Straight talk on trades hiring.
7 videos, about 10 minutes in total, on what it actually costs to hire wrong, what to pay, and how commercial trades recruiting works when it works. No filler and no stock footage of people shaking hands.
What these are, and who they are for
These are for the person who signs off on a hire at a commercial contractor — an owner, a GM, a service manager, whoever ends up carrying an open seat. Not career advice, and not recruiting-industry talk. Each one takes a single question we get asked on the phone and answers it in the time it takes to finish a coffee.
Three things come up again and again, because they are the three places commercial hiring usually goes wrong:
- The cost of an open seat is bigger than the wage attached to it. Lost production, overtime to cover, work turned down, and the slow damage of a crew that is permanently short. It is the reason moving quickly is a commercial decision rather than an administrative one. Put a number on your own vacancy.
- Percentage fees scale against you. A contingency fee tied to salary charges you more for a better-paid role and pays the agency to close a candidate rather than find the right one. See how the two models compare.
- The person you want is already working. An experienced foreman or service tech is not browsing job boards, which is why posting harder does not help. Reaching them is outbound work, and it has to be done before the seat opens. How we source.
Most of the videos point at one of two free tools: the cost of vacancy calculator, which turns days open into dollars, and the 2026 salary calculator, which gives a current band for 39 commercial trades roles. Both are open, with no form in front of them.
Videos
Most contractors lose good candidates to their own process, not to a competitor’s offer. The fixes are unglamorous: reply inside 48 hours, tell applicants what the timeline actually is, put pay and benefits on the table early, and hold assessments back until someone has shown real interest.
A wrong hire costs far more than the wage you paid them. Safety exposure, jobs lost, the effect on a crew that has to work around them, and the reputation damage a customer remembers. The longest video on the channel, and the one that walks through how to put a number on it.
Commercial roofing hiring is usually a retention problem wearing a hiring problem’s clothes. The contractors who staff well are building relationships with people who are not looking, before the seat opens.
Shorts
One point each, under a minute and a half.
Speed reads as careless when it comes from skipping steps. It is a different thing when it comes from focus: commercial trades is the only work we do, so a recruiter here already knows what a journeyman card means and which certifications matter for your scope. Good trades candidates do not stay available long.
Contingency fees scale with salary, so the same search costs you more for a better-paid role. At a 25% fee, a $95,000 project manager runs $23,750 and a $145,000 senior manager runs $36,250 — for the same work. A percentage model pays an agency to move a candidate, not to find the right one.
If turnover is high, there is a good chance you are training crew for your competitors. Paying market rate and showing a real path to foreman are what keep skilled people in place; the alternative is paying to fill and retrain the same seat twice.
The short version of how we work: a flat monthly rate instead of a percentage of whatever the hire ends up earning, and proactive outreach instead of waiting on applicants.
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