6 Videos to Build Your Ultimate Hiring Funnel

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter. 

This six-part video series is designed to give you the tools and insight you need to build an A-player team.

Let's be honest — hiring top talent is hard. Like crazy hard. Especially in construction and trade industries where contractors are dealing with factors out of their control like labor shortages, COVID fallout and an aging talent pool. While you can’t change the current job market, you can build a hiring funnel that helps you get the best talent available.   

Finding the best people and creating a world-class recruiting and hiring funnel takes a lot of time and work, but it is a pivotal part in building the infrastructure your business needs. After all, how can you build an amazing team without bringing aboard the best players? That is exactly what the six episodes of this video series are all about — creating a process that makes obtaining the best talent easy and attainable.   

Whether you are a seasoned pro or have just started your business this year, this series is for you if you want to build your dream team. Breakthrough Academy has pulled together some of the highest-performing experts in the industry on their podcast, Contractor Evolution to guide you through building your dream team. 

Episode 1: Ideal candidate profiles with Josianne Gaudette 

The inaugural episode of the Ultimate Hiring Funnel series launches with recruiter Josianne Gaudette teaching us how to stop playing the recruiting guessing game and improve hiring efforts. She introduces us to the beauty of the Ideal Candidate Profile and explains why it is the primary building block for any hiring funnel.  

Josianne runs Crew HR in Vancouver. She has a master's in HR and over her extensive 18-year career she's been involved in the hiring of more than 600 roles for her huge book of clients. She is a true expert in all things recruitment.  

Josianne teaches us about why it’s important to know exactly what you're looking for in the first place. She explains how you can gain clarity about who you want, and then leverage that clarity throughout the rest of your hiring funnel.  

After watching this episode, you will understand: 

• What an Ideal Candidate Profile is and why you should never post a job without one.  

• How to establish deliverables and accountabilities on your Ideal Canidate Profile.  

• Where a potential hire’s personality fits in and how to establish desirable traits to have in certain roles.  

• How to identify what a good job candidate looks like if you haven’t hired the position before.  

• Examples from a real contractor’s Ideal Candidate Profile. 

Episode 2: Perfecting the job ad with Josianne Gaudette

Once you have built your fundamental Ideal Candidate Profile learn how to use that profile to write an engaging posting that top quality applicants can't help but apply to. Josianne Gaudette joins the podcast once again to offer an easy-to-follow framework for writing compelling job postings.  

It turns out you don’t have to be the next Shakespeare to write a job ad that attracts the best candidate. Josianne gives a walkthrough of the do's and don'ts of making a job posting and then how to evaluate responses to your ad. 

After watching this episode, you will understand: 

• Distinctions between a job posting and a job description. 

• Discovering the headline your post needs to stand out in a competitive market.  

• The eight-part proven framework of a winning job ad. 

• The number one way to visually lay out your job ad. 

• Best and worst practices when creating job ads 

Episode 3: Recruitment strategy with Asad Zaman

Does your current recruiting strategy rely on luck or a proven process? In this third episode, learn how to actively recruit top talent rather than wait for your unicorn employee to apply. We all know the frustration of posting an open position on a job board where only a few completely unqualified people have applied.  

The secret is having a great pool of candidates to interview. Asad discusses in-depth active tactics and promotional recruiting that will bring you the applicant pool you are looking for.  

Asad is the CEO of Sales Talent Agency, an international recruiting agency that has helped acquire talent for over 1,500 companies. See why the Toronto Board of Trade named Asad Toronto's Young Professional of the Year for 2019; his level of sophistication in recruitment, employer brand and all things hiring are super dialed in. 

After watching this episode, you will understand: 

• The three talent pools available to every entrepreneur and how to tap into all three.  

• How to think with “strategic empathy” by placing yourself in your candidates' shoes. 

• How you can specifically stand out in today’s competitive market. 

• Common belief systems that are actually holding contractors back.  

• Integrating a talent acquisition mindset into your company culture. 

Episode 4: The interview set up call with Asad Zaman and Danny Kerr

Asad Zaman joins the podcast again for this installment of this series. In this episode, learn how to start actually hiring from the huge volume of applicants that will be coming your way. Managing director of Breakthrough Academy Danny Kerr also joins to walk you through the process of prioritizing and converting your best applicants into interviews. 

Believe it or not, one of the most overlooked parts of the recruitment process can be the interview set up call, yet it is one of the most important steps of building your hiring funnel. Stop spending your time on the wrong candidates and take the guesswork out of screening new candidates so that you are only meeting with the top contenders for the job.  

After watching this episode, you will understand: 

• An efficient process for applicant flow management. 

• How to treat referral candidates.  

• How to get to know each other so that when you sit down and meet you are both excited about the interview. 

• How to prepare for an awesome interview by helping you set goals within the first phone call so you can transition to the next phase of the process.

Episode 5: The interview with James Alisch 

The make-or-break part of your hiring funnel process is the interview. The cost of a bad hire for your morale, profitability and sanity is the stuff of nightmares. After all, your growth potential is dependent on how well you can team build. That is why you need to learn how to be an exceptional interviewer who can accurately predict future performance from past behavior and look at a candidate not only in terms of their resume but deep down to their roots.  

Managing director of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, the world’s largest junk removal service, James Alisch joins the show to impart what he has learned from conducting literally thousands of interviews. James currently runs a brand making 490 million dollars a year in revenue, and is executing a multi-year strategy to exceed $1 billion by 2025. Over the course of his extensive career, James has learned how to build powerhouse teams and knows interviewing inside and out.  

After watching this episode, you will understand: 

• Three things a stellar job interview should accomplish. 

• How to uncover a job applicant’s true character within the interview process. 

• How to interview based on core values and character traits. 

• How to use an Interview Scoring Matrix  to evaluate an applicant's aptitude. 

• Tips for managing your energy during the interview. 

• The one test that an applicant needs to pass when you're interviewing them. 

Episode 6: Expectation meetings with James Dale 

After five episodes of laying out the fundamental steps to attract and hire the talent your business deserves, this final episode teaches you how to fully seal the deal. 

Learn how to set expectations and boundaries early on that contribute to greater accountability and success. An expectation meeting solves this by clearly articulating the standards first thing when you offer the job, so that your employees know how to thrive at your company. 

James Dale joins in this final episode to teach you how to draw the line for your employees. As the Director of training and development at Breakthrough Academy, James not only has experience hiring and conducting expectations meetings for hundreds of staff members, he is the brains behind the BTA Management System.  

After watching this episode, you will understand: 

• What the Job Offer Call should look like and why you need to conduct one. 

• How to ensure your candidate is excited to start working for you and show them that you are a strong leader they can trust. 

• The best way to prep a new hire for on-the-job-coaching and how to reinforce their best attributes. 

• How to prepare before the Expectations Meeting. 

• The five parts of the Expectations Meeting that allow a really strong start for any new employee. 

Breakthrough Academy systemizes contracting businesses for growth, learn more about them on their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory. 

About Breakthrough Academy (BTA) 

Breakthrough Academy (BTA) helps roofers systemize their companies to grow. We inject contracting businesses with the infrastructure they need to scale, help them make more money, and help owners to work a lot less by implementing intelligent systems. During the first 12 months in the program, average Members see significant time savings, 21% increase in revenue, and 40% increase in net profit. 

BTA works with over 450 contractors across North America, managing over $1.3 billion worth of revenue, and was rated Canada’s 213th fastest growing company by The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business in 2021; the fourth consecutive year on a national growth list for the brand.