A standout plumbing tech has the correct license your state requires for the work, a real enjoyment of serving people in their homes, and coachability. Most shops look for the first and hope for the other two.

Here’s how to find the ones worth hiring, and how to be ready before you start looking.

What Separates a Standout Plumbing Tech From an Available One

Most techs can do the work well. But a standout tech is someone who can do the job well and protect your reputation while inside the customer's home.

The three things to look for

1. The correct license. Depending on the state, a tech may need a license to work on their own in someone’s home or property. The rungs run apprentice, journeyman, master. The license tells you what someone is allowed to do and nothing about whether they should be in front of your customers.

2. Enjoyment in serving others. They have to enjoy serving others. Conversing, building rapport and trust, asking questions, and explaining things in basic, easy-to-understand terms. They also have to be comfortable talking about options and presenting them to homeowners with the idea that if the homeowner is well educated, they’ll make the best decision for themselves.

3. Coachability. Willing to learn. A team player when needed. Willing to coach and help others be a strong team player, and to uphold the reputation of the company by doing right by others and treating someone’s home like it belongs to a person they know and love.

Credentials and Experience: What to Require vs. What to Train Up

Require on day one: whatever credential the state requires for the work the tech will do unsupervised, in the jurisdiction where they’ll do it. It’s a legal question, not a preference, so verify it with your state board rather than taking a candidate’s word for it.

Train toward: If your shop already has a master as license of record, a strong journeyman covers most residential service work, and the master credential becomes a growth-path item rather than a hiring requirement. In that situation, finding a journeyman who fits your culture is key. Skills can be trained. It’s hard to train for coachability and a servant mindset.

Don’t screen out on geography alone. Licenses don’t transfer automatically. Reciprocity exists between some states and is minimal or absent in others, so a candidate relocating from out of state may need a bridging step rather than a full requalification. Worth checking before you pass on someone good.

Why Plumbing is Different From Other Trades Roles

Plumbers are a special type of technician. Let’s face it. This profession can be very toxic and stinky sometimes. That alone can make people cranky.

So it matters more here than almost anywhere else that the person going into homes is positive, friendly, outgoing, and doesn’t take things too seriously, while still caring.

There’s no magic bullet. Finding someone who’s a great hire takes one of two paths: hire for fit and attitude and train them up, or hire someone experienced with a proven track record you can confirm by talking with references.

Everything below serves one of those two paths.

Job Boards, and How to Write a Job Description That Gets Applied To

Most job postings fail before anyone reads them, because the owner never answered the basic questions first. Work through these before you post:

• What’s the purpose of this role?

• What are the responsibilities?

• How will success be measured?

• What industry experience do you want, and how many years?

• What’s the research-based OTE you plan to offer? Write this as an addendum to the job description so you can show candidates exactly how they’ll earn their income through base, commission, and bonuses.

• What does a day in the life look like for the person in this position?

• What are the benefits? Be specific. PTO, vacation, paid holidays (how many and which ones), insurance (health, dental, vision, workers’ comp, life), hours, OT, weekend rotation if required, hiring bonus, company vehicle, tools or tool stipend, uniforms, cell phone, gas card.

• What are the top three to five values you want this person to bring to work?

• What are the top three to five traits you’re looking for in the ideal candidate? These are specific aspects of behavior. They’re observable, often physical or functional.

One more thing, and this is the one that costs shops the most applicants. It’s never advantageous to leave compensation vague, as in “Competitive Pay Based on Experience.”

We’ve consistently found that top candidates won’t even apply if there isn’t a specific comp plan listed. If there’s no base and it’s commission and bonus pay only, list the annual all-in compensation, or OTE (On-Target Earnings: the total annual pay a worker can expect if they hit performance targets, typically base or hourly pay plus commissions, bonuses, and other incentive pay).

Active Outreach

If you have the time, or someone in the office who does, active outreach is worth the effort. An owner can absolutely do this. It just takes real time.

Four things it takes:

Sift the resumes yourself. Go through them and decide who’s worth inviting to apply.

Teach the system. The job board where your resumes come in learns from what you tell it. Thumbs down the candidates it surfaces who aren’t a fit, invite the ones who are, and it starts showing you more of the right people.

Learn the filters. Distance from the shop, how long since they were last online, how long since they updated their resume, how long they’ve been in their current job. This takes a search showing thousands of candidates down to a manageable number.

Don’t send the canned AI invite. Make it personal. Change up the format. Mention something specific you saw on the resume and explain why they’re a good match for you, the company, and the position. Say you see a tech who’s been in their position nine years. AI likely won’t mention it. Tell them you’re impressed with that longevity, that loyalty like that is rare in this industry, and that you’re excited to talk.

Budget one to two hours for searching, vetting, and inviting.

Then watch your response rate, because it tells you what’s wrong. For licensed trades positions, you want at least one in six to eight invited candidates coming back wanting to talk. If you’re at 50 invites without about seven interested, quality candidates, one of three things is off: you’re inviting people who don’t fit the posting, the posting isn’t written well enough to sound like an attractive position and company, or your comp and benefits aren’t commensurate with the level of service professional you’re after. Sorting out which one takes research, reworking the ad, and going after it again.

And respond fast. Candidates who don’t hear back get hired by your competitor. If you snooze, and really you’re just busy running your business, you lose.

Referrals From the Good Plumbers Already on Your Team

Start with the techs you already trust. Good plumbers tend to know other good plumbers, and the ones on your trucks have worked alongside people you’ve never met.

Ask them directly, and ask them specifically.

“Know anyone looking?” gets you a shrug.

“Who was the best tech you worked with at your last company?” gets you a name.

Then make it easy to say yes. Tell your tech what you’re looking for in the same terms you’d put in a posting, so they aren’t guessing. One caution. A referral is a lead, not a shortcut. The person still goes through the same interview and the same reference conversation as anyone else.

Being Ready Before You Go to Market

Don’t wait to hire until you have an open truck. Always expect you’ll need someone next week. That rush is what pushes owners to fill a seat instead of hiring someone who’s both a great culture fit and able to do the job well.

Looking early only helps if the role is ready. Three questions, before you post anything:

1. Do you have a job description for this role you could hand to someone today?

2. How will you measure this new hire’s success in the role, including the numbers they have to hit?

3. Do you have an onboarding and training process in place?

Usually if there’s no job description, nothing has been done on the other two either. No planning, no onboarding checklist, no training manual. Owners think they can put an ad out and hire someone without laying a foundation for the new hire.

How to Interview a Plumbing Tech

The first question to ask, and what good vs. bad sounds like

Start here: what has you in the market looking for another job?

A good answer sounds like this.

“I love what I do. But I’m in a culture where I don’t feel the technicians are treated well.” Or, “I don’t feel I have any opportunity to grow here, or even the chance to mentor and help others grow. I’m looking for a long-term work home that will let me grow over time in my career.”

A bad answer sounds like this.

“My boss is a jerk.” Or, “I’m looking to earn more money and I want complete autonomy to do what I want to make what I want.” That second one should scare you. If there’s any hint of drama in the answer, dig deeper. Steer clear if they’re at the root of it, or if they’re blaming everyone else.

Red flags that predict a bad hire

Three that come up again and again:

1. Job hoppers. You don’t want someone who’s left a job under a year for several years in a row.

2. The know-it-all. Anyone with an arrogant or know-it-all way about them isn’t coachable.

3. They don’t want to deal with people. They just want to do the work. That person belongs on the commercial or industrial side of the industry, not in someone’s home.

How to Compete for Top Talent Without Paying the Top Salary

The myth most owners believe about pay

Pay is one of the most attractive things in a job posting. It isn’t the only one. Culture is right up there.

If you can position your company as a place people want to work, that pulls a lot of weight in attracting qualified candidates who also fit your culture. Show it with something concrete. Tenure works well: “All of our employees have been with us for three or more years.”

How to make a job offer more attractive (besides base pay)

Offer a health insurance stipend. Many smaller businesses can’t offer health insurance. A stipend helps. There are also supplemental offerings that are very affordable, including dental, vision, workers’ comp, and life insurance. A small investment there helps attract more qualified applicants.

Rethink the signing bonus. Signing bonuses are worth offering if competitors in your market are offering them. We prefer to call them hiring bonuses, because the money comes in thirds: a third at 90 days, a third at six months, and the last third at 12 months. “Signing bonus” suggests they’ll get it on the first day.

Cover the licensing path. In a state where a journeyman or other license is required and few candidates hold one, put this in the job posting: if an applicant has their hours documented and is getting ready to sit for their test, the company will cover a week of study time if needed, plus the testing fees.

Put a timeline on growth. A specific growth path with a timeline, based on performance, for a new hire coming in at a certain level of experience is very attractive to some candidates.

The mistakes owners make when pay is below market

The mistake is continuing to justify it, or hiring whoever will take the lower pay.

Here’s how that plays out. The owner finds someone who agrees to the number. Then the owner is dissatisfied with that person’s knowledge, service, and overall performance. They let them go, or the person quits. Then the owner repeats the same cycle, thinking it’ll be better next time. Or they keep the underqualified hire, and the organization's reputation takes the hit instead.

The Short Version

Get the role ready before you go to market. Look for the license your state requires, then look harder at whether the person enjoys serving people and can be coached. Write a posting that tells the truth about the money and build the onboarding foundation before you need it.

Do that, and you’ll find skilled people who fit and stay, without the stress, wasted time, or guesswork of doing it alone.