Editor’s Note—September 2018

by Michael Hamline, Editor / Published September 2018

In an August 7 Washington Post article, “Small businesses find tight job market makes it hard to hire” by Christopher Rugaber|AP, he notes, “…smaller companies are being hamstrung by the economy’s very strength: Low unemployment has shrunk the pool of job seekers and intensified competition for workers.” Small businesses are defined as 50 or fewer employees, which qualifies most of those companies in the pressure washing industry.

So what’s a pressure washing company to do if it’s looking to hire new employees with a smaller pool of potential candidates? Read Diane Calabrese’s “The Pluses of Online Hiring Tools” on page 6, which is a timely piece of counsel to the situation. She notes that the reach of [online] ads and the speed of connecting with prospective employees are two of the pluses of utilizing online hiring tools.

Chad Rasmussen of Royce Industries comments, “It is so easy for people to apply for jobs online that it can be overwhelming when you post a job and then have to start filtering through applications . . . It does take time, but I think that the benefits outweigh the downsides.” Rasmussen remarks, “Online hiring tools are great, and we have hired a lot of people through them,” but “at the end of the day, though, nothing is better than a referral.”

Doug Rucker of Clean and Green Solutions in Porter, TX, says, “Our church has been a great resource for hiring.”

Henry Bockman of Commercial Restorations in Germantown, MD, lives in a region which has very low unemployment and looks to other regions to fill his employment needs. He remarks, “We use Facebook, Twitter, Indeed, Maryland unemployment site, various veterans’ programs, Betterteam, Craigslist, and ZipRecruiter.”

Whether you want to talk about hiring or another issue, Cleaner Times hopes to see you and talk with you at PowerClean 2018 in Orlando, FL, on October 19–21.

Michael Hamline
michael@adpub.com
(800) 525-7038