Describe who you hire. Makeform builds an application for company details, trades, service areas, experience, credentials, references, and files.
Route applications to Google Sheets, Slack, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the builder
Choose a prompt, adapt it, or send it to the Makeform builder. The structure is an example, not an application.
Audience
General contractors building a reusable subcontractor directory
Format
Multi-section application with documents
Prompt size
276 chars
Example form structure
Multi-section application with documents
Company and primary contact details
Which trades do you perform?
Service area and crew capacity
Credentials and supporting documents
Suggested routing tags
New applicant
Needs review
Trade qualified
Ask for credential type, number, jurisdiction, and expiration separately so reviewers can filter expiring documents without opening every upload.
Step 1
Apply
company, trades, coverage, and contacts
Step 2
Document
licenses, insurance dates, and files
Step 3
Review
capacity, experience, and references
Step 4
Route
tag by trade, region, and review status
Why applications get stuck
A structured application keeps company profiles, credentials, and project lists together while exposing missing information.
Show scope questions only when an applicant selects the relevant trade.
Pair each file with its type, number, jurisdiction, and expiration.
Compare capacity, service area, work, and references in the same format.
Built for construction teams
Use network-wide intake or narrow it to a project, region, or trade.
Keep companies, contacts, specialties, coverage, and review status together.
Ask about packages, schedule fit, and the estimating contact.
Request deeper capacity, safety, reference, and project information.
Collect renewed credentials, changed contacts, and updated capacity.
Application workflow
Generate the structure, add your requirements, and route responses to reviewers.
Name the trades, regions, capacity, credentials, and documents you review.
Require essential fields and reveal questions only for relevant trades.
Notify the estimator or coordinator and route structured responses.
Organize by trade, territory, interest, and review stage.
Form vs email vs generic PDF
Choose a format that produces comparable applicant records.
Field guide
Collect useful details, then adjust requirements for the project, trade, and jurisdiction.
Company profile
Separate legal business information from estimating, scheduling, field, and accounting contacts.
Trades & coverage
Use a trade checklist, service regions, travel limits, and conditional scope questions matching your bid packages.
Capacity & availability
Ask about crews, supervision, equipment, contract range, workload, lead time, and availability.
Credentials & coverage
Pair uploads with type, jurisdiction, number, applicant-reported limits, and expiration, then follow your verification process.
Experience & references
Structure projects by scope, location, completion, value range, role, and reference so reviewers can compare relevant work.
Safety & acknowledgment
Ask about safety coordination, available programs, and records. Close with accuracy and separate-review acknowledgments.
Related tools
Continue into qualification, bid invitations, onboarding, and work requests.
Collect deeper capacity, experience, safety, and references.
Open toolCreate broader intake for contractors and service providers.
Open toolCollect project and bid-package interest.
Open toolStandardize assigned scope, location, and schedule.
Open toolFAQ
Practical answers for general contractors, estimators, and vendor coordinators setting up online intake.
It is an intake form a specialty contractor completes to be considered for a general contractor's network or a specific opportunity. It typically gathers company contacts, trades, service areas, capacity, relevant experience, credentials, references, and supporting documents. Submission starts your review; it does not promise approval or a contract.
Start with legal and trade names, business address, key contacts, trade specialties, service regions, crew capacity, typical project range, current availability, licenses where applicable, insurance information, comparable projects, references, and document uploads. Add project-specific scope and schedule questions only when needed.
An application can be a broad first intake used to identify potential trade partners. Prequalification is usually a deeper review of capacity, experience, safety information, financial references, credentials, and project fit. You can use the application to route suitable firms into a separate prequalification process.
Yes. Use conditional logic after the trade selection. An electrical applicant might see license-jurisdiction and service-capacity questions, while a concrete applicant sees placement capacity, equipment, and crew questions. Shared company and contact fields remain the same for comparable records.
Yes. Add file-upload fields and pair each upload with the document type, number, jurisdiction, applicant-reported limits, and expiration date. Your team should still review the information and use its own verification process rather than treating an upload as automatic approval.
Yes. Makeform provides unlimited free forms and responses, so you can generate, edit, publish, and collect applications without a response cap. The paid tier removes the Makeform badge.
Yes, but keep the first screen clear. Ask whether the company is joining your general network or responding to a named project, then reveal the relevant bid package, location, schedule, and availability questions. This avoids forcing every applicant through unrelated project fields.
Define a consistent internal checklist for trade fit, geography, capacity, credential dates, comparable work, references, and missing information. Tag the submission by trade and status, assign a reviewer, document follow-up separately, and make award or approval decisions through your established process.
Replace scattered applicant emails with one structured intake.
