A labor shortage is usually treated as a recruiting problem. But by the time the shortage becomes obvious, the work of building the talent pool may have needed to start years earlier.
The construction industry expects to need 349,000 additional workers in 2026. Google and Meta have also put millions of dollars into skilled trades training. Employers aren't just struggling to fill open jobs. In some industries, there simply aren't enough people entering the workforce to meet future demand.
And that's where recruitment marketing gets interesting.
If there aren't enough qualified people looking for jobs today, another job posting isn't going to fix the problem. Employers need to start thinking about the people who could enter their talent pool tomorrow, next year or five years from now.
That means building the workforce before you need it.
Say a manufacturer knows it will need hundreds of skilled technicians over the next several years. There may not be enough experienced technicians available. But there may be students in technical programs, people working in related jobs, military veterans with transferable skills, recent graduates and people considering a career change.
They aren't candidates yet. They could be.
A recruitment marketing funnel can start that relationship long before there is an application. A paid social campaign might introduce someone to the career. A landing page can explain the work, the skills required and how to get started. An employee story can show someone what a career path actually looks like.
From there, the relationship can continue. Someone who downloads information about the career might enter an email series about training and advancement. Someone who watches a video about a specific role can receive more information about that career. Someone who repeatedly visits the careers site can move into a more recruitment-focused audience.
The messages change as their interest changes.
That's important because a 19-year-old exploring career options should not get the same message as an experienced technician considering a career change. They have different questions and need different reasons to pay attention.
This is where a labor shortage changes the role of recruitment marketing. Traditional recruitment is built around people who are already looking. A nurture funnel starts earlier. It can introduce someone to an industry before they've decided to work in it and give them reasons to consider a career they may have overlooked.
And the timing matters.
When several employers are suddenly competing for the same limited pool of workers, everyone is fighting over the same people. An employer that has spent the previous two years building awareness has an advantage over one that just started advertising. The audience already knows the company. The next job opening isn't their first introduction.
This can work in almost any industry facing a long-term talent problem. A hospital can build relationships with students before graduation. A manufacturer can introduce young workers to technical careers before they choose another path. An airline can build awareness around aviation maintenance before someone has the experience to qualify. A technology company can start relationships with emerging talent before those people begin looking for their first job.
The campaigns will look different, but the idea is the same: if you know the workforce will be difficult to find, start building the audience before you need to hire them.
That also changes what recruitment marketing should measure. Applications and hires still matter, but so do the people entering the funnel, the audiences engaging with content, the prospects joining a talent community and the people returning to the careers site months later. Those numbers show whether you're actually building a pipeline.
Doing that well takes more than running recruitment ads. It takes labor market research, audience segmentation, employer positioning, creative, content, paid media, landing pages, email nurture and data that connects marketing activity back to recruiting.
At Harger Howe, that's the kind of recruitment marketing work we help employers build. The goal isn't just to find more candidates for today's openings. It's to create relationships with the people who could become tomorrow's workforce.
Because a labor shortage doesn't start when a job sits open for 90 days.
It starts much earlier, when fewer people are choosing to enter the field. And the employers that start building that pipeline early will be in a much better position when they need it.
