Solutions · People & Culture
Recruitment
Hiring campaigns that fill crews before the job starts.
Why recruitment
The crew you can hire is the work you can win.
Every AEC company is fishing in the same shrinking pond. The ones that win recruit like marketers.
Bench runs recruitment as a full marketing program: employer brand, job ads, social campaigns, referral programs and video that shows what it is really like to work for you. Then we track every applicant, from first click to first day, in your Bench dashboard.
The data
The AEC hiring gap is real.
439,000
extra workers U.S. construction needed to hire in 2025 on top of normal hiring.
Source: Associated Builders and Contractors
94%
of construction firms report open positions they are struggling to fill.
Source: AGC and Autodesk Workforce Survey, 2024
41%
of the current construction workforce is expected to retire by 2031.
Source: NCCER
$4,700+
average cost to hire one new employee, before training and lost productivity.
Source: SHRM
The data center effect
Data centers are hiring your best people.
The AI boom has set off a wave of data center construction. These projects need huge crews of electricians, mechanical workers, welders and superintendents, and they pay top dollar to get them. For every other contractor, that means the fight for skilled help just got harder. The firms that win are the ones people already want to work for, and that takes a real recruiting brand.
25 to 30%
more pay for trades workers who switch to data center projects.
Source: Kelly Services, via The Wall Street Journal (2025)
$100,000+
salaries now common for data center trades roles, some topping $200,000.
Source: The Wall Street Journal (2025)
344%
growth in U.S. data center construction spending since 2020, reaching $41 billion in 2025.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2026)
Recruitment dashboard
See every hire, from first click to first day.
The Bench platform includes a recruitment tracking dashboard that shows your whole hiring pipeline in real time. Leadership sees what is working. Recruiters see who needs a call today.
Hiring pipeline · Last 90 days
Example data
14
Hires
23 days
Avg. time to hire
$1,850
Cost per hire
Hires by source
38%
Employee referrals
27%
Social recruiting ads
19%
Careers page
16%
Job boards
What you can track
Recruiting you can measure.
Every applicant in one place
Ads, referrals, job boards and your careers page all feed a single pipeline. No spreadsheets, no lost resumes.
Track each stage
See who applied, who was screened, who interviewed and who was hired, by role, branch and recruiter.
Know what works
Cost per applicant and cost per hire by source, so budget goes to the channels that actually fill seats.
Time to hire
Spot where candidates stall and speed up the steps that cost you good people.
Referrals from the field
Crews share openings from their phones and you can see exactly which referrals turn into hires.
Tied to retention
Follow new hires past day one with engagement and recognition data, so you know who stays.
Turn every interaction into action.
Tell us where the backlog, the pipeline or the crew is thin. We'll show you the plan.