BC.Works offers five recruiting-marketing services. They work best in a particular order, because each one depends on the one before it: a campaign with no employer story behind it buys clicks that go nowhere, and a strong story is wasted if applicants wait three days for a reply. Here is how to decide where you start.
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Employer brand for trades shops
A clear, provable answer to the question every good tradesperson asks: why work for you instead of the shop down the road?
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Apprenticeship and Red Seal pathway marketing
Show apprentices, step by step, how your company takes them from first day to certification, and who will supervise them.
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Regional hiring campaigns
Paid and organic job reach planned around how far people in each part of BC will actually travel, or move, for work.
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Crew photo and video content
Honest pictures and short clips of your real crews, vans and job sites, made for careers pages and social feeds.
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Applicant response and tracking
A system that answers every applicant call, text and email quickly and tells you which channel produced each hire.
Employer brand for trades shops
The short answer: start here if your ads draw few applicants, or the wrong ones. Employer brand work answers the question a good tradesperson asks before applying: what is it actually like to work for you?
We interview the owner and, with permission, a few crew members, then write down the concrete reasons people stay: the kind of jobs, the crew structure, the tools and vans, how scheduling works, how apprentices are supervised. That becomes the source material for every ad, careers page and social post. It is the cheapest service to fix and the one most owners skip.
Apprenticeship and Red Seal pathway marketing
Start here if you want to grow your own people rather than compete for the same few journeypersons. Pathway marketing explains, in plain language, how an apprentice moves from hire to certification at your company.
In BC this ties directly to SkilledTradesBC's sponsor role: the sponsor makes sure apprentices are supervised by a certified journeyperson, logs work-based hours and releases them for classroom training. Showing a candidate that you already do those things well is a strong reason to choose you. We describe your process; SkilledTradesBC sets the rules.
Regional hiring campaigns
Choose this when your message is ready and you need more of the right people to see it. Regional campaigns use job boards, paid social and search ads, aimed by region and travel time rather than by a radius drawn on a map.
BC geography makes this essential. A crossing from the Island, a mountain pass or a long highway drive can rule out candidates who look close on paper. In smaller Interior and Northern markets, the campaign may need to reach people elsewhere in the province who would relocate for the right job.
Crew photo and video content
Choose this when candidates can't picture the job. Crew content gives you real photos and short clips of your crews, trucks, shop and typical job sites, shot to be useful on a careers page, in job ads and on social media.
Candidates are good at spotting stock photos. A thirty-second clip of your foreman explaining a normal Tuesday will usually do more than a polished brand video. We plan the shots and the release paperwork; you choose what gets published.
Applicant response and tracking
Choose this first if people do apply but most never make it to an interview. Applicant response sets up a simple system so every call, text and email from a candidate gets a quick reply, and each hire can be traced back to the ad that produced it.
This is often the quickest win. A candidate who sends three applications on a Monday night usually takes the first callback, not necessarily the shop they liked most.
A quick decision table
| Where candidates drop out | Likely fix | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Few or no applicants | Unclear offer, weak reach | Employer brand, then campaigns |
| Applicants, but wrong level or trade | Vague ads, wrong channels | Employer brand |
| No apprentices applying | No visible training path | Red Seal pathway |
| Applicants ghost before interview | Slow or no follow-up | Applicant response |
| Interviews, but offers declined | Proof gap, or an offer problem we can't solve | Crew content, plus your own review of the offer |
The last row matters. Marketing cannot fix an offer that is genuinely weaker than the competition's, and we'll tell you if that's what the numbers say. Pay, benefits and schedules are your decisions.
How the services connect to pricing and results
All five services run under the Trades.Agency plan structure described on our pricing page. Ad spend and job-board fees are separate from the plan fee and paid directly to the platforms. Our results page shows what our methods produced in HVAC client work, and why we present those as customer-lead results, not hiring numbers. If you'd rather talk it through, the contact page explains what to send us so the first call is useful.
Frequently asked questions
Which service should we start with?
Start where candidates drop out. If nobody applies, the problem is usually message or reach. If people apply but go quiet, it is usually response speed. A short call is enough for us to tell you which one we would fix first.
Can we buy one service only?
Yes. Plans are month-to-month with 30 days' notice, and the scope of each plan is written into your proposal. Many shops begin with one service and add a second after the first quarter.
Do you write the job ads themselves?
Yes, as part of the employer brand and campaign work. We write them, lay out the pay range you set, and link the official rules. You approve every ad before it goes live.
Do you screen or interview candidates?
No. We route every applicant to you and keep a record of where they came from. Screening, interviews and hiring decisions stay with you.