Same questions, every applicant, ranked against your must-haves.
October 30, 2026 · For HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and home-service shop owners
Ask the same short set of must-have questions of every applicant: experience, certifications, availability, driving, and how they handle a customer on a job. A video screening is not a full interview. Its job is to answer one question: is this candidate worth your time in person? If a question does not help answer that, cut it.
Your must-haves are the non-negotiables for the seat: years of experience, the right certification for the work, a clean driving record, and when they can start. Ask them plainly, first. A resume can stretch a job title; a candidate talking on video about the work they actually did cannot stretch as far. Install and service roles need different must-haves, so write the list for the seat you are filling, not a generic tech role.
Techs spend their day in customers' homes. One question about the customer tells you more than three more about tools: ask them to talk through a job where something went wrong, or how they explain a repair to a homeowner who does not know the trade. How a candidate talks on video is a preview of how they will talk in a customer's living room. Wrench skills get a tech hired; customer skills keep them employed.
When every applicant answers the same questions, you compare answers, not conversations. One candidate got the hard questions and another got the easy ones is not a ranking, it is a guess. Identical questions also keep the screening short: applicants finish a short screening, and a finished screening is one you can rank. Keep the set tight enough that a good tech bothers to complete it.
Skip trick questions, brainteasers, and anything unrelated to the job. They tell you nothing about how a tech works a job or talks to a customer, and they signal to good applicants that the shop wastes their time. Skip anything you would not ask in person for the same reason. If a question would not change whether you interview the candidate, it does not belong in the screening.
Two doors, same pipeline. The Machine: $0 to start, card on file, $100 per candidate unlocked — you preview first, you pay only to reveal contact info and the full video. Done-For-You: $750 per month, and we run postings, pipeline, and screening for you. Both carry a 7-day trial. Machine guarantee: nobody worth interviewing, you pay nothing. Done-For-You guarantee: cancel before day 8, you pay nothing.
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