Recruiting is one of the biggest challenges that landscape business owners face. But those companies that take a proactive approach are having a lot more success than the companies that are sitting back and hoping that job posts alone will do the work for them. Level Green Landscaping, headquartered in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, is one such company that has taken the reins on recruiting and is going after good hires with fervor.
Michael Mayberry, chief technical officer for the company, says that it’s not good enough to wait until spring rolls around to start your recruiting efforts. It’s something that he believes should be done year-round. After all, good hires don’t just become available in the spring.
That’s one of the reasons why Mayberry says the company created a Career Center, which is a dedicated page on their website intended solely for recruits. Mayberry says the company worked with Landscape Leadership to develop the page and its content.
“We were in talks with Landscape Leadership about the ways in which we could improve our website, and this is something that we decided we wanted to put a strong focus on,” Mayberry says. “We believe that you should always be recruiting so this career center does that for us by being available 24 hours a day to anyone that might possibly be considering Level Green as a place of employment.”
The Career Center is multi-faceted with a lot of important information. For one, it obviously has job openings as well as information about each position. But Mayberry says it takes things a step further by also including career track information. He feels that the industry in general does a poor job of helping young people to understand where a green industry career could take them — and that’s made it challenging to attract young professionals. That’s why they laid out exactly what kind of career track someone could take by coming to work for Level Green.
Mayberry says the Career Center also includes a lot of information about what it’s like to work for Level Green, who its people are, and even uses video to share some of the company’s story.
“The video breaks up the page nicely and takes away from so much static reading,” Mayberry says. “We feel it takes the page to a whole new level as viewers can really be immersed in what we do and who we are.”
The Career Center also links to the company’s Culture Blog, which is a separate blog from the one they created for their customers. This blog specifically shares content about activities the company is participating in, stories about its people, and even has helpful articles for recruits with blog titles like Seven Ways Horticulture Grads Can Impress a Recruiter and Four Horticulture Degree Jobs Perfect for Recent College Grads. These articles help position Level Green as a helpful guide to young professionals. While the page is relatively new, Mayberry says he is confident in its ability to help the company bring in new people.
“Our goal is to always be growing for the future,” Mayberry adds. “That’s why we’ll continue to focus on efforts like these.”
Read more: Why You Need A 24/7/365 Employee Recruiting Plan
Our Like a Boss series highlights some common business challenges landscape professionals face and how they conquer them.