Residential trades staffing founded 2025
We fill the seat, the truck, and the phone.
Localsmith staffs residential HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing and appliance companies. Service techs and installers, apprentices, and the dispatchers and CSRs who keep the board full. Everyone gets screened against the work orders they'd be handed in week one.
Why we started this
Most agencies have never priced a job.
Ask a general staffing firm to fill a service seat and you get résumés. Résumés don't tell you whether someone can diagnose a failed reversing valve on a July afternoon with a homeowner standing in the doorway, or whether they will talk a customer into a repair the system didn't need.
So the screen is built around the work order instead. What did you run last week. What did you quote. What came back. We check the licenses with the body that issued them, pull the motor vehicle record before anyone touches a company truck, and ask the questions a service manager would ask on a ride-along.
It takes longer at the front. It's also what the ninety-day guarantee further down this page rests on — we wouldn't offer it otherwise.
What we staff
Five trades and the desk behind them.
Residential and light commercial. Service, install, and the office seats that decide whether either one runs on time. Every title listed is a role we fill.
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HVAC & refrigeration
Heat in January, air in July
Section 608 certification checked by type. We ask every candidate what they have run on A2L refrigerant, because the shops that waited are finding out the hard way that R-454B isn't a drop-in.
- Service Technician
- Install Lead
- Maintenance / PM Tech
- Sheet Metal
- Controls Tech
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Plumbing & drain
Service, drain, and repipe
Licensed plumbers and drain techs who can camera a line, read what they're looking at, and explain it to a homeowner without selling them a new sewer.
- Journeyman Plumber
- Drain Technician
- Water Heater Install
- Backflow Tester
- Apprentice
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Electrical
Service work and upgrades
Panel changeouts, 200-amp service upgrades, Level 2 charger installs, generator interlocks. Licenses verified with the issuing state or municipal board before a name reaches you.
- Journeyman Electrician
- Master Electrician
- Service Tech
- Apprentice (1st–4th yr)
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Roofing & exteriors
Tear-off, dry-in, and detail
Crews who work tied off. Residential fall protection starts at six feet and we ask how a candidate rigs before we ask how many squares they can lay in a day.
- Crew Lead
- Roofer
- Gutter Installer
- Siding
- Repair Tech
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Appliance & handyman
The long tail of the callout
Sealed-system appliance work is a Section 608 Type I card; a residential condenser is Type II. They aren't interchangeable, and we check which one a candidate holds. The rest is trim, doors, drywall and the fifty small jobs a homeowner has been putting off.
- Appliance Technician
- Handyman / Multi-skilled
- Warranty Tech
- Punch-list Carpenter
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The desk
Where the day gets won
A good dispatcher is worth two trucks. We staff the office seats most agencies skip, and we screen for the software you already run — ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, whatever is on the monitor.
- Dispatcher
- CSR
- Warranty Administrator
- Permit Clerk
- Service Manager
For owners and service managers
You're down a truck. That's the whole problem.
An empty seat in a four-truck shop is a quarter of the revenue and all of the overtime. The goal isn't a stack of candidates. It's one person, on the schedule, this week.
- Shortlist inside 48 hours of an agreed intake
- Licenses and certification cards verified with the issuing body
- Motor vehicle record pulled before anyone drives your truck
- I-9 work authorization completed before the first shift for anyone on our payroll. On a direct hire that duty is yours, and we'll say so up front
- Temp and temp-to-hire staff sit on our W-2 — payroll, taxes, workers' comp
- 90-day replacement on direct hires, in writing
For technicians and apprentices
You'll know the pay, the route, and the on-call before you say yes.
Nobody should find out about the weekend rotation in week three. Every role we send you comes with the pay band, the service area, the truck situation, the on-call schedule and whether the shop pays for your continuing education.
- You never pay us. Not a fee, not a deposit, not ever
- Pay range and on-call rotation stated up front, every time
- Apprentices matched to a shop with enough journeymen on staff to train you
- A real person answers — no application black hole
- Interview accommodations arranged on request, no documentation needed
- Intake in English or Spanish — atendemos en español
How a fill runs
Clocked from the intake call.
The times below are targets we hold ourselves to, and we tell you at intake when a particular role won't hit them.
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The call
Twenty minutes with whoever runs the schedule. Scope, service area, truck and tools, on-call rotation, pay band, the software on the desk, and what this person has to be able to do unsupervised by day thirty. Written down and agreed before we source anyone.
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Cards, record, references
License and certification numbers checked against the issuing board or certifying organization. Motor vehicle record pulled, with consent. References go out the same day and are called by somebody who has run service work — though a former service manager calling back inside a day is luck, so we tell you which references have come back before you interview anyone.
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Three names, scored the same way
Every candidate is marked against the same written rubric, and the opening pass is reviewed with names, photos and graduation years stripped out.
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A working interview, paid
Half a day on the truck with your lead tech beats an hour in an office. We pay the candidate for that time whether or not you hire them, which is the part most shops find surprising.
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We call both of you
Separately, at day seven and day thirty. Ninety days is the guarantee, but the problems that end a placement are visible in week one and nobody wants to be the first to say so.
Engagement
Four ways to hire, priced before we start.
| Model | How it works | Typical fill | Guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct hire | Permanent placement on your payroll. One fee, payable on the start date. | 5–12 days | 90-day replacement |
| Temp-to-hire | The tech works on our W-2 while you both find out. Convert at any point with no conversion fee after 480 hours. | 3–7 days | Swap on request, any time |
| Seasonal crew | Install helpers and PM techs for the shoulder-season ramp. Billed weekly, you approve the hours. | 2–5 days | Redeploy, billed to the hour |
| Apprentice pipeline | Apprentices matched to your journeyman ratio, with a written training plan both sides sign. Where the state registers apprentices we check the registration, and that somebody is signing off the hours. | Rolling | Check-in at 3 and 6 months |
Standards
Eight things we do, written down.
If we fall short of one of these, write to melo@localsmithhomeservices.com and it reaches the person who can fix it.
Pay range on every role
In writing, before the first conversation, with the on-call and overtime structure spelled out.
Licenses checked at the source
State and municipal boards for electrical and plumbing, and NATE's own directory. Section 608 has no central registry, so we go back to the organization that issued the card.
MVR before the keys
Pulled before anyone is sent to a role with a company vehicle — with written consent first, because a motor vehicle record obtained through a screening agency is a consumer report under the FCRA.
Paid working interviews
If we ask a candidate to spend half a day on your truck, they get paid for it either way.
Apprentice ratios respected
We won't place an apprentice into a shop that has no journeyman available to supervise them.
Identity-blind first pass
Names, photos, addresses and graduation years stripped before the opening review.
Fair-chance review
A record is weighed against what the role requires, in line with EEOC guidance and applicable state law.
Candidates never pay
Employers pay our fees. Candidates pay nothing, at any stage, for any reason.
In their words
Both ends of the placement.
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We had run the same ad for five months. Localsmith asked what our callback rate was before they asked anything else, which no agency had ever done. The tech they sent started on a Tuesday.
Owner Nine-truck HVAC and plumbing company -
They told me the on-call rotation and the truck stock situation before the interview. I had been burned twice by shops that left that part out until after I signed.
Service Technician, HVAC Placed 2025 -
I was hired as a CSR and nobody treated it like the junior job. The intake call was about dispatch software and how we book after five, not about whether I was a people person.
Dispatcher Placed 2025
Questions
Asked often.
What does it cost?
Direct hire is a percentage of first-year base pay, agreed in writing before we source anyone and payable only when somebody starts. Temp and temp-to-hire are billed at an hourly rate that already contains payroll taxes, workers' compensation and our margin. One number, no add-ons at the end of the month.
Do candidates pay anything?
No. If someone claiming to represent Localsmith asks you for money, it isn't us — email melo@localsmithhomeservices.com and we'll deal with it.
Can you cover a summer or winter ramp?
Yes, and it's worth telling us early. Install helpers and PM techs are the easiest seats to fill in February and the hardest in July. A shop that books its seasonal crew in the shoulder season gets a materially better bench than one that calls during the first heat wave.
How do you handle licensing across state lines?
Electrical and plumbing licensure is state and sometimes municipal, and reciprocity is uneven. We check what a candidate holds, where it's valid, and what the local jurisdiction requires before anyone is put forward. Where a license doesn't transfer we say so at intake.
Are the techs on your payroll or ours?
On temp and temp-to-hire, ours. They're our W-2 employees for as long as the assignment runs, which means we carry payroll, employment taxes, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation. You approve the hours and direct the work. On a direct hire they're yours from day one.
What if the placement doesn't work out?
On a direct hire, if it ends inside ninety days we run the search again at no additional fee. On temp, tell us and we redeploy — you're billed for hours worked and nothing else. In either case we want to know what went wrong, because a bad fill usually means we misread the intake.
Do you place apprentices and career changers?
Yes, and it's a large part of what we do. The constraint is the shop, not the candidate: a first-year apprentice placed somewhere with nobody to supervise them will quit the trade within a year. We check the journeyman ratio and the training plan before we send anyone.
Start here
Tell us what the week looks like.
Whichever side of this you're on, a person reads it and answers within one business day.
¿Busca trabajo como técnico? Escríbanos en español y le respondemos en español.
Prefer email melo@localsmithhomeservices.com