Your best tech just quit. Here is the 14-day response plan.

Hour one: the resignation conversation

Take the conversation seriously and calmly, and get three facts before anything else: where they are going, what moved them (money, dispatch, schedule, a person), and their intended last day. Thank them honestly; in a trade this small you will meet again, and the tone of this conversation decides whether they refer friends to you or warn them away later.

Should you counter?

Usually no, occasionally yes. A tech who accepted another offer has already pictured leaving, and a counter that only raises money buys you a few months while teaching the rest of the crew that resignation is the raise process. Counter when the cause is one specific, fixable grievance you can change permanently (a dispatch inequity, a schedule conflict, a broken pay-plan promise), fix it for the whole shop, and still treat the seat as at-risk. If the move is about the other offer rather than about you, let them go well.

Day one: triage the board before you recruit

• Protect the maintenance agreements first: those customers churn quietly when visits slip, and they are the annuity. Defer the deferrable one-off work instead.
• Set an overtime budget as the bridge, deliberately: covering a seat costs real money weekly, so decide what you will spend rather than discovering it on payroll.
• Tell the crew the plan the same day; an unexplained hole breeds the "who is next" conversation faster than any competitor can.
• Run the cost math once (our cost-of-vacancy calculator does it in a minute), because that number sets how aggressively the refill deserves to move.

Days 1-2: launch the search properly

Three moves in parallel, not sequence. First, re-check the pay band against live local data before anything goes out; seats vacated by a tech who left for money do not refill at the old number, and the salary guides on this site carry the current sources. Second, blast the referral channel with a real bonus attached: your techs, your suppliers, your trade-school contacts, the same day. Third, post the role properly (numbers in the ad, five requirements, mobile apply) while treating the posting as the net, not the plan.

Then start the direct outreach that actually fills most of these seats: the working techs you or your crew already know by name, approached specifically. If that list is thin, this is the step a recruiter exists for, and the one where our standing Gulf Coast bench typically produces first screened submittals inside the first week.

Days 3-7: screen at crisis speed without cutting the screen

Speed and standards are not in tension if the process is tight: same-day replies, ten-minute phone screens booked within 24 hours of contact, and one combined interview visit. What never compresses is verification: credentials checked at the source and background and driving checks to your policy, because a panic hire into an in-home role is how a two-week problem becomes a lawsuit. Scorecards exist precisely so urgency does not lower the bar.

Days 7-14: close, and manage the gap honestly

Make the offer in writing the same day you decide, prepare the candidate for their own counteroffer conversation, and set the start date at their notice period, not your hope. While the notice runs, bridge capacity deliberately: overtime within the budget you set, a vetted sub for overflow, and honest scheduling with customers rather than silent slippage. A realistic timeline lands a quality hire in two to five weeks total; the 14-day version happens when the band is right and the outreach starts day one.

The shops that never run this play

Operators on our retainer and pipeline plans skip the scramble because the bench already exists: candidates screened and warm before the resignation letter arrives, which turns a crisis into a calendar event. That is the honest pitch for always-on recruiting, and this playbook is what it replaces.

Common questions