According to data, the U.S. currently has about 537,211 plumbers. However, new and existing home service businesses seek more talent to service a steadily growing industry. Data shows that the plumbing industry is expected to grow by 16% between 2016 and 2026.

The challenge for most employers is not finding talent. Instead, it’s finding the best talent.

To attract the best plumbing talent, you need to consider posting your job openings digitally, developing a relationship with training institutions, looking for ideal attributes in candidates during the interview, and leveraging technology.

Here’s a look into how you can attract the best talent in the plumbing industry and deliver better services for your customers.

Why You Need Proper Processes For Recruiting Plumbers

A successful plumbing business is built on quality service delivery. You want to have a crew you can rely on to get the job done without supervision, giving you the time and space to focus on other important business areas.

However, finding such good talent is challenging in a widening job market. You have to invest in the right recruitment process for your techs to ensure you only attract the best talent in the market, yielding greater customer satisfaction and giving you an edge over the competition.

Moreover, a well-thought-out, excellent, and thorough recruitment process will save your plumbing business time and money in replacing or retraining new talent. You also spend little time correcting poor jobs delivered by incompetent crew members.

How To Recruit The Best Plumbing Technicians

Recruiting the best plumbing technicians requires significant changes in attracting and assessing new talent. Here’s what you can do to ensure only the best plumbers apply and get a position in your business.

Post Job Openings on Digital Platforms

Many job seekers now rely on digital platforms to find work and build their careers. For instance, most technicians have active professional profiles and pages on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

There are also various online job boards to find talented plumbers looking for work and new challenges.

Most of these digital platforms also allow plumbing businesses to post job openings as a paid ad that gets promoted for the best reach across the platforms. This widens your pool of candidates, ensuring you’re most likely to land the preferable candidate.

Consider Apprenticeship

Identifying great talent in the typical hiring cycle of checking CVs, calling in interviews, and choosing the best fit can be difficult. Apprenticeship is a process that can help plumbing businesses confidently identify the best talent that they can nurture.

Your business can be more willing to build lasting relationships with younger, less experienced plumbing techs willing to be trained in your business’s culture, processes, and way of doing things.

Unlike other candidates, apprentices are less resistant to new policies and procedures, making them the best choice for great plumbing talent.

Interview to Discover the Ideal Attributes

All plumbers must have technical abilities to be fit for the job market. However, only the best talents have a few unique traits tied to the human aspect that cannot be taught in school. These traits make them the best choice for most businesses.

The top ideal attributes your business should be looking for in candidates, apart from their technical abilities, include:

• Emotional intelligence
• Work ethic
• Optimism
• Integrity/self-awareness
• Empathy
• Adaptability
• Punctuality
• Personality
• Presentation

You can discover these traits through an elaborate interview process that doesn’t just run through the candidate’s resume or employment history.

You can create a scenario where the candidate will explain a fix or service job to you, acting as a consumer. Take note of their language and approach to discover these traits.

Develop a Relationship with Training Institutions

Training institutions are the best source for talented and professional plumbers. Your business can consistently attract top talent if it maintains a good relationship with these training institutions.

Most institutions partner with plumbing businesses and other general contractor businesses to recommend top students and talent who’ve just qualified or are about to qualify from the institution.

These institutions also use their relationships with other job boards to inform recruiters when other experienced plumbers and techs affiliated with the school are looking for work. Therefore, you have a constant feed of top talent known and recommended by the institution.

Find Candidates Who Use Technology

Plumbing businesses are going digital, with many adopting revolutionary technology, such as field service management software, to improve their processes and service delivery. Therefore, you should consider attracting talent that knows how to use this technology or at least knows a thing or two about it.

Whether your business has adopted this technology will also inversely affect the type and generation of talent you attract.

For instance, Gen Z and millennials expect companies to utilize technology in their processes. Therefore, if you’re looking to attract new and young talent, your plumbing business might be unattractive if it still relies on traditional invoicing, scheduling, and work order management processes.

Have a Clear Job Description

You attract talent as good as your job description. Therefore, lacking a clear and to-the-point job description can lead to poor recruitment and deter top talent from applying.

Ensure your job description outlines the scope and the impact the job will have on the candidate. The candidate should know what’s expected of them, how they’ll grow professionally, and the remuneration and benefits they will get.

Disrupt Industry Stereotypes

This is an important consideration if you want to attract newer and younger talent that has endured unfair stereotyping of plumbing technicians. Data shows that due to the cultural emphasis on students going to college, the home service industry has suffered a negative preconceived notion that has led to only 20% of millennials feeling confident about pursuing plumbing and related courses.

Disrupting these negative stereotypes will help plumbing businesses attract more talent and maintain a sustainable talent cycle for the industry’s future. That means being more open to offering further training for promising employees, which will help them build expertise and have better career ambitions while still being great talent for your business.

Make Sure Your Techs Are Using The Right Tools

Attracting the best talent in the plumbing industry requires you to position yourself as an excellent employer and one of the best plumbing businesses in your area. That means investing in the right recruitment processes, training, and technology.

Despite attracting top talent, your organization will still be handicapped if it uses slow and ineffective field service management processes for inventory management, scheduling, work order management, and invoicing. Contact a professional today and learn how your top talent can use top technological tools to deliver better services.