Not all of them worked out, sometimes they had a hard time wrapping their mind around the price or the pay structure, but the quantity made it work. I had one major success, he was a million dollar service plumber and best in the company at sales, work ethic, and attitude. Additionally, posting for Entry Level Plumber (Electrician or HVAC Technician) was a fantastic way to find drain technicians or apprentices. It’s free to call “competitors” and only $25 for a Craigslist job posting—just make sure you are posting weekly because your listing gets buried fast.

You have to kiss a few toads here. This is a quantity play, not always quality. Posting here is a good way to fill the pipeline and keep your Technicians Sales Engine going.

Social media is great because you can hit a lot of people quickly. However, it’s very difficult to target a specific kind of person with the technical experience you want. Facebook ads are great for attracting green technicians—that person working in the stockroom at Michael’s, wondering what they’re going to do with their life. Target your post knowing this: If you ask for a guy/girl with a lot of experience you probably won’t find him/her.

Pretty cheap for the amount of impressions you get. You are exposing someone to your ad when their defenses are down (you are more likely to have someone digest it that way). People can share what you post if it’s compelling enough and then you’ll get real traction.

Probably not going to get you someone that can just start in a truck right away.

This is super old school. The technicians coming and going from the supply house already have a job to go to that day and are making money. What does work with supply houses is posting a flier with your recruitment bonus on it, I even put the little cut pieces of paper at the bottom of the flier for easy tear-and-call functionality.

If you have a contact at a supply house and all the technicians know them, they can be super beneficial to feed you leads. There is always a cork board next to the front door you can post information on.

Good and loyal technicians do not want to be seen talking to their competitors, management, or ownership. If someone does, it might not be the attitude of the person you want on your team.

For many of you, I know that hiring a person to only recruit is difficult because of your company size. I would argue, however, that if you have good management, then you can hire someone for around $13/hr. Also, you can look to fill the position on a part-time basis. It’s a hard position to find, but once you find someone that “gets it,” they will pay off in a big way.

This person can grind for you! Cold calling is not for everyone. If you can find someone that can deliver on par or better than you, then it’s a perfect situation. Managing all the channels above isn’t easy while trying to run a business. A dedicated recruiter will, at the very least, relieve some of the hiring pressure for you. They can handle the grunt work, leaving you to be the face that meets with prospective people.

It’s hard to find this person. I have found that people who are good with phone sales have this something-from-nothing ability. The cost is a not beneficial if it’s not done right. A super dynamic person or a pretty good person, coupled with super strong leadership, is the key to success here!