Mud & Microchips · August 2026

The Crew You Actually Want — a Mud & Microchips series for construction and restoration owners hiring in a Gen Z labour market. Post 2 of 4.

You're Interviewing Them. They're Also Interviewing You. Are You Ready?

You posted the job. You lined up the candidate. You've done a hundred of these. But this one is going to be different because the 23-year-old across the table has a list of questions too. Real ones. And how you answer them decides whether the good candidate says yes.

The generation walking into your interviews is a younger version of you, with one difference. They have the courage to ask the questions you always wanted to ask and never did.

Gen Z Isn't Asking New Questions. They're Asking Them Out Loud.

Think back to coming up in this trade. Is there a future for me here? Will anyone teach me the parts I don't know? Can I say something's broken without getting my head bitten off? You had those questions. You just didn't ask them.

Gen Z asks. That's the whole difference. They didn't invent the questions, but with the knowledge at their fingertips, they gave names to things the rest of us have wrestled with for years. Psychological safety. Work-life balance. Mental health. They're names for problems that have already been costing you good people for a long time.

And when you build a workplace that answers those questions well, you're not building it just for the young hire. On a jobsite, asking questions matters more than almost anywhere: a crew that will tell you when something's off is a safer crew. This is health and safety in real life.

Some of The Questions You Should Expect — and How to Answer Them

“Can I share my ideas here and will they go anywhere?”

The wrong answer is a vague “we're a family here, everybody's got a voice.” They can smell that. The honest answer names how it actually works: who they'd bring an idea to, what's happened when someone has, and where you're still figuring it out.

“Show me someone who got promoted from this exact role.”

In our first post we talked about how much a clear path matters to this generation. They'll ask for proof: an actual story of someone who sat in the seat they're interviewing for and moved up. If you have that story, tell it. If you don't, don't fake one. Be honest about what growth could realistically look like from here.

The one that matters most in our trade: “How will I be mentored?”

There's a belief that Gen Z doesn't want to work hard. We think the opposite is true. They want to learn and they know they need guidance. What they don't want is to be thrown into the deep mud of a job with no idea what they're doing, set up to fail. They want the promotion, but they want to know there's support to help them earn it.

You probably don't have a documented mentoring program. (Most shops your size don’t). Don't pretend you do. Tell them honestly how you've done it so far — the foreman who takes the new guys under his wing, and what you can offer today. Honesty beats a polished lie every time. They will feel the lie. They always do.

“What does work-life balance actually look like here?”

This is one of the hardest questions to answer honestly in restoration, and it's the one where you have to be 100% transparent. Be straight about the busy seasons, the emergency call-outs, the stretches when hours are unpredictable and it's all hands on deck with the rest of the team. Then tell them the other half: how your team actually handles those times, and how people get their time back after a brutal week. A young hire wants to know whether the hard weeks are honest and shared. Tell them the truth up front, and the right person will respect you for it.

If This Feels Like Entitlement, Read This Twice

Some owners hear a 22-year-old ask about psychological safety and think: the audacity. “When I started, I was grateful to have a job.” Fair. But the people working for you right now have thought about every one of those questions. Some have already left over exactly these things and never told you why. The only thing that's changed with the new generation is the courage to say it to your face, and the vocabulary to name it.

A candidate who asks hard questions is telling you who they are before you hire them. On a larger scale, the safe, supported workplace they're asking about is the best retention move you've got, for everyone.

Prepare Like You're the One Being Interviewed (Because You Are)

Don't treat the interview like they have to prove themselves to you. Treat it like two people meeting who might both benefit. The moment you set yourself above the table, you've lost the good candidates. Before you sit down, get your own answers straight.

Then change how you run the process. Run two interviews, not one. The first is with someone from your team: someone who'd actually work alongside this hire. Only if they pass, does the second interview happen - with you.

And borrow a principle from Seth Godin: I can't work with you until I work with you. Give the candidate a small, real slice of the work they'd do in the role, and watch how they communicate and deliver. One rule that isn't optional: pay them for it. Never ask anyone to do real work for free. You assess fit in real time instead of discovering the problem three months in, when you're back to square one.

The Bottom Line

Honestly? The biggest payoff is less frustration on your end. Whether you love it or not, you're hiring Gen Z over the next few years. The more you understand what they value and why, the better it goes for you and the crew you already have.

We can learn from them. They can learn from us. It’s collaboration, figuring out how your skills and theirs serve your customers better.

Mud & Microchips helps construction and trades businesses implement AI that actually works — starting with an operations audit that measures where your hours go.