Most trade job postings are written from the wrong side of the table. They list what the business requires and say almost nothing about what the person gets, which is the only thing the reader is actually scanning for.
The result is a post that attracts either nobody or the wrong people, and the owner concludes there is a labour shortage.
Sometimes there is. Frequently the post is the problem, and it is the cheapest thing to fix.
Put the pay in the post
This is the single highest-impact change and the one most owners resist.
A posting without a pay range gets skipped by people who are currently employed, because they will not invest a conversation to discover the number is lower than what they have. The applicants who remain are disproportionately those with the least to lose, which is the opposite of what you want.
A range is fine. "Twenty-eight to thirty-four an hour depending on experience" tells somebody whether to keep reading. It also prevents the interview where you both discover after forty minutes that you were never in the same neighbourhood.
If your range is genuinely below market, that is worth knowing before you spend three months not hiring anybody.
Write the day, not the requirements
Compare two versions of the same job.
"Seeking experienced HVAC technician. Must have 5+ years experience, valid license, clean driving record, ability to lift 50 lbs, strong work ethic and attention to detail."
"You'd be running service calls solo across Marion and Grant counties, mostly residential, four to six calls a day. Van's assigned to you and goes home with you. Most days start at 7:30 from your driveway rather than the shop."
The second one tells somebody what their Tuesday looks like. The first could describe any HVAC job anywhere, and reads like a legal document because it mostly is one.
People accept jobs based on what the work will actually feel like. Describe that.
The small specifics do more than the benefits list
Everybody writes "competitive pay and benefits." Nobody believes it and it distinguishes nothing.
What lands is concrete and slightly unusual. The van goes home with you. We buy the tools. Overtime is optional and there is plenty of it. We close between Christmas and New Year. Nobody calls you on weekends unless the on-call rota says it is your turn, and that is one week in four.
Each of those is a real fact about the job that a competitor's posting probably does not contain. And the person reading has been burned on at least one of them before.
Be honest about the hard parts
Counterintuitive, and it works.
"Some weeks in July are long. We try to keep it under fifty hours and in the peak it sometimes is not." "The work is mostly crawl spaces and attics, and it is hot."
Two things happen. People who cannot accept that filter themselves out before you waste an interview. And everybody else believes the rest of the post more, because you have demonstrated you are not just selling.
A posting with no downside in it reads as either dishonest or written by somebody who has never done the job.
Say what happens next
Most postings end with "submit your resume" and then silence.
Say what the process is and how fast it moves. "Send a text with your name and what you have been doing. I will call you within two days. If it looks right, come out on a job with me for half a day, paid." That is specific, it is short, and it signals that you are organised, which is itself information about what working there would be like.
And the application should be as easy as you can make it. In the trades, requiring a formal resume and a cover letter through a portal excludes a lot of genuinely good people who have never needed one. A text or a phone call is a legitimate first step.
Where to put it
Where the people you want actually are, which is usually not a job board.
Your own crew's contacts first, because a referral from somebody already doing the work is the highest-quality channel available and it costs a conversation. Offer a real bonus, paid after ninety days.
Then suppliers and wholesalers, where every tradesperson in your area physically goes. Then local trade schools and apprenticeship programmes if you are willing to train. Then Facebook groups and Nextdoor, where the post reads as a neighbour hiring rather than a corporate listing.
Job boards last. Not never, just last.
The part after the posting
Speed, and it decides more outcomes than the posting does.
Good tradespeople are rarely unemployed for long. Somebody who responds on Tuesday and hears nothing until the following Wednesday has usually taken another job, and they will remember which one moved faster.
Reply the same day. Have the first conversation within two days. If you want them, decide quickly.
The reframe
You are not filling a position, you are competing for somebody who has options.
The posting is your first piece of marketing to a person who will judge the whole business by it, exactly as a customer judges you by the estimate. A vague, demanding, pay-free listing tells a skilled tradesperson what working there is probably like, and they are not usually wrong.
Write it as though you are trying to persuade somebody good, because you are.