How to Hire
Quality Painters
for Your Painting Company
Whether you are hiring w-2 employees or subcontractors, hiring painters has the same process. Although daunting and tedious, it is important to look in the right places for your hiring campaign to be a success. Although it may not be necessary when you first start a painting business, hiring high-quality employees is the first step to a successful painting business. Follow these 6 steps to ensure quality candidates.
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Write a Job Post
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List Your Job Post
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Pre-Screen Applicants
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Interviews
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Reference and Background Checks
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Selecting the Candidate
Write a Job Post
This is the most important part of hiring good painters. A well-written job description can yield you higher quality candidates then a poorly written listing.
Job Title- Be as specific as you can with the job title. This is the first thing an applicant will see. Don’t write “painter needed”, write something more like, “Paint Crew Leader needed” or Crew Manager needed”.
Job Details- Clearly and concisely outline what is expected from the potential employee. What is their role in the company and what is their responsibilities? Do they have transportation? Tools? Insurance? This should be well thought-out and informative.
Skills and Experience- List the skills and experience you want your ideal candidate to process. Starting with the most important aspect of the job to the least important. A lot of “handyman” applicants are going to apply. While I have found success hiring handymen, I like to look for applicants who specialize in painting.
LIST YOUR JOB POST
There are plenty of places to list your job post. Post your job opening on as many platforms as you can in order to receive maximum results.
Referral- The best employees come from referrals. Send out a company email or ask your top current employees if they can refer any potential candidates.
Social Media- Post a job ad with your Facebook Business Page. Facebook will go out and find likely candidates. You can set up an application to fill out and ask specific questions. Using Facebook Ads to laser target your candidates will cost a little money, but it will find you highly skilled painters.
Website- If you have a website for your painting business you can add “we are hiring” on the home page and your header or footing.
Recruitment sites- This is one of the fasted ways to find potential employees. Some are free and some cost money. Some of these companies will call you up trying to sell you advertising plans. Here is a list of job sites you can try.
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Zip Recruiter.com
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Monster.com
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Craigslist.com
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Indeed.com
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Glassdoor.com
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Meetapainter.com
PRE-SCREEN APPLICANTS
You should next try to weed out those applicants who don't meet your criteria. Ideally, a good candidate will take their time with the application process, using good grammar, punctuation, and coherent sentences.
Experience- You might require 5 years of minimum experience but still receive plenty of conflicting applications. Toss these candidates out. If they can’t follow simple directions then they most likely won't be a good fit.
Responsiveness- How long does it take for them to respond to your messages? If its the next day toss that candidate out. You need responsible and aware employees only.
Grammar and Punctuation- If the resume, email, text or application is not properly written it can be a sign of a weak candidate. The applicant could be the best painter in the world but do you want someone who can hardly read and write? If anything, interview these candidates last.
INTERVIEWS
After wittling down a few dozen applicants to only a handful of candidates it’s time for the interview process. Have a plan when interviewing candidates for your painting company. Asking the right questions and the same questions to all candidates, don't get sidetracked, you're in the lead. This is when you need to put on your detective hat and do some investigating.
Phone- Phone interviews are a good method to learn more about someone without hassling the candidate to and worry about commuting. Feeling them out and hearing their response can give you a really good idea of what that person is like. Schedule the call ahead of time with the candidate to avoid wasting each others time and allowing for preparation.
Video Chat- Video chat would work the same way as a phone interview just with being able to see one another. If the applicant is dressed in a robe or smoking you may want to toss this candidate out. This method can sometimes be used for a complete interview instead of having 2 interviews.
Face to Face- The climax of the hiring process. Sitting down with a potential employee can be tough. You both don’t know what to expect. Be prepared and get the most value out of the time being spent. If your business is smooth running, you’ll know right away if a candidate is a good fit for your company or not. Don’t forget to take note of red flags. Some examples of red flags are.
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No eye contact
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No paperwork
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Drove by someone else
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Showing up late
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Bad appearance
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Bad hygiene
REFERENCES AND BACKGROUND CHECKS
By now you should have only a few extremely qualified candidates left. If the references and background checks come back positive you have yourself a possible new employee to add to your team.
References- This may be a daunting task that takes a little time but is well worth it. After conducting a few phone calls to previous employers and references you may decide not to hire the candidate. Most of the time though, the references are good.
Background Check- This is the last thing to do before selecting your employee. It cost money to run a background check so it’s nice to be sure about the candidate before spending the money and time. Do a google search on background checks make sure it's a legit company.
SELECTING THE CANDIDATE
You have to make a decision on who to hire to work for your painting business. It most likely will be very obvious who is the best fit for your company. If not maybe try both candidates out and see which one fits better.
By taking the time to write a good job post, get it in front of the right candidates and be thorough with your interviews, the hiring process can be a breeze and before you know, you’ll have a high-quality employee on your team.
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