I had a damp issue in April – and by that I mean that there was a water leak from a pipe in the bathroom. Stressful, but fixable, so I decided to use a local company specializing in damp repair for that one job only. I estimated that it would need a day or two to sort out, so I decided to go down the outside-IR35 contract route, because recruiting a permanent employee just for this one task would have been very inefficient.
So, just a small job. But still important to me! Getting it wrong would have serious implications.
Therefore, I needed to interview some people.
I’m no damp expert, so I couldn’t check their technical knowledge. Instead of that I was looking for the following things:
- Track record of similar work;
- Good 3rd party references; and
- Soft skills – reliability / communication / likeability / trust.
My favourite candidate on paper had lots of relevant experience (according to his website) and plenty of 3rd party references (online reviews). We had an initial consultation and quotation (the interview) where he said that he would come back to do the work in June, after the wall had dried out.
But it’s now July, and everything has gone very quiet!
Silence
After some encouragement from my own boss (wife) I called him a week ago (on speakerphone), where he promised sincerely that he’d be in touch last Wednesday to set up a date to come over.
He didn’t do this and is now not replying to any of my messages! So I have completely lost faith in him – and the drawing board beckons.
My mistakes were as follows:
- I only interviewed one candidate;
- I gave him the benefit of the doubt after he failed to get back to me the first time; and
- I continued to give him the benefit of the doubt after he failed to get back to me the second and third times.
What a hassle. No wonder people use recruitment agencies!
#damp #contractors #itrecruitment #trust
