Recruiting Top Talent with Doug Obenour, Engagement Manager with the Building Talent Foundation

The Leader Mentality

This week Doug Obenour joined us to talk about how to find talent for your company. Doug has many years of experience in finding and recruiting talent. His current aim is to bring people into the Construction Industry – one of the highest demand fields in the country. Recruiting in an industry that has such a deficit in relation to needed jobs to fill versus amount of workers available is a tall task. In this interview, Doug talks about the needs of the industry, how he finds talent and tips to find the best employees for your business.

Show highlights:

-The goal of the Building Talent Foundation is to strengthen the Construction workforce including recruiting and engaging talent

-Prior to his current role, Doug had an impressive career working in both talent acquisition and construction

-The Leader Builders of America (made up of companies such as DR Horton, Beazer and Lennar) founded the Building Talent Foundation in response to the need to get people interested in getting into the construction industry

-Many people are surprised to hear how much construction industry jobs can pay compared to alternate job fields. Starting electricians and HVAC technicians (for example) often start in the $40k range to get started and can get to 6 figures for the best in the field

-Rob mentioned the Dark by 2050 study done by Klein Tools in which the deficit of workers paired with growing needs for electricity throughout the country could lead to widespread power loss

https://data.kleintools.com/sites/all/product_assets/documents/brochures/klein/DarkBy2050_Klein_ResearchPaper.pdf

-While 4 year degrees are great for some students – it is not the best path for every student. Considering the debt many rack up while attending college, it can be advantageous financially to get into a trade right out of college

-Doug said part of the goal is to give people exposure to the construction industry to see where their passion might be

-If you want to be a business owner – Construction can lead to business ownership quicker than many fields

-Apprenticeship Carolina is a great tool in the Carolinas for businesses that want to develop training programs for employees. There are also financial incentives for providing opportunities to apprentices through the program: https://www.apprenticeshipcarolina.com/

-SC Wins offers tuition coverage at tech schools for certain highly needed fields such as Electrical technicians

-Check out Be Pro, Be Proud – an excellent resource for kids to learn about the construction industry such as trying virtual reality simulators to experience different types of work

-The tips to great recruiting is to – Understand where your potential employees are paying the most attention (social media, events, etc), be present at those areas, focus on explaining the benefits of “why” this is the field for them (not just what the field does) and then let them experience the work first hand. Doug said that often when he finishes speaking to a group of candidates, they are truly interested in hearing more.

For more about Doug or the Building Talent Foundation, visit: https://www.buildingtf.org/