Intel · Project & construction management
Project and construction management hiring.
Operations is the discipline where a hiring mistake is visible on a jobsite within a quarter. These seats carry schedule, cost and the people actually building the work.
These notes cover span of control, when to promote a superintendent rather than hire outside, how many projects a manager should really run, and what a backlog claim on a resume is worth.
Searches we run in this discipline
Selah Talent Partners runs confidential executive search for mandates that cannot be publicly posted.
156 articles
Careers
Construction project manager burnout: what to change before you change employers
Most project manager burnout is a workload design fault. What to ask your boss for first, and how to tell when leaving is the fix.
Hiring
Hiring a homebuilder land development manager: the lot pipeline is the inventory
Finished lots, not framing crews, cap a homebuilder's starts. What a land development manager owns, how the seat differs, and how to hire for it.
Hiring
Hiring a student housing project manager: the August move-in date never moves
Student housing is leased by the bed against one fixed lease start. Hire a project manager who runs the turnover, not just the building.
Hiring
Hiring a tunnel project manager: the ground decides the schedule
On a tunnel the ground sets the schedule and the baseline report sets who pays. What a tunnel project manager must read, defend and document.
Careers
Project executive to vice president: the job becomes deciding between projects
A project executive argues for their own jobs. A vice president of operations decides between them: people, bids, backlog and the P&L.
Careers
Leaving a public agency for a heavy civil contractor: what an owner-side engineer brings
What an agency engineer brings to a heavy civil contractor, what is new, what the pension trade costs and which ethics rules decide your first jobs.
Careers
Stepping back from construction leadership to run projects again
Some vice presidents want their projects back. How to explain the move in one sentence, price the project seat and check its overtime status.
Careers
After a construction company sale: what a project leader should read before deciding to stay
What changes for a project leader after a construction company sale, the signals in the first ninety days, and the documents to read before signing.
Risk
CM-at-risk proposal staffing: naming a project manager you have not hired
A CM-at-risk committee scores the named team. What owner's reps check, how to stage a hire behind a pursuit, and what a quiet swap costs.
Careers
An exploding offer deadline in construction: forty-eight hours is a tactic, not a rule
Why construction offers arrive with a short fuse, what a reasonable window looks like, and how to ask for more time without losing the job.
Careers
Following a former boss to a new contractor: the loyalty move and what it costs
Your former boss wants you at a new contractor. What the call leaves out: their non-solicit, trade secret risk, and whether the firm can carry you.
Careers
Moving from heavy civil to building construction: what a DOT project manager has to relearn
What changes when a DOT project manager moves into building construction, what transfers, how to present it, and which sectors make the easiest bridge.
Hiring
Hiring a bridge construction project manager: the job is engineered twice
A bridge PM delivers the structure the owner designed and the temporary works the contractor engineered. Hire for the second half.
Hiring
Hiring a concrete operations manager: the self-perform crew that sets the schedule
Self-perform concrete sits on the critical path. What a concrete operations manager owns, and a toolbox to test one: unit-cost history and a pour plan.
Hiring
Hiring a capital program director for a public agency: a bond program run under civil service rules
A bond or an IIJA grant funds the program and a board watches it. How to hire a capital program director when the salary is published.
Hiring
Hiring a semiconductor fab project executive: the tool install date is the real deadline
Chip plant construction spending has halved since 2024, yet fabs are entering tool install. Hire the project executive who can hand bays to the tools.
Careers
From production homebuilding to commercial construction: what a homebuilder's construction manager brings
What a homebuilder's construction manager carries into commercial and multifamily work, what is new, how titles map, and why the first title may dip.
Careers
The owner offered you a job mid-project: read the no-hire clause first
An owner's job offer before the building is finished can run into a no-hire clause you never signed. What it binds, what binds you, and how to act.
Risk
Staffing a surety takeover project: the completion team inherits someone else's job
After a default, the completion team inherits another firm's records, unpaid subcontractors and an impatient owner. Who should lead that job.
Careers
Construction job offer rescinded: the checks before you resign and the first day after
Why construction offers get pulled, the checks that lower the risk before you resign, and what to do and get in writing the day it happens.
Hiring
The construction leadership onboarding timeline: when a new hire starts paying back
A senior construction hire pays back at the end of the first project or bid cycle they own, not at day 90. Here is the timeline by seat.
Careers
Explaining a career gap in a construction interview
What a contractor worries about when it sees a career gap, a short honest script for each kind of gap, and what you never have to disclose.
Careers
Being the first project executive in a new construction office
The upside and the risks of leading a contractor's new regional office, and the six questions to settle before you accept the offer.
Careers
Is an MBA worth it for construction managers? The honest trade
What an MBA costs a construction manager in tuition and lost pay, when it moves a career toward the owner side or operations, and when experience wins.
Careers
Moving to a specialty contractor from a general contractor: the risk becomes yours
A general contractor's project manager who joins a specialty contractor stops managing risk and starts owning it. What changes, and where to land.
Careers
Rejoining the construction industry after time away
Coming back to construction as a project manager, estimator or project executive: the doubts a hiring manager holds, and how to answer each one.
Careers
Superintendent to project manager: what the move really asks of you
What a superintendent takes on as a project manager: the commercial work, why pay may not rise at first, and the general superintendent alternative.
Hiring
Construction employer reputation: what senior candidates check before they reply
Before a passive project executive returns your call, they check who left, your backlog, your OSHA record, payment suits and who they would report to.
Hiring
Construction offer declined: why the no was decided before the letter was written
An offer to a senior construction leader is usually lost before it is written. What the employer controls, in the order it matters.
Careers
Asking for a construction raise: your number is set two months before your review
When a contractor actually decides salaries, the job numbers that make the case, what to ask for besides base, and what a 'not now' should come with.
Careers
Comparing construction job offers: two letters with the same base are rarely the same offer
Two construction job offers with the same base can differ by a career. Compare cash likely paid, backlog, boss, authority and downside.
Careers
Construction management certifications: which ones change a hiring decision and which decorate a signature block
PE, CCM, PMP, DBIA, LEED AP, OSHA 30: what a hiring executive infers from each, and the seats where a credential outweighs a project list.
Hiring
Construction project manager interview questions that get evidence instead of a speech
Generic questions get rehearsed answers. Tie every question to one job the candidate ran and the buyout, the change order and the forecast start talking.
Compensation
The construction salaried overtime exemption: a salary does not make a job exempt
Paying a salary does not make a role exempt from overtime. Where contractors get the federal duties test wrong, role by role, and what to check first.
Careers
Construction salary expectations: answer with the whole package, then a range for the seat
Asked for salary expectations, most construction leaders quote base. State the whole package you have now, then a range tied to the seat.
Careers
The construction superintendent resume: one page of projects beats a paragraph of adjectives
A superintendent resume gets read for jobs, crews, schedule and safety. Here is what to put on each project line and what to cut.
Careers
Explaining a problem project in a construction interview: say the number, own the decision, name nobody
How to answer 'tell me about a job that went wrong': the loss in numbers, the decision that was yours, what you changed, and what stays confidential.
Hiring
Hiring construction leaders from another sector: what transfers, what does not, and how to test the gap
When your sector's local pool is thin, the adjacent-sector leader is often the best hire available. Here is what transfers and how to test the rest.
Careers
A long tenure in a construction career: fifteen years at one contractor, read from across the table
Why fifteen years at one contractor draws a compliment and a doubt, how to show growth inside one employer, and the three exposures to check yourself.
Careers
Passed over for a construction promotion: the three things the decision can mean
What a missed promotion at a contractor is telling you, the questions that get a real answer in the first two weeks, and how long to wait before you look.
Careers
Becoming a general superintendent: the job where you stop building and start staffing
A general superintendent runs the field through other superintendents. What the seat demands, what you give up, and how the move usually happens.
Hiring
The construction exit interview: what a departing project manager tells you about the seat
Most contractors ask a departing project manager why they are leaving. The useful question is what the seat does to whoever sits in it.
Hiring
Construction leadership titles: how to level a seat before you write the brief
A senior project manager at a $60M contractor and one at a $2B builder do different jobs. Level the seat by what it controls before the search starts.
Careers
The construction project manager resume: what you controlled matters more than what the job cost
A project manager resume is read for scope of control, not project value. What each project entry should say, and what to leave off the page.
Careers
Explaining a short tenure in a construction interview: three sentences, and the two questions behind them
What a contractor is testing when it asks about an eleven-month stint or a layoff, and how to answer in three sentences your references will repeat.
Hiring
The construction jobsite interview: what a ninety-minute walk shows that a conference room cannot
A ninety-minute walk of a live project shows how a superintendent or project manager reads work. Here is how to run it, protect it and score it.
Careers
Leaving before the year-end bonus: what a construction leader forfeits, and how to time a move
Most construction bonus plans pay only people still employed on the payment date. How to value the wait, and how to get a forfeited bonus made whole.
Careers
Moving from a subcontractor to a general contractor: what a trade project manager brings
Trade project managers know cost at a depth most general contractors lack. What a GC will value, the gaps it will probe, and how to make the move.
Careers
Moving to the owner's side: what a contractor's project manager gains, and what goes quiet
Owner-side roles trade the pace of building for control of the whole program. What the work is, what you give up, and whether you can come back.
Careers
Moving to a regional contractor from a national one: the job gets bigger and the building gets emptier
What a project executive gains and loses leaving a national builder for a regional firm, how titles translate, and the working capital questions to ask.
Careers
Negotiating a construction job offer: base salary is the line that moves least
A construction job offer has eight moving parts and base pay is the stiffest. How to compare total pay, what to ask for, and when to raise each point.
Careers
The construction interview: how to answer the only question that decides it
A construction interview turns on one question: what did you control? How to prepare two projects in depth, tell the story of a bad job, and ask well.
Careers
Project engineer to project manager: the promotion goes to whoever can say what the job will finish at
What separates a project engineer who gets a job of their own from one who stays an assistant for five years, how to ask, and when to move firms.
Careers
Project manager to project executive: the promotion that takes your project away
The step from project manager to project executive swaps running one job for answering for five. How to tell you are ready, and why good PMs stall.
Careers
Reading a construction bonus plan before you sign: a target with no document is a zero with good manners
Discretionary or formula, project or pool, what profit is measured on, and the payment-date clause: how to read a bonus plan before you accept the offer.
Careers
Relocating for a construction job: your subcontractors do not come with you
A move to a new metro leaves your sub and owner relationships behind. What that costs in year one, what to read in the package, and how to test the city.
Careers
Resigning mid-project: how a construction leader leaves without wrecking the job or the reference
There is never a clean gap between projects. How to time a resignation, what a real handover contains, and how much notice a construction leader owes.
Careers
The construction counteroffer from your side of the desk: should you take it?
A counteroffer answers the pay question and usually nothing else. How a construction leader should weigh one, and what to settle before resigning.
Careers
Switching construction sectors: what carries from multifamily to healthcare or data centers
Moving between construction sectors is possible and seldom lateral. What transfers, what a new sector will make you prove, and how to plan the step.
Compensation
Construction vehicle allowance, company truck and per diem: the offer lines candidates actually compare
A flat vehicle allowance is taxable pay and a company truck mostly is not. On a field seat, that gap can outweigh $5,000 of base salary.
Hiring
Hiring a building envelope project manager: the trade that inherits everyone else's tolerances
Curtain wall, cladding and roofing contractors design, fabricate and install under one contract. How to hire the project manager who runs all three.
Hiring
Hiring a construction director for a hospital system or university: the owner's side of the table
An institution's construction director buys buildings it will run for decades. Why strong contractor leaders often struggle in the seat, and how to choose.
Hiring
Hiring a construction director for a real estate developer: owner-side cost, schedule and lender control
A developer's construction director manages the contract, the contingency and the lender, not the work. Why contractor stars often stall in the seat.
Hiring
Hiring a special projects manager: running small, fast construction work inside a general contractor
Small jobs lose money when they are run like big ones. What a special projects manager does differently, and who makes a good one.
Hiring
Hiring a construction workforce development director for a self-perform contractor
A workforce development director owns the craft pipeline that HR, safety and operations each own a third of. What the seat is and how to measure it.
Hiring
Hiring a data center commissioning manager: the person who proves the building works
A data center is not finished until it survives a staged failure. What a contractor's commissioning manager owns, and how to hire one.
Hiring
Hiring a heavy civil project manager for rail and transit work: delivery on a live railroad
On a live railroad the schedule belongs to the dispatcher. What a rail and transit project manager has to know that a highway builder does not.
Hiring
Hiring a homebuilder vice president of construction: the seat runs a production line, not a project
A production homebuilder's construction seat is a manufacturing job held outdoors. Why strong commercial leaders stall in it, and how to test for fit.
Hiring
Hiring a senior living construction project executive: apartments on the outside, a care setting inside
Senior living is financed like housing and regulated like care. Which background makes a project executive who can build both halves.
Hiring
Hiring a site development and earthwork project manager: the job is priced in dirt nobody has seen
An earthwork project manager runs a job whose main material is unknown until it is dug. What the seat controls and how to tell who has run one.
Hiring
Hiring a sports venue construction project executive: the opening date is already on the broadcast schedule
A stadium has an opening date that cannot move, an owner with several voices and a design that keeps changing. What the project executive seat requires.
Hiring
Hiring a transmission and substation project manager: building on a grid that cannot be switched off
Substation and transmission work is scheduled around outages the utility controls. What that demands of a project manager, and where to find one.
Hiring
Hiring an asphalt paving operations manager: three businesses and one perishable product
An asphalt contractor runs a plant, trucks and field crews on a material that cools as it travels. What the operations manager seat demands.
Hiring
Hiring an electrical contractor operations leader: the person who owns the labor bet
An electrical contractor's margin is a bet on labor hours. What the operations leader has to control, and how to test for it in an interview.
Hiring
Hiring an industrial construction project manager on the Gulf Coast: refinery, LNG and petrochemical delivery
A Gulf Coast industrial project manager works inside a live process plant. What the seat demands, and why a commercial résumé does not transfer.
Hiring
Hiring an industrial warehouse construction project manager: when a simple box stops being simple
Tilt-up warehouses look simple and cold storage looks similar. What separates the project managers who can build each, and how to tell at interview.
Hiring
Hiring a bilingual superintendent for Spanish-speaking self-perform crews in Texas and the Southeast
A bilingual superintendent is a safety and production hire before a language hire. How to test Spanish at the level a jobsite needs.
Hiring
Hiring leaders for integrated project delivery: the contract shares the risk, the people decide whether it holds
An integrated project delivery agreement puts every party's fee in one pool and removes the change order as a profit lever. Who should lead the job.
Hiring
Hiring veterans into construction project management and field leadership: what transfers and what does not
Military leaders bring planning, safety and span of control to a jobsite. They do not bring buyout or change-order experience. How to score the difference.
Risk
The key personnel clause: what happens when your named project manager leaves
A key personnel clause turns one resignation into a contract event. How the clause works, who should own it, and what to have ready first.
Hiring
Rehiring a construction leader who left: when a boomerang project manager or chief estimator works
A returning project manager or chief estimator is the fastest fill you have. Whether it holds depends on why they left, not on how well you know them.
Hiring
Schedule recovery leadership: who to hire when a construction project falls behind
A project that is behind needs a decision about who leads it before it needs more hours. A decision tree for the recovery seat.
Workforce Planning
Staffing a construction project 300 miles from the office: traveling teams, local hires and relocation
A job far from the home office can be staffed three ways. What each costs, where the one-year tax rule bites, and how job length decides it.
Hiring
Union and open shop: hiring construction leaders across the labor line
A superintendent or operations head moving between union and open shop work changes more than employers. What transfers, what does not, and how to check.
Hiring
Construction executive offer negotiation: closing a project executive without a counteroffer
How to close a construction estimating or operations leader on the first written offer, without triggering a counteroffer.
Hiring
Hiring a job order contracting program manager
Why a strong hard-bid estimator usually fails at job order contracting, and what a JOC program manager search actually screens for.
Hiring
Building versus buying construction leadership
Promote or hire is not a values question. It is a question about how much time you have and what the seat has to already know.
Hiring
Construction executive reference checks: verify what the person controlled, not whether they were liked
Every reference call for a construction leader ends the same way. Verifying what the person actually controlled is a different process few firms run.
Hiring
Why Your Construction Job Postings Are Not Producing Candidates
Construction job postings fail for a structural reason, not a copywriting one. The people you want are not reading them, and volume is the wrong fix.
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.
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
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
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 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 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 quality control manager: the contract deliverable most contractors staff as a clipboard
On federal, DOT and healthcare work the QC manager is a named contract deliverable with stop-work authority. Most contractors hire the seat as a clipboard.
Hiring
Hiring a construction regional vice president over estimating and operations
The seat exists because estimating and operations stopped talking. Most firms hire it a year after they needed it.
Hiring
Hiring a construction number two
Most number-two hires fail because the founder never actually gave the job away. Here is how to tell before you hire.
Hiring
Hiring a construction vice president of operations: the first seat the owner has to actually give up
The first vice president of operations a contractor hires usually reports to someone who still does the job. That is why the seat turns over.
Hiring
Hiring a mechanical contractor project manager: the seat that buys the job out every week
A mechanical contractor project manager manages labor hours, not subcontracts. The general contractor profile most briefs describe transfers badly.
Hiring
Hiring a P3 construction project director: the seat that answers to the lender, not the owner
On a public-private partnership the schedule is a financial instrument and the lender's engineer reads the report first. A P3 director is a different hire.
Hiring
Hiring an owner's representative program manager: the seat that runs the owner's decisions, not the contractor's work
An owner's rep program manager gets the owner to decide on time across a capital program. The best contractor project manager fails there for one reason.
Hiring
Interview Speed: Why Your Construction Search Is Slower Than the Market
Construction interview speed decides who you hire more often than the shortlist does. The delay is almost always internal, and it is measurable.
Hiring
Leadership Development or External Hire: The Construction Succession Choice
When a leadership development budget beats an external construction hire, when it does not, and why most contractors choose wrong at the wrong moment.
Hiring
Three Construction Recruiters on One Search: What It Actually Costs You
Giving one search to three construction recruiters feels like competition. It produces speed at the expense of the thing you were hiring for.
Hiring
Hiring leadership for a private equity backed contractor
The sponsor wants reporting discipline. The field wants to build. The hire has to survive both, and most briefs only describe one.
Hiring
Retaining construction leaders after an acquisition
The retention agreement holds people for the term and tells you nothing about what happens the day after it ends.
Hiring
Span of control for a construction operations leader
The number of projects one operations leader can carry is not a headcount question. It is a decision about what you want them to actually do.
Hiring
When a construction project executive should be replaced
The hardest replacement decision is the one everybody likes. Here are the signals that separate a bad year from a bad fit.
Market Intelligence
Construction executive incentive compensation: what actually keeps a project manager
Most construction bonus plans pay for outcomes the recipient cannot control. That is why they retain nobody and cost a fortune.
Market Intelligence
Construction project executive compensation: what the seat pays and what the bonus is quietly rewarding
Project executive pay is set by the scope carried, not the title. How base, bonus and vehicle are structured, and what most plans pay for by accident.
Market Intelligence
Construction project manager compensation: base, bonus and the backlog problem
Construction project manager compensation is a regional question with a structural trap: bonus plans tied to job margin quietly discourage bad news.
Market Intelligence
Construction workforce planning: reading bench depth against backlog
Your backlog is a leadership headcount forecast. Most contractors never read it that way until a job mobilizes without a leader.
Hiring
The first 90 days of a construction project executive: where the hire is actually decided
A construction project executive who fails usually fails in the first quarter, and almost never for the reason the search was scoped around.
Hiring
Hiring a commercial interiors construction leader: the seat that runs forty jobs a year on someone else's floor
A commercial interiors leader runs dozens of short tenant improvement jobs inside occupied buildings. Most briefs hire a ground-up builder instead.
Market Intelligence
Hiring a construction closeout leader: the last 2 percent that holds your retention
The job is substantially complete and the money is still outstanding. Closeout is a leadership seat, and almost nobody staffs it as one.
Hiring
Hiring a construction division manager: the seat that owns preconstruction and operations at once
Promoting your best project executive into a division manager seat breaks two functions at once. Here is what the role actually requires.
Hiring
Hiring a construction project director: the seat between the project executive and the P&L
A project director runs several jobs through other people and answers for the number. Most briefs describe a bigger project manager. That is the wrong hire.
Market Intelligence
Hiring a construction risk manager: claims and dispute exposure on self-perform work
Verbal instruction is a risk transfer. A construction risk manager exists to stop it landing on you eighteen months later.
Hiring
Hiring a construction scheduling manager: the seat that decides your claims position
A construction scheduling manager builds the record your delay claim stands or falls on. Most briefs screen for software skill instead.
Hiring
Hiring a data center construction project executive: what transfers and what does not
Most firms entering mission-critical work hire a data center project executive on square footage. The commissioning sequence is what decides the job.
Hiring
Hiring a federal construction project manager: the seat where commercial habits cost money
A federal construction project manager runs a job where the contract file is the deliverable. Commercial PMs fail here for reasons no brief screens for.
Hiring
Hiring a healthcare construction operations director: the seat that answers to infection control
A healthcare construction operations director builds beside patients. The constraint that decides the job is clinical, and most briefs never mention it.
Hiring
Hiring a hospitality construction project executive: the seat that answers to the brand and the opening date
A hospitality project executive delivers to a brand standard and an opening date already sold. Most briefs hire for the building, not the last ninety days.
Hiring
Hiring a life sciences construction project executive: the seat that builds for validation, not for handover
A life sciences project executive delivers a building that must pass validation before it can be used. Most briefs hire for the building, not the test.
Hiring
Hiring a manufacturing construction project executive: the seat where the owner's equipment sets the schedule
A manufacturing project executive builds a plant around process equipment that arrives on its own timetable. The equipment decides the job, not the building.
Hiring
Hiring a multifamily construction project executive: the cycle turned and the bench did not
Multifamily leadership is built in boom years and lost in slow ones. Firms that hire only when starts recover are always eighteen months late.
Hiring
Hiring a renewable energy construction project manager: interconnection is the schedule
A renewable energy project manager is judged on a date they do not control. Screen for interconnection and utility coordination, not megawatts built.
Market Intelligence
Hiring a self-perform operations leader: the seat that decides whether owning crews pays
Self-perform work converts subcontractor risk into payroll risk. The leader who runs it is the only control you have left.
Hiring
Hiring a water treatment project manager: the process is the project
A water treatment project manager who has only built structures will meet startup unprepared. The process side is where these jobs are won or lost.
Hiring
Hiring an aviation construction project executive: the seat that never gets to stop the airport
An aviation project executive builds inside an operation that cannot pause. That single constraint disqualifies most excellent commercial candidates.
Hiring
Hiring an education construction project executive: the calendar is the client
On school and campus work the academic calendar is an immovable contract term. Most briefs treat it as a scheduling preference.
Market Intelligence
How many projects should a construction project manager run? Span of control, backlog and the fade nobody reports
A project manager's span of control is set by the backlog, not the org chart. Where the number breaks, and what a surety sees when it does.
Market Intelligence
Interim construction leadership: when a placeholder beats a permanent hire
Interim leadership solves one problem: a seat that must be covered before the firm knows what it is hiring for. It is not a cheaper permanent hire.
Market Intelligence
Joint venture construction leadership: the JV agreement names the sponsor, not the person running the job
A construction JV allocates risk, capital and control in detail. It rarely specifies who fills the seats, which is where the partnership actually fails.
Market Intelligence
Leadership continuity after a contractor acquisition: keeping the project management bench
Most contractor acquisitions are priced on backlog and lose the people who deliver it. Leadership continuity is the integration risk nobody underwrites.
Market Intelligence
Construction executive search in Texas and the Southeast: what the market actually looks like
Texas and the Southeast are not one hiring market. Treating them as a region is the mistake that makes a search take twice as long.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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 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.
Hiring
Your job posting is why good construction candidates are not applying
The posting is doing exactly what it was built to do. It is filtering for available candidates, and the ones you want are not available.
Carrying one of these searches?
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