Your Next Major Project Needs a Workforce. Don't Wait Until You're Hiring to Get Their Attention.
Why contractors should start building workforce interest months before recruitment begins, rather than relying solely on job advertisements.
There's an old saying about planting a tree. The best time to plant one was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.
There's a similar principle when it comes to recruiting construction workers for major projects.
Imagine your company has just secured a significant infrastructure contract. Construction starts in six months, and you're going to need 50 formworkers, 50 steel fixers and 50 concreters.
You know the workforce requirements. You know roughly when you'll need people on site.
So you publish an Expression of Interest (EOI) advertisement, collect some applications and wait for the project to ramp up.
Nothing wrong with that approach. But there's a significant opportunity being missed.
A Job Advertisement Isn't the Same as Building Workforce Interest
A job advertisement is designed to generate applications from people who are looking for work, or who happen to be interested in a particular opportunity when they see it.
Six months before mobilisation, many of the workers you eventually want to recruit won't be actively looking.
They may be committed to another project, working FIFO, or simply not considering a move.
Even if they see your EOI advertisement today, there's a reasonable chance they'll have forgotten about it by the time you're ready to hire.
Particularly if all they've seen is a company name, a location and a list of trades required.
But what if they'd been hearing about the project for the previous six months?
The Project Itself Is Often More Interesting Than the Job Advertisement
Think about what gets conversations started between construction workers on site.
It's not always who's offering another $5 an hour.
It's the scale of a new tunnel project. The size of the cranes being mobilised. The amount of reinforcing steel going into a structure. The volume of concrete being poured.
It's the machinery, the engineering challenges, the location and the prospect of several years of consistent work.
A hiring manager might look at those details as routine project information.
But to the formworkers, steel fixers, concreters, operators and supervisors who'll actually be delivering the work, those details can be genuinely interesting.
And interesting projects get people talking.
The conversation often starts with what's being built, how big it is and how long the project will last.
Then comes the question:
Who's got the contract, and who's going to be hiring?
That's the point where general project interest starts becoming potential recruitment interest.
Start Telling the Story When the Contract Is Announced
Instead of waiting until recruitment is underway, contractors should be thinking about workforce visibility from the moment a significant contract is secured.
Share the contract announcement with relevant construction and infrastructure media outlets.
Talk about the scale of the work, the construction methods, the equipment required and the anticipated project timeline.
As the project develops, share updates on mobilisation, major milestones, machinery arriving on site and upcoming construction stages.
Where appropriate, highlight the trades and skills that will be required as those stages approach.
This doesn't mean publishing recruitment advertisements every week for six months.
It means keeping the project visible to the people who may eventually want to work on it.
And it doesn't have to be limited to your company website or LinkedIn page.
Relevant industry publications, specialist construction media, workforce communities and trade-focused platforms can help get those stories in front of people who might never follow your corporate channels.
The important part is reaching the right audience, not simply publishing the same announcement in as many places as possible.
The Return Isn't Always Measured in Applications
Here's where traditional recruitment advertising has an advantage.
Publish a job advertisement and you can measure the number of applications, clicks and potentially hires generated.
That makes the return on investment relatively straightforward to evaluate.
Project publicity is harder to attribute.
A steel fixer might read about your upcoming project in January, hear colleagues discussing it in March and see a recruitment advertisement in June.
When they eventually apply, the application is attributed to the June advertisement.
But was that really the first point of influence?
Or had several months of exposure already made the project an attractive opportunity?
That's the challenge with measuring the value of sustained industry visibility.
The job advertisement captures the application. It doesn't necessarily create all the interest that led to it.
Project publicity can't replace recruitment advertising. The two serve different purposes and work best together.
Give Yourself a Head Start Before Mobilisation
For major contractors, building a workforce for a major project requires planning well before labour demand becomes urgent.
If you already know you'll need 150 tradespeople in six months, you've got six months to start building familiarity with the project.
Six months for workers to hear about it.
Six months for conversations to develop across existing sites and crews.
Six months for people to start thinking about where their next project might be.
By the time recruitment opens, you want the project to be something workers already recognise, rather than something they're discovering for the first time through a job advertisement.
There are no guarantees that greater visibility will translate directly into more applications or faster hiring.
But giving your future workforce a reason to be interested before you need them is a sensible place to start.
The best time to start attracting attention to your next project isn't when you need 150 people on site. It's when you know you're going to need them.
Jordan Grant
Founder, Construction Jobs Australia
Author & Editor, Construction Hiring Brief
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