[State of the Industry 2007] Casting Call

It’s not necessarily more difficult to attract applicants for pest management jobs; it is difficult, however, to attract qualified applicants, and the difficulty has increased in recent years.

Richard Weisman, president, Advanced Pest Control, Stafford, Texas, attributes this, in part, to today’s low unemployment rate, which has decreased the overall pool of applicants. But, he added, even with more applicants, finding quality employees is not easy. “We don’t have trouble attracting, we have trouble weeding out the unemployable,” he said.

Donnie Blake, president, OPC, Louisville, Ky., agreed. “It is difficult to get quality people coming in the door. We don’t really know why.” Blake said he believes many potential applicants still hold a negative perception of the technician position, seeing it as a lower-echelon job, which, he said, it’s not.

Such statements seemed to be validated by responses to PCT’s 2007 annual readership survey, in which 45 percent of respondents are finding it more difficult to recruit employees, almost 50 percent say it is about the same as 12 months ago, but only 5 percent are finding recruiting to be easier.

Combating this has been, at least in part, a matter of increasing salary; 54 percent of responding companies increased technician wages in the last year, on average by 8 percent. This increase is helping to attract more educated and technically skilled applicants, said Rusty Markland, general manager, Superior Pest Management, Ashland, Va. “The industry has grown so much that we are attracting a higher level of skill today,” he said. With technicians able to build their salaries through sales and referral commissions, he added, “Word of mouth gets around about the money people are making.”

WHOM COMPANIES SEEK. But hiring is more difficult today because of all the background checks and tests necessary, Markland said. Ten or 15 years ago, he said, “we could do it with limited research.” Now background checks are run on every potential employee regardless of the position for which they are applying. Superior also puts applicants through personality profiling and aptitude testing. “So when we finally bring somebody in, we’ve got a good idea where they fit,” he said.

“It’s not like the old days when you look across the desk and say ‘You look fine.’ And later that day he’s in training,” Blake said. Rather, intensive background checks need to be conducted on any employee. “Going through the process can be expensive and time consuming,” he said. “So to even begin the process, you have to be relatively sure you want them to be part of your team.”

Like the majority of companies responding to the survey, OPC checks driving records — as do 92 percent of respondents; performs a background check (80 percent); and conducts drug screening (54 percent). In any one of those areas, an applicant can drop off, Blake said. And once the applicant is hired, the company incurs further expenses before the technicians can begin working on their own, including uniforms, equipment and vehicle expenses, and state- and company-mandated training.

Kim Mummert, general manager, Atlantic Coast Exterminating, Woodbridge, Va., said hiring is one of the most difficult things a manager has to do today. “It’s hard to get knowledgeable people who know the difference between a spray jockey and a problem solver,” she said. Technicians today need to be able to do more than just provide basic pest control service, she said.

It is for such reasons that Mummert, and many pest management professionals, prefer to hire those without experience and train new employees to their own company’s practices. “When you train them, you can train them to be problem solvers,” Mummert explained.

And, the high cost of bringing on new employees makes it important to seek those who are interested in careers. “I look for career people rather than part timers,” Markland said.

HOW COMPANIES ATTRACT APPLICANTS. Salary and benefits are seen by many owner/operators as the best attractants for new applicants, as well as for retaining good employees. “The biggest thing in the pest industry is that we’re willing to pay for good people,” Markland said. This has changed from the past, he said, and is enabling the industry in general to attract higher-quality employees.

Although the high cost of benefits, particularly health care, is causing many companies to cut back in this area, Mummert sees these as essential to attracting and retaining employees. “That’s the one thing I find when hiring,” she said. “They are looking for health care more than anything.” Earning good benefits can also convince an applicant to accept a lower salary. As Mummert explains to applicants, “You are actually averaging a little more than what you were asking because I’m paying for all these benefits.”

Salary is almost always important to applicants, but not all of them understand the importance of benefits, Blake said. “There is a certain segment of the marketplace that doesn’t get benefits.” But if you can get them on board, you can then show them the value of such benefits as 401(k) match, vesting and health-care plans.

Where Pest Control Companies Seek Applicants

Online — Internet job posting is taking many companies away from newspaper classified ads. Richard Weisman, president, Advanced Pest Control, Stafford, Texas, no longer uses newspaper classifieds at all and has found that Internet postings elicit good quality applicants. “We’ve gotten away from the newspaper completely,” said Donnie Blake, president, OPC, Louisville, Ky. The company is seeing limited success with online advertising, generating good office staff applicants, but fewer technicians.

Superior Pest Management, Ashland, Va., however, has found success in sticking with the tried and true. “We do it the old-fashioned way of running ads in the paper,” said Rusty Markland, general manager, adding that he has not had much success with online advertising. “They’re not looking for what we are,” he said.

Hire A Hero — Weisman has found veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are ideal candidates for pest management positions. They often have difficulty finding jobs because their skill sets are not those that are “normal” for the workplace, but, he said, they are generally good people who are independent and able to think on their feet. To attract the returning vets, Weisman posts on www.hireahero.com.

Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) — Weisman also has found success with Administaff, a firm that serves as an HR department for Advanced Pest Control. Administaff assists not only with the hiring, but also with benefits management and general HR administration and compliance for Advanced.

Employee Referrals — Markland finds that employees can be
the best source of new employee referrals. “The best way is to harvest from families and friends,” he said. If the referring employee has a good work ethic, he or she will generally refer others who are of the same character.

Networking — Blake tells the story of two of his company’s service technicians who stopped by a convenience store each day on their way home. After getting to know the manager and finding out that he was not really happy with his job, they recommended that he apply to OPC. “He’s now working for us,” Blake said. “Sometimes you have to think outside the box,” he tells employees, adding that if they see someone who they think would be a good fit, make the recommendation.

International Hiring — OPC is starting to look at increasing its international hiring to increase productivity. The thought, Blake said, is to set up teams in which there would be a lead person along with entry-level workers to perform more manual labor-type jobs. He said the company wants to determine if such teams could be more productive than its current set up.

Although hiring is considered a challenging charge for most pest management companies, the investments made in new employees make it is critical that managers apply the time and attention needed to do the job correctly.

“It’s better not to hire anyone than to hire just to replace. It’s better to be shorthanded, ” Weisman said.