Fair game

Rows of booths representing landscape companies. Attractive photos, branded giveaways, educational seminars and crowds of students perusing possible job options. Career fairs on college campuses or out in the community give businesses opportunities to meet potential employees and build their brands. But how do you set your company apart from the pack? And what about hosting your own job fair?

Lawn & Landscape talked to three landscape firms about their experiences at career fairs and how they make the most of a ripe recruiting venue.

Planting seeds

Recruiting is like shaving. “If you don’t do it every day, you’re going to look ugly,” says Scott Chatham, president of Chatham Landscape Services in Marietta, Georgia. Recruiting is an ongoing conversation at the company.

In fact, three years ago, the business hired a full-time recruiter to focus on bringing in high-quality employees who can not only fulfill duties in the field but represent the company well with its high-end residential clientele who demand a clean-cut, professional worker who can communicate effectively.

“We saw the labor market was tightening up here a few years ago when the recession was still in full swing,” Chatham says. “We had people coming off the street wanting work because there was nothing.”

But Chatham Landscape Services doesn’t just hire off the streets. “We brought on a recruiter to responsibly, ethically find employees,” Chatham says. (That means, no stealing good workers from other companies.)

The recruiter reaches out to churches and other community groups. “He’s out there drumming it hard,” Chatham says.

The company also increased the reward for existing employees’ referrals. “If they bring in a supervisor-level person, we give a $500 reward,” he says, adding there are restrictions concerning how long the new employee must stay on board.

And in the meantime, the company works a couple of different career fairs to build its brand and plant seeds for future employees. One of those “planting seeds” gigs is the Workforce Developmental Student Career Expo sponsored by the Georgia Urban Agricultural Council.

Chatham Landscape can’t promote its brand there and openly recruit employees. “It’s about promoting our industry more than anything,” Chatham says. “Our name is on the booth so you know who we are, but the point is to get students interested in landscaping.”

Chatham brings a display of equipment that students can climb on, and some colleagues dressed in the company uniform are there to answer questions. Students at the fair range from freshman to seniors in high school. So, Chatham knows that they won’t be in the workforce for up to five years. “This is a long-term investment,” he says.

The National Collegiate Landscape Competition, hosted by the National Association of Landscape Professionals, on the other hand, has resulted in immediate hires for Chatham Landscape Services. The company has a booth that includes a backdrop of pictures along with the logo. But what’s more important is not what happens at the booth, but what happens on the show floor.

“If we meet a kid coming through that seems attractive, we’ll try to get his or her name, and the next day we’ll watch them while they compete in their events,” he says. They talk to students standing by. “We are almost interviewing the other kids there, ‘So, how good is this person?’” Chatham says. “We let the student know we are interested and that we are following them around.”

This assertive approach beats standing at a booth and waiting for students to call you back after the show. At its home base, Chatham Landscape Services takes the same active approach to hiring, hosting its own career fairs every quarter. “This is met with limited success,” Chatham says.

But he’s not going to just wait for good people to walk in the door.

The company advertises its own event by posting signs in neighborhoods, apartment complexes and other spots close by. Managers are at the event and tables are set up so drop-ins can fill out applications and participate in a short get-to-know-you interview. The purpose of these events is to hire hourly personnel, Chatham says.

“We have been trying this for almost four years,” Chatham says. The best attendance was 15 people. The worst was zero. “As the economy improved, the number coming to our career fairs has dwindled.”

Tapping schooled talent

Recruiting college graduates with green industry degrees has become an important aspect of recruiting at Surrounds Landscape Architecture + Construction in Sterling, Virginia. “Having career-minded people who are excited about the landscaping business is refreshing and brings a lot to our company,” says Barry Schneider, president.

“They don’t know what they can’t do,” he says, relating how those who have just been schooled in the field are not afraid to try new approaches. This reminds veterans that different can be very good.

“In my experience, it’s important to have someone at the fair that students can relate to.” Barry Schneider, president

Surrounds likes to bring in recent grads because their energy is a real booster. It all started five years ago when Schneider recruited an intern from West Virginia University. The landscape architecture student gained lots of experience during his summer with Surrounds and joined the company after graduation.

Then the company began attending a career fair at Penn State University. “They have a great program for landscape contracting and horticulture,” Schneider says. Surrounds sets up a 10- by 10-foot booth that’s mostly a backdrop with photos of Surrounds’ work. Schneider attends the fair and takes a younger colleague along with him. “In my experience, it’s important to have someone at the fair that students can relate to,” he says.

Surrounds offered logoed drink cozies one year, but none of the students seemed all that interested in the give-away, Schneider says. So, the company keeps it simple with the booth, letting photos tell the firm’s story.

Surrounds collects resumes, and Schneider or his colleague will make notes if there is a stand-out student who seems interested and qualified. After the career fair, they follow up by email and phone. From those dozen or so conversations, six students are generally interested and an average three or four will visit Surrounds for a tour and to learn more. Every year, Surrounds ends up hiring one person from the fair.

Displaying at the fair keeps the brand in front of students. “Students start recognizing our name as the years go by,” Schneider says. This is helpful for hiring interns, who go back to school talking about Surrounds.

Surrounds attends the National Collegiate Landscape Competition, and last year hired a Colorado State University graduate.

“He stayed in touch with his professor and has spoken highly about his job with us, so the professor reached out and asked if we would visit and talk to his class,” he says.

Schneider will share his experiences working in the industry and the work Surrounds does. The presentation is an opportunity to reach more college students on a personal level.

“I would highly recommend that any landscape company reach out to college graduates,” Schneider says. “It’s incredibly rewarding on many levels to work with students.”

Connect with students

How do you separate your company from the pack at a green industry career fair where a slew of other landscape firms have also set up shop? That’s a question Bartlett Tree Experts asked years ago while determining a way to maximize their success at college career fairs.

“Bartlett Tree Experts is a global business. How do we get that message out there?” says Noel Dubak, manager of global recruitment.

Dubak oversees Bartlett’s robust scholarship program through The Bartlett Tree Foundation, which supports students in two- and four-year arboriculture programs. She also heads up the company’s internship program. Bartlett brought on 45 students last year and many will return for full-time jobs after graduation.

But like any landscape company that’s recruiting, there’s competition and Bartlett wants to hire the best. “So we started spending more time at schools, getting to know the professors and the students in the green industry disciplines,” Dubak says. “We get to know the members of their forestry clubs.

“You’re spending time on campus to do the career fair, and most of the time you have to fly there. So why go for five hours when you could spend a couple of days?”

That time on campus is budgeted wisely. Bartlett gives class talks that are purely educational, not a sales pitch for the company. Dubak also does some career coaching. “I look at students’ resumes and give them tips,” she says. “I make a presentation on how to launch their first job campaign and I talk about what companies look for in general.”

Before attending a campus career fair, Bartlett gets a list of the students that are enrolled in green industry programs. She also gets a list of students who have graduated with green industry degrees. “We have a list of our open jobs and we bring job descriptions so students can read them,” she says.

Matching students and graduates with careers at Bartlett is like a marriage, and she’s not attending to persuade students.

“Our interns are our best four-second commercials. When they come here and have a great experience, they tell their professors and everyone wants to come here the next year,” she says

Aside from foundation schools (where scholarships are awarded), Dubak says their team researches campuses with green industry programs. “We look to where we have offices close by so those colleges can be feeder schools for those offices,” she says. And Bartlett also reaches out to high schools. “There are lots of seniors who love to be outdoors and want a career where they don’t have to be behind a desk,” she says. “If we can afford them a career development program, this kind of opportunity is very attractive to them.”

Branding is a big part of recruiting, and one of the best hiring tools is when the company educates potential hires about Bartlett Tree Experts and how a career looks there. Dubak says, “Students come here because they want to be here. They get to know everything about us and know if it’s a match.”