How do you hire?

[Michael Gray]

I'm looking to hire another climber this year for our residential and commercial tree company, and I am wondering how other companies do their hiring? Do you hire them right on the spot? have a probation process? work them for a couple days to see how they are? etc?

I keep running across guys who take longer to put on their gear than the tree should take to remove. And some say they have years of experience but clearly they don't.

 

[NickfromWI]

California is an "at will" employment state. Anyone can be fired or quit at any moment for any or no reason. So for me, technically speaking, everyone is always in a probationary period...in a manner of speaking.

We force people to submit resume AND cover letter. Everyone. Even ground guys/gals. I need well spoken properly educated people in my company. A lot of that gets filtered out by people not willing to submit a resume...or by submitted super crappy ones.

From there we filter out our top candidates, interview a couple of them and pick the one we like the best.

 

[Boomslang]

I've heard of some companies doing a skills test as part of the interview process. Have them do a competition type climb with work stations or even just a light deadwood/pruning so that you can see how they approach the job and how quickly they can move. This assumes you have the tree(s) available nearby.

 

[Michael Gray]

@NickfromWI so do you bring in all the candidates in at once and then weed them out from there? My problem here is we might not need a climber every day. a lot of the job are able to be used with a bucket truck and i have a backyard bucket, but if i get a good guy I want to keep him around I don't just want to call and use him whenever we need a tree climbed. So I can't figure out a proper payment. Do i pay him top pay only for times i need him to climb or do I give him the same amount of money if he's is on the ground all day or running a stump grinder. I hate paying $20-$25 an hour for a guy to pull brush half of the week.

 

[NickfromWI]

1- no- i think that's disrespectful to make candidates stare each other down in the same interview.

2- I personally think you're buying the time from the person. His value doesn't change because you aren't scheduling him right. But I would ask him. Maybe I'm way off base here.


love
nick

 

[macswan]

At The company I work for candidates get an interview with the owner, then a trial day on a job. Which winds up being an informal interview with crew members as well. Then we (the crew) pick the winners. Although the owner has some say in the final hire, he truly trusts our opinion on who is a good fit I. The field.

Then the first month is a trial period. We expect imperfection. After a month you get a review with feedback and critique. Then continued employment... Or not.