Australia
Very few building products businesses are single-state. Almost everyone wants a national presence, but the head office usually sits in one of three places: Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. The decision-makers are spread across those markets.
If I only worked locally, I would cut my candidates off from most of the good opportunities. The best roles often sit with a company whose decision-maker is in another state. So I work with those companies wherever they are, and the candidate gets a wider, better range to choose from.
To be upfront, it does not always land. I have lost briefs because a client expected me to be in the same state as the role. I respect that, and it is fairer than it sounds. But it is the exception now, not the rule. The states run more alike than they ever have, and a head office is usually happy to work with someone they trust, wherever that person is based.
My work splits roughly a third Victoria, a third New South Wales, a third Queensland.
I treat every job the same, in every state. The work comes down to solving two problems. A candidate who needs or wants a move, or who did not know a better option existed until I brought it to them. And a business that needs the right person and wants to get the hire right.
The rest is relationships and knowledge. Nine years interviewing in this one market means I usually already know who is out there. I am not learning the role from your brief. I am matching what I have built up to what you actually need.
More on how I work with hiring managers.
Victoria has been more cautious lately, though plenty keeps ticking. Multi-res is always competitive, and the real heat now is in civil and infrastructure, plus an ongoing remedial drive in waterproofing and cladding. The thing outsiders miss is the territory. Melbourne wraps around the Bay and is genuinely awkward to cover, which shapes every field role.
Building products sales recruitment in VictoriaSydney does not stop. There is always movement across every sector, the new-development market has run harder and longer than elsewhere, and civil infrastructure keeps it busy. NSW has always leaned toward using recruiters. From here I almost always cover the ACT and Canberra too, for companies without people on the ground there.
Building products sales recruitment in NSWQueensland is booming. The Olympics is real, but the deeper driver is population growth and the steady pull of people relocating north. It is the most relationship-driven of the three markets, which makes a strong local hire genuinely hard to find. Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast each behave like their own market.
Building products sales recruitment in QueenslandA word on the rest. South Australia and Tasmania usually run with my Victorian roles, and the ACT almost always with New South Wales. Western Australia is the genuine outlier. If anyone covers Perth it is most often whoever holds South Australia, since the two tend to group together, but WA more commonly has no dedicated coverage at all, or gets picked up by a senior national hire who can run it from any state. It is the one market in the country that rarely sits neatly with another.
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