Recruiting is a contact sport... · Technician Find Community

Recruiting is a contact sport...

...Indeed sold you a recliner.

Post the job. Let the AI filter the resumes. Wait for the qualified techs to roll in. Pick the best one.

Sit back. The platform does the work.

I get why it's appealing. It's everywhere. And it lets you feel like you're doing something about your empty bay without doing the hard part.

That's the trap.

The platforms aren't selling you technicians. They're selling you the feeling of recruiting without the work of recruiting. Posting feels like action. Refreshing your inbox feels like progress.

It's avoidance with a receipt.

Here's what it actually gets you.

Every shop in town is fishing the same pond. An owner said it to me plain a while back.

"We are all chasing the same people who are looking for work."

He's right. And it's why he keeps losing.

Because that pond holds the smallest, most picked-over group of techs there is. The ones actively looking. The ones already talking to four other shops.

And the AI that's supposed to sort them for you doesn't know what a technician is.

I'll prove it. I once applied for one of our client's tech jobs myself, just to see. Submitted the application. Clicked the button. Up pops the screen: here are some other jobs you might like.

General manager at a dispensary. Forklift operator. Manager of a call center.

I applied to turn wrenches. The machine offered me a weed shop.

Mystery solved.

Now here's the part that actually costs you.

The tech you want is not in that pond. He's under a car right now, three miles from your shop, mildly annoyed at his boss. Not unhappy enough to be looking. Just unhappy enough to leave if the right person came along.

He will never fill out your application. Not because he isn't interested. Because you made him do the work before you gave him a reason to.

A job board reaches people who are looking.

A relationship reaches the guy who isn't looking yet.

Your best hire is almost never in the first group.

And on the rare day a good one does land in your inbox, the post-and-wait owner loses him anyway. Slow reply. No real conversation. Two days of silence. Then the tech ghosts, and the owner blames the market.

Meanwhile the bay sits empty. The work doesn't wait on you. It drives to the shop down the road and pays them instead. You're not holding steady while you refresh your inbox. You're bleeding, quietly, on a meter only your accountant can see.

Three moves you can run this week. No platform required.

One. Talk to everyone. Even the no.

That C-tech who applied and isn't a fit? Before you toss his application, remember this: he's spent a few years next to better techs than him. He knows their names. He has their numbers. End every conversation with one question. "Who are the two best techs you've ever worked with who'd put in a good word for you?" One lead becomes three opportunities. And the two on the back end are often better than the one you almost threw away.

Two. Ask the one question that kills ghosting.

On your first real conversation, find out why he's looking. Then ask this. "Imagine it's a year from now and it was a perfect year. What happened, personally and professionally?"

Then shut up and listen. Whatever he says, that's the offer. Match what you've got to what he told you.

That question isn't a nicety. It's the reason he remembers you over the three other shops he's talking to. Nobody ghosts the shop that made them feel known.

Three. Kill the hoops.

The guy who isn't really looking will not jump through your hiring process just to start a conversation. He's got a job already. He doesn't need yours. So stop making him work to talk to you. Give him a text option. We see response rates climb 20 to 30 percent when there's a text option in the ad. Lower the bar to start talking. Raise it later, once he's interested.

None of that is a tool. All of it is contact.

The technology can make you faster at the human part. Or it can become the excuse you use to skip the human part forever. Same tool. Two outcomes. The only difference is whether you're using it to get better at recruiting or to avoid it.

The tech you want already has a job. He's not on a board. He's standing at a toolbox three miles away, and the only thing between him and your shop is whether you'll do the one thing a machine can't.

Pick up the phone. Become someone worth leaving for.

Recruiting is a contact sport. Always was.

Where are you in this right now?

👉 Comment HIRE if your bays are empty and you need a tech now. I'll point you to the fastest path.

👉 Comment BENCH if you're staffed but you never want to start from zero again.

👉 Comment STUCK if the problem feels bigger than finding one more tech.

I'll tell you what I'd do.

8:50

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Recruiting is a contact sport...