Construction Trailblazers: Paving The Way to Excellence

Samantha C Prestidge: [00:00:00] Hiring shouldn't feel like an endless uphill battle, but in construction it often does. Between the skills gap, high turnover, and outdated hiring practices, companies are making it way harder on themselves than it needs to be. Enter Shawna Armstrong, a hiring systems expert who knows exactly where businesses are getting in their own way.

Welcome to construction trailblazers, paving the way to excellence, the podcast where we cut through the noise to uncover what truly drives success in the building industry. I'm Samantha C. Prestidge, your guide in simplifying operations and helping you make managing your team simpler.

You can explore our past episodes at constructiontrailblazers. com and start your journey to excellence.

In this episode, we're diving into the real reasons companies struggle to fill roles, why overcomplicating your hiring process might be hurting you, [00:01:00] and how to build a system that actually works without drowning in resumes or wasting money on bad hires. So hi, Shawna, welcome to the show. We're so happy to have you here.

We connected on LinkedIn and one of the interesting things I saw was that you have this. Awesome content is awesome message in the construction industry, but it's only in recent years that you've really focused on construction. So tell us a little bit about that career journey and kind of what you're enjoying and learning about the industry now.

Shawna Armstrong: Thank you for having me and thank you for the compliment. Yeah, so I have been in recruitment and hiring for about 30 years or so. The majority of that was spent in, more of like corporate. Talent acquisition where I worked for a recruitment outsourcing firm that was more of a fortune 500 company that did hiring for other fortune 500 companies.

So I worked across Industries across job levels [00:02:00] in , high volume, strategic, hard to fill and developed a real expertise. in recruitment and hiring but didn't like the way that it was done in the large corporate setting.

So a few years ago I actually lost my job, which was a blessing in disguise. And I joined BuildWIT, which was At the time a smaller media company that was servicing the heavy civil construction industry. And when I saw that job posting, my eyes lit up because. It was an opportunity to serve the blue collar world, which my husband is a blue collar guy, and long story short, seeing the way that he was treated as a blue collar worker both inside and outside of work just gave me that, like, no, these are jobs that are super important to society and that are [00:03:00] really, really hard and take a lot of grit and, you know, humility.

And I just admired him so much. And I guess that was sort of my way to protect him by serving and trying to make the industry that he works in a better place, you know, clear up mis perceptions about the industry shine a light on it, shine a light on the people that work there and make the industry itself a better place to work than it historically has been

so that's how I got. Into construction. I spent about three years with build with and then two years ago I went off on my own and I build hiring systems for smaller growing construction companies that don't really have hiring process or systems in place.

Samantha C Prestidge: You are definitely the person that, when our teams are falling apart, we need to call on to help get it all [00:04:00] back together.

But I didn't realize that your husband was in the blue collar world. And so I do have an appreciation for like the fiery protectiveness and the love story behind your career journey, which I think is really cool. Also on that front though, you kind of have the heaviness of how maybe he was treated in his blue collar job, alongside the heaviness of Ultimate corporate.

I mean like fortune 500 serving fortune 500. I think there are times Especially with so much linkedin content. It's easy to delude ourselves of like, oh, yeah things have changed There's more good people in business obviously we want great culture like that sometimes feels very basic when you are On linkedin or just really absorbing content all the time And just to remind ourselves like nope Things can still really suck in corporate.

Were there any parallels that you saw when you were hiring in corporate, and like, then what you also saw your husband going through?

Shawna Armstrong: Not so much from a hiring perspective, but he worked in a genetic and cancer [00:05:00] research. Laboratory slash teaching institution. So half of the workforce there was, , white collar scientists, fundraisers and people of that nature and faculty.

And then the other half of the workforce there was the whole facilities because there were, dorms and classrooms and offices and they're actually mansions on site that like the top leadership actually lived in. And the defining moment for me was when. He, he ran to, to tend to an emergency with power generation during a storm and, I think he parked you know, in, a parking spot that he wasn't supposed to be in or something.

And the HR person came out, berated him for parking in that spot, and then had called his whole department knuckle draggers. [00:06:00]

Samantha C Prestidge: Oh, no.

Shawna Armstrong: Yeah. So, you know, Nobody's going to talk about like that. That was just they me so angry and I think that just sparked my whole love for the trades and the people that work in the trades and just wanting to elevate the perception of, of the importance of what they do and the difficulty.

Samantha C Prestidge: And also, like, not that we want to reminisce on gossip, right? And maybe this person was having a really bad day. But the fact that it wasn't just, the executive or something. This is the HR person who's supposed to be, pulling people together, right? To come out and just belittle someone. And really go against probably all like the cultural values of this company.

I'm going to assume that just really sucks. I'm sorry that you guys went through that, but also we got to appreciate what it sparked, and kind of what you've been able to do with that frustration now. So going back to like our intro, we talked about how. Companies [00:07:00] oftentimes like way overcomplicate something.

That's something I see a lot as well in trying to fill certain roles, but also in processes. It's so easy to overcomplicate things. So we think that hiring should be simple. Like you post a job, you pick the best candidate, bada bing, bada boom, right? But why does it really feel so hard sometimes?

Shawna Armstrong: Well, hiring, is it simple or is it hard?

Both, and it depends. So, having no system, is Easy you know, no setup. But it's hard to deliver because it's going to be very, manually administratively intensive, disorganized and reactive. A simple system is easy to set up and easy to deliver. A complex system, right? Sometimes you'll you'll have like a long complex process with an applicant tracking system that you know, it has people create [00:08:00] a profile and a password to log in and then upload the resume and then.

After you upload the resume, then go ahead and type everything in that's on your resume into the application form and then, have just all this hoops and red tape and approvals. So a complex system is hard to set up and hard to deliver. So being thoughtful in what you implement for the sake of both the hiring team and your candidates experience.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah, it's so easy sometimes to then think of, okay, like, what do we need as the hiring team? What do we need to make a decision? And we completely forget about the candidate's experience, which they are somewhat your customer, because you do want them to enjoy their process with you and their journey and every touch point is introducing them to how you do things,

so if the job application process feels clunky, they're gonna assume that like, Every other process you have is [00:09:00] also clunky and maybe that's not an enjoyable place to work. I also want us to take a step back and sometimes it's really easy for us when we are in the stuff to just say system. And as consultants, we just kind of know what that means.

I even though sometimes we'll use system to refer to a tech stack in a software instead of using systems to refer to our processes and how we do things. So can you just. expand on the concept of what exactly is a hiring system and, and what should it do for the company?

Shawna Armstrong: Yeah, that's a great question because it's something that I sort of put together and labeled a system.

And so my system is three S's. It's software story and screening. So, the software is your applicant tracking system, your story is your recruitment marketing, your job postings, and then screening is your [00:10:00] application questions to help you efficiently filter through people and prioritize people, as well as your interviews and interview guides.

Samantha C Prestidge: I love the simplicity there. I always love a good kind of acronym and the SSS there. So what I'm also hearing there is these are very simple pieces, but when we don't have a piece, the rest of it can kind of fall apart. So how do all of those really connect to each other? And why would it matter to make sure that we have all three of those really excelling?

Shawna Armstrong: Well, okay. So it goes back to kind of where I was. Banging my head in corporate hiring where our clients had all sorts of hiring problems. And everything, no matter what it was, was always driven back to you need to get us more people. Like as the, as the recruitment and hiring vendor, you need to get us more people.

[00:11:00] So, you know, my, my question would be, if you, you think you have a hiring problem, what do you mean by hiring problem? Are you having a problem finding people? If so, then, then yes, we need to get you more people. Or are you having a problem getting them to respond or are you having a problem keeping them interested in the opportunity, or is it getting them through the process, or is it making the right hires.

So solving for the right problem is going to typically include, one of, or all three of those things.

So it could mean expanding your reach, getting more organized and proactive. That's what the software is going to do. It could be developing your presence, which is your brand, your website, your networking, your engagement, the content that you're putting out.

It could be [00:12:00] improving your recruitment marketing. That's going to be your job postings and your social posting. It could be fixing why people aren't interested. So maybe it's the schedule, it's the location, it's the travel, it's the compensation. And maybe you can or have to change some of those things.

And maybe you can't change some of those things. So you need to talk about them in a way that's going to resonate with the people that like those things. I say, with job postings, tell it like it is to the people who want it for what it is. There are people who love to travel. There are people who hate to travel.

If you say must be willing to travel That sounds like a negative thing, right? Or you get to be a road warrior and see all of these, you know, beautiful places across the country. So, that's part of your story or your job postings.

And [00:13:00] then evaluating your screening or selection process might be, Part of the fix. Well, that's going to be in the questions you're asking, are you being biased? Are you being too rigid in your perception of what somebody should look like? Or the last, the very last one is fixing the, the solution might mean fixing internal issues.

Because you've got a lot of turnover, so finding more people will not fix many of those problems. I always equate that to trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it. So the right answer to the wrong question is wrong. And so the software, the story, job descriptions, or the screening interview guides.

Are kind of hit on all of those.

Samantha C Prestidge: I definitely want to go [00:14:00] back to the idea of like, Oh yeah, we just need more people. We need more people. My kind of professional career at least started in the recruiting space. And I did a lot of like warehouse and customer call center recruiting. And it was always interesting, how often they just wanted more people.

And in my mind, I was like, Oh. How does this staffing company still have a contract with this company? Like if they always need more people than like we're obviously not doing our job, right? there's a lot of turnover here. So but this is like in my in my youth, right? So I didn't feel comfortable speaking up, but it always sat with me like this is a really weird problem if you're just constantly needing more people and it's not because There's an increase in your client or customer projects or something.

Shawna Armstrong: So I love what you said of the right answer to the wrong question is still wrong. We need to get to the root cause of something and then figure out what we need to do next

and just to answer about kind of the dysfunctional relationship between clients and, and staffing [00:15:00] agencies. And I banged my head on the wall enough times to understand the nature of the dysfunction.

Shawna Armstrong: And, why speaking up doesn't get you anywhere is because the client doesn't want to hear it because it's much easier for them to blame the staffing agency or the vendor as the scapegoat of the problem. You're not getting us enough people, you're not getting us the right people, rather than having to take a look at what's wrong on their side that they need to fix.

And then on the vendor side my leadership team didn't want to hear it because. If our client has 100 percent turnover, that's recurring revenue. There you go. Money, money, money, just be quiet and keep filling jobs.

Samantha C Prestidge: Yeah. Oh, but then you're like, you're left dissatisfied with the idea of like. [00:16:00] Ugh, I know things could be better.

And I think that's also something that carries into our businesses of we don't want to just invoice to invoice our clients. We want to actually solve the problem. And I can see in your work that you have a similar sentiment. But you know, the, in the recruiting days, it's just fill a position and get to the next thing.

And you love when there's temp and project stuff because that's more money in their pockets. Right.

Shawna Armstrong: Yeah. I didn't fit in well there. I was a Winky wheel and

Samantha C Prestidge: I wound up losing my job. Last thing in disguise. Yeah, totally fine. Okay. So yeah, going back to that, that question of rigidity, like when is too much clarity harmful?

Cause I'm always like clear clear, clear, clear on expectations, clear on feedback, clear on your needs. That's a big thing for me. But when does that get in our way? So, well, there's

Shawna Armstrong: clear and then there's. Custom, right? So thinking about a job description, you're looking to hire an experienced.

whatever, [00:17:00] superintendent. If you're putting out a list of every task that person might ever perform yes, it's clear. Yes, it's thorough, but it's not telling them. So, a superintendent knows what a superintendent does, right? I guess let's first clear up the, you know, definitions of a job description versus a job posting.

So a job description is a formal legal document that outlines the duties, responsibilities, and requirements. Of a position from an HR perspective, you legally have to have that on file so that you can say, we've made this person aware of what they're responsible to do and what are the requirements to obtain that position.

A job posting is a marketing tool that highlights the role in an appealing way to attract candidates. [00:18:00] For some reason, it was decided that the legal document should be used for marketing. Not the best idea. It doesn't really tell people what they want to hear. It doesn't, it doesn't say what's different about doing this job at this company.

at this time based on what they're experiencing and what their needs and challenges are. So taking those responsibilities and putting them into context and making them sound appealing to the right person. So I equate using the job description as the job posting to, you know, using the nutrition label to advertise food.

So if you were walking down the grocery store aisle and all the cereal boxes were turned sideways and all you could see were the nutrition labels with all of the ingredients and, you know, the percent of [00:19:00] fat and sugar and protein that wouldn't really be a great shopping experience.

Maybe if one of those boxes was turned sideways and you could see the cover of it, you'd be like, Oh, you know, that looks, that looks good.

Samantha C Prestidge: I love that analogy, but it's also bringing up the childhood memories of my mom saying like you can only pick out cereal that has less than 10 grams of sugar, which was also her budget friendly way,

of like, Now we're not going to get Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Fruity Pebbles or any of that stuff because it has 11 or 12. And I'm like, but it's just one more gram, mom. She's like, is it more than 10? Then no, right? So that was her decision making process, but it also wasn't, it's It's not the fun, like, appealing, draw you in, decision making process.

So I love kind of equating that with the nutritional values. Okay, so how, how else then, when it, when it is a marketing tool, because I've also seen back in my employee days when I was looking for jobs, you have those. Kind of corporate illegal job descriptions that are so [00:20:00] vague that you're like, I'm just going to apply for this because the job title sounds like something that I can do.

And on the flip, then you had some companies that went so big on the marketing side, but then it was just three paragraphs about the company. And I'm like, I'm not going to read all of this until I maybe get an interview. Okay. This is too much information on the company and not enough on really what's expected of me.

So how do we find that balance between. Clarity and that marketing attracting and building the story,

Shawna Armstrong: So the point of the job posting as a marketing tool is, , to tell people what, what is the mission of this role in this context. Right? Are you coming in there to build a department from scratch? Are you coming in there to turn around a failing department? Are you coming in there just to keep things running smoothly because things are running great but the person running it left?

You know, just [00:21:00] to put all of the context around the environment that the person's going to be operating in and what is the team like and how do we collaborate here and, how are we going to support you?

How are we going to be the answer to your problem at your current position right now which has prompted you to, , casually scroll through job postings and, and see what's out there. Those are the things that aren't in a typical job description that go in the job posting.

Samantha C Prestidge: I like that approach because again, it's simple and we're finding that balance of what does the candidate need and also like what does the company need? So going back to, we connected a little bit on The suckiness of recruiting and staffing, right? It's a going back to like those companies don't always like to look internally at their problems.

And you'd also touched on this a bit earlier of it's not just about finding more people. [00:22:00] It's about really addressing the issue, is it a software? Is it a story? Is it a screening issue? Where are the hiring problems for us to actually address them? And sometimes it is management and training or some kind of cultural problem disguised as a hiring problem.

And how do you really get leaders to understand the difference and open their eyes to what that root cause is in hiring?

Shawna Armstrong: There's no one size fits all. There's no one best. Hiring practice. And so that's sort of an initial conversation that I have with a client is really to just walk through, what are you doing now?

What's working, what's not working, where are your gaps, where are your bottlenecks, what are your pain points? And then you're just kind of like walking through to see where those challenges. And if it's a problem that can be solved with software, story, or screening, and making the right [00:23:00] hires also that could be an internal problem and it could also be a hiring problem. So kind of making the distinction between that. Is it an internal problem where they're not a fit so we had to let them go or they're not happy? So they left, or is it a hiring problem, meaning we did not communicate things clear enough or accurate enough up front, so that when this person came on the job, they were surprised by something, that they weren't expecting.

And so if it's an internal problem, you know, I would typically tell a company to go fix that first, because you don't want to keep adding. People that are just going to then turn around and leave. So I always kind of say work backwards. Think of it as like an assembly line. If people are, falling off towards the end, go fix that part before you front load more people on there.

Samantha C Prestidge: I mean, so often we just need that trusted advisor. That person's going to be humble and transparent [00:24:00] of like, Hey. This is not a problem that I solve, right? And the shameless plug here is if you need to solve something before working with Shawna, that's what our team at OXO does is we help solve those manager and process issues.

But kind of on that point of a candidate not working out, a lot of times companies can find candidates that look really great on paper and then they bring them in and that candidate just kind of sucks. And sometimes that is. To your point of this is like an onboarding and training problem or some internal manager process stuff.

And sometimes, it is the candidate. They rocked the interview, they had an awesome resume, but they just really cannot perform at the level needed. And so looking at the, that screening pillar of your 3 S's, what are the ways that us as hiring managers can pull out more of those red flags to be more confident in our hiring decisions?

Shawna Armstrong: Yeah. When, when bad hires look good and the best hires look bad, right? So a polished resume [00:25:00] and a charismatic interview does not equal a top performer. And on the flip side of that, a weak resume and weak interview skills does not equal a poor performer. So we tend to make assumptions. That are often faulty, which cause us to make bad hires and reject good ones.

So, some of those common resume red flags you hear this person's a job hopper, you know, not interested. They haven't worked in two years. They came from XYZ company and I don't like the way that company does business. And they were trained in the wrong environment, not interested.

They live too far away. And a lot of times I'll see, you know, those resumes get rejected without even a conversation, like the assumption is made [00:26:00] based on, what's showing on the resume. Now remember people are not professional resume writers.

Some people will pay for a professional resume writer and have a great resume. And they're experts at their craft, at their trade. And so there are lots of reasons why somebody would have frequent job changes. Say, for example, right, they may be a job hopper, it's one possibility that, you know, they're a toxic employee and they can't keep a job.

It's also another possibility that they've been working contract jobs or they've been working, in short term positions where they've done, a lot of travel, for a temporary projects. There are a lot of things that Could have affected their employment that were of no fault of their own. But, the initial assumption that you have in your head may or may not be true. So, give the benefit of the [00:27:00] doubt and ask the question.

You know, it looks like you've had, you know, five jobs in the last seven years. Kind of walk me through that, what led you from one thing to the next. And you may find that, oh, okay, like that wasn't what I had assumed at all. And this person's got their, got their act together.

, I've come across resumes where, it looked like the person hadn't worked in two years, and I've had this happen. Oh, yeah, that was an old resume. I wasn't really looking.

I didn't have updated resume. I saw this opportunity. It looked really great. But yes, I am currently working. The new job just isn't on my resume. Or they may have been taking some time off to care for a sick patient. Family member. Is that a reason that you wouldn't want to hire somebody?

So, again, an assumption, this person's been out of work, they've been sitting on their ass for two years, that, that could be true, but also , a multitude of [00:28:00] other explanations that, you know, that could be there. If they came from XYZ company, then you don't like the way that company does business.

Maybe that's why this person doesn't want to work there anymore, because they don't like the way they do business. Either. You know, then there's the over under qualified issue and, over qualified couple things. Is it that you think that, , you want to pay somebody less? Or is it that you think that the person doesn't have very many years left to contribute to your company,

so you know, I recently had had a client that was hiring for a senior level position and this person, was later on in their career and said that they wanted to work for about, you know, 10 more years. And he wasn't really excited about this candidate and potentially thinking about not hiring him because he wanted, somebody that was going to, , kind of be a [00:29:00] lifer at the company.

And I said, well, first of all, you can never, predict that, like people come and go, like 10 years is a long, long time. Is a really long time and, and a lot can happen in 10 years, including. this person that can be up and running very quickly because they've got a wealth of knowledge and experience and they can add value immediately and also have time to bring on and mentor their eventual replacement and then, you know, the underqualified is, , sometimes I see, like, oh, it must have like five to seven years experience. And I'm like, well, what, why five to seven? Are you, if somebody's got four and a half years of experience, and they're really, really strong, are you going to not consider them?

So, look into further, like, what are the goals? Yeah. Yeah. of this person? What is their timeline? You know, what is their potential to add value short term and long term? , not just skills wise. And then the last one is, you know, lives too [00:30:00] far away.

So, why the hell is this guy applying, you know, for this job, from 200 miles away, not interested? Well, it turns out. They were relocating back to the area with their family and were looking for a job in the local area, even though they still, live in the other location. And this was, you know, somebody that was was going to be dismissed from, the resume review based on the city, state and zip code that they live in and was actually hired.

So that's just from a resume perspective, like. The best hire may not impress on paper. And the worst hire may impress only on paper.

Samantha C Prestidge: It all goes back to like that custom clarity though, really understanding like what you need, and going back to the person that 10 years like that, they've got.

a lot of viable years to give in the work world. And you can't just dismiss them there. And I've seen some companies that they have actually [00:31:00] relished in finding someone that wants to retire in three to four years because they can maybe turn a whole department around before they retire.

They have all this experience. That's enough time for them to Pick things back up and then still maybe not as much time as you'd want for them to mentor a successor, but still enough time to get processes in place and train someone new. And so not to get too far into the ageist conversation, but there are oftentimes benefits to having someone that is maybe closer to retirement.

And only has that three to four years down and also going to how are we discounting people just on their resume and the reach of things. So when we hire for , our virtual assistants are, which are like fractional admins we often post on Indeed. We often don't have to post beyond that because we'll get 400 people just off of Indeed.

And we have very few disqualifiers at just the resume and application process. And after that, we send them a questionnaire and that really gives us [00:32:00] at least opening the conversation to get to know them a little bit more and hoping that not every answer on there is AI and chat GPT written, but there's very few people out of those 400 that will say no to simply based off of their resume, because there's so much to learn about somebody That's not on their resume.

Kind of to all of your points. So if we were to really kind of bring all the strategy together , I think when it comes to hiring, there's so many different Areas that our listeners can go to clean things up. And so instead of really looking at best, one next step to take, I'd love our listeners to just have a clean slate on strategy.

So when you look at some of the best hiring practices that are spewed out there, which are the ones that are just total Bs that people should shel and walk away from, and what should they replace that with?

Shawna Armstrong: Well, two things come to mind. The first is that Evaluating your hiring [00:33:00] based on the metrics of speed and volume.

You know, if you're submitting or hiring a lot of people very quickly does not equal quality system, quality output, quality experience, quality candidate. And so, , at corporate we were like living and dying by those metrics, right? You get an increased volume, increased speed, that those were the metrics for success.

And that was one of the things that completely frustrated me. And I think if you start with quality. a quality process, a quality system, quality marketing, quality screening, that is going to drive Speed and volume, because if it's good, they will come but just chasing, the speed and volume metrics was very, very self defeating and it just continued to exaggerate the problems [00:34:00] further and further the second thing is more applicable to Construction industry.

And the thing that I think is I would call BS on is just resigning to, the belief that there is a skills shortage and nobody wants to work. Okay. It's more of maybe not so much calling BS, but saying yes, and so yes, people have been steered away from the trades and there's There's more jobs opening than people coming into backfill, and there's still people coming into the industry

with trade schools and, you know, going out to high schools and doing things like that, you know, to, to help to solve your own problem in your own backyard. And then, yes, there are some people who don't want to work and there are plenty of people who [00:35:00] definitely do want to work. And is it, do they not want to work, or do they not want to work for you, and if so, why?

Samantha C Prestidge: Let's look in the mirror a little bit. Oh, I love the, the little bit of a call out, which we need sometimes. We need someone that's going to ask those tough questions and point us in the right direction. Yeah, there are plenty of people that want to work. We had a guest on a few weeks ago where he works with Miller Electric Company and he's always integrating with high schools and finding those people and we'll have Christina McMillan on in a few weeks and she's out at Dunwoody College and is gonna teaching intro to construction and there's this whole Gen Z, Gen Alpha group of kids that want to come into construction and want to learn and they want to work but they are not going to put up with some of the crappy traditional practices that we've seen in the past 20 or even 50 years.

So those are amazing drops of wisdom. Thank you so much for joining us today, Shawna. If you want to learn more about her, we will link her website as well as [00:36:00] her LinkedIn in the show notes for you. And if you have your own story on hiring in the construction industry, or just how you've trailblazed and have been different as a leader in the industry, then we'd love to hear it.

You can reach out to us at hello at construction trailblazers. com and we'll catch you next time.