Commercial Grade
From West Point to the Trades - Rich Camacho on Skill-Based Hiring
Gen Z is entering the trades in numbers not seen since World War II. Rich Camacho says the industry still isn't ready to hire them, and that gap could become a crisis in five years. In this episode of Commercial Grade, host RC Victorino sits down with Rich Camacho, CEO and co-founder of BlueRecruit, to talk about what's really happening in skilled trades hiring right now, and why the story is more complicated than a simple labor shortage. Rich is a West Point graduate, Army veteran, and former captain who spent his early career helping fellow service members transition into corporate careers. BlueRecruit was born out of a much smaller problem: his father-in-law's auto body shop kept getting resumes from house painters because of bad keyword matching on job boards. Rich and his co-founder built BlueRecruit to connect skilled workers with employers the way a dating app connects people, and the company now sees over 100,000 people a day on its platform. The conversation covers why Rich believes the industry is facing an experience and training shortage rather than a pure labor shortage, why so many new solar installers quit within their first week, why polished corporate social media does more harm than good when it comes to recruiting Gen Z, and how AI is already changing both back office work and life on the job site. Rich also makes the case that if the industry does not figure out how to train and absorb the wave of young people currently choosing the trades, it will trigger a skilled labor shortage in the next five years. In this episode you'll hear: Why Gen Zers are choosing the trades at rates not seen since World War II, and why career changers are following them Why polished, AI generated corporate content actively repels the workers and customers companies are trying to reach What BlueRecruit's data reveals: the industry isn't short on workers, it's short on experienced people to train them Why Rich believes the companies that invest in training now will dominate the industry within five years Why veterans' military experience often fails to translate into civilian trade certifications, and what Rich is doing about it About the Guest: Rich Camacho is CEO and co-founder of BlueRecruit, a skilled trades hiring platform based in Raleigh, North Carolina, built around skill based hiring. A US Army veteran and former captain, Rich attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he studied civil engineering, and later continued his education at Colorado State University. After the military, he spent his early career helping fellow veterans transition into corporate careers before recognizing a major gap in how skilled tradespeople were being matched with employers. He co-founded BlueRecruit to modernize that process, and the platform now supports roughly 109,000 people and tens of thousands of companies every day. Links & Resources: https://bluerecruit.us/ http://BuildOps.com
