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Guy at a job site in Dayton asked me if I'd rather hire for skill or for attitude, and his answer bothered me | Career Advice - Librear

xenaw25•6d ago

Guy at a job site in Dayton asked me if I'd rather hire for skill or for attitude, and his answer bothered me

I was doing a big removal job in Dayton back in March and the homeowner, a retired manager named Rick, asked me which I'd pick if I could only have one. He said he'd hire attitude 10 times out of 10 because you can teach a guy to run a saw but you can't teach him to care. I've been running my own crew for 6 years now and I can't decide if he's right or if that's just something people say when they've never had to train someone from zero. What do you all think, is attitude really the thing you can't teach, or does skill win out in the end?

2 comments

2 Comments

faithj103d ago

Skill wins and its not close. Rick never had to pay a guy for 3 months while he learned which end of a board to cut, so of course attitude sounds great to him, he wasnt eating the cost. A guy with a good attitude and no skill will smile at you while the job falls behind and the client walks. You can teach a lazy guy to still show up and do the work if he wants the check bad enough, but you cant teach a guy who has never framed a wall how to frame one in the time it takes a job to go south. Attitude gets you through the interview, skill gets you through the job.

lunawilson3d ago

And the flip side is that "good attitude" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in these convos. Nobody ever means the guy who shows up on time, listens, and busts his ass to get better. They mean the guy who's pleasant to be around while producing nothing. That guy isn't cheap either, he's just costing you in a way that's harder to see on a spreadsheet. A bad frame gets torn out and redone, but a nice guy who can't hang drywall just burns weeks before you finally admit it. At least with a skill guy you know what you're paying for on day one.

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