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
Construction leadership flight risk after a failed promotion
The person you did not promote is the person your competitor is calling this week. The window is shorter than you think.
Hiring
Leadership structure for a second construction division
A second division fails on structure long before it fails on backlog. Here is the order the hires have to happen in.
Compensation
Construction phantom stock: paying leaders like owners without giving away the company
Phantom stock lets a contractor pay its leaders like owners without diluting ownership. It also fails in a specific and predictable way.
Hiring
What to Negotiate Into a Construction Recruiting Agreement Before You Sign
The clauses in a construction recruiting agreement that decide what happens when a hire leaves, a candidate applies twice, or the search stalls.
Market Intelligence
Construction stay bonuses and retention agreements: you are buying a date, not loyalty
A stay bonus does not make a project manager stay. It makes them stay until the date on the letter. When it works, and what to do the day after it pays.
Market Intelligence
Subcontractor default risk: the exposure your hiring decisions quietly control
A subcontractor default is usually visible months before it happens. Whether anyone sees it is a staffing question.
Market Intelligence
Construction superintendent compensation: the package is the number, and the offer letter that ignores it loses
Ask a superintendent what they make and the answer is not the payroll figure. The package shapes the schedule more than the base does.
Hiring
What an Unfilled Construction Seat Costs You Every Week It Stays Open
The running cost of an open preconstruction, estimating or project management seat, measured against backlog rather than against the salary you are saving.
Hiring
How to read a construction candidate's backlog claims on a resume
A resume that says $200M of project experience is telling you almost nothing. Here is the question that turns it into information.
Hiring
Hiring a construction bid manager for a hard bid and design-build operation
Bid day fails in the last four hours or it does not fail at all. The manager who owns those hours is rarely the chief estimator.
Hiring
Hiring a construction business development director: the seat that decides what you get to bid
Most contractors hire business development to chase revenue. The seat that works decides which jobs never reach the estimating team.
Hiring
Hiring a construction chief operating officer: the seat that only works if the owner stops deciding
A construction COO fails for a structural reason, not a personal one: the authority the title implies was never actually moved.
Hiring
Hiring a construction commercial manager for a joint venture delivery team
Two firms, one project, one set of books. The commercial manager is the only person who works for the job rather than a partner.
Hiring
Hiring a construction contract administrator: the seat that proves what was agreed
Most change-order losses are not pricing failures. They are proof failures, and the contract administrator is the seat that prevents them.
Hiring
Hiring a construction division president for a new region
You are not hiring an operator. You are hiring a market, and the two look identical on a résumé.
Hiring
Hiring a construction equipment manager: the seat that decides whether you own or rent
A heavy civil contractor's second largest cost is usually its fleet, and in most firms nobody owns it end to end.
Hiring
Hiring a construction estimating director: the seat that decides which jobs you never bid
An estimating director is not a senior estimator. The job is deciding what not to bid, and most firms hire for the wrong one.
Hiring
Hiring a construction field engineer: the bench you are not building
Every firm complaining it cannot find project managers stopped hiring field engineers a decade ago. The two facts are the same fact.
Hiring
Hiring a construction general manager: the seat that owns a regional office you cannot see
A regional office runs on trust until the numbers arrive. The general manager seat is what makes that trust unnecessary.
Hiring
Hiring a construction general superintendent: the field seat the firm outgrew without noticing
At six jobs the best superintendent holds the field in their head. At fourteen they are still trying. This is the seat that admits the firm changed.
Hiring
Hiring a construction human resources director who understands a bid calendar
Most HR directors hired into contractors fail the same way. They arrive with a corporate playbook and meet a project.
Hiring
Hiring a construction operating partner
The operating partner who has never carried a bid number gets listened to politely and ignored completely.
Hiring
Hiring a construction president: the seat an owner creates and then quietly competes with
A construction president is hired to run the business so the owner can own it. Most of the risk sits in whether the owner meant it.
Hiring
Hiring a construction procurement director for long lead equipment on a GMP project
Switchgear does not care about your schedule. The seat that orders it before the design is finished is the one that saves the job.