Best Practices for Hiring AV Talent in 2026

I had the honor of presenting at this year’s Total Tech Summit in Orlando. Fla., and it turned out to be one of the most productive three days I have spent with industry peers in a long time. When you gather integrators, manufacturers and business leaders who genuinely want to improve their companies, the conversations are truly honest and productive.

My session, “Hiring Best Practices for AV Integrators,” focused on the realities of today’s talent market and the habits that separate companies that keep growing from those that stall. The deck I presented walked through the top challenges and the practical steps integrators can take immediately.

Below is a summary of what I covered in the session.

Talent Shortage Is Still Here and Hitting Everyone

If you thought the labor market might “balance out” in 2025, it did not. AVIXA’s Pro-AV Channel Employment Report showed that demand for skilled technicians and sales talent continued to outpace supply all year.

That reality hit companies where it hurts:

• 70% of projects saw delays tied to staffing shortages
• Each open skilled role costs $450 to $1,200 per day
• Internal teams spent 40 or more hours trying to backfill each position
• Total hiring costs ranged from $4,700 to $28,000 or more per role.

There is no easy way to say it. If you do not have a proactive hiring plan and you are relying only on job boards or hoping for more resumes in 2026, you are already behind.

Attracting AV Talent Begins Long Before Hiring

Employer branding and talent sourcing are now the same conversation. In 2025, companies who won the talent battle were not the ones offering the highest salaries. They were the ones people actually wanted to work for. That showed up in:

• A culture that people were proud to talk about
• Leadership that communicated clearly
• Genuine growth opportunities
• A strong online presence, especially on LinkedIn
• A reputation in the market for treating people well
• Teams who referred people because they believed the company was worth joining

Pair that with the sources that actually produced hires:

• Employee referrals.
• Adjacent trades such as electrical, security, IT, telecom and staging.
• Training programs such as CEDIA Academy, AVIXA CTS, NextLVL, PrepTech and veteran transition programs
• Recruiters: Proactive outreach to passive candidates, which represents 70% of the talent market. It bears repeating because that is where the strongest candidates typically sit.

Seven out of ten great candidates are already employed and not applying to your job posts. You have to go get them. Job boards continue to deliver mostly active job seekers, usually entry-level, with many unqualified applicants mixed in. Sometimes, this is useful, but most often, job boards yield no fruit.

The companies that built a brand worth joining and combined it with proactive outreach were the ones who stopped restarting the search every 90 days.

Interviewing: The Hidden Reason Companies Lose Good People

A slow or sloppy interview process is one of the biggest reasons candidates disappear, and companies rarely admit it. Candidates judge your organization by how you communicate. Below are some potential pitfalls:

• Moving too slowly signals disorganization
• Failing to follow up feels disrespectful
• Ghosting candidates, which continued far too often in 2025, damages your reputation instantly

Even committing to a 48-hour turnaround on interview steps would solve much of what went wrong this year. And when vetting goes wrong, it is expensive. The U.S. Department of Labor and SHRM estimate that a bad hire costs 30% to 200% of that employee’s annual salary. Companies drain tens of thousands of dollars without realizing it.

Onboarding: The Most Overlooked Part of Retention

Day one determines day 180. Most companies lose people not because they hired the wrong candidate, but because new employees walked into chaos with no plan, no structure and no support. Companies with strong retention, however, did the following:

• Began onboarding before day one
• Assigned mentors
• Supported the tech stack
• Created early wins
• Showed the new hire they were invested

Hiring in AV is hard. Losing people you already hired is harder. Even something simple like a welcome package, having tools ready or ensuring the laptop is configured makes a bigger difference than people realize.

Retention does not start at the 90-day review. It starts when the offer letter is signed.

Why Good AV Talent Walked Away in 2025

When we dug into the reasons employees left, the patterns were clear. The biggest factor was the lack of a real path for growth.

Too many companies offer jobs rather than careers. And careers should not be linear. Instead of a rigid corporate ladder, companies should operate more like a lattice. If someone is a great employee in the wrong seat, they should be able to move into the right one without leaving.

Many AV companies lost strong people not only because of hiring or talent issues, but also because those employees could not see a future inside the building. Beyond growth, other common reasons included:

• Feeling undervalued
• Weak communication from leadership
• Lack of innovation in products and processes
• Burnout
• Culture gaps that never got addressed

All of these issues are fixable. Ignoring them guarantees turnover.

The Best Part: Real Conversations

The Q&A after the presentation was the highlight for me. People dropped the guardrails for once. Owners spoke openly about what hurt their business this year. Leaders shared mistakes, not just successes.

It became obvious that whether you were running a five-million-dollar shop or a 100-million-dollar business, everyone in AV was wrestling with the same challenges: hiring, retention, project delays and team burnout.

This is what Total Tech Summit does best. It is not about the number of attendees. It is about the right people in the room having the right conversations.

Looking Ahead to 2026

No one needs a reminder that 2025 was a tough year for many in the AV industry. But the sentiment in that Summit room showed that people are optimistic and gearing up for next year. As we close out the year, I want to wish everyone a happy, healthy and stable 2026. We could all use one.

If you are looking at your hiring plans for next year and want to avoid repeating the pain points of 2025, please reach out. I am here to help however I can, whether you need active recruiting, a better process or simply someone to help you think through the strategy.

Leo Golubitsky is the founder and head hunter at Birddog Talent, a recruiting firm that specializes in the AV integration Industry.