Before They Ever Call You: Why Storytelling Is the Trades’ Best Recruiting and Retention Tool

Last Updated: October 5, 2026

Beth Meiklejohn

When we sit down with a trades industry owner, the same challenge comes up in every conversation.

Finding people.

This isn’t a surprise. And the labor shortage isn’t a new challenge. It’s been plaguing owners for decades in the form of jobs you couldn’t start on time, bids you didn’t submit, and crew stretched thin across three sites.

Construction alone needs to attract roughly 349,000 net new workers in 2026, according to Associated Builders and Contractors, and about 456,000 in 2027.

So most owners do what makes sense: post another job ad.

But by the time a good candidate reads it, they’ve often already decided whether you’re worth a call.

They’ve Already Checked You Out

Think about the last time you hired someone to work on your own home. Did you call the first name that came up? Or did you look them up first – their reviews, their website, their Facebook page?

Your future employees are doing the exact same thing.

Before a candidate ever calls your office, they’ve looked you up. They’ve scrolled your Instagram, clicked through your website, maybe watched a video or two.

They’re trying to answer one question: Does this look like a place I want to work?

There’s a ton of research to back this up. Glassdoor found that 83% of job seekers research company reviews and ratings when deciding where to apply. Younger workers go further. In a 2025 Zety survey, 95% of Gen Z said a company’s social media presence affects whether they apply.

Here’s the hardest part: you have no visibility into any of it.

Those steps happen before anyone contacts you. If your online presence is empty, or shows nothing about the people behind the work, qualified candidates quietly move on. You’re losing good people before you ever know they existed.

No phone call. No application. Just a quiet scroll, and then they’re gone.

The Next Generation Is Watching

There’s good news for the trades. Gen Z is paying attention. Thumbtack’s 2024 research found that social media is the second-biggest influence on Gen Z’s career path, ahead of teachers and siblings. Two out of three say it has increased their interest in the trades, and for Gen Z women, social media is the number one influence on career choice.

A 2026 SupplyHouse survey found that half of Gen Z adults watch trade content on social media, with TikTok as the top place they discover trade careers.

But TikTok isn’t the only place they’re scrolling. YouTube is still the most-used platform among U.S. teens. Pew Research found 92% use it, and more teens visit it daily than any other platform. YouTube Shorts alone now averages more than 200 billion views a day, according to YouTube.

That’s good news for a busy trade business. One short, vertical day-in-the-life clip can live on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts at the same time, putting your crew in front of future hires wherever they happen to be watching.

The interest is there. The question is whether they find your company when they go looking.

What Storytelling Shows That a Job Post Can’t

A job post tells people what the job is. A story shows them who they’d be doing it with.

The pay, the hours, the requirements – those all matter. But they can’t show what it feels like to work for you. Storytelling can.

When a trades company tells its story through social content, it gives the business a soul people can see. That looks like:

Day-in-the-life content that walks through a real shift, from the morning meeting to the drive home.
Foreman and crew stories that put faces and voices behind the company name.
Apprentice journeys that show someone learning, growing, and building a career.

The details matter, too. Two people lifting a heavy beam together, not one person struggling alone. A crew laughing over lunch. A safety huddle before the work starts. The new equipment they get to run. Women on the jobsite, doing the same skilled work alongside everyone else. Each of these is a signal: here, you’re part of a team.

Most of all, it shows the life a trades career can offer. Skilled, meaningful work with people you enjoy, and getting home at the end of the day to the people who matter most.

It’s the same belief behind our TwoTheTrades work: the people behind the trucks are what set a trade business apart – to customers and future hires alike.

That’s what a candidate is looking for when they scroll your page. When they find it, your company stops looking like a job listing and starts looking like a place they can picture themselves. (And that’s usually when the phone starts ringing.)

Your Current Crew Is Watching, Too

Recruiting gets the attention, but keeping good people may matter even more. Replacing an employee can cost anywhere from half to twice their annual salary, once you count recruiting, training, and lost productivity. In the trades, where it takes real time to build a skilled worker, that cost lands hard.

Culture is a big part of why people stay. In a Glassdoor survey, nearly two in three employees said company culture is one of the main reasons they stay in their job.

The same stories that attract new hires also speak to the people already on your team. When a foreman sees their crew celebrated, or an apprentice sees their progress recognized, it reinforces why they chose you. Their story becomes part of the company’s story.

And no, this doesn’t mean turning every employee into an influencer or sticking someone in front of a camera who doesn’t want to be there. People can be as involved as they want. Some will love the spotlight. Others will be just as proud to see their team’s work honored. Either way, the culture is on display – and your people feel it.

There’s a bonus, too. Trades workers often move between companies in the same region. When your culture is visible, and theirs isn’t, people notice.

Show Them Who You Are

If hiring and keeping good people is your biggest challenge, start by asking what your company looks like from the outside. Does it show the people, the teamwork, and the life you offer? Or does it show nothing at all?

Your best candidates are already looking. Give them something worth finding.

This is the work we love doing at Two Roads Strategy: helping trade businesses tell the story of who they are and the people who make the work happen. If you’re ready to show future hires (and your current crew) what makes your company worth choosing, we’re here. Let’s chat!