Hire a Chief Estimator, Confidentially

How do you replace a chief estimator while the incumbent is still in the seat?

Quietly, and off the market. The role is never posted. Candidates are approached individually under a described-but-unnamed client, and the incumbent, the bid board and the surety learn nothing until you decide they should.

A chief estimator search is the one most often run badly, because the seat is easy to name and hard to specify. The title covers a hard-bid estimator pricing self-perform civil work and a negotiated-work estimator who has not priced a quantity in six years. Both are chief estimators. Neither can do the other job in the first year.

This is also the seat most often replaced while it is still occupied. The person is competent, the bid hit rate is falling, and the decision cannot be discussed with anyone inside the business — which is why the search cannot be posted.

What a chief estimator actually owns

Bid strategy, not bid volume: Which pursuits get the department's best hours, and which get declined early enough to matter. A chief estimator who bids everything is a bid manager with a bigger title.
The number the firm is bound to: Final review and the risk allowance behind it. Ask what they carried for escalation on their last three awards, and what happened to it.
The estimating bench: Who is being grown into the next senior estimator. A department that cannot survive its chief estimator taking two weeks off has a succession problem, not a staffing one.

What a generic search gets wrong

It screens on sector and dollar volume, which are the two things that transfer least. A $400m negotiated healthcare estimator moving to hard-bid heavy civil is starting over on the part of the job that decides whether the number is right. Screen on delivery method and how the work was priced, then on volume.

How the search runs

Selah Talent Partners runs confidential executive search for mandates that cannot be publicly posted. The role is never advertised, your firm is described rather than named until a candidate is serious, and no approach is made to anyone inside your business without your agreement.

One person runs the search end to end: the intake, every technical screening conversation, and the offer. A shortlist of three to five candidates who have each had a working discussion about the actual job is targeted at day 21.

Every placement carries a 120-day replacement guarantee. The fee, the guarantee and the conditions attached to it are published in full — see pricing — rather than quoted differently to each client. Candidates never pay a fee.

Send a confidential brief

Questions

Can you run this search without the incumbent finding out?

Yes — that is the normal case, not the exception. The role is never posted, the firm is described rather than named until a candidate is serious, and no approach goes to anyone inside your business or to a firm you are actively bidding against without your say-so.

How long does a chief estimator search take?

A shortlist of three to five screened candidates is targeted at day 21. Offer to start date is usually a further six to twelve weeks, because a seated chief estimator has a bid cycle to hand over and often a notice period measured in months.

Do you screen estimators technically, or just on paper?

Technically. Every candidate has a working conversation with the founder about how they price, what they carry, and where their last estimate was wrong. A recruiter who has never read a bid set cannot tell a good answer from a fluent one.