If your idea of recruitment is posting a job ad and waiting, you're not hiring the best candidate. You're hiring the most available one.
That might be fine for some roles. But in building products sales, the gap between "most available" and "best available" is where placements succeed or fail.
The A-graders are busy winning projects, not scrolling Seek.
What Job Ads Actually Do
Job ads reach the active market. That's roughly 20 to 30 percent of possible candidates for any given role. The people actively looking, actively applying, actively checking job boards.
That's not nothing. But it means 70 to 80 percent of the market never sees your ad. And in my experience, most of the strongest candidates sit in that invisible majority.
Ads create the feeling of progress. You post, applications roll in, you shortlist. It feels productive. But it's reactive, not strategic. You're choosing from whoever happened to be looking that week.
Why This Hits Harder in Sales, Spec and Senior Roles
Your best BDM is on site with a builder, not refreshing Seek. The lighting rep you actually want is mid-project with an architect, not browsing LinkedIn Jobs. Your ideal State Manager has three headhunters calling them already. They might talk if you call first, but they're not clicking "Apply Now."
The more senior or specialised the role, the less likely the right person is actively job hunting. That's just how it works.
This shows up worst at the senior end. The three most common mis-diagnosed leadership briefs - and how to spot them before you go to market - are in State Sales Manager vs National Sales Manager: the building products hiring guide.
What Actually Works
The candidates who move the needle are usually found through one of three channels: their own network, a recruiter who knows the industry, or a direct approach from someone they trust.
That's it. Not a cleverly worded Seek ad. Not a sponsored LinkedIn post. A conversation with someone who understands what they do and why they might be open to something different.
Working with a specialist recruiter changes the equation because you're not waiting for the right person to find you. You're going to them.
In building products, that means knowing who sells what, where they sit, who's been somewhere too long, who just got passed over for a promotion. It's market intelligence, not database searching.
This is the entire argument for hiring a specialist for a specialist task. I lay it out in full in why I built a specialist building products recruitment agency.
When a Job Ad Can Still Help
I'm not saying ads are useless. They work well for high-volume roles with a wide talent pool. They're a decent visibility tool once you've already started targeted outreach. And if the ad reads like a genuine pitch rather than a position description, it can attract passive interest.
But use ads to cast a net, never as the only rod in the water.
Build the Pipeline Before You Need It
The best hires come from relationships started before the vacancy existed. The companies that consistently land strong salespeople aren't the ones who scramble when someone resigns. They're the ones who already know who's out there, what the market's paying, and who might be ready to move.
That takes time. Or it takes working with someone who's already done the legwork.
If you're a hiring manager in building products across Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane, happy to have a straight conversation about how the market looks and who's available. No pressure. Just an honest view of what's out there.