Hiring in Skilled Trades: What Hiring Tech Gets Wrong

Why ATS and AI screeners fail blue-collar hiring — and what actually works.

By Chris Fairley, Founder & CEO • • 6 min read

Walk into any tech company's HR department and you'll find:

Now walk into a barbershop, restaurant, or construction site.

Those tools don't exist. And when they do? They don't work.

The corporate hiring assumption

Every major hiring platform was built with the same assumption:

Hiring = sorting through text to find keywords.

This works (sort of) for corporate jobs where you're hiring for credentials, communication, and cognitive ability.

But in trades and performance-based work?

You're hiring for skill. Period.

Why ATS fails blue-collar hiring

The keyword trap

ATS systems rank candidates by keyword matching. If your résumé says "customer service," you rank higher for service jobs.

But a 10-year bartender might not write "customer service" anywhere. They might just say "bartending." And get filtered out.

The education bias

Many systems automatically rank candidates by education level. But in trades, the best technician might not have finished high school — and the worst might have a degree.

The speed mismatch

Corporate hiring takes weeks. Trade hiring needs to happen in days. By the time ATS processes applications, the best candidates have already found work.

The skill blindness

There's no field in an ATS for "watch this person actually do the job." The entire system is built on claims, not proof.

What trade hiring actually needs

After talking to hundreds of business owners in barbershops, restaurants, automotive, and construction, the requirements are clear:

  • Speed: I need someone this week, not next month
  • Proof: I need to see they can do the job
  • Trust: I need to know they'll actually show up
  • Simplicity: I don't have an HR department

    • That's it. Four things.

    And none of them are served by traditional hiring tech.

    The new approach

    What if hiring started with proof instead of paperwork?

    What if, instead of reading a résumé, you watched a 30-second video of someone doing the job?

    What if, instead of scheduling a phone screen, you could see skill level immediately?

    What if you knew the person was ID-verified before you ever talked?

    That's not futuristic. That's what Vetano does today.

    The opportunity

    The trades aren't just underserved by hiring tech — they've been ignored.

    Silicon Valley built for Silicon Valley. Now it's time to build for everyone else.

    For the barbershop owner who's tired of no-shows. For the restaurant manager who needs a line cook tomorrow. For the contractor who can't afford another mis-hire.

    These businesses don't need more software complexity.

    They need proof, trust, and speed.

    Skills speak louder than keywords. — Chris