A move from a subcontractor to a general contractor trades depth for breadth. A trade project manager brings real cost knowledge, labor productivity and a builder’s view of coordination. The gaps are owner relationships, managing trades you have never performed, and the prime contract. Mechanical, electrical and concrete backgrounds travel best.
The mechanical project manager knows that the general contractor’s schedule is wrong. She knew it at the first coordination meeting, when the overhead rough-in was shown starting before the steel was plumbed. She said so, was thanked, and watched the dates stay where they were. After twelve years of being right in other people’s meetings, she is wondering what it would take to run one. The honest answer is that she is closer than she thinks and further than she would like.
What does a general contractor value in a trade background?
Knowledge of what work costs and how long it takes, learned from paying for it. A subcontractor’s project manager has tracked labor hours against an estimate, bought material, and lost money on a bad productivity assumption. Many general contractor staff have managed that risk only through someone else’s contract.
Specifically, a trade background gives you:
- Labor productivity. You know how many feet of pipe a crew installs in a day, and what crowding does to that number.
- Real cost data. You have seen the invoices behind a quote.
- Procurement. Submittals, fabrication and lead times, from the side that orders the equipment.
- Coordination from the inside. You know which clashes are real and which a foreman will solve in ten minutes.
- Change-order mechanics. You have priced them, so you know when one is padded.
Mechanical and electrical experience is the most sought after, because those trades are a growing share of building cost and the hardest for a general contractor to supervise. On healthcare, laboratory and data center work a general contractor in Dallas or Raleigh will often create a role for someone who can question the MEP subs as an equal. Our note on the MEP coordination manager describes that seat, and it is the most common bridge.
Self-perform contractors value trade people for a second reason. A general contractor that places its own concrete or drywall needs leaders who have run crews. Our note on the self-perform operations leader explains what those firms look for. Those who make the opposite move, from a general contractor to a specialty contractor, find out how much of the list above they never had to learn.
The industry you would be leaving is large. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts specialty trade contractors as the biggest part of construction employment, so the hiring manager across the table has seen your kind of resume before, and has a short list of doubts about it.
Which gaps will a general contractor probe?
Breadth, the owner, and the prime contract. A general contractor will ask whether you can manage thirty trades you have never performed, whether you have handled an owner directly, and whether you understand obligations that flow down to subs from a contract you have never had to sign.
The difference in span is easy to underestimate. On an illustrative $60 million building, a mechanical project manager might manage 6 contracts: suppliers, a sheet metal sub, an insulator, a controls vendor. The general contractor’s project manager on the same job manages about 35 subcontracts and purchase orders, most of them in trades they have never worked in.
| Gap | What the interviewer is asking | How to close it |
|---|---|---|
| Other trades | Can you scope and level drywall, roofing, sitework? | Study the bid packages on your current jobs; ask the GC’s team how they scope |
| The owner | Have you run an owner meeting or presented a pay application? | Volunteer for owner-facing meetings on design-assist work |
| The prime contract | Do you know what the GC owes the owner, and by when? | Read the prime contract terms that flow down into your subcontract |
| Whole-project schedule | Can you build a critical path beyond your trade? | Learn the full schedule, and ask why activities are sequenced as they are |
| Site-wide safety | Do you understand responsibility beyond your own crew? | Read the general contractor’s site safety plan |
Safety is a larger shift than it looks. A subcontractor answers for its own people. A general contractor that controls the site can be held responsible for hazards created by any employer on it, and OSHA enforces construction standards with that in mind.
Attitude gets tested too. Trade people sometimes arrive with twelve years of grievances about general contractors. Interviewers listen for it. The useful posture is that you know what a sub needs from a general contractor to perform well, and intend to provide it.
How do you move from a subcontractor to a general contractor?
Through the role where your trade knowledge is the qualification, then outward. MEP coordinator, MEP manager, self-perform project manager and estimator for your own divisions are the usual entry points. From there, one or two projects give you the breadth for a general project manager’s seat.
A workable sequence:
- Pick general contractors that know your work. The firms you have built for have seen you perform. A superintendent’s recommendation counts for more than an application.
- Enter through your trade. Take the MEP or self-perform seat and do not insist on the general title on day one.
- Ask for the rest of the job. Once inside, volunteer for buyout of other trades and for the owner meetings.
- Fill the paper gaps. A course in construction contracts or scheduling shows intent.
- Hold your pay expectations loosely for one project. Senior trade project managers are well paid, and the first general contractor seat may be flat.
Estimators have an even shorter route. A mechanical or electrical estimator who joins a general contractor’s preconstruction group fills a gap most of them have, as our note on the MEP estimator at a general contractor explains.
Should you make the move at all?
Not everyone should. Senior people at strong trade contractors often earn as much as their general contractor counterparts, with a clearer route to ownership. The work is deeper and the firm’s fate rests more directly on what you do.
Move if you want the whole building, the owner relationship and the path to project executive. Stay if you love your trade and your firm shares its profits. The senior seat on that side is a real one, and our note on the electrical operations leader describes the person who owns labor hours across every job at once. The Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational outlook treats both as construction management, and both are. One step further on is the owner’s side, which gives a view of the whole project and gives up the pace of building.
Selah Talent Partners runs confidential executive search for mandates that cannot be publicly posted, for general and specialty contractors across the United States. Before you move, ask which general contractors actually hire from the trades and which only say they do. The candidates page is the place to start.
The first time you run that coordination meeting, put the steel before the overhead rough-in, and ask the mechanical sub what she thinks of the dates.
Sources and further reading
- Specialty trade, Bureau of Labor Statistics, specialty trade contractors
- OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, construction industry
- Occupational outlook, Bureau of Labor Statistics, construction managers