What to ask roofing applicants, and what you check
You and your HireBus team set these roofing questions during setup, and Iris asks them in each interview:
- Ladders and fall protection. Ask what safety training they've had and whether they've worked tied off. Your foreman checks their safety practices on the roof.
- Roof systems. Ask which systems and materials they've worked with, and whether they did tear-off, install, repair or inspection.
- Running a crew. Ask a lead what they did the morning someone didn't show up or the materials came late.
- Weather and travel. Say how far the jobs are and what happens to the schedule and pay on a weather day.
- Pay and start date. Say whether you pay hourly or by the square, and ask when they can start.
Roofing roles to hire for
Give each seat its own role instead of one general roofing ad. Iris then asks an installer about roofs and a sales rep about customer conversations.
- Roofer / installer. Has installed the systems you sell, works safely at height and checks the finished roof.
- Crew lead. Plans the day, trains new roofers and fixes quality issues on the job.
- Sales rep. Runs site visits, explains scope and price at the kitchen table and hands the sold job to production.
- Production manager / inspector. Plans materials and crews, checks the job and keeps the customer informed.
- CSR / scheduler. Books visits and reschedules crews after severe weather.
Questions roofing owners ask
Can we recruit for several crew openings?
Yes. Openings with the same duties and pay can share one role. Plans differ in how many scored candidates they include each month, so size the plan to the crew.
What should happen to recruiting in the off-season?
Pause active recruiting, or keep building a bench for spring. If you keep the ad running, tell applicants the role is for a future start date. Always-on hiring explains what a bench costs.
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.
