Most landscaping companies hire reactively. A crew member leaves, a busy season approaches, and suddenly the goal is to fill the opening as fast as possible. Whoever shows up and seems decent enough gets the job. That works until it doesn't, and for most companies, it stops working regularly. High turnover, underperforming crews, and owners spending more time putting out fires than running a business are the predictable result.
Knowing what to look for, by role, before the interview starts is what separates companies that build strong teams from those that constantly rebuild them. This guide breaks down what good looks like for each position and how to surface it in an interview.
What Every Good Candidate Should Have
The most consistent hiring mistake landscaping companies make is prioritizing experience over attitude. Experience is easier to verify, but attitude determines how someone performs when things get hard, how they treat coworkers, and whether they stay. Skills can be taught. Coachability, work ethic, and character are much harder to develop in someone who doesn't already have them.
Every strong candidate, regardless of role, demonstrates a few foundational traits. Reliability means showing up on time and doing what they said they would do. Coachability means they receive feedback without getting defensive and apply it. Communication means they can relay what they need, flag problems early, and interact professionally with coworkers and customers. These traits show up before the formal interview even starts. Pay attention.
A candidate who doesn't align with how a company operates and what it values will struggle to perform and is more likely to leave or create conflict. Before hiring for any role, be able to articulate your core values and identify the behaviors that show alignment with them. Asking candidates about times they faced adversity or disagreed with a manager will tell you far more than asking them to describe themselves.
The best landscaping companies look internally before posting a job externally. Promoting from within rewards loyalty, signals to the team that growth is possible, and puts someone in a new role who already understands the culture, clients, and operations. When a position opens up, the first question should be whether someone already on the team is ready for it.
One of the most important responsibilities an owner or manager has is honestly assessing where a team member's strengths actually lie, not just where they want to go. Ambition should be encouraged, but it does not automatically qualify someone for a promotion. A great crew member who wants to be a team leader, or a team leader with their eye on sales, still needs to be evaluated honestly for that role. Moving the wrong person into the wrong position hurts the business and often hurts the individual too.
Crew Member
What to Look For
Physical capability, reliability, and a willingness to follow direction and learn. Technical landscaping knowledge is helpful but rarely essential at this level. The best crew member hires show up every day, work hard, and take pride in the quality of their work even when no one is watching.
Questions to Ask
Ask candidates to describe their most physically demanding job. Ask how they prefer to receive feedback. Ask what they do when they disagree with how something is being done on a job site. You are listening for self-awareness, composure, and a team-first orientation, not just the specific content of their answers.
Signs It Is or Is Not a Fit
A candidate who arrives on time, answers questions directly, and shows genuine willingness to learn is giving you something to work with. Frequent job changes with vague explanations, an inability to name a supervisor they worked well with, or defensiveness when asked about past mistakes are worth taking seriously. Discomfort with physical work or a dismissive attitude toward safety procedures are also signals that should not be ignored.
Team Leader / Foreman
What to Look For
A team leader multiplies or diminishes the people around them every day. They are responsible for the quality of the work, the pace of the crew, how safety is prioritized, and how the team interacts with clients. Look for candidates who take ownership when something goes wrong rather than deflecting blame, who communicate expectations clearly, and who can manage different personalities without losing the respect of the group.
Should This Be an Internal Hire?
Team leader is one of the most natural positions to fill from within. A strong crew member who has demonstrated leadership instincts and earned the respect of coworkers is worth developing into this role. The key is being clear about expectations before the promotion happens, not after. What does success look like? What skills need to be developed? A promotion made without that clarity is set up to struggle.
Questions to Ask
Ask candidates to describe a time they had to address a performance issue with a coworker. Ask how they handle a crew member who is not pulling their weight. Ask what they do when a client is unhappy and they need to respond on the spot. These questions reveal whether someone can hold people accountable without becoming adversarial and take responsibility under pressure.
Signs It Is or Is Not a Fit
A candidate who speaks specifically about how they handled a difficult team situation, takes ownership of outcomes, and demonstrates genuine concern for the people they lead is showing you the right instincts. A pattern of blaming management or team dynamics for past problems, language that treats leadership as an entitlement rather than a responsibility, or an inability to describe a time they gave difficult feedback are meaningful signals that the leadership piece is not yet there.
Landscape Designer
What to Look For
A landscape designer hire needs to be evaluated across three dimensions: the quality and range of their design work, their actual plant knowledge, and their ability to communicate with clients. A designer who creates beautiful plans but cannot translate them to a homeowner or navigate a client who wants something different is a liability in a customer-facing role. All three matter equally.
Questions to Ask
Ask candidates to walk through a project from initial client conversation to final design, including changes made along the way. Ask how they handle a situation where a client's vision doesn't fit the budget or site conditions. Ask what they do when a specified plant is unavailable at installation time. These questions surface problem-solving instincts, client communication skills, and practical horticultural knowledge all at once.
Signs It Is or Is Not a Fit
A portfolio with range across project types, a clear ability to explain the reasoning behind design decisions, and comfort discussing plant performance and maintenance implications are all strong signals. A portfolio that relies on the same plant palette repeatedly, difficulty explaining design choices in plain language, or defensiveness when work is questioned suggest someone who may struggle with the client-facing demands of the role. Software proficiency matters, but it should not be the primary hiring signal.
Salesperson
What to Look For
Drive, follow-through, and coachability matter more than industry experience. Someone who has sold landscaping at another company brings existing habits, some of which may not translate. A candidate who is competitive, organized, takes rejection in stride, and responds well to coaching will outperform a long-tenured salesperson who has plateaued and resists feedback.
Should This Be an Internal Hire?
Sales is worth considering for an internal promotion, particularly for someone with strong client relationships and a genuine interest in the business development side of the company. A team leader or designer who clients consistently respond well to may have the raw material to be effective in a sales role with the right training. The evaluation still needs to happen. Enthusiasm for the idea of selling is not the same as the temperament the role requires.
Questions to Ask
Ask candidates to walk through a recent deal from first contact to signed agreement. Ask how they handle an objection on price. Ask what their follow-up process looks like after an initial meeting. You are looking for specific answers, not general statements about relationships and service. A candidate who cannot recall the details of their own sales process is telling you something.
Signs It Is or Is Not a Fit
Candidates who can describe their process in concrete terms, understand the importance of speed in responding to leads, and are comfortable being held to a number are the ones worth pursuing. Vague answers about relationships and reputation without specific revenue to back them up, a pattern of attributing lost deals entirely to price, or no curiosity about sales goals and expectations are signals worth weighing carefully.
Administrative Staff
What to Look For
Attention to detail, comfort with systems and processes, and composure under pressure. Landscaping offices move fast, especially during peak season, and admin staff are often the first point of contact for customers who are frustrated or impatient. A candidate who stays organized under volume, picks up software quickly, and communicates professionally in difficult interactions is worth investing in.
Questions to Ask
Ask candidates to describe how they manage competing priorities when multiple things need attention at once. Ask how they handle a customer calling in frustrated about a service issue they did not personally create. Ask what systems or tools they have used to stay organized and how they learned them. The specificity of their answers will tell you whether the experience is real.
Signs It Is or Is Not a Fit
A candidate who can describe their systems and tools clearly, who stays composed when asked a situational question, and whose application was thorough and well-written is demonstrating the traits the role demands. Vague descriptions of past responsibilities, visible frustration when pressed for specifics, or poor written communication in the application itself are worth paying attention to. The same reliability and coachability standards that apply to every other role apply here.
What the Interview Is Telling You
The interview starts before the first question is asked.
- Did the candidate arrive on time?
- Were they prepared?
- How did they handle the small talk before things got formal?
The interview is the moment a candidate is trying hardest to make a good impression. What they show you here is generally better behavior than what comes after an offer is accepted.
How a candidate responds to straightforward questions matters, but so does how they respond to pressure. A candidate who gives sharp, specific answers when questions are easy but becomes vague or defensive when asked about a failure, a difficult coworker, or a time something went wrong is giving you useful information. The ability to speak honestly about hard situations, take accountability, and show some self-awareness is a reliable indicator of how someone will perform in the role.
Consistency across candidates also matters. Different questions, different levels of scrutiny, and different amounts of time for each person make it nearly impossible to compare fairly. Using the same core questions for each role every time reduces the chance that a confident, likable landscaping employee candidate gets hired on charisma alone.
For field candidates who interview well, making a conditional offer at the end of the interview is reasonable. That offer should be contingent on a background check, motor vehicle report, and drug screen. Ask upfront if there is anything they want to disclose before the check runs. A candidate who withholds information that later surfaces on a background check has broken trust before the job even starts. Do not settle for a hire you are not confident in just because the position needs to be filled.
About The Grow Group
Led by Marty Grunder, The Grow Group is a premier coaching and education firm for landscape professionals. We provide innovative events like our annual GROW! Conference, peer groups, and real-world resources to help landscaping business owners and their teams succeed. Everything we teach is based on what we know works because we test it ourselves at our "living laboratory," Grunder Landscaping Company, the business Marty began as a teenager and still leads today.
We don't just share theories and ideas. We share tactics we used at our own landscaping company this week that we know still work. Our team brings more than 95 years of combined field experience to everything we do. Whether you're trying to grow your landscaping business or get better control over it, we can help get you where you want to go.
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