Key takeaways
- Estimate what an empty seat costs from your booked work and the crew you have left.
- Keep potential revenue separate from profit, overtime, recruiting and training costs.
- Keep the job requirements the same when the search gets urgent.
- A bench gives you people to call. Check their interest and availability when the opening is real.
Do the math with your own workload
Start with the work you expect to sell and deliver. Say one truck bills $1,800 a day and sits empty for 10 working days. That’s $18,000 of work at risk. These are made-up numbers, not industry averages. Now run it with what your own trucks bill.
Then adjust it. Which jobs can another crew take? Which can wait? Which will you lose? Before you call the total a profit hit, subtract the costs you won’t pay on work you don’t do. Put cover costs, like overtime or temporary help, on their own line.
Recruiting has its own budget: advertising, software or service fees, interviews, checks and training. Keep those separate so you can see what it costs to fill the seat.
Keep urgency from changing the job requirements
Before you drop a requirement, ask whether the work has changed or the deadline has made you willing to overlook it.
A candidate who can start Monday may be a good hire. So may someone who has to give two weeks’ notice. “Can start Monday” tells you when someone can start. It doesn’t tell you whether they can do the job.
Write down what the person must do on their own, what your team can teach, and who can supervise. If nobody meets the bar, decide whether you can change the work or give more training. Don’t hire someone green and expect them to work like a lead.
Prepare before the role becomes urgent
You don’t need to run a paid ad all year to be ready. Keep the job description current, know the pay range you can offer, and agree on the interview and the hands-on checks. Look at likely hiring needs when you plan the season.
If you build a bench, be honest with applicants about timing. While the HireBus Bench is on, Iris keeps following up with new applicants and interviewing them, and each scored candidate uses a credit from your plan. Ad spend is separate. See how always-on hiring keeps a bench and what plans cost.
Keep a bench you can use
- A clear record. Save the role you discussed, relevant experience, open questions, and whether the person wants to hear about future work.
- An honest update. Tell candidates whether you have an opening now or are planning ahead. Respect a request to stop contact.
- A fresh conversation. When the role opens, check interest, pay, schedule and start date again. Experience and availability may have changed.
A bench is a list of people to call, and nobody on it has agreed to anything yet. When a seat opens, interview them as usual.
Questions about hiring ahead
Should I advertise when I have no opening?
Only if the ad is honest about the job and the timing, and the job site allows that kind of post. If you’re only planning ahead, updating your job description and getting back in touch with past candidates who were interested may be enough.
How many candidates should I keep in touch with?
Base it on the roles you expect to open and the time you have for follow-up. A few interested people with current details are more useful than a long list you haven’t called. Review it when your plans change.
Founder & CEO of HireBus. Brandon took over his father's window cleaning business in 2012 and grew it past seventy employees in six seasons. He founded HireBus in Denver in 2021 with Rick Breden, PhD, an industrial and organizational psychologist. Read our story.
