Scott,
Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed response. You summarized thoughts which I may have overlooked or not focused on. I may have been naive that “mentoring” would be something that many parties would be interested in providing, your background with Staffing and Recruiting highlighted this behavior.
Thanks and best wishes. As for institutional or organizational help with our local Home Inspector Chapters for conferences and meetings, I’ve never heard mentorship come up so far - perhaps we should both open some local eyes up to this.
More than most would tell me it’s too expensive, time consuming and scary to train someone from scratch to take over your spot. I think that mentality is too conservative, too much focus on present, and not investing in the future. Having a reliable person you don’t have to micromanage is imperative for nearly any profession, and especially skilled trades. For me, nothing beats sincerity at the job - it’s like a smile over the telephone - forgotten yet most important for inflection that drives the conversation at all times. I’d rather teach a puppy everything than an old dog new tricks, so to say. Not to ramble on, but I was very successful finding new career applicants at the obvious location - highschools and their programs which I could sponsor, visit or affiliate with in regard to employment opportunities, because you will normally get a dozen or so interested. Staffing is different, but the rule in recruitment, for many industries and levels, is a dozen interviewed applicants should offer one true, possible fit, on average. So, if I go to three separate schools on three days at some point between their graduation and my busy weeks in locations I’m interested, there should be a fair chance I will find the right trainee out of the 36ish that want to follow-up, and 3ish I boil it down to. Knowledge is power!
1 Like