Hiring campaigns · Build the team
Hiring campaigns for builders and trades.
Facebook and Instagram job ads that reach the concreters, labourers and leading hands who aren't scrolling job boards. Screening is built into the form, so your team only rings the people worth ringing.
Cost per result
A$1.50
Per labourer applicant (form)
Murphy Constructions. 88 applicants in four days, Jul 2026. Backed by the receipts.
Local applicants
94%
Same four-day batch
Murphy Constructions. Lived within reach of their Sunshine Coast projects.
Case study results. Outcomes vary.
Murphy Constructions. Two of the hiring statics we made, one for each role. Tap to look closer.
Why Facebook and Instagram
The tradies you want already have a job.
A good concreter or leading hand is almost never unemployed. They're on someone else's site, and they're not refreshing job boards at night. They do check their phone at lunch and after knock-off, though, and that's where Facebook and Instagram find them.
A hiring ad on Meta puts your job in front of them where they already are. It's written for the trade and names the area the work is in. Applying takes a minute on a phone, with no CV or cover letter. Meta fills in their name and number from their profile, they answer a few questions, and they're done.
That low effort is the point. Plenty of experienced people who'd never write a CV will fill in a short form on their phone for a better job closer to home.
Roles we've run campaigns for
- Concreters, including formworkers and steel fixers
- Labourers, experienced and entry level
- Site supervisors and leading hands
Each role gets its own ads, its own form and its own list, so a supervisor applicant never gets lost among labourers.
Meta's employment rules
The rules for job ads on Meta, in plain words.
Job ads run under Meta's employment special ad category. It exists so job ads can't quietly exclude people, and it changes what you can target.
Hiring campaigns set up like a normal ad tend to get rejected or restricted. We set them up inside the rules from the start, then let the creative and the form do the work the targeting can't.
- Declare it
- Every job ad has to run as an employment ad. Meta often flags one itself if it isn't declared.
- No age targeting
- You can't aim a job ad at younger or older workers. It reaches adults of every age.
- No gender targeting
- The ad goes to men and women alike, whatever the trade.
- No lookalikes
- You can't build an audience that looks like your current crew or past applicants.
- Fewer interests
- Many of the detailed targeting options you'd use on a normal ad are limited or gone.
- Area still works
- You can still run the ads around where your projects are.
- So what filters?
- The ad speaks to one trade in one area, and the form asks the questions that sort people out.
The form and the screening
The form does the first interview.
Every applicant answers the same short set of questions before they reach you. Their answers sort them by role, experience, start date and where they live, so your supervisor can open the list on their phone at lunch and ring the strongest ones first.
Applicants land in a shared sheet, split by role. When an ad starts to tire and the cost per applicant creeps up, we swap in fresh creative. When a role is filled, we pause its ads.
- Which role?
- Sorts them by role: concreter, labourer, supervisor or leading hand.
- Time on the tools
- Separates experienced hands from first-timers before anyone picks up the phone.
- When can you start?
- Shows you who can start this week and who's working out notice.
- Where do you live?
- Checks they're local to your projects, so you're not hiring someone with a long drive every morning.
- Name and mobile
- Filled in from their profile, so applying stays quick.
Hiring campaign results
What the campaigns did.
Murphy Constructions is a Sunshine Coast commercial concreting company with a full pipeline. We ran their hiring role by role, with fresh creative as each batch tired.
Results
1,105
Job applications (form), A$2.31 each
Meta lifetime results, hiring campaign to Aug 2026.
Hires
7
Successful hires, reported by the client
As at Sep 2026. Murphy's team did the interviews and the hiring.
Applications are not hires
Meta counts every form sent, so that figure counts applications rather than people. Some people apply twice and some aren't a fit. The number that matters to a builder is the one the site office reports: people who started and stayed. We report both, and we never call an application a hire.
Case study results. Outcomes vary.
Case study result. Outcomes vary. Screenshot cropped to the number; nothing else is edited.
A South East Queensland builder
Experienced trades for a growing builder.
A different business and a harder brief: experienced trades for a builder winning bigger projects. Skilled people cost more to reach than labourers, and the form still did the sorting before his team picked up the phone.
Results
18
Skilled-trade applications (form), A$20.96 each
Meta form results, hiring campaign, 2026.
Hires
5
New employees placed
Hiring campaign, 2026. Anonymous at the builder's request.
Case study results. Outcomes vary.
Case study result. Outcomes vary. Screenshot cropped to the number; nothing else is edited.
How it runs
From the first call to a full crew.
01
The roles
A quick call on who you need, where the work is, the pay and when they'd start. Each role gets its own ads and its own form.
02
Ads and form
Statics and short video written for each trade, the screening form, and the campaign set up under Meta's employment rules.
03
Applicants to you
Every applicant goes into your shared sheet, sorted by role. Your team rings them and makes the hires.
04
Refresh or pause
New creative when a batch tires, a pause when a role is filled, and a fresh wave when the next contract lands.
Good tradies look you up before they apply. A site full of real projects makes the job worth taking.
Win the workNew project leadsThe work that makes the hiring necessary, from Google and Meta.
The practiceConstruction marketingMore work, then the team to deliver it: how the three parts fit together.
GuideConstruction hiring adsThe ad, the form and the screening, step by step.
Straight answers
Hiring ad questions.
Anything else, call Jed on 0400 463 257.
Can I target my job ads by age or gender?
No. Job ads on Facebook and Instagram run under Meta's employment category, which blocks age and gender targeting and lookalike audiences. You can still target the area around your projects. The ad copy and the screening questions do the rest of the filtering.
Are you a recruitment agency?
No. We build and run the campaign and hand you pre-sorted applicants. Your team does the calls, interviews and hiring, so you choose who joins your crew.
How many applicants will I get?
It depends on the trade, the area, the pay and how many people are already chasing the same workers. We won't promise a number up front. You see every applicant and the cost per applicant as the campaign runs, and we change the ads or the form when the quality drops.
Should I stop using job boards?
Keep anything that's working. Job boards reach people who are actively looking. Meta reaches the ones who aren't looking but would move for the right job, and in the trades that's usually the bigger group.
What does a hiring campaign cost?
We quote after a short call about the roles, because one role in one town is a different job to several roles across a region. The build is a fixed quote, and the ad spend is yours, paid straight to Meta.
Free audit, then your Scaling Roadmap
It's time to get Scaled.
Fill in a few details and I'll go through your ads, your website or store, and how you follow up enquiries, then show you what's leaking and what we'd fix first. If we're not a fit, no worries at all. You'll still leave with something you didn't know before.
Jed Lynham
Jed calls you personally, usually the same business day.
We take on 2 to 3 new long-term partners at a time.
Referred by a client? Skip the queue