Victoria
I recruit building products sales and nothing else. Nine years in this one market means I know the Victorian territory, the product categories and the people who move the dial.
Victoria has been more cautious recently, though parts of it keep going. Multi-res is always competitive and tends to come back strong. The clear heat right now is in civil and infrastructure, with a steady pipeline behind it. The other constant is remedial work. Waterproofing and cladding rectification are still driving real demand, and that is not slowing.
High-end architectural roles are hard to fill here, but to be fair that is true in every state, not just VIC.
The thing people underestimate about Victoria is the geography. Melbourne wraps around the Bay, and covering it is genuinely awkward. There is the bridge nobody wants to be stuck on and the tunnel out east, and from the south-east a rep can find two or three quarters of the city effectively out of reach on any given day.
The population has pushed east and south-east into the newer, larger suburbs, and there is a strong sea-change movement south-west to Geelong and Torquay. More candidates now want a role with one office day, or one or two trips into the city a week, and those roles are fiercely contested. Knowing all of this is the difference between placing someone who lasts and placing someone who burns out on the drive.
Design and specification work clusters in the CBD, Richmond and the surrounding northern suburbs. Manufacturing and distribution sit in the south-east and east around Dandenong, Springvale and Hallam, across the north and north-west through Thomastown, Somerton, Campbellfield, Epping, Broadmeadows and Tullamarine, and out west in Laverton North, Truganina, Derrimut, Ravenhall, Sunshine West and Altona.
Most of my Victorian roles also take in South Australia and Tasmania, and more often than not both run from a Victorian base. South Australia is the one interstate market with enough depth to sometimes justify its own dedicated rep, so occasionally a company will put a person on the ground in Adelaide. Tasmania almost never does. Unless a business already has its own people there, Adelaide and Hobart usually fold into the Victorian patch. I also run building products sales recruitment across Australia, so interstate reach is built in from the start.
NCC 2022 has been in force for new Victorian homes since 1 May 2024, which means 7-star energy ratings and condensation provisions are now part of how products get specified. A genuinely VIC-literate rep can connect their product to that, not just quote a price.
Two Victorian specifics matter. Cladding rectification has finished on the large majority of the highest-risk buildings, but the claim window was extended to 12 years, so specifiers stay risk-averse on external wall systems and want tested, compliant ones. And from 1 May 2026 the lead-free plumbing requirement applies, so any potable-water component faces a compliance-driven switch with cut-over rules based on design-start dates. Reps who can advise builders and plumbers through that are worth more than reps who cannot.
I place sales roles. BDMs, Specification Managers, Account Managers and State Managers. I do not recruit internal sales or estimating.
The hardest to fill is interiors and A&D sales. Not just winning the spec, but holding it through to delivery. Two things make it tough. The candidate has to rate the product, because a strong spec seller will not move for a product they see as inferior, however good the company is. And finding that person takes a recruiter hunting full-time. It is a specific skill, and it is not 40 hours someone does off the side of a desk.
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