Stop Treating Hiring Like a Chore: It Is the Business
- Wissam Elgamal
- Sep 25, 2025
- 2 min read
Most business owners treat hiring like an annoying chore—something to check off between running operations, managing clients, and putting out fires. But if your business is labor-intensive, hiring isn’t just a task. Hiring is the business.
Think about it: If you fix roofs, your real job isn’t swinging the hammer—it’s finding people who can. Complaining about not finding workers is like a plumber whining he can’t fix leaks. Your customers don’t get served, your business doesn’t grow, and your profits don’t exist without a steady flow of people.
The Mindset Shift: Hiring Is Your Core Job
There’s no such thing as a true labor shortage. If your market has demand for 100 electricians and only 50 are job-hunting, that’s not a crisis. You don’t need all 50—you need a handful to fill your roles. The real question is: Do you have a system that finds and keeps them?
Hiring isn’t a side project. It’s your full-time responsibility as an owner. Once you start treating it like the most important business process you run, growth becomes possible.
The Funnel Reality: Why Hiring Feels So Hard
Here’s what actually happens in service businesses:
Only 50% of scheduled interviews show up.
Half of those aren’t worth your time.
Of the remaining few, only 25% are worthy hires.
Once hired, only 50% show up on day one.
Half of those will quit within weeks.
Do the math. To make one good hire, you may need 300 resumes.
That’s why you’re struggling—not because talent doesn’t exist, but because you don’t respect the funnel.
The High-Velocity Hiring Playbook
Always Be Recruiting - Stop hiring reactively. Keep resumes flowing, post jobs before you need them, and build a bench of future talent.
Hire Before You Need To - People leave. That’s not a surprise. Stay ahead by having replacements ready.
Overbook Interviews - If interviews take 15 minutes, schedule five people at once. Group interviews? Even better. No-shows don’t deserve a second thought.
Test Hands-On - Don’t just ask questions—have candidates try a simple task, take an order, or navigate your system. The point isn’t perfection, it’s learning speed and fit.
Onboarding as a Competitive Edge - Move fast once you hire. Get them working, build momentum, and cut early if the red flags show up.
Final Thoughts: Fix Hiring, Fix the Business
If your business runs on labor, then hiring isn’t something you do alongside the work—hiring is the work.
Stop blaming the market. Stop treating hiring like an afterthought. Build a system, respect the funnel, and keep your pipeline full. The companies that figure this out scale. The ones that don’t burn out and shut down.
If you’re ready to treat hiring as the core business function it is—and want hands-on guidance to build a system that works—reach out. I’ve scaled teams, I know the funnel math, and I can help you turn hiring into your competitive advantage.
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