Who to hire?

[dbltee]

Need some direction on hiring experienced employees. Newspaper, unemployment office? Also, what's a good starting salary for part time and for full time? I'm of the mindset that $7-$9 is where I need to be.

[Stephen M.]

Use every venue available to you. In the near past, I used my local unemplyment office, but had to resort to a newspaper ad for results.

I like using the unemployment office because they will screen the appilcants for me and try to weed out the flakes, but even that isn't fail-safe. The biggest problem we have is finding qualified drivers with a valid WA State drivers license and a good record. There are alot of qualified people w/o a drivers license, but they are no good to us w/o one.

I don't know what the norm is for your area in wages, but it should be much of a problem to find out that info from others on this site.

What I have learned thru my own experience is that it is better for my profitability to pay more money/hr to good people than trying to skate by at the bottom of the pay scale. If you pay bottom wages, you get exactly what you are paying for. Be sure to have a good hiring process to weed out the flakes as much as possible so you don't waste your top dollar on the bottom of the gene pool.

[Team Gopher]

Hi dbltee,

Have you considered the local high school and colleges?

[Lawnshark]

Like finding guys with young families. They will work their asses off for you! As long as u make sure u give them 40 hours a week and pay them you will have loyal workers.

[GrassMaster]

Georgia State Employment Office

I tried the employment office one time & will never use them again.

They sent me a guy that had worked for the city over 10 years. I should have known something was wrong then?

I find out a few days later that the guy went to work drunk & pulled a knife on his boss because he wouldn't let him off work early on a Friday.

I contacted the employment office & they knew all about it. They said they could not discriminate against him because there were no criminal charges filled against him, he was just fired...

It sounds like a State employee sticking up for a City employee to me.

You ever try to file a complain against a postal worker, you better off hitting your thumb with a hammer, it's less painful. Because the postal worker will find out about it & he will punish you for it as long as you are there to take the punishment.

[Stephen M.]

But GM, if you only had a newspaper ad in place, you might never have found out the background on the guy. Unless you pay for a background check, the guy would still lie his as* off on the application or at the interview about having been in trouble.

Here's a sobering fact about most people applying for work: half of all applicants are lying about their qualifications on their resumue/application.

Here's what I have done to get "qualified" applicants when I go thru the state WorkSource program:
*Minimun 6 months on the job experience

*Must have operated lawn equipment during that time. Alot of applicants claim "landscaping" experience, but "landscaping installation" is NOT the same as "landscape Maintenance" experience.

******MUST HAVE VALID WA STATE DRIVERS LICENSE*************

I told them NOT to send me applicants who do not have a bonifide, actual license and it must be verifiable. People will lie on the application that they have a license, but they "forgot" to mention it was in suspension.

To get what/who I want, I put in a very specific job order into the system; if you don't, you get all of the bottom of the gene pool, like GMs guy.

[Elwood]

Networking, networking, networking.

Most of my best employees came from people I know or people who my other employees knew. My existing employees would know what it takes to cut the mustard and would not mention a dead-beat to me, only great workers.

Ask friends and relatives (not them personally to work), but if they know of someone who would be a good employee. Let them know what you expect and wherever you get a name from, learn how to pre-qualify them and interview them.

[worth]

I am starting a lawn care business and I am thinking about having teachers and retired folk work for me. Is this a good idea or not?????????

[worth]

Sorry to post back to back threads but I do not want to be one of those new lawn care business's that comes in and tries to under-cut the competion. Out of respect for the established companies I would like to know the appropriate way to go about getting customers without chopping the competition off at the knee's.

[NightWorker]

worth, spend some time each night on this site. USE THE SEARCH TOOL. Call the competion and ask for price quote. Use the search tool again to find out to find out how you might want to apply the knowledge you will gain. This site has a vast pool of information and experiance and will show you close to everything you can think of. Heck they even have templates for fliers and just about everything else. I'm not trying to avoid your questions it's just that you need more specifics in forming the question and the more time you spend researching you'll find people that post topics and then you could PM them .................................................. ...................... possibilities are endless Good luck ANDI know you'll find EVEYTHING ABOUT STARTING UP ON THE SITE ps. welcome to lawn service forum glad to have you here DO enjoy

[MGO]

Worth.....

Base your business on quality, reliability, professionalism. Do not try to sell your services based on being the cheapest guy......you will put yourself out of business. That was the best advice I picked up here on this sight when I joined in 2004.

Understand all of your costs and expenses so that you don't undersell yourself. The business will come to you REGARDLESS of pricing once you have established yourself as a RELIABLE, PROFESSIONAL, and QUALITY company.

A lot of my new customers are neighbors of existing customers.....they see the work I do and they very very rartely hesitate when I give a price.....usually it is an immediate "do it".

[Blake]

I've found that college students are the best way to go. Sometimes I have to work around their schedule but it's never been a problem. Students have goals and they want to better themselves where a 21 year old that's just looking for a job is still just a 21 year old looking for a job, he will leave you anytime for the next best job he comes accross. The student is is not a long term employee but I don't want a guy who is satisfied with an eight dollar an hour career.
One of my past employees is a commercial pilot now, one is a sucessful financial planner with a masters degree. One is the head greenskeeper at a very nice golf course in N.C. They all finished college whlie they were working for me & they keep in touch.
On the other hand I never went to college & I was a good employee before starting my own service. The best advice I can give is if a guy doesn't catch on right away or is late for work, don't waste any time with him.

[frematj]

Problems finding workers late in the season

I'm in MN and was wondering if you guys had problems when the college or high school kids would go back to work. Would you just tell your customers that service will terminate at the end of August or what?

[Ajinx]

I'm in MN and was wondering if you guys had problems when the college or high school kids would go back to work. Would you just tell your customers that service will terminate at the end of August or what?

We just decided to hire too and I'm currently looking for places to advertise. I personally think a student would work well for us. If they could still put in a few hours a week even to HELP with fall clean ups I think it would be okay. Seems like grass gets burnt out a bit in Minnesota by August/September unless they're irrigating a lot. I'm hoping we'll slow down by then.