The two biggest trends in construction today
My team and I spend an unfathomable amount of quality time with construction companies (esp. recruiters, HR leaders and execs) and craft professionals in an effort to bring the best of both together to help build America’s infrastructure.
Over the past year, two trends have emerged that clearly represent the biggest forces impacting the construction industry today:
1. Skilled workers holding all the power.
2. Employers struggling to adapt.
For #1 - More jobs chasing fewer workers over the past decade has turbocharged workers’ bargaining power. They’re in higher demand every day and choosing the path of least resistance to the best opportunities.
For #2 - Employers who haven’t adapted to this power shift are struggling to attract and retain talent. Most are using outdated (read ‘passive’) recruiting and retention playbooks that simply don’t work anymore.
As the skilled labor shortage worsens, these two trends are going to reinforce each other: workers will gain more leverage and place greater demands on employers, while employers who fail to modernize their recruiting and retention stacks will increasingly overburden their current workforce, continue to miss project deadlines and be forced to turn down work. Needless to say, no craft worker wants to work for those companies.
❌ The Old Craft Recruiting Stack:
One-size-fits-all assumptions about worker motivations (e.g. they all want better benefits and +$2/hr)
Posting and praying to job boards
(you might as well light a candle given how many options they have)Calling from phone numbers they don’t know or trust
Expecting them to chase you down (and giving up on them or taking it personally when they don’t)
Offering and seeking interviews during working hours (hint, they're at work 😉)
Passing on workers that are from out-of-town
Only communicating in English with splashes of "gracias", cringe
Passing up a worker because their resume is sparse (try updating and sharing your résumé from your smartphone)
Rambling messages that cite “duties and responsibilities”
Expecting workers to complete your ICIMS web form
(a deranging UX even for desktop users)
✅ The New Craft Recruiting Stack:
Data-driven insights into each worker's personal motivations (e.g. Juan will accept $22 if his one-way commute distance is under 20 miles)
Proactively targeting workers via their preferred mix of time and channel
Arriving on a call together via warm intro or trusted 3rd party
Using AI-assisted tools to manage all QnA, scheduling and follow-ups
Setting aside time before 7am and after 3pm for interviews
Nurturing workers who are willing to relocate
Sending perfectly crafted messages in the worker's preferred language
Asking workers to augment the information you already have
A/B testing which messages have the best response rates (heads up, we've done this at Skillit -- under 200 characters is key, state location and pay range above all else, always include next steps)
A delightful one-click application experience (that automatically ports their info into your HR system for them)
