58 minutes with Work With Your Handz’ CEO Kelly Presgrave

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“Blue-collar workers, the technicians we hire, are the fabric of America. They’re solving problems for homeowners and businesses, and society needs that.”

Kelly Presgrave is the President and CEO of Work With Your Handz, a recruiting company specializing in the skilled trades. Kelly is a forward-charging, executive-mom combo who prioritizes time with her family, loves to ski, and occasionally listens to 70s hits.

We talked about the skilled labor shortage, how she’s working to solve it, the year ahead, and more.

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

Although I live in northern Virginia now, I grew up in Tennessee and still consider myself a Tennessean. I have 3 college-aged children and have been married for almost 29 years. I went to George Mason University and graduated with a degree in finance. After graduating, I worked with various companies including Deloitte, but ultimately decided to stay home and raise my children.

How did you get the idea for Work With Your Handz?

My husband owns a residential service company that his father started in 1981, and over the years, I watched it grow from 10 employees to over 150. At an industry event in 2018, we were talking about the labor shortage with other company owners, which led to my husband asking, “Why don’t you do some recruiting for me?” I told him okay, but not as his employee. I wanted it to be my own company. That was the spark moment.

One of my friends, whose husband works with mine, helped me co-found the company. I had tried to start two other businesses, but the timing was wrong and they didn’t work out. Like so many things in life that are successful, the timing was on my side with starting Work With Your Handz. Starting it was incredibly fun and rewarding — I truly love the building part. From the moment of inception, I knew we were onto something that could grow.

What exactly is Work With Your Handz? 

We’re a recruiting company that specializes in finding skilled trades labor. We partner with residential and commercial service companies (large and small) across the nation. Because we know the service industry so well, we also recruit for office staff and leadership roles. Knowing the business model and truly understanding, at an operational level, how each role contributes to the bottom line of a company has been instrumental in our success.

Recruiting for skilled trades in the service industry takes tenacity — we tackle it from an analytical and tactical perspective and couple that with hard work and dedication to finding the workers for our customers, and it’s a winning strategy.

Given your experience with starting companies, how did you think differently about this one from the beginning?

I knew the business model of a contractor, which was a huge advantage. Understanding the contributions individual technicians can make, as well as understanding how each department relies on and plays into the success of the overall business, gave us a competitive edge right out of the gate. We get very excited and invested in the success of our clients; we want to see them grow. From the beginning, we were concentrating on our own growth, and it translated nicely into a win-win-win. Finding the right talent is first and foremost a win for our clients, but also a win for the candidates, and a win for our recruiters.

My co-founder and I didn’t know anything about recruiting — her background was in social work, but we were immensely successful at it. We learned quickly and were able to be highly nimble in the beginning. I earned a talent acquisition certificate from Cornell, we hired a business coach with a recruiting background, and we started networking to learn the recruiting industry at a deeper level.

I think I read 5 books on recruiting within the first 3 months. I listened to podcasts, watched YouTube videos, and made every attempt to learn all aspects of the industry. I still do that today as the landscape is always evolving, especially with new technological advancements.

The problem you’re ultimately solving is the industry’s labor shortage, but why do you think that’s important?

People want to have a career they’re proud of. Psychologically, they need to have a rewarding “work home.” The candidates we’re looking for want to contribute and learn; they have an innate desire to do something they’re proud of. The workers we’re seeking for our clients usually like variety; workdays in the skilled trades are not monotonous. You’re not sitting stagnant behind a desk, you’re always moving and confronting new challenges. There’s a lot to be said about that.

Blue-collar workers, the technicians we hire, are the fabric of America. They’re solving problems for homeowners and businesses, and society needs that. It can be a really rewarding career for a lot of people. The opportunities are endless. When we were forming the company, we kept coming back to wanting to hire individuals who worked with their hands — it encompasses so many trades. It’s a defining aspect of someone trying to figure out what kind of career they want to pursue.

What do you say to a contractor who says, “Why should we work with you?”

Well, we do the hard stuff! Instead of just sending our clients a list of leads or resumes and saying, “Go run with it.” We do the headhunting and phone screening — we’ll ask candidates if they have certifications, and if they’ve done the job before, why they love it; we dive into why they’re looking and can ask questions on the client’s core values. For residential service, if they’ve presented options to a homeowner before, etc.

On the commercial side, we’re vetting for skills and ability but also soft skills, clean driving records, OT availability, etc. The pre-qualifying of candidates is incredibly time-consuming. The legwork we do to find qualified applicants, including setting up interviews, coordinating the scheduling, and monitoring the negotiation process — we take care of the time-consuming parts that other companies don’t.

In addition to the vetting, a huge part of the value we add is finding passive candidates — so talent that is not applying to jobs. We have resources that include not only the latest technology, but the human capital to find the workers our clients need. The workers our clients need are literally working with their hands; the challenge is to schedule a time to talk outside of normal business hours.

For leadership roles, we have an incredibly deep network of talent that is connected within the industry and always looking for the best teams to work with as they rise in their careers. It takes tenacity, grit, determination, and working with a sense of urgency to get in front of the best candidates.

What do you do day-to-day?

I love talking with business owners about their recruiting challenges and working with our team to ensure operational success. I like to have a pulse on all aspects of the business. I need variety in my day so I tend to work on different parts of the business at different times. My favorite parts of my day include planning, forecasting, and thinking about the future.

Any hobbies outside of work?

I love to ski, golf, and paint. My daughter is an equestrian; I love to go to her shows. Leisure time includes reading, working out, traveling, and spending time with family — including our St. Bernard, Tobias.

I do work out every day — it’s a huge outlet to release stress. If I have a bad day, I’ll be on the treadmill with really loud music.

What kind of really loud music?

For running purposes, I’ll listen to whatever my kids have on Spotify that has a good beat, but if it’s just me, I’m listening to 70s hits.

What excites you most about 2024?

Our goal for 2024 is to double our business. It’s no small feat, but we’re going to be very intentional about the effort. We’re partnering with a more diverse group of companies, which is fun. We have so many things to be grateful for and I feel like we’re poised for substantial growth.

I learned so much in the past 5 years and I value each of those lessons. I look forward to continuing to learn and continuing to be challenged. I’m super excited about my team right now; they are on point. We continue to hire more competitive talent and I feel like we’re going to crush it this year.

If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be?

Julius Caesar.

That’s a tough one. I’ll probably think about it and find another one, but I’m running with that one.