One of the hardest pain points of owning and operating an HVAC company is hiring and recruiting HVAC technicians. On top of managing sales, marketing, and customer satisfaction, a key component to have every department of your company run smoothly is hiring the best people to efficiently carry out all functional business tasks. Hiring new people may not be the problem; it’s finding new employees with experience and dependability. You might be reading this and agreeing, but you need some painless and practical methods in hiring the top candidates that will support your business. Not only will you need helpful information on hiring, but you will need an active hiring system. Consider the beneficial support that comes with an innovative applicant tracking system or ATS that eliminates the unstructured recruiting process and helps you become a hiring expert. Finding the right ATS that quickly and effectively sends your job ad to the major job posting sites and gives you an organized system to manage your candidate’s information, status and move them through your custom hiring pipeline ultimately improves your entire hiring practice.
At VIVAHR, we know the HVAC recruiting process can be complicated, so we have provided insightful information to help you be a recruiting expert for your own HVAC company.
Writing HVAC Job Description
One of the first and essential steps in hiring and recruiting new employees for your HVAC company is drafting the position description. A job description detailing the duties, responsibilities, expectations, and requirements you’re seeking to fulfill for this position.
Sounds easy enough, right? Yes, but what makes the job description so essential is the connection you create with the potential seeker and what brings you to the top above your competition looking for the same skilled technician.
So, how can you write a good job description that draws the attention of ideal HVAC technicians? Let’s look at the steps to help you create a desirable job description that will spotlight your HVAC open position.
Company’s Bio
It’s easy to write a great company bio description as you are merely telling your company’s story, mission, and values that you instill in your company’s operations and employee performance. Starting with a brief but influential story about your company sets the tone while developing an emotional connection with your potential job-seeking technician.
SEO Job title
Finding your ideal HVAC technician is similar to finding your perfect customer. You need to know what they are searching for when looking for employment opportunities. Your HVAC technician title does not need to be flashy or unusual to stand out from all the other available positions. Consider what titles or roles your ideal technician is typing on job boards or search engines. Knowing what your candidates are searching for in an HVAC position lies in your job title.
Position Details
In this section, you want to briefly appeal to the critical importance and responsibilities of the position while providing a narrative of your HVAC technician’s day and life. Look at the position details section as your sales pitch to your candidate. What factors or opportunities for your open position stands out above the other employers? Give your ideal seeking technicians a reason to apply for your job.
Responsibilities and Requirements
After you have painted a picture of your HVAC technician’s day and life, you can now layout the job specifics and objectives for your applicants. An eye-catching format is using bullet points when describing the responsibilities and obligations. You can break up the HVAC technician’s duties and requirements into different sections. You can classify them as the skills needed for the position and abilities that would be great to obtain but not essential. Just remember to be clear and relevant to your open HVAC Technician position.
Experience Qualifications
When seeking a highly skilled HVAC Technician, you can measure their knowledge of the amount of experience they have obtained. Placing a detailed and thought-out description of the years of experience, educational requirements, or certifications needed for this role will improve your job description and attract your desired technician. Many applicants go directly to this job description section to determine if they have what it takes and apply for the position.
A good rule of thumb to remember for the qualifications you are looking for is completely transparent. Perhaps you are looking to find someone with exceptional soft skills than experience. Take the time to meet with your hiring team and review your current team of employees. Determine the expertise they began with and what has led them to be talented for your company. You may be surprised to learn how you have trained them to be precisely the type of employee you needed. To ensure that great candidates will not pass on applying because the job post qualifications list “Must have 5 years experience”. Be honest about the skills you are looking for, knowing you can train the best.
More About Your Company
You provided your company bio, but now you want to add something a little extra about you for more enticement. Take another opportunity to speak about what drives your business to make a difference in your industry. Tell your story that gets your applicants wanting to be an employee of your company. Another great way to increase your potential applicant’s eagerness is to provide links to your social media pages and small testimonials from current employees. You want to give your candidates an intention to apply.
Pleasing Perks
Including the standard benefits, such as health insurance, 401K, and dental, is a high point to include in your job post. If you offer even more than just the most common benefits, let your applicants know you offer perks such as company trucks, paid cell phones, employee discounts, tuition reimbursement, gym membership, or free lunches. Whatever perks you currently offer your employees, make sure to include them to increase even more reasons to apply.
Compensation
No matter what specifics you decided to include in your HVAC technician job posting, it is all up to you. Just remember, the more you are willing to provide will save you time in the hiring process. You don’t want to waste your time on applicants expecting twice the amount you are offering. If you are unsure of what you should place for your HVAC Technician compensation, several companies justify a projected target compensation and expect wages in a few years.
Working Hours
If your HVAC company requires your technicians to work outside of the regular business hours of 9 am – 5 pm, this information must be made clear. If you need your technicians to work on Saturdays or provide emergency after hours occasionally, let the applicants know this. Remember to give as much information and be reasonable with your working hour expectations. All of this information permits the candidate to think about whether they can commit to your hour requirements.
Tips to Turn a Job Description from Good to Great
All right, now you have some direction on how to write a good job description; here are few ways to make the job description great!
Enhance the visuals – HVAC Recruiting software like VIVAHR allows you to post your job descriptions with videos and images improving the job searching experience. Step out of the text-only job descriptions offered by other job boards and step into the new ways to hire.
From the Top – If your company does a job description video, let the video include the owners or top leaders speaking to the applicants. Give them insight into who they will be working beside.
Email drip campaigns – With most job boards, you can set up email drip marketing and create custom groups based on tags or lists. Your applied candidate can receive a series of automated emails about the position and other alerts. This method enhances your company’s” hiring brand” and sets a tone for your culture profile.
Retargeting Ads –Using your Facebook ads is a great way to target your candidates if they applied or didn’t complete your job application. Facebook retargeting ads for your applicants to create a sharper brand image and displays the type of environment you are offering to your employees.
Now that you can write a good job description, you can start the process with tips to turn it from good to great. One last thought, you will know if you are creating a good job description based on the amount of attention to detail you are willing to give. It won’t be a waste of time, and you will be building your brand by creating an excellent experience for HVAC Technicians, even if they don’t work for you.
Job Posting Sites for HVAC jobs
The next step in the hiring process is posting your good or great job description on a job board. Finding the best job posting site for hiring an HVAC technician may come down to what is available at the least cost possible. Luckily, using a free job posting is available, and finding the right source is an essential part of hiring. If you are looking to use free jobs to generate exceptional candidates quickly, we have gathered and listed the best free job posting sites you can hire for your HVAC company.
If you are looking to use free jobs to generate exceptional candidates quickly, we have listed the best free job posting sites you can use to hire for your HVAC company. You may want to manage your hiring process more efficiently and productively. Investing in an applicant tracking system or ATS will make hiring for your HVAC company to save you time by using automatic filters to sort through candidates. You can filter through candidates based on skill level related to your type of work, experience, past employers, education, and even references in many ATS. If you are considering using an ATS for your hiring needs, here is a list of Applicant Tracking Systems for HVAC.
VIVAHR – Built for small businesses, VIVAHR is a highly rated ATS. The software is not a hiring solution for companies employing 250 or more. Highlighted features include job posting syndication to 50+ job sites, candidate management, careers page, syncs with 2,000 tools with Zapier connection.
HVACJobsCenter.com – A Web, mobile, and social job finding and posting site dedicated to HVAC, refrigeration, and plumbing positions in the US and Canada.
Betterteam – Designed for small companies to post jobs to various job boards. Main features are built for one user, not for a growing company needing multiple users.
HVAC Agent – A HVAC Career Network or job board with over 1,000,000 job seekers on file. HVAC employers have the option to blast their open positions to job seekers in their area and ones who are not seeking work with fees included.
These ATS are a great source to start researching and begin hiring HVAC technicians for your company. Take the time to review the pricing plans, features, and tools, and more importantly, how well the ATS fits your company’s structure. You might find that one may be priced high but offers more features, tools, and posting to additional job posting boards than most of the more affordable ATS.
Recruiting Tips for HVAC
Some of the best HVAC recruiting happens in the most unconventional ways. Using job posting sites for HVAC or an ATS and even participating in a job fair are excellent hiring methods for many businesses. However, big or small businesses can still recruit great talent by finding ways to reach various resources.
Truck Advertising – Running an HVAC company, you most likely have a truck, utility van, or a fleet of vehicles that advertises your business. Use your company vehicles and place a sticker displaying that you are currently hiring with the contact information. You can even purchase stickers with QR codes that can link to your website or your hiring page.
Customer Base – Your customer base is a great resource to find great hires. You can create an email newsletter informing your customer’s that you are actively hiring. You can also add an incentive of a hiring referral bonus for any future HVAC technician you hire. Or you can offer a credit towards a service that you can provide your customer.
Community – A great resource to find people currently looking for work, especially an HVAC technician, could be found in your community. Many cities and communities have Facebook groups that allow you to post your open positions and let other group members share their newsfeed. Using neighborhood apps will also enable you to reach out to people looking for an HVAC technician position or know someone currently looking for employment.
Trade and Technical Colleges – Although you may be seeking to hire a technician with experience, don’t disregard your ability to form and mentor the perfect technician for your HVAC company. Reaching out to the HVAC trade schools and technical colleges in your area to find a fresh and determined HVAC technician may be an ideal way to hiring for your company’s open position.
HVAC Hardware Stores – Place a hiring ad at a local HVAC equipment or hardware store on their community corkboards if they have one. This way of recruiting may draw the attention of HVAC technicians looking for means of employment. This tip may seem outdated or even a dull method to hire, but this type of location serves directly the kind of people you are looking to hire.
Website – Using a job board or an ATS is the most efficient way to find people searching for employment in your industry. However, don’t forget to have a banner, careers tab, or sidebar letting your website visitors know you are currently hiring. Form these parts on your home page website, directing technician candidates to a landing page, allowing them to apply. Displaying that you are recruiting for an HVAC Technician on your website provides one more place that job seekers can find in their online job search to increase your number of available candidates.
Finding great employees to hiring for your HVAC company could be found in ways you may not have considered. You may find that using as many resources available to you will offer you a vast amount of highly qualified technicians then you thought possible. Remember always to keep your eyes open for exceptional talent for your company, and you may be surprised what kind of people would make a great fit for your HVAC operations.
7 Best Interview Questions for an HVAC Technician
Now that you have created your job description, posted the open HVAC technician position on job boards or other sources, received applications and resumes from promising candidates. Finally, you can start the interview process. Interviewing in the hiring process is a very crucial step in finding the right person for your company. When you thought the process would get easier, you must evaluate your future technician on answers to questions you ask them.
Here are the 7 best interview questions to ask the HVAC Technician to help you in your hiring process
What brought you into the HVAC Industry? This question is an excellent start to the interview. You can assess candidates by their response to their interests and ambition.
What makes you feel you would be a great fit for our company based on your HVAC training or experience? This question gives the candidate the chance to promote their skills, knowledge, and qualities apart from the other applicants.
What types of HVAC equipment- brands and models are you more experience in providing installation, repair, and maintenance service? This question will assess the technician’s experience and skill level based on the previously worked equipment.
Please tell me about a difficult HVAC issue you have encountered and how you resolved the issue? This question gauges the technician’s problem-solving skills and technical abilities.
What HVAC failures have you made but learned to improve your skills to ensure it would not happen again? This question highlights their ability to continuing learning and work ethic.
Tell me about a conflicting incident with another technician or anyone you have work with and how you resolved the conflict? This question assesses the technician’s behavioral skills and how they hand difficult situations.
What exactly do you enjoy and dislike about the duties or responsibilities of an HVAC technician? This question can examine the technicians strengthens and weaknesses based on their response.
Knowing that certain questions and answers in an interview ultimately determine if a candidate’s skills, experience, and personality meet your HVAC Technician qualifications. Using these questions and creating other questions that revolve around your company’s mission, vision and culture can help narrow down the ideal HVAC Technician for your company.
Hiring With VIVAHR
After all of this helpful information to hiring for your HVAC company, we are proud to help you even further in the hiring process. VIVAHR offers you the latest and most effective way of hiring A-players for your company. Our application tracking systems are one of a kind for HVAC companies in meeting their hiring needs.
