With over 15 years of experience in recruiting contractors across the Construction, Civils, Rail, Power and Telecoms sectors, we wanted to share some key tips on how to hire the best contractors for your business and what we look for when we are working with our clients.
We do the below on a daily basis as we know, based on experience that these are the key areas that must be focussed on to ensure we offer our clients the best possible contract candidates for their team and projects.
If you find yourself in a position where you are frequently hiring contractors that don’t work out, then make sure you are following the below steps to help reduce the risk of a poor hire.
Check them out on LinkedIn
The majority of professionals within the construction and infrastructure sectors will have a profile on LinkedIn, so it’s always a good place to look to cross reference their CV.
Now, we appreciate that contractors may move quickly from contract to contract based on how long the contract lengths are, so their profiles may not be as up to date as you would hope, but it’s a good place to start. Also, their profile may offer more great information like recommendations and skills endorsements from previous employees, clients and colleagues, which can help to build a picture about the candidate.
Check references
This is key and one of the most important steps in the recruitment process that we will do, without fail! Reference checking is an important step to ensure the person you are hiring is what they say they are, in terms of their professionalism, experience and skillset. Hopefully the references are strong and give you the confidence you need, but sometimes they may just help you dodge a poor hire.
Be properly prepared for the interview
This is something that we see a lot of employers get wrong. It’s so important to give the interview the time it deserves, both in the preparation before, the actual interview and the post interview analysis. Being properly prepared for an interview will allow you to get the best out of it and cover everything you want to cover. It also gives the candidate the best chance of showing who they are and how they can benefit your business. A poor interview process helps nobody, frustrates everyone and does nothing for your brand reputation!
We recently wrote an article ‘4 tips for employers when interviewing candidates’, which we suggest you read as there are some great bits of advice that can help you get the best out of the interview process.
What’s the rate?
It’s really important to make sure that the rate negotiated and agreed is the right rate for you and the contractor. You can’t expect to attract and secure the best person for the job if you are offering a lower than average day/hourly rate. Also, if you don’t get the right rate at the start of the contract be open to the possibility that as soon as another contract, with a better rate, gets put in front of the contractor they will more than likely take it, leaving you at square one and having to find a replacement. Do your research before you start your search and offer what you need to attract the right person for the job.
Work with a recruiter
Working with a recruiter to find a contractor is the easiest and quickest way for a business. With a large network of talent across all sectors and locations, means you will more than likely get the result you are looking for a lot quicker than if you advertised and searched yourself. Plus, all of the above is managed by your recruiter, so all you have to do is interview the candidate and make sure they are good fit for your team and project.
Are you frustrated with a recent hire you made?
Hiring a bad contractor can cause problems for you, your business, the project and ultimately costs you money. So it is important that you get it right and choose a contractor that is reliable, skilled and will fit your team. If you can relate to any of the 10 signs in this article, then it is more than likely time to find a suitable replacement.
Need help with your contract recruitment?
We pride ourselves on our service and are always pushing boundaries to help improve this for our clients and candidates. We have relationships with thousands of great contract candidates across the construction, civils, rail, power and telecoms sectors. If you want to find out about our services in more detail and how we can help you and your business visit our contract recruitment services page.
