Danny Herskowitz

I'm recruiting for a new Assistant Project Manager role with one of Southern California's most respected electrical contractors! This is an excellent opportunity for someone looking to build a long-term career in project management with a company known for its stability, employee development, and promote-from-within culture. Ideal backgrounds: • Assistant Project Management • Project Coordination • Construction Estimating • Construction Engineering • Commercial Construction Operations If you're interested in learning more, feel free to send me your resume at: Danny@JMLSearch.com to be considered for this exciting opportunity! #Projectmanagement #Hiring #JMLSearch

📝 NOTES FROM THE FIELD NOTE #1: The Power of Pattern Recognition in Recruiting The longer I do this, the more I realize the answers are usually hidden in the patterns. -Not in a single resume. -Not in a single interview. -Not in a single conversation. It's what keeps showing up over time that's really worth paying attention to. -The candidate who consistently demonstrates ownership. -The same concern that comes up in multiple interviews. -The hiring challenge that keeps resurfacing. The more conversations you have during a search, the better you understand the market and what's driving candidates. The conversations will tell you what's happening, but the patterns help you understand why. That's one reason I've always carried a notebook. Half the notes probably only make sense to me, but writing things down has always helped me connect the dots later. Every single search leaves clues. The key is paying attention long enough to recognize the pattern. Take a minute and look back at your last few hires, interviews, or searches. What keeps showing up that you may be overlooking? — Danny Herskowitz #NotesFromTheField #Recruiting #PropertyManagement #SkilledTrades #HomeServices #JMLSearch

📝 NOTES FROM THE FIELD The most valuable recruiting lessons I've learned over the past 16+ years weren't found in reports, dashboards, or software. They came from people. From conversations with candidates. From meetings with hiring managers. From interviews that revealed something unexpected. From patterns that emerged after thousands of conversations and years of working closely with clients and candidates. I still carry a notebook. Not because I have to. Because some of the best ideas come to us when we least expect them and need to be captured before they disappear. Over the years, those notebooks have filled with hiring lessons, recurring challenges, candidate feedback, leadership observations, and ideas that only emerge through real-world experience. When I look back through those notebooks, they're far from perfect. The handwriting is messy. The spelling is usually wrong. The grammar isn't much better. There are half-finished thoughts, random ideas scribbled in the margins, and notes that only make sense to me. But they're real. Unedited. Unfiltered. Thoughts captured in the moment before they had a chance to be polished. And while technology continues to evolve (and I use plenty of it every day), I'll never let go of the pen. Not because I'm resisting change. Because talking to people and writing things down still teaches me more than any dashboard ever could. Over the years, those notebooks have become a collection of observations, reminders, lessons, ideas, and great memories. Some are useful. Some are messy. Most were written in the moment. That's why I'm sharing them. Welcome to Notes From the Field. Real hiring observations from working with companies to find talent across the property, skilled trades, and home services sectors. These are observations pulled from years of conversations, interviews, searches, placements, and partnerships with hiring companies. They won't be industry reports. They won't be recycled hiring advice. Just real observations from the field. To do you all a favor, I'll spare you my handwriting and share the notes here instead. Stay tuned for the first page of the notebook. Coming soon! — Danny Herskowitz, JML Search LLC #NotesFromTheField #Recruiting #Hiring #Property #SkilledTrades #HomeServices #TalentAcquisition

We’re living in a world where everyone is trying to move faster, automate more, use templates for everything, and become 10x more productive. Sometimes it feels to me like shortcuts are becoming the new definition of success. Every day, my algorithm feeds me videos about one person or one AI tool doing the work of entire teams, replacing tasks, saving hours a day, and changing the value of certain education, careers and skills. If I’m being honest, part of me is excited by it. These tools have helped me in ways I never could have imagined as a solo recruiter and business owner of JML Search LLC. But another part of me still struggles with how quickly everything is changing and how easily efficiency can slowly turn into shortcuts. As someone who recruits, I think we have to be careful not to build teams and company cultures around shortcuts while businesses reshape departments, create new roles, and hire people with completely different skill sets and personality types than they once did. I’ve noticed it in my own life too. The more I use these tools, the easier it becomes to fall into replacing real effort, communication, and connection with convenience. Conversations can feel less personal. Texts and emails are all starting to sound the same, and even relationships can start feeling transactional if you’re not careful. Honestly, I even tried writing this post the "old-fashioned" way without any AI tool, but I still ended up asking it for feedback and, in a strange way, permission before releasing it to the LinkedIn world, because I’ve already gotten so used to doing that. That alone says a lot about how quickly my way of thinking and working has already changed. And while I fully believe the core parts of recruiting and relationship-building will never change, what has definitely changed for me is how I assess talent. I’m working on paying less attention to buzzwords and more attention to whether someone actually takes pride in their work, communicates like a real human being, cares about the people around them, and still wants to do things the right way while also being willing to adapt to where their industry is heading. The companies that build the strongest teams moving forward probably won’t just be the ones using the best tools. They’ll be the ones who still know how to hire people with real character, communication skills, care, and pride behind the work they do. If your company is trying to figure out which roles make sense to hire next, what types of people fit this current business environment, or how to keep building strong teams across the property management and housing industries, I’m always open to connecting and sharing what I’m seeing in the market. #JMLSearch #Property #Housing #Recruiting

The strongest maintenance hires today are now bringing much more than one trade skill. This is what I like to call the “Multi-Craft Pro.” Especially in residential property management and home services, the people who stand out are those who can move easily between technical work, communication, operations, and problem-solving without slowing down. When I look back, the best hires I’ve helped make for clients in 2026 have combined: • Strong technical ability • Operational discipline • People skills • Adaptability • Business awareness One of the biggest hiring mistakes I see is evaluating property management and maintenance talent mainly through certifications and a set number of years of experience. The strongest operators usually bring a much broader value set than that. As technical talent becomes harder to find and the market continues to evolve, the companies that hire best will be the ones focusing on professionals who can work well with their hands, think clearly under pressure, connect well with people, stay open to technology, and understand the bigger picture of the business they’re supporting. #PropertyManagement #ResidentialPropertyManagement #HomeServices #Maintenance #Multifamily #FacilitiesManagement #Hiring #Operations #Recruiting

Most hiring processes fall into one of two patterns. Inconsistent approach or a one-size-fits-all process. Neither is ideal. Every property, every team, and every role comes with its own realities. Daily operations, team structure, ownership expectations, and asset type all shape how a property performs. At the same time, hiring can’t be reinvented from scratch for every search. What I’ve found is this: strong outcomes come from a repeatable, customized process built on three things 1)Clear structure. 2)Defined criteria. 3)Tailored to the role. Your recruitment success is decided before the role is filled! #Propertymanagement #Recruiting #JMLSearch

Which street are you hiring on? Most hiring challenges aren’t a talent problem. They’re a visibility problem. Many companies hire based on what’s easy to see: titles, years of experience, recognizable company names. But what actually drives performance sits underneath the pavement: -How someone operates when things get hard -What they do when things go sideways at 6 PM right before the weekend, and everyone’s looking for answers -Whether their strengths actually match what the role demands day-to-day The issue is that those things are hard to determine during a one-hour interview. They show up once the person is already working in the role. That’s when you start to feel it: -Slower ramp time -Friction with teams or residents -Missed expectations on both sides That’s the difference between hiring on the surface and hiring with a real understanding of how someone performs. That’s why I built the JML Skills Gap Roadmap: it's a process to map the gap between what the role truly requires and what a candidate actually brings before you make the hire. I keep it simple, three filters I use on every search, no matter the role/level: 1)Fit — values, work style, character, and how they fit your culture and team dynamic 2)Function — are they actually capable of doing the job at a high level 3)Future — do they believe in what you're building and want to be part of where you're going When all three line up, hiring starts to feel like less of a gamble than it already is. If you’re actively hiring and want a clearer lens before making a decision, happy to connect!

Is building always on your mind? If you’re in property management, I know it is. The building, the operations, making sure everything is functioning and running the way it should. For me, it’s the same idea, just from a different angle. You could say it’s living rent-free in my mind! I’m always thinking about the people behind it all. After working closely with property management companies over the past 2.5 years, I’ve realized something simple. The best operators think about the building, while the best leaders think about building the people. Because everything in this business, occupancy, operations, resident experience, and asset value comes down to who you have in place. Most teams hire when there’s a problem. The best ones start building before there is one. The reality is, the best operators aren’t always spending their time applying to jobs. They’re out in the field solving problems and keeping their portfolios running. Which means if you wait until you need to hire, you’re already too late The teams that are winning right now aren’t just hiring faster, they’re building earlier.

Protect Your Recruiting Clock! Fast hiring matters. Protected time matters more. Because the faster you can return to your zone of genius, the faster your business moves. Honestly, I’ve worked with many leaders who have the ability to be strong recruiters themselves. They know how to attract the right talent, sell the opportunity, evaluate effectively, and make sound selection decisions. Capability isn’t always the issue. Ownership is. Running an end-to-end hiring process is operationally demanding. It requires a lot of coordination, real-time market awareness, a structured search and evaluation process, management of candidate psychology, and consistent follow-through. That level of execution takes time. It takes energy. It takes sustained focus. Even the most talented feel the weight of owning a shifting and complex process, such as hiring, while also managing everything else. And that's also why even the best recruiters use recruiters to hire for their own agencies! Having the right recruiting partner changes the equation because they will: Own the entire process. Preserve your leadership bandwidth. Reduce friction, false starts, and hiring risks. Help you make decisions that ultimately conserve your most precious resources: time and energy. Speed fills roles. Focus builds companies. If you’re hiring and want your time and strategic energy protected, so you can do what you do best, let’s connect!