Looking for advice: How to hire someone in the construction industry

Long story short, I'm losing one of my primary employees. I run a small business -- fewer than 10 people, of whom 3 do the majority of the work and I'm losing one of those 3 -- in the construction industry, primarily in the Phoenix area. We have a couple specialties (building shade structures being one, AV construction rigging being another) and I need to hire one person or maybe two people. 

All of my current employees I've hired from referrals or because they've been people I've known. Now I find myself needing to branch out.

Those of you who have experience with this sort of thing, where would you recommend that I start in finding candidates? 

Not sure if this (my post) is a joke or not... My brother, an AA member who used to be a jack of all trades for a GC and is now an Electrician, said that his old boss used to go to AA meetings to find leads for new employees. 

If it were me, I'd probably find a high school shop teacher and ask if he knows any recently graduated kids who may be looking. 

I'm a Technical Director for a live performance theater, so I build sets, handle lights/sound/fx, etc.  When I got the go-ahead to hire a part time carpenter, I knew I needed a rockstar since I only got them 12 hours a week.

I put out the notice and got 5 resumes/cover letters.  Three of them I chucked in the trash.  They were young people looking to learn about theater and had zero experience.  I needed someone that I could just say "I need six 4x8 hollywood flats, a hogstrough soffit, and four triscuits with coffin locks," and I can walk away and work on designs and contracts.

So I did just that.  I scheduled each of the two people to come in on a different Monday for working interviews.  I needed some more Muslin flats anyway, so I asked them both to make two Muslin flats, starch-sized, and one 4x8 Hollywood flat.  Then I disappeared to my office and checked in on them on the security cameras from time to time.  They both actually did incredibly well, but one of them was completely hands-off.  The other one couldn't make choices.  They kept asking me how I preferred things to be done; how much starch, pocket hole screws or corner triangles, glue or staples.... the other one just came to me once and said "I'm done."

In trades like ours, a working interview is a brilliant way to assess how their hands and brains work.  No amount of fluffy resume is going to cut it.  Toss them a pile of 2x4s and ask them to build a stud wall, or give them a pencil and ask them to design an AV install and execute it after you've approved it.

If you figure out the trick, let me know. 

I have had zero luck with advertising and collecting resumes. The last time I tried netted zero people with the capability to tie their shoes or speak a coherent sentence. The one person who showed up for an interview was wearing cutoff jeans, flip flops, and a wife beater. 

The last person I hired was one of my sons. I stole him from the hospital he was working for. 

Toyman! said:

The one person who showed up for an interview was wearing cutoff jeans, flip flops, and a wife beater. 

If the fates ever aligned to where i was coming in for an interview with your company, i now have my interview clothes.  

You'd probably have better luck finding Bigfoot. 

All jokes aside, it's tough but here is my advice. Pay more. Think you pay a lot already? Pay more than that. Put up an ad on indeed or LinkedIn and advertise the hourly rate. Also tell people why this job won't suck. 

I get daily, sometimes hourly, messages from internal and external recruiters wanting to poach me (I'm a geotech engineer) since the market is hot and we're rare. The messages I get aren't even worth a response. They all want to pay me less money than I make now and/or their description is the exact copy paste of my job already. Why would I want to go through the hassle of changing jobs to do the exact same thing which has the potential to be under foot of an a-hole? 

I have 25 years of commercial construction in Phoenix.  Shoot me an email at  (myusername) at gmail and let me know what you are looking for.  I will look to see if I know anyone.  Outside of that, I have used recruiters to various degrees of success in candidate.  Only thing I have found consistant with recruiters is the fee is shocking.  

I work in the landscape industry. In my experience, we have only had success hiring people that were friends or family of our current employees. At this point, we have 40+ employees and combined are about 5 families. We have not had luck hiring outside without a connection to the company. 

I work in the landscape industry. In my experience, we have only had success hiring people that were friends or family of our current employees. At this point, we have 40+ employees and combined are about 5 families. We have not had luck hiring outside without a connection to the company. 

In reply to Mattk :

This.

At this point I have myself and 3 sons, two brothers who were friends of my eldest son, an admin I stole from a contractor I work for, and her neighbor. 

Everyone off the street has been borderline to terrible. 

My admin just gave notice. She and her husband are going to work remotely and travel. Replacing her is going to be a pain. I'm trying to make the math work to hire someone I know who would be outstanding. 

Check with your supply houses, specifically the outside sales person. They see lots of contractors, get a feel for who the good workers are and which ones are looking for something else. Or who went under and now has guys looking for new jobs. 

It looks like the worst of the crisis is averted right now: I pinged a buddy of mine who's a former ironworker to see if he had any references, and he actually had a guy who was looking for work at the moment and came by for an interview almost immediately. I really hope he works out. However, I'll still need to hire one more person this year I expect. former520, I'll reach out to you!

Curtis, it always makes me chuckle when I see your work-related stuff. I cut my baby teeth as an overhire carp in theatrical venues before working up to a rigger, and from there branched out into construction. 

In reply to brandonsmash :

Fortunately, in my line of work there are a small but passionate group of people who want into the business.  Unfortunately for me, most of them are noobs who want me to teach them everything.

Good luck, from what I have seen, people in the trades are either rock stars or nightmares. 

once the rebuilding in the LA fire areas start its going to be very hard to find anyone good that works in construction ,  and that is going to last for years !