Intel
Field notes from
the institutional bench.
Notes on how US construction firms hire preconstruction, cost and project management people, written for the person carrying the requisition.
Hiring
Is a construction recruiting fee based on base salary or total compensation?
Same percentage, same hire, thousands of dollars apart. The fee base is the clause nobody negotiates and everybody disputes.
Hiring
Contingency or retained construction recruiting: which one actually fits a general contractor?
The contingency versus retained argument is usually about fees. It should be about who is working on your role at 4pm on a Thursday.
Market Intelligence
Hiring a construction safety director before your surety asks about it
Your EMR is a hiring record. Sureties and brokers read the safety seat as an underwriting input long before it shows up as a claim.
Hiring
Hiring a hard bid chief estimator, and why negotiated experience does not transfer
A negotiated-work estimator can lose you hard bid jobs by winning them. The two disciplines optimize for opposite outcomes.
Market Intelligence
Hiring a heavy civil project manager when the bench does not exist
Underground utility and site work PMs are scarce because the training route was never built. Here is how to run the search anyway.
Hiring
Hiring a utility superintendent, and why promoting your best foreman often fails
The best foreman is rarely the right superintendent. The two jobs reward opposite instincts, and the promotion costs you both seats.
Hiring
You just won the work: hiring when construction backlog doubles
A backlog that doubles is a hiring problem with a deadline. The order you hire in decides whether the margin survives the growth.
Market Intelligence
How a confidential construction search actually runs, week by week
Everyone agrees some searches cannot be posted. Far fewer can describe what replaces the posting, week by week.
Hiring
How long a construction executive search takes, week by week
A confidential construction executive search runs 9 to 14 weeks from kickoff to accepted offer. Here is where the weeks actually go.
Market Intelligence
When an owner's rep sees the delivery team failing before the owner does
You can usually name the person who is the problem two months before anyone asks you. Saying so is the part nobody has a process for.
Hiring
Project manager turnover is killing your project margin: hiring problem or retention problem?
Three project managers on one job in two years is rarely a retention failure. It is usually a seat nobody ever defined.
Hiring
Promoting from within: why the construction internal promotion fails
Promoting your best superintendent or estimator into a leadership seat fails for a predictable reason. It is rarely the person.
Market Intelligence
Your client needs a VP of preconstruction: what to check before referring a construction recruiter
A referral puts your judgment on the line, not the recruiter's. Four checks that hold up when the search goes badly.
Market Intelligence
Replacing a construction operations leader who is still in the seat
The ops leader holds the informal system that makes the schedule work. Replacing one without disclosure is a specific kind of search.
Hiring
Replacing a chief estimator who is still in the seat and not leaving voluntarily
The retirement playbook assumes a cooperative handover. When the incumbent is not leaving by choice, every step of it works against you.
Market Intelligence
Why a high-volume recruiting desk cannot fill a construction leadership seat
The recruiter who called you is measured on activity, not on fit. That single fact explains most of what happens next.
Market Intelligence
What your WIP schedule says about whether you have a hiring problem
Fade, underbilling and stalled cost-to-complete revisions are read as accounting problems. Often they are the first written record of a leadership gap.
Hiring
Hiring a commercial construction estimator: what an estimator recruiter screens for
A shrinking occupation that is the second hardest to fill. Here is why, and what it means for how you screen a commercial estimator.
Market Intelligence
Hiring a construction project manager in Texas: what a project manager recruiter sees
Texas contractors keep hearing about a talent shortage. The federal data says something else, and it changes how you run the search.
Market Intelligence
Preconstruction and cost control: what a cost control recruiter sees at the handover
The money does not leak in preconstruction or in cost control. It leaks in the handover between them, and no job title owns it.
Hiring
How to hire a construction manager for a GMP project
Under a GMP, the construction manager inherits a number set before they arrived. Here is what to screen for, and who this hire is not for.
Hiring
Hiring a senior superintendent: what the standard screen misses
Superintendents are the hardest salaried role in US construction to fill, and most briefs screen for the wrong thing. Here is what actually predicts the seat.
Hiring
The construction counteroffer trap: why your best candidate accepted and then stayed put
A verbal acceptance is not a hire. Here is why counteroffers work so well in construction, and the five process steps that neutralize them before offer stage.
Hiring
The true cost of a failed construction project manager hire on a $40M job
The recruiting fee is the smallest number on the page. Here is the arithmetic on what a mis-hired project manager actually costs a general contractor.