Be Careful In Who You Hire

If you buy enough cars, you develop perspective on the car buying experience and are thus more comfortable and better prepared to buy your next car. When you do not want the extended warranty, but they keep pushing it, you know how to handle the situation. The more you do something, the better you become at it.

One of the purposes of this column is to offer home improvement industry insider perspective to homeowners who do not have a lot of experience hiring service providers in the greater Jacksonville area. Maybe they had a bad experience, or know somebody that had a bad experience, and they are a bit gun-shy about hiring somebody.

Demand is high and Mr. Handyman Serving Greater Jacksonville has been screening a lot of candidates this spring. We have added some new folks to the staff that have gotten off to a strong start, and we have already parted ways with some folks that did not. Having done this for a long time, I still at times think I am hiring a great addition to our team and soon thereafter realize I was wrong. If this is tough to navigate for me and other industry professionals, it must be doubly tough for homeowners.

The most worrisome part of my experience is the folks I am not hiring. Several candidates were just unemployable. Yet, each was doing this work for another employer or working for themselves. To the best of my knowledge, they are still working in Jacksonville today, so please be careful.

I started out as an independent operator many (like 40) years ago and I have great respect for guys that do quality work and leave customers happy. Some are better craftsmen than business people and some of those folks have found a home with Mr. Handyman where they get to leverage their craft skills and they do not have to wrestle with whether their business needs a website, how to be found on Google (or Facebook, or Pinterest), nor worry about whether their help will show up tomorrow.

Guys that are neither craftsmen nor business people just create headaches for everyone. Please check out reviews and reputations, it will save you a lot of headaches. If your friends and neighbors rave about somebody, that is a pretty good sign. Or you can go online and check folks out on Google, the BBB site, and others.

For anyone reading this that prides themselves in being a home improvement craftsman, who does quality work and leave customers smiling, but who would rather leave lead generation and schedule management to others, know that we are hiring. Enter a greater Jacksonville area zip code at http://jobs.mrhandyman.com/ to apply.