Connecting Tradespeople in the Skilled Trade Industry

With 650,000 available jobs in the construction industry alone, the skilled trade labor shortage is considered one of the biggest challenges facing the U.S. economy. To complicate the situation further, fewer than 16% of young people claimed they would consider a skilled trade career in a recent research study by Stanley Black & Decker. With the cards already stacked against the industry, what happens when the traditional routes used to find employees, such as Indeed, are failing to connect companies with tradespeople?

That’s what Tyler Kern and Straight Outta Crumpton’s Greg Crumpton discussed with co-founders of BlueRecruit, Gina and Rich Camacho. The idea for BlueRecruit came from Gina’s father, an autobody shop owner, who posted an autobody painter job on Indeed and received resumes for house painters. Noticing this gap in the market, the Camachos founded BlueRecruit with the goal of connecting tradespeople with hiring companies.

Crumpton and the Camachos discuss…

● Fewer people want to get into blue collar work

● BlueRecruit is aimed at attracting potential blue-collar workers

● What makes BlueRecruit different from other job searching sites

“We jokingly say that we’ve become the match.com for plumbers,” Rich laughed.

Starting the business three years ago, BlueRecruit made it through the pandemic and is looking forward to expanding the business further. Currently, Gina is using data to give companies insight into their job requirements to ensure the company can recruit the right talent.

“We found that the typical trades job requires four times more hard skills than your average white-collar role,” Rich said. “So, while a resume or LinkedIn might be great to get somebody a sales job… that’s why we said ‘you know what? We need something specifically for the blue- collar industry.’”