I am asking at least weekly by clients, “how to find staff for your trade business”, where they should be advertising to find new tradies, supervisors or admin staff. There are a few options, and I have several tried and true methods that have worked time and time again for our business.

Where To Advertise To Find Staff For Your Trade Business

There are 3 options we have used and all have yielded the results we needed. Writing a great add is the first step though, and I strongly advocate that the your ad reflects the personality of your brand and your business.

Giving as much information as possible in the ad will discourage those who may not be suitable, and inform those who are interested in your job what is on offer.

Below is an example of an ad we used when looking for carpenters. It spoke volumes about who we were as a business, and also gave plenty of information for the carpenters looking at our ad.

Now Hiring! Calling all carpenters! Are you looking for a dynamic, experienced team to be a part of? Keen for work life balance that still pays the bills? Seeking to work in a company that encourages personal and professional growth? >Insert Company Name< is looking for several qualified carpenters to join their team as subcontractors or on hourly rate. Work is based predominantly around inner Brisbane. Interested? Call XYZ

You can see we have explained that we are an experienced team, who don’t work ridiculous hours as work/life balance is important to us. We are looking for subbies, and paying on hourly rate, we’ve also explained where we work, and given a contact number for the chippies to call us on.

It’s important when working with tradies to make the contact something they are comfortable with, for example phoning instead of asking for a resume. That said, when it comes to admin staff or supervisors, resumes are a must, and the process should be more formal to reflect the type of role they are taking on.

Now where to advertise?

Facebook

We had a lot of sucess advertising on Facebook, and as a lovely side note, we picked up new followers. Advertising on Facebook also showed our potential clients that we were growing, all positives! It is important to note, that advertising on Facebook will generally give you a large amount of younger people applying or expressing interest. I don’t think we ever had anyone over 40 apply via Facebook, but for the roles we advertised there, that suited us perfectly.

Be sure to share the ad on your business page and your personal page if you have one. This option is free.

Gumtree

We had brilliant sucess with Gumtree on many levels. We have used it to advertise for subbies and staff as well as for seeking various other businesses to work with. For example, our concretor busted his leg and we needed a new one ASAP, we turned to Gumtree, searched concretors Brisbane and had 10 different numbers to call of businesses actively looking for work!

Likewise when we advertised for tradies staff, Gumtree gave us the biggest yield. Gumtree also gave us a bigger variety of applicants, from different age groups to different levels of experience. There is a free option and a paid option for Gumtree.

Seek

Seek was the perfect avenue for us to advertise for our site supervisors and admin staff. As these were more professional roles within our business it was essential for us to present this and for our potential staff to be approaching it in a similar way.

We actually had help writing our ad for Seek to ensure that it stood out from the crowd of other ads. While it was similar to the carpenters ad, in sharing that we were a dynamic and experienced company, it also share the pay package and potential for growth within the company.

When using Seek, be sure to share your ad on your social media channels as well. Seek is a paid service. Below is an example of an ad we ran on Seek.

Work life balance important to you?

Our young, rapidly expanding, family run building company is looking for a sharp witted, communication guru to join our team as our site supervisor. Our dynamic team is looking for a leader who is reliable, positive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, as we explore our growth in a quality and controlled measure. While looking for experience in supervising several residential projects at a time, we require a person who is young at heart and energetic. Our projects are predominately renovations and extensions of Queenslanders and custom built homes with a strong focus on quality and efficiency on these high-end projects

Supervising and coordinating several houses in construction at any given time, you will be exposed to new homes, renovations and extensions.

You will be able to demonstrate your awesome abilities at:

• Reading and interpreting detailed plans.
• Supervising staff onsite including direct and indirect employees.
• Ensuring work meets relevant building standards and codes.
• Liaising with Clients as required face to face and via email and phone.
• Ensuring quality of work meets agreed standards and is regularly monitored.
• Where required, rectifying works and assisting tradesmen on site, by working ‘on the tools’.
• Ensuring each project is delivered in line with its program/timeline and budget.
• Ordering of materials to site.
• Allocating labour and coordinating trades to site.
• Implementing and enforcing safety on all sites including site cleanliness.
• Procurement of new trades.

You’ll also be able to provide evidence of:

• At least two years’ previous experience in a leadership role either running a team of carpenters or direct supervising for a Builder within Residential Construction.
• At minimum a QBCC issued Site Supervisors License.
• Ideally a Trade Qualified Carpenter with a background in Residential Construction, new homes, refurbishments and extensions.
• Strong family values.
• Well presented.
• Ability to quickly solve problems.
• Great technical ability.
• Thorough understanding and knowledge of the residential construction industry including relevant building standards and codes.

Your remuneration will comprise an attractive package circa $70,000 plus superannuation. A bonus scheme will form part of this package which will give you the scope to increase earnings based on performance.

LinkedIn

I’m no expert on how LinkedIn works, but it shouldn’t be overlooked especially for your more senior roles. Again when using LinkedIn like Seek, share your link on all your social media channel for maximum output. LinkedIn is a paid service.

Social Media

I’m sharing social media as a blanket here (a part from Facebook) because regardless of what form of social media your business has, you should share your vacancy here. If you are on Instagram, share a quick video about who you are looking for, likewise on Snapchat. If you are on Twitter, share an update and point to where they can find more information.

Newspapers

I do have a few clients who still swear by advertising in newspapers. I have not found this experience to be fruitful for myself, however in various parts of the country, this will be your best option and shouldn’t be discounted.

Again, share this ad on your social channels for maximum output.

The most important part of advertising your vacancies is to ensure that the word gets out there as much as possible. You want the biggest pool of applicants you can find to assist you in your search for the perfect team member.

How do you advertise your vacancies? Where do you look when searching for work?

Nicole xxx