NEXT!

[Mikey P]

Good knows Harper,Teri and Les are fed up with his female hormone induced pity parties

 

[hogjowl]

Yeah, I understand Dave.

I make mine pass a polygraph test and and FBI interview ...

 

[Royal Man]

Yeah, I understand Dave.

I make mine pass a polygraph test and and FBI interview ...

No piss test?

 

[Mardie]

I'm more concerned about how personable they are , how well they can talk, are they well groomed, can they think on the fly, are willing you grow and learn new things. honesty and motivation. How well they can push a broom? I could careless. From my experience new hires that think of it as just a janitorial position make very poor carpet cleaners. They are only good for night work that has little or no client interactions.

This test is not about the broom, It is about work ethic. This test will also speak volumes about how they think and their motivation and their overall attitude and will test their honesty in weather or not they give you an honest days work. As far as being well groomed just look at him. You will also see how personable he is when you do your little visits and you will also see if is attitude changes over a day of sweeping concrete. Like I said you got to read the play. This is what I call rockin it old school.

 

[hogjowl]

I am always amazed at bulletin board reality.

 

[Royal Man]

This test is not about the broom, It is about work ethic. This test will also speak volumes about how they think and their motivation and their overall attitude and will test their honesty in weather or not they give you an honest days work. As far as being well groomed just look at him. You will also see how personable he is when you do your little visits and you will also see if is attitude changes over a day of sweeping concrete. Like I said you got to read the play. This is what I call rockin it old school.

For me it's a sales and service position. Not a janitorial position. I want to hire salesmen not janitors. An earlier post mentioned about hiring food services people. Because, they know how to please people and raise the bottom line too. two of the most important factors IMHO for a carpet cleaner.

 

[Royal Man]

I am always amazed at bulletin board reality.

Bulletin board and reality in the same sentence. Now that's funny!!!

 

[Mikey P]

Reality..

That's the secret or my success.

I never lie in print...Lol

 

[Mardie]

For me it's a sales and service position. Not a janitorial position. I want to hire salesmen not janitors. An earlier post mentioned about hiring food services people. Because, they know how to please people and raise the bottom line too. two of the most important factors IMHO for a carpet cleaner.

I agree that my suggestion is not for recruiting sales people. My suggestion is if you are looking for a respectfull honest hardworking cc with loads of character.

 

[Steve Toburen]

If anyone else is willing to share their interview techniques it would be very helpful to me as well as the readers who will no doubt find themselves in the same position as I am in... over and over..

Uhh, Mikey. if you look in your SFS Ops Manual under Employees/Hiring Personnel you'll find 30 pages- step-by-step on how to recruit/screen/interview, etc.

Steve

PS Now if you are too tired to do this then here are some sample interviewing questions out of the manual. (You pick and choose the ones you want- don't ask them all.)

D. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Describe your “IDEAL” job. What makes this the “IDEAL” job?

2. What kind of people do you like to work with? Why do you like these people?

3. What do you NOT want in your next job? Why?

4. What was it about your previous job that you didn’t like?

5. What are you looking for in your next job? What are you looking for in your next company? What are you looking for in your next supervisor?

6. What do you do well? What do you do poorly?

7. What are your greatest strengths? What are your greatest weaknesses?

8. How has your current job helped you for your next position? How do you think it helped you for the position of Carpet-care Technician?

9. What is the best job you ever had? What is the worst?

10. What was your greatest frustration in your current or last job?

11. Why did you leave or why do you want to leave your existing job?

12. What were the good and the bad sides of your last job?

13. Did you like your supervisor? If not, why not?

14. How did you feel about your co‑workers? Did you work well with them?

15. How did your boss rate your job performance? What areas did he think you could improve upon? What areas do you think you could have improved upon?

16. What do you like about this job position?

17. What do you NOT like about this job position? (Or alternatively, what do you think is the biggest draw back with this job position?)

18. What are you looking for in your next employer?

19. What do you want out of your career?

20. In your opinion, where should you concentrate your efforts upon improving your job performance?

21. What do you want to avoid in future jobs?

22. Do you have a salary goal? Do you have a personal job goal?

23. Who or what has been the greatest influence upon your career?

24. What does your family think about your career plans?

25. What motivates you?

26. What are you confident doing?

27. Do you consider yourself mature? Why or why not?

28. Could you describe a difficult experience which you have been able to overcome? Could you describe a difficult experience which you have been UNABLE to overcome? What was it that made the difference between the two experiences?

29. How would you describe yourself as a person?

30. If you had to live your life to date over again, what would you do differently?

31. Please describe your view of what defines a “good employee?”

32. Do you consider yourself to be a self‑starting individual? Why or why not?

33. Why influences have you had in your life to mold you into the person you are today?

34. What gives you the greatest satisfaction on the job?

35. What frustrates you the most?

36. How do you cope with your frustrations?

37. Do you believe in getting even? Why not?

38. What do you enjoy doing in your off‑hours?

39. Do you have any questions about me as your prospective boss?

40. Do you have any questions about the company?

 

[cu]

In the last few years I've had 5 guys work with me . 2 had exp with other companies. They had to go after a few weeks . 1 guy had to much drama in his life so he had to go. Then I took on my step son. Which has worked out fantastic . he,s the same age as your kid ..just wants to get to Friday , get laid and enjoy life. But when he's at work. It all about the job. The last guy I took on is also a ase mechanic. And is a great kid puts pride into his work. He takes my truck if I'm doing something else or out of town

the point of this is I knew the back story of tim and Sean . And they knew I expected a lot from them but if they put in the effort I would take care of them . In a small business like ours taking chances on strangers coming in is risky.
Ask around your friends if they know someone who would fit your needs.

Soon as I get of the truck I'm sure Tim and Sean will be doing the next round of hiring......with a little guidance from Tammy .

 

[Mardie]

Steve have you ever given a prospect your questionnaire to fill out then hired him and as time went on you found that his answers were the truth or BS ? I think most potential employees will answer this questionaire in such a way as to tell you what sounds best to get the job. I also think that most applicants would shake their heads when looking at all these psycho analitical questions.

 

[BLewis]

Having spent 34 years in the restaurant business I can attest to Tom Kings logic of going after these people. It would probably help if you could filter that down to a person that has been in that field for a couple of years and has gotten to work every Holiday and 12-14 hours a day on weekends.

Someone else posted about keeping good prospects on a reserve list, not only do I think this is a good ideal but it also accomplishes 2 other things. It shows them you are not desperate hiring and it shows how interested they really are in the prospect of coming to work for you, how often do they call to follow up on "do you have anything available yet?"

As most know I've had my fair share of turn over in the past 5 years, mainly due to the fact that being kind of new I paid what I thought was a fair hourly wage for part time workers/helpers. The last tech I hired I had on that reserve list for over 6 months, what he didn't know was that I had actually gotten the opportunity to watch him work with another company on late night restaurants without him even knowing it.

I am really impressed with Steve's SFS list ( makes me realize I should spend more time in that book!). Many of these things I incorporated when I was a restaurant "mgr" and not the last 15 years when I was a supervisor.

I really like Tom's ideal of the one day contract, we did that the last few years when I was at Golden Corral and believe me you could/can weed out a bunch by doing this.

The only other advice I would offer is to conduct more than one interview if you got a "funny" feeling or you get that knawling pit in your stomach. Schedule a 2nd interview and just see if they show up.

One last thought I can attest to the fact that it is much harder to take the time to hire the correct way when you are a o/o and in the trenches everyday, you WILL panic hire. Ask me how I know. Also, one thing that I always practiced while in the restaurant business was I ALWAYS accepted applications and I continuously conducted interviews because you never knew when that next great cook or server or future manager would walk through the door!

 

[Ken Snow]

Mardi= the idea of the questions is to pick some (not all) as Steve said and incorporate them into conversation during the interview proccess.

 

[Royal Man]

I agree that my suggestion is not for recruiting sales people. My suggestion is if you are looking for a respectfull honest hardworking cc with loads of character.

I don't want to beat this to death. But, in my opinion. A carpet cleaning tech is (or should be) a sales position.

 

[Mardie]

I don't want to beat this to death. But, in my opinion. A carpet cleaning tech is (or should be) a sales position.

That's the problem (finding a salesman and tech/Grunt in the same personality) If this is the goal then as I said in my first post ( If you want to play you got to pay). Think of the opportunities that are out their for such a rare personality and how hard it would be to make one of these guys a cc lifer without a very good paycheck. You know so they can raise a family buy new cars and own a home.

 

[Royal Man]

That's the problem (finding a salesman and tech/Grunt in the same personality) If this is the goal then as I said in my first post ( If you want to play you got to pay). Think of the opportunities that are out their for such a rare personality and how hard it would be to make one of these guys a cc lifer without a very good paycheck. You know so they can raise a family buy new cars and own a home.

That is where having a commission based salary comes into play. A motived tech will grow their check along with your companies bottom line. Win, Win!!

 

[ruff]

One of the simplest technique for initial screening that I've heard of was from Gene the owner of Imperial Services in Sonoma.
At the time it was done through Newspaper ads but the principle can be applied anywhere.

He'd put an ad about the job and ended it with: Please Call at 1:30 p.m. and ask for Albert (there was no Albert at the company but they knew that if someone asked for him it was regarding the job.)
According to him (and my limited experience confirms) if the prospect called ahead of or after the indicated time, or if they did not ask for Albert, he would not hire them. The times that he did ignore it, he got employees that never showed up on time and would not follow directions.

It is a simple tool, but it weeds some unsuitable prospects even before you invest in personal interviews.

 

[billyeadon]

I agree but a little different semantics. A tech should first be a customer service person. If he is truly looking out for the customer he will sell her the things that she needs and no more. And if he does it in the right way he is not selling. Remember what Jeffrey Gitomer says "nobody likes to be sold, but evryone likes to buy."

I don't want to beat this to death. But, in my opinion. A carpet cleaning tech is (or should be) a sales position.

 

[Mikey P]

Do any of you have an desired age for a tech helper?


What is too young or too old?

 

[Ken Snow]

We like to get them in around 20 and by 25 or so they are a crew leader.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[Shane Deubell]

Most of it is in our head, imo.

For some reason i can never explain if an office cleaner leaves i look for another one but if a carpet cleaner/floor person my immediate response is to jump in and start working to cover.
Which grinds the business to a halt, makes no sense but i bet a lot of you guys do the same thing.

I would never cover for an office cleaning position but for some bizzaro world reason do all the time to strip a floor or any project based work.
All in my head...

 

[KevinD]

My feeling is we wait until someone quits or is fired before recruiting, its too late then and we have to scramble.

There's a nail hit squarely on the head.

Same mistake I made over and over, through the years.

Telling myself, we can handle the current workload with the current workforce
instead of hiring and training the next tech.

 

[Goldenboy]

Mikey already gives his employees financial peace. When he finds a good tech he co-signs on a fat car payment.

Golden Boy

 

[ruff]

!!!
Hire Waldo.
He's cheap, he talks a mean carpet cleaning game and if he lasts longer than a year, you can adopt him.

I alraedy checked, his family will be delighted.

 

[Mardie]

One of the simplest technique for initial screening that I've heard of was from Gene the owner of Imperial Services in Sonoma.
At the time it was done through Newspaper ads but the principle can be applied anywhere.

He'd put an ad about the job and ended it with: Please Call at 1:30 p.m. and ask for Albert (there was no Albert at the company but they knew that if someone asked for him it was regarding the job.)
According to him (and my limited experience confirms) if the prospect called ahead of or after the indicated time, or if they did not ask for Albert, he would not hire them. The times that he did ignore it, he got employees that never showed up on time and would not follow directions.

It is a simple tool, but it weeds some unsuitable prospects even before you invest in personal interviews.

Perfect . Then if he shows up give him a broom and a large dirty concrete floor to sweep

 

[Goldenboy]

Ofer already got a job offer from Harper going to take it. Not joking either. The day before Christmas Eve going to run anti freeze through my TM. Going to clean Jan to March in Florida for Harper they are slammed that time of the year with Snow Birds. Then Ill come back up and run my business April to December 23nd. Im done with winters.

Golden Boy

 

[Mikey P]

How many jobs are you doing now during those 3 months?

Who will you refer your regulars to who need immediate help?

Did you quit your babysitting job?

Your wife and kids are OK with you hanging out with Hugh Hefner-be for 3 months?

Is their an effective AIDs vaccine available yet?

 

[Goldenboy]

How many jobs are you doing now during those 3 months? Why the fook u think im going to florida

Who will you refer your regulars to who need immediate help? Clean their shit every 7 years they can wait til april

Did you quit your babysitting job? ill use vaction im 3/4 time there now

Your wife and kids are OK with you hanging out with Hugh Hefner-be for 3 months?ill send checks

can u keep me busy for three months Ill need a place to live also

Golden boy

 

[ruff]

I'd be damned!
Have you considered applying with Bristor?