Now Hiring!

Okay , dude Bonus episode Make trades great again podcast . How you doing , andy ? I'm good , I'm good . We're here . We're here and we are going to talk about beer . No , no , we're not talking about beer . Probably too much talking about beer for the people we're going to talk about . Right , yeah , it could be , could be .

So you're trying to hire yet again and this has turned into , as it is , for probably every single business owner , a huge challenge , a massive challenge here . What's the biggest challenges you're seeing right now with the hiring process ? Well , I mean so , first off is you know it'd be great if there was this abundant hiring pool of license plumbers .

Yeah , yeah , yeah , you know what ? I'm glad . The challenge in it ? Well , but that's a huge challenge in our industry . Real quick , because in order for you to come work for me , I need you to have a license . So that's a big qualifier right there , not a driver's license like a literal state plumbing license . Yep , it's not nothing . Yep , it is .

It is a big challenge and it's surprising because so we've done a handful of different online job posts . You know , looking for things . You know , hey , this is what we're looking for . You know , we're whatever and we spell it out . You know , license . You know , in the state of Montana , right , I don't really care .

I mean , that's awesome if you've got a license somewhere else , but can you get one here ? And are you willing to get one here ? Because if you aren't , then don't apply . Sure , right , like , I mean , I don't know , we've had a handful , well , and I think they're just spam , basically , which is sucks . We've had a couple from , like , indonesia .

Oh yeah , I get those on the DMs on Instagram , yeah , and I'm like , huh , that's interesting , I don't why . I mean , why are you ? What is your goal here ? What is your objective ? You know , are you trying to fish down to do some sort of scam ? Who knows ?

Probably , but some of them might actually just truly be looking for work in our country , which I understand , yeah , yeah , could be . But so having the license and having a license . In multiple facets of having a license , one a plumbing license , is definitely required . The second is a driver's license .

A lot of what we do is drive , yeah , and if I can't insure you , then I can't hire you . Well , a , I mean the law says you can't have somebody work driving your vehicle simply if they just don't have a license , right . But when you say can't insure you , you're talking about kind of an altogether different scenario , correct ?

Yeah , yeah , and DWI or what I don't know . So we have taken the stance , and this was in the last couple of years . We've switched to a different insurance company . We were having some issues with the last one , just logistical things , not like we got canceled or anything like that .

We were tired of having to call continuously to ask for this certificate so that it could be updated at the city , that kind of thing , yeah , all that kind of stuff . I know what you mean . I've been through that . It's frustrating .

So we found a different company and they're a bigger firm and our insurance writer has several people that work under him for different facets of business insurance , which is great because we have these different contacts , like one particular individual is . I mean , basically all her job is is making sure that certificates are turned into where they're supposed to be .

Sure , and that's awesome , because I can send her an email and , literally in minutes , the certificate is on its way to where it needs to be , right . So how does this affect your hiring , though ? Like , what do you mean ?

Well , because we have somebody that handles all of our vehicle policies and I can send them a driver's license and say can I ensure this person ? Oh , I got you Sure , you know , and so we've been been requesting that is , you know , can we do it ?

Because what I don't want to do is I don't want to hire somebody , have them come to day one and say , okay , here's your van , and then get a call from my insurance company and saying absolutely do not let them drive one of your vehicles which has happened to you not that scenario , but the they can't drive .

So the ahead of time check , like the pre-check you've had recently , a couple of people come across . You know that may have been candidates for hire , and ultimately , you just had to tell them like , can't do it . I need you to be able to drive a vehicle , which is not an unreasonable requirement for employment . It just isn't . I've never worked .

I've never worked anywhere where somebody on the crew didn't have to drive a vehicle . I can understand if you're working big commercial projects where you would drive your own show up to the job . That's not what we're talking about , no , well , and even in that case you still have to have a driver's license , right , technically ?

Yeah , I mean you shouldn't be out driving without them , although we know people do so .

Yeah , I mean I know for the insurance thing , from my experience I had worked at a big shop big when I say you know like 30 , 40 plumbers , residential , custom home , small commercial , so like a mix of different people , different skill levels , things like that and none of that matters when it comes to the logistics like you're talking about .

Like literally , you have to be able to be insurable , you have to have a license . You know for the vehicle aspect of it and I this , my point is I've worked at this company years ago and all of a sudden , you know Craig was gone , like didn't work here anymore . We're like you know , it's one of the scenarios where you're like where's Craig ?

Man , I haven't seen him for a while . Maybe you're not buddies , you know , maybe you just see each other at the shop and passing and then come to find out . So I actually did work at that shop over two different cases , two different people . They were just like they .

The shop let them go and it wasn't because they weren't good work , it was literally this like dude , you got a DWI six months ago . Why didn't you tell us , like we can't have you in our vehicles ? Like that , right , there was enough for them to be like you're out man . You , you should have told us we're going to maybe figure this out , but not now .

You know I have a buddy of mine that is a manager at another contracting firm , super job , superintendent type thing . Yeah , yeah , he , he does . Yeah , he tells me the other day we were talking , we were , I was on the phone talking about hunting or something like that . We're BS and then he goes .

Oh my God , you know I was like we were talking about hiring people and you know I needed to hire another guy . You know it just comes up in conversation when you're talking with other contractors and he goes . Yeah , he goes , it's nuts , he goes , we , he goes .

We just had a guy get arrested by the US Marshall at our office and the guy the guy had worked there for a couple of days and you know they turned in his information and that's how they tracked him , yep , and they , they caught it because his , his information came up on a job application or a IRS whatever .

You know , probably a 1090 or a W2 or something like that went through and I don't know , I don't know exactly what the deal was , but he goes that . You know guys out in the shop , you know , getting ready to go for the morning , and they forgot that he used that alias somewhere else , something's . Oh man , so I mean , how do you even fix this ? Though ?

Like , how do you ? What do you say to somebody ? Like somebody's out there listening right now and they're like I want to switch shops , like what do they got to think ? Like what do you say to somebody that's in that scenario ? I guess I guess here's , here's my , you know haven't come through it because I've never dealt with this before . I

. We've always hired people that I've met , you know , in other facets . You know I've never been a cold call like interview or through a , you know , indeed , or whatever . Yeah , I feel like if , if these are things that are , are , are qualifiers , you I mean , I don't , I know it's , it's weird , and I can't discriminate against these .

These folks , you know , be like oh , you know , I can't hurry if you don't have a driver's license , because technically I can , but if they can't perform the job duties in my particular application is driving , you know . I mean my , our guys drive all day long , basically . I mean there's days where you might be spend half the day in the in the van .

Yeah , it's just a requirement of the job . Yeah , there's nothing illegal about that . No , and so in in , like you had mentioned . There are other jobs that are in this industry where you wouldn't drive at all during the day . Yeah , but you're not running the job site and you get yourself home from the job site , I mean that's .

You're not running that business though . Yeah , but I think , I think something that I guess that it's not frustrating to me . It's frustrating to me that that I'm getting . I've gotten more than one , um , but I guess , before coming about it , just tell people right off the bat Let me know . Hey , you know what I ?

I made some stupid , I made a mistake , whatever . This is , this is what the scenario is and this is where I'm at with it , you know . So if I'm going to interview . I need to be . I should be thinking about this . I had a time and just be like , start the conversation .

Look , before we go any further , I had a DWI five years ago , like is that going to be a problem ? Yep , and and that's something that you know one of the guys had said well , you know that was three years ago . And I was like , okay , well , let's , let's find out .

Um , so I bumped the bumped my insurance guy and he's like , yeah , he goes , we can't because because of the age and the nature of the incident , it's a five year minimum before he's insurable on a corporate policy . And didn't he also not have a license too ?

And that's something that the person said like , and we're not even sure he has a , he might have a suspended license or something Like wasn't that one ?

Yeah , and I don't know if the insurance , if the insurance guy , gets like details on what it is or if it's just here's these , these things , there's multiple infractions and there's a revoked license or something like that . I mean , I certainly don't have any information . That's privy , more than there's no driver's license and he's unable to be insured .

Well , it probably is a level of which they pay right .

So I know when Heather was at the boys and girls club for ever and ever , she had to do background checks on her potential employees Because obviously they're round kids and other people , stuff like that and um , so their background checks would come like there's like there's a way over simplifying it , but like option A and B .

B costs more because you're going to get more detail , that kind of thing . It's probably what they , it's probably how they handle the insurance inquiry or something . Maybe if the insurance company just goes with the like the super option A , and then , if they need , they can pay more and get option . You know the details of B .

Yeah , I don't know , maybe that's something like that . Yeah , you know , and I guess that's where I say B forthcoming about it , because it's you know , if it's something that's going to be found out and be an issue . Man , it'd be a lot easier just to say it up front . I mean , I feel like I'm I'm a very you know , um reasonable person .

If you explain to me what's going on and what happened . I mean you know what I get it . You know stuff happens . You make poor judgment calls and or you got stuck in a in the wrong place at the wrong time and you know what it happens .

Yeah Well , it sucks too to even bring it up , because I think people listening , some people , somebody out there is probably thinking , and I'm just going to address it real quickly what does it matter ? What do you care what this person did , if they're willing to show up and work and work hard , yeah , that , look . Any say , I'm all about it too .

The fact of the matter is is there is another layer to this , when you're not thinking of it as a business owner . You're not necessarily thinking of it as I'm putting this , my name on the teacher of this person , and that person's going to be walking around in and out of people's homes .

Their children are going to be around their elderly parents Look , just valuables Like I'm not assuming anybody that it doesn't have a driver's license . You go out , steal from people . That's not what I'm saying .

Yeah , but we have to think about just overall how somebody represents our customer or our company in front of a customer , how they act , how they , you know , conduct themselves , and all mistakes are made . They are mistakes , but then also there are lifestyles and things like that , so it's just different .

Yeah , I get it , man , that's got to be frustrating as heck . Just , I think one of the biggest challenges , too , because of where you live , because of where I live , where I wish this was nationwide , but it's unfortunately it's not , but is initially just that trade license or competency card or whatever , however it is , establish where you are .

That is the first and foremost qualifier , because I don't care what gender you are , I don't care what color your hair is , I don't like . None of that even matters , and honestly I don't .

I hate to say it this way , but I'm going to say it bluntly I don't care how good you are or not good you are at your job because , no matter what , first and foremost , if you don't have that Minnesota estate plumbing license that I am required to have , you are required to have to come work for me .

Then none of that other stuff is really a factor , unfortunately , and we're not talking again , let me add this we're not talking about potential employees who could be joining an apprenticeship program or anything like that . We're talking about literally you're , you are .

We're saying all of this because you are trying to find somebody that already has their license that can come and go do work for you . Yep , yep , exactly , and that's . I guess that's kind of where where I'm at with it is . The state of Montana has a reciprocal agreement with all of the states that border Montana .

So Idaho , utah , wyoming , south Dakota , north Dakota if you have a license and active license in those states , I think , I think it's just a matter of applying in the state of Montana . Wow , that's super . Yeah , that's awesome . If you're a plumber in Idaho and you want to move to Montana , like seriously , yeah , like that's , we don't have that here .

I wish we did Right . So now , if you're from Washington , you have to apply for a temporary license and then take the Montana State plumbing test , simply because of distance , not distance , and , yeah , jurisdictions , I guess , different codes . Well , you know , the toilets flushed differently in Washington .

It's , yeah , it's the gravitational pull in the direction that the sun comes up is different to . Yep , Yep , I think it's a longitudinal axis of the invertebrate , uh , rubbery girder . That's what it is . Yeah , yeah , flux monsters

. All right , dude , we're wrapping it . That was a bonus . Wrap it up . There you are . Have a good one , everybody , all right . Oh , wait , wait , what I was just going to say ? Shameless plug , shameless plug . If you have interest in moving to Missoula , montana , hit me up please .

Hey , you have an employee that , uh , yeah , your your your longest term , your longest running employee outside of you is a guy you found on the IG . Yeah , on the IG it turns out to be a cool guy , yeah . So , like I said , if you're , if you're interested , you know , follow us on IG .

Um , give us a look up , if you're , if you like what you're hearing , you want to give it a shot ? Let me know I can't do it . We're hiring . I appreciate that . I hope somebody does reach out and has a license or as well as license , or as willing to get it . Yeah , all right , dude , all right . Thanks , everybody . Have a good one , you too .