Common Hiring Mistakes Costing Roofing Contractors Top Talent

Robbie Kerr, Director of roofing recruitment specialists The Externals Group, discusses the most common hiring mistakes roofing contractors make and how to avoid losing out on top industry talent.

Robbie Kerr, Director at The Externals Group

ROOFING companies aren’t short on talent, they’re losing it through hiring mistakes.

Many contractors are unknowingly pushing away quality candidates. Here, we look at the seven most dangerous mistakes recruiters see and how to avoid them.

Dragging Out the Hiring Process

In any niche it’s usually a candidate-driven market, which means one good candidate could have multiple contractors wanting them at the same time. Their best bet is to interview with each and assess the best fit. If your process takes two weeks to get feedback, three weeks between interviews that get rescheduled, and six steps in total, the company with a two to three-stage process over two weeks is going to beat you every time and get the candidates you want.

Unless you have a truly unique offering (which most companies don’t), there’s no reason for a candidate to wait. If your attitude is “if they don’t want to wait, we don’t want them”, then you are the problem.

With AI, automated scheduling, shared calendars, and auto-responses, there’s no reason for the process to drag on that long. In most cases, two to three weeks for a large SME is fine and one to two for a small contractor is the sweet spot.

Vague or Generic Job Descriptions

Vague job descriptions, or those completely written by ChatGPT, are not going to give any impression of what it’s like to do the job or work for your company. If you received a resume that simply states “worked with a team”, you would likely dismiss it instantly. Yet we see this same vague phrasing on job descriptions and ads all the time. Attention is everything right now and you’re not going to get it with that.

People, especially the ones looking for jobs, need punchy, to-the-point, and personable descriptions to stand out. Give them more. For example, “You’ll be working with a team of six assisting the manager in the office and out on various sites” catches much more attention.

Relying Only on Job Boards

Job boards can be useful for active candidates, if their resume has the right keywords, and if your ad does too. The problem is, there are a huge number of ads competing for attention.

Time and again we speak to candidates about jobs they’ve never seen, yet they’ve been active on job boards and the company’s ad has been live for months. Working with recruiters combats this well as recruiters have access to a large amount of tools and network, but I would advise only working with the right recruiters, as too many can damage your reputation. Even if working with an agency isn’t on the cards, LinkedIn, career fairs, referrals, and references go a long way to attract more candidates.

Ignoring Cultural Fit

If someone is great on paper, they answered all the right questions, but they won’t gel with the team you have: don’t hire them, or place them somewhere they do fit.

Skills and experience are important, but culture has equal importance. We’ve all had colleagues we don’t gel with and it can make coming to work uncomfortable, whether you’re the new hire who doesn’t fit or a tenured employee forced to work with someone abrasive. This is one of the top reasons people start to look elsewhere, and it’s valid. It’s important to fit in with the people you spend the majority of your time with.

Failing to Sell the Role

If you have a quality candidate in front of you yet you’re only interested in them selling themselves to you without giving back, the chances are, unless they’re desperate, you aren’t going to win them. Companies may get uncomfortable with the idea of “selling,” but it’s vital. If you can’t show someone what their future could honestly look like in the position or in your company, how are they going to see it? And if they can’t see it, they have no reason to join beyond a salary.

In roofing, this could mean highlighting the chance to run projects with major manufacturers like Carlisle or GAF, getting exposure to large-scale commercial re-roofs, or showing a clear pathway from foreman to project manager can also make your role stand out.

Skipping Reference Checks

I should really say skipping any checks, but I can’t stress enough how important this is. While you may succeed in hiring the candidate, the damage they could do to the team can be serious, even driving away your existing top talent.

Reference checks aren’t about ticking boxes. They’re your chance to confirm reliability, safety record, and leadership qualities. Even one quick conversation with a past employer can save months of headaches and help protect the people already on your team.

Lowballing the Offer

Salary expectations should be set early in the process to save everyone time. If you’ve discussed a salary, it’s in budget, and the candidate meets the criteria, yet you offer £5,000 less to save some money, it doesn’t open things to negotiation and ultimately leaves a bad impression. It gives a good candidate the feeling of being undervalued before they’ve even started. This makes people question whether they should join a company that doesn’t see their value, especially if it’s below market rate. For the most part, this is unsalvageable. Even if you later go back and offer market rate or above, the damage is done.

You don’t need to restructure your whole hiring process straight away, but if any of these ring true then a conversation should be had. Small changes in the hiring process can make a huge difference in hiring top performers, and this will impact your hiring dramatically for the better over the long term.

>> Read more recruitment advice in the news