Hiring in roofing
Hiring roofers, crew leads and foremen without losing your evenings
Screen roofing crews on steep-slope experience, height tolerance and reliability before losing a morning to no-shows.
Why this one is hard
What makes roofing hiring different
Every trade has its own version of this. These are the ones that cost you people.
- No-show rates in roofing are the worst in the trades, so you are not really hiring one person — you are hiring against the odds that they turn up.
- A storm lands and you need six people this week, which is exactly when everyone else does too.
- Steep-slope, low-slope and tear-off are different skills, and "roofer" covers all three.
- Height tolerance is not something anyone volunteers as a problem until they are on a 10/12 pitch.
Roofing hiring is driven by weather and storms rather than the calendar, which is why the screening has to be fast — the crunch arrives with three days of notice.
The first conversation
What the interview actually asks
HireWRX interviews every applicant the same way you would, then puts the ones worth your time at the top. For roofing, that means questions like these — asked at eleven at night if that is when somebody applies.
- 01
“What is the steepest pitch you have worked comfortably?”
- 02
“Tear-off or new construction — which have you done more of, and which do you prefer?”
- 03
“Do you have your own transport to a job site?”
- 04
“When did you last do fall protection training?”
Pass or fail
The facts worth confirming before anyone's time is spent
These are not judgement calls. They are either true or they are not, and finding out on day one is the expensive way.
- Fall protection training, and when it was last done.
- OSHA 10 for anyone leading a crew.
- Manufacturer certifications — GAF, Owens Corning — where your warranties depend on them.
- Own transport, because a crew member who cannot get to the job is not a crew member.
Post the role. Read four reports instead of forty applications.
You still do the interviews and you still do the hiring. HireWRX just handles the part between the application landing and you deciding who is worth an hour.