The posters, to be shown on 618 sites in England and Wales, ask youngsters to think about becoming apprentices now rather than taking more courses.
The CITB campaign follows another at the start of the year to attract young recruits. That one included advertisements in national newspapers and magazines.
This campaign will be followed by a recruitment push in National Construction Week, which takes place in October. The specific target audience then will be school-leavers who are thinking of joining the army. The CITB campaign will argue that working in construction offers more freedom.
The campaign is a response to the need for new recruits in the industry. The CITB says 370,000 newcomers are required over the next four years to replace employees who are retiring, and to fill the shortfall created by increased workloads.
Jerry Lloyd, the CITB's communication director, said the board would spend £900,000 on advertising this year. He added that the CITB wanted to persuade young people to join the industry immediately, rather than do any more studying at college.
He said: "We are putting it to them that there are opportunities in construction at a professional and management level for youngsters who want to leave school now.
We are pressing buttons that we know will turn on the young
Jerry Lloyd, communications director, CITB
"You needn't bother to go to college and get a weak qualification and saddle yourselves with debt when you could be earning real money with a real job and get qualified as an apprentice.
"Our message is that if you look around at other sectors, such as manufacturing, agriculture and dotcoms, the shine has worn off, whereas construction will always be here."
Lloyd said that the CITB had taken advice from a market research consultancy on how best to pitch advertisements at school-leavers.
He said: "We are pressing buttons that we know will turn on young people. We are trying to create heroes in construction for young people to look up to."
Lloyd said it was too early to say whether the campaign at the start of the year had created a positive response to the industry.
He said: "We will begin to measure this later this year. It will be difficult to say whether the campaign will increase the number of applications for courses or enquiries. The campaign is about altering perceptions over time."
