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Westy Magnuson

Chief Culture Officer at HireAligned, a Portland, Oregon-based recruiting firm for plumbing, HVAC, and multi-trade contractors.

Sep 15, 2026

11:11
Yeah.
11:11
So, like, having opportunities to represent your company, um, all the way down to, you know, wearing, wearing a shirt that says what your company is.
11:19
Like, wearing a hat.
11:20
Like, being willing to talk about it, open and ready to talk about it.
11:23
And then as far as, like, the rest, there is a portion of the workforce that you can get that likes looking because they currently don't have a job.
11:31
But it's, it's niche b- just because there's multiple reasons.
11:35
A lot of times if it's...

16 MINS LATER

27:41
Outside your truck?
5:10
How did you get involved in the plumbing and HVAC industry?
5:16
Yeah.
5:16
So funnily enough, I got recruited by a Nexstar recruiter.
5:21
His name's Stefan.
5:22
Shout out to Stefan.
5:23
He still works with us.
5:25
Yeah, Stefan Bush.

9 MINS LATER

14:02
Talk about that.
18:36
Can you tell us, and maybe you got to go back to your experience when you were in the recruiting roles within operating these companies, but what do you think are some of the mistakes that companies make in recruiting?
18:49
Um, I mean, there's, there's a lot.
18:53
And the only reason I know is because I had front row seat when I made them all.
18:58
I, you know, that's a failure is the best teacher, I think is the phrase is something like that.
19:04
But I think the number one, one that's almost everyone that's costing you the most, that's the easiest to change is speed to lead.
19:15
The biggest thing I talk about when I do my talks at conferences is to look at recruiting as sales.
19:19
And I give the example, I'm like, if your best service tech was on a call and he had both decision makers there and they're like, hey, actually, we think we want a whole system replacement.
23:54
What are some things that you would advise to us and other companies that are trying to do that to build a world-class team?

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