💸 Spending Thousands on Indeed Ads for house cleaners? Get the most of your money with Pipehire Scoring.

Indeed is great.. but the problem is, it's getting more expensive by the day.

10
 min. read
January 5, 2022

Indeed is great... but the problem is, it's getting more expensive by the day. Is it somewhat our fault? Well, I think so; we cleaning-business owners contribute to this by putting more money in the same basket, same category, same ads. Indeed's pricing algorithm does and will continue to increase pricing in whatever direction they want (up), and now that they own Glassdoor, they own 80%+ of the job search in the US.

Indeed is clearly the biggest player for cleaning-job candidates. But throwing more money at the problem doesn't give you better results. Yes, you can tweak the ads, the cost per click and the budget, but this is where effectiveness vs efficiency comes in play.

Self-booking applicants to your calendar? Shotgun style is not as effective as it seems.

I believe having someone pass the initial screening questions is "OK" but isn't a great way to find the best possible employees - not those A-players for sure. Why? Because someone who passed the initial screening questions could show up at my office and, in the middle of the interview, I could find out they're not a qualified applicant and they live too far away from my service area. Time is wasted meeting with people who just pass the initial screening and book themselves on your calendar. Pipehire's advanced job-application form allows you to filter and give a score to each applicant.

🎯 Should hiring cleaners be Effective or Efficient?

Efficient hiring is doing it with the least amount of wasted time, money and resources, (e.g., letting cleaners book themselves an interview) but hiring should be done with effectiveness in mind first. Why? Because we need to produce the desired result - a long-lasting, awesome cleaner and a loyal employee. If we can save time and resources as well while being effective, then that's the cherry on top.

The key to the best ROI is scoring your candidates and meeting the RIGHT people (the A-players) by not letting just anyone book an appointment simply because they have a car, a driver's license and can work 8am-5pm.

A problem no one had solved.

At year 13 when my cleaning company was growing the fastest, I came to realize that the biggest bottleneck was finding the RIGHT employees. I created a team called Gmaids Digital in which we had one goal in mind: to build a web tool quickly identify cleaning applicants using a scoring system. When you get hundreds or even thousands of applicants, it's difficult to determine who to call for an interview.

How do you become more effective at hiring cleaning techs?

First you have to think with a "sniper" mindset, not "shotgun" style. I hear a lot of people saying that hiring is a numbers game...well, yes and no. You have to get a great volume of candidates in the funnel so the chances of getting A-players increase. But once you have identify them (green color), then you only focus on the A-players, not on meeting every possible applicant.

What's next? Once you have those A-players....

Next step is to call and verify (this could be you or the office manager) and then verify all the data in the application. Then you give them two options for an interview and send them an email and text confirmation. They will have to confirm by clicking the link on their cell phone or email. This step might seem inefficient, but it's critical to get the few ones worth interviewing. Again, I want to be effective here on this step...it doesn't do any good to sit and wait to talk to 15 people who self-booked an interview, when we just needed to talk to two or three in the first place. You want to be effective first. 🎯

Pipehire Interview appointments, cleaning technician
Pipehire's 2 way confirmation. An applicant not confirmed is a no show 9 out 10.

🚦 How Pipehire scores cleaning applicants

The score is given to the answers completed by the applicant during the job-application form. Each question could have one or several points assigned, and some others could have negative points. So the more questions with the right answers, the more points = better applicants.

Within Pipehire you can create custom questions that will give you another way to filter and score. Below, you see this custom question that takes away 5  points from the applicant, automatically disqualifying them.

You can build open or close ended questions.

Pipehire also shows the Best Possible Score Form, depending on how you set up your questions score.

Best Possible Score can vary depending on the score assigned to each question.

How do you quickly identify the good, the bad and the ugly?

Each applicant comes with a score and it's color-coded to see the best candidates quickly (see image below).

When you see applicants in your funnel, you'll see three colors:

  • Green: "A-player" Best and most qualified. They comply with all the requirements and much more. These are the A-players where you should focus your time and effort.
  • Yellow: "B-player" Fair/OK = It's an average candidate who complies with the basics such as: owns a car,  driver's license and can work 8am-5pm, but still not a great applicant.
  • Red: "C-player" Disqualified = Abandoned the application (never submitted) and/or simply has none of the basic requirements. No need to waste your time talking to red candidates.
On this image above: Out of 37 applicants, 6 are A-Players, 1 is already working, 1 is in training, 1 more coming to an interview and 3 more waiting to confirm the appointment.

So what to do with Indeed's raising pricing?

Whatever your budget is, don't just meet every applicant. Send those applicants to apply to your company using Pipehire's scoring forms and connect to those marked in green. You can embed the form in your website or get a quickly sharable link like this one in under 5 minutes - just upload your logo and pass it along, post it to Indeed, FB jobs and share it with your employees. They're the ones most likely to bring you new A-players, and this should be happening if you're building the right company culture anyway.

🔥 Conclusion: Try to experiment with other channels to find great cleaning techs!

Youtube

Videos targeted to zip codes where your workers live.

  • 137K views 
  • Link to job form
  • Track source within your job form and assign points
  • Evergreen content
  • Spend $3K-4K one time

Hotels

I like employees with hotel experience because they have:

  • Speed
  • Consistency
  • Rigorous schedule
  • Must be polite to clients
  • Can recruit others for you

Stores/Retails/Washaterias

Hit-or-miss situation, but still another source on your day-to-day:

  • Have your employees distribute business cards/flyers inside these locations
  • Incentivize with $250 after 3 months of work
  • Track it on the webform

👊 Your Own Workforce is the BEST ROI!

This is by far the best way to grow your workforce. People who come recommended will last longer and be loyal.

  • Must have incentives $250 after 3 months
  • Benefits
  • Solid company culture that will bring more an more people