A helper who quits at week six costs you somewhere between $4,000 and $9,000. Not in severance — in the two weeks you spent training him instead of producing, the jobs you ran slow while he learned, the callback on the work he botched, and the three weeks you spend finding the next guy. Then you do it again.
Most contractors treat hiring like a craigslist transaction. Post, interview, start Monday, hope. The ones who build a crew treat it like a pipeline they keep warm all year, plus a structured first 90 days that makes staying feel better than leaving.
Here’s what actually works.
First, price the revolving door
Before you decide hiring is too expensive, price not hiring correctly. Here’s a realistic cost of one helper who washes out at day 45:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Your training time: 40 hrs at your $75/hr billable rate | $3,000 |
| Reduced crew output, weeks 1–6 (est. 20% slower) | $1,800 |
| One callback caused by inexperience | $600 |
| Boots, basic tools, phone line, uniform shirts | $450 |
| Recruiting time for the replacement: 15 hrs | $1,125 |
| Total | $6,975 |
That number is why you don’t hire the first warm body who answers the ad. It’s also why spending two extra weeks finding the right person is cheap.
If you haven’t yet decided between W-2 and 1099 help, settle that before you recruit — first employee vs. subcontractors walks the real cost comparison. This article assumes you’ve decided to hire an employee.
The channels that still work
Indeed and Craigslist are where everyone fishes, which is why the water is picked over. The resumes you get there are mostly people who are unemployed right now, which is a different group than people who are good right now.
Work these instead, roughly in order of hit rate.
1. Trade school instructors (not the career office)
Every regional trade school, community college program, and union pre-apprenticeship has instructors who know exactly which students show up on time and which ones don’t. The career services office will blast your posting to everybody. The instructor will text you one name.
Call the program directly. Ask for the instructor, not admissions. Say: “I run a four-person electrical shop in the county. I hire one or two people a year and I pay for ride-alongs. Who’s your best student who isn’t already spoken for?”
Offer a paid shadow day — eight hours at $20/hour is $160 to find out whether somebody can carry material without complaining. A paid trial day is the single highest-value screening tool in the trades. Resumes lie. A day on a roof doesn’t.
2. Supply house counter staff
This is the best-kept hiring channel in the trades and almost nobody uses it deliberately.
Your counter guy knows product, reads plans, handles customers, and already knows the names of half the contractors in town. He is also probably making $19–$24 an hour with no path up. You can offer $26 plus a truck and a license path.
Two things to watch. First, don’t poach from a branch you depend on without talking to the manager — you need that relationship more than you need any one hire. Second, counter staff usually have zero field hours. They know the parts, not the install. Budget six months to field-competent.
3. Your own suppliers, subs, and competitors’ crews
The best helper you’ll ever hire is someone you’ve already watched work. Think about the last two years of jobsites. Which framing crew had a kid who kept the site clean? Which plumber’s apprentice labeled his own shutoffs?
Keep a note on your phone called “People.” Every time you see somebody good on a site, write the name, the trade, and where you saw them. When you’re ready to hire, you don’t start cold — you start with eleven names.
On poaching your direct competitors: it happens, and the trades are small. The rule most people settle on is that you don’t actively recruit off a GC’s crew on an active shared job, but if somebody calls you, you take the call. Know that whatever you do will get back around.
4. Current employees’ referrals, paid properly
If you have even one good employee, a referral bonus works — but the usual structure ($500 on hire) pays for warm bodies. Pay for retention instead:
- $250 when the referral completes 30 days
- $500 more when the referral completes 180 days
Your employee now has a reason to help the new guy succeed instead of watching him fail.
5. Facebook groups and local trade pages
Regional contractor groups and “[County] Jobs” pages still produce. Post from your personal account, not a business page — personal posts get more reach and people trust a face. Include the pay range. A post without a number gets ignored by exactly the people you want, because good tradespeople have no interest in wasting an afternoon finding out you pay $17.
What to put in the ad
Most trade job ads are identical and useless: “Seeking hardworking individual. Must have own transportation. Competitive pay.” That ad attracts people who don’t have other options.
Write this instead:
- The pay range, stated. “$22–$28/hr depending on experience.” Ranges with a top number get applications from people at the top.
- The actual schedule. “Monday–Thursday, 7am–4:30pm. We are home by 5. Rare Fridays, paid overtime.” Predictable hours is the single biggest recruiting advantage a small shop has over a big one.
- What they’ll learn, by name. “In year one you’ll run service calls solo and sit for your journeyman hours.” Apprentices leave jobs where they stop learning.
- One sentence of honesty. “This is residential service. Some crawlspaces. Some attics in August.” Self-selection saves you both time.
- How to apply, simply. A phone number and “text me your name and what you’ve worked on.” Application portals filter out good field people who hate paperwork.
The pay structure that stops the revolving door
Flat hourly with vague promises of “we’ll see how it goes” is the revolving door. Good helpers leave not because $24 is too low but because $24 looks the same in month eighteen as it did on day one.
Replace it with a published ladder. Example for a service trade — your numbers will differ by market and trade, so build your own from your billable rate math:
| Level | Can do unsupervised | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Helper | Load, haul, demo, clean, hold the other end | $20 |
| Helper II | Pull and make up circuits, basic trim, stock the truck for tomorrow | $23 |
| Tech I | Run a simple service call alone, close out paperwork | $27 |
| Tech II | Diagnose, quote from the price book, run a one-day job solo | $32 |
Tie the raises to demonstrated skills, not to tenure or to asking. Write the skill list for each level on one page. Review it every 90 days. When he checks every box at a level, he moves up the next payroll period — no negotiation, no awkward conversation.
Two things that cost you little and retain hard:
- Tool allowance. $500–$750 a year, receipts required, tools stay with him. Costs you less than one week of turnover and it signals you expect him to be here next year.
- Paying for license hours and exam fees if he passes. In most states apprentices need documented hours under a licensed person. You’re the only one who can sign them. Check your state board for exactly what documentation you’re required to keep — it varies a lot, and getting it wrong can cost him a year.
Before you set any of these numbers, make sure you know your real loaded cost. $27/hour becomes roughly $32–$34 once payroll taxes and comp are in, which has to fit inside the rate math in what to charge per hour.
The 90-day plan
Most helpers quit in the first six weeks, and almost always for the same reason: they don’t know whether they’re doing a good job. Fix that with structure.
Days 1–5: one job, one person, one standard. He rides with you, not with whoever has room. End every day with five minutes in the truck: what went right, what to fix tomorrow. Write his hours and tasks down from day one — that’s both your job costing data and his license documentation.
Days 6–30: the checklist. Give him a one-page list of the twenty things a helper in your shop must be able to do without being told. Loading the truck for a service day. Setting up and breaking down. Photographing before and after on every job — if you don’t have that habit yet, jobsite photo documentation covers the system. He checks off items; you verify.
Day 30: the first real conversation. Fifteen minutes, scheduled, not in passing. Three questions: What’s confusing? What do you want to be doing in a year? Is anything about this job not what you expected? Then you tell him exactly where he stands against the ladder.
Days 31–60: first solo task. Give him something small he fully owns — the material pickup, the trim-out on the back bedroom, the dump run plus the receipt. Ownership beats pay for keeping a 23-year-old interested.
Day 60: the shaky-middle check. This is where attrition clusters. The new-job novelty is gone and the first raise isn’t here yet. Tell him the specific date of his 90-day review and the two skills standing between him and the next rate.
Day 90: review and move the number. If he hit the list, raise him on the next check. If he didn’t, say exactly what’s missing and set the next date. If he clearly won’t make it, this is the day you part ways — not month seven.
This week
Pick up the phone and call one trade school instructor in your area. Not to hire today — to introduce yourself and offer a paid shadow day the next time they’ve got someone good. That one call turns hiring from a panic search into a pipeline, and it costs you ten minutes.