In the building and construction industry, hiring effective construction managers is essential for ensuring success. Construction managers oversee the general performance of workers and collaborate with others in leadership roles to complete building projects.
Hiring a construction manager for your industry demands that you find those with excellent management, collaboration, and communication skills. However, the entire process can be daunting if you don’t have proper guidance.
With that in mind, this article describes the role of a construction manager and explains how you can find and hire top-notch construction managers for your company.
Table of contents
- What is a construction manager?
- What are the skills of a construction manager?
- How to find and hire excellent construction managers
- Hire top-notch construction managers with TestGorilla
- ✅ Gain access to TestGorilla’s comprehensive test library
What is a construction manager?
Construction managers interpret architectural designs and manage construction projects. They instruct their teams and delegate tasks to workers to complete these projects.
The tasks of a construction manager will include coordinating resources for various assignments to ensure their completion. They organize other workers and bring ideas together to bring plans to reality.
In terms of remuneration, construction managers earn an average salary of around $83,000 annually.
What are the skills of a construction manager?
Successful construction managers possess certain essential skills, which govern how they carry out operations and activities while working.
Knowing these core skills is key to recruiting a talented construction manager suited to your organization. Below are some of the most important skills of a great construction manager:
1. Communication skills
Communication skills are fundamental for construction managers. To direct their teams and ensure that projects reach completion, they must be able to communicate effectively with their teams.
Good communication skills also enable your construction managers to listen to colleagues’ ideas and draw accurate conclusions. In doing so, the team can work together to find solutions and complete their projects in good time.
2. Collaborative and team-management skills
Construction managers must be able to bring their teams together to produce working solutions. Collaboration skills are essential for working in teams and enabling construction workers to coordinate their teams effectively.
3. Risk management
Construction managers must be able to spot and manage risks carefully, as they appear frequently in the construction industry. Good construction managers will identify the risks that are worth taking and those that aren’t.
4. Problem-solving skills
Construction managers will encounter obstacles and problems in the course of their daily work, and they must know how to manage and solve them as they arise. Problem-solving skills make the construction manager reliable and resilient and enable them to finish projects professionally.
5. Leadership skills
Since construction managers oversee their teams, they need good leadership and people-management skills. They must have strong enough influence on their teams to command their respect and coordinate them effectively.
6. Negotiation skills
Great construction managers will have strong negotiation skills to communicate with company stakeholders. This helps them drive bargains that favor their teams and their companies.
How to find and hire excellent construction managers
Currently, the demand for top construction managers in the building and construction industry is high. There are over 41,000 job openings for construction managers projected yearly.
Identifying and recruiting great construction managers requires a structured hiring strategy that includes proper planning at each stage. Below, we explain the steps for spotting and hiring an excellent construction manager:
1. Clarify your business needs
Defining your needs helps you to establish what to look for in potential construction managers. This should direct your entire recruitment process.
Moreover, clarifying what your business needs enables you to measure how successful your recruitment was at the end of the process by comparing your expectations before the recruitment to your hiring results.
2. Construct your job description to attract candidates
While drafting your construction manager job description, you must ensure that it will attract the right candidates. The job description should catch the attention of talented candidates while preventing inadequately qualified candidates from applying.
It is always useful to use a job description template to write one for your company, as this helps you avoid mistakes.
3. Optimize your application process
The application process must be short but comprehensive. This means that you can only ask candidates the necessary questions. For example, you can ask about their working experience, skills, and personal information.
4. Evaluate candidates’ skills
Before inviting applicants for interviews, it is always a good idea to review their skills. Evaluating your candidates’ skills helps reduce bias in your recruitment process and improves the candidates’ experience.
You can assess their skills with pre-employment screening tests. These reliable assessments give candidates the opportunity to demonstrate and apply their skills by answering questions and solving problems. As such, they provide a means for you to see your candidates use their skills, rather than simply relying on the claims in their resumes.
An additional benefit to using talent assessments is that less hiring bias is involved. You can hire top-notch and diverse candidates – important since construction and manufacturing are amongst the least diverse industries.
5. Proceed to interviews
The interview stage is a critical part of recruitment that you must conduct adequately. You should prevent distractions from deviating from the interview’s primary focus and avoid a tense environment.
At the end of an effective interview, the recruiter must have learned more about the candidate’s personality and experience. Interviews are also a great way to find out more about how well the candidates understand your company’s culture and values.
6. Extend a job offer
After a successful interview process, it is important to make a decision quickly and extend your job offer to your favored candidate.
Extending a job offer immediately after making your decision ensures that you secure talent before it is snatched up by a competitor. This decision and the job offer are one of the final but essential stages of recruitment.
7. Carry out onboarding and orientation
Onboarding and orientation serve to introduce your new employee to your company. During the onboarding process, you should introduce your new member of staff to those in leadership positions, so they know how your company works.
You can also conduct training exercises to introduce the new hires to your company’s operations. During this training, you can describe your company’s structure and general guidelines.
Hire top-notch construction managers with TestGorilla
Hiring top-notch construction managers can be tasking, but the right strategy will make the process much smoother. Incorporating pre-employment tests is the best way to optimize your recruitment and spot the talent you seek.
TestGorilla provides professional assessments that are scientifically approved, reliable, and bias-free. Our tests make hiring top construction managers easier, quicker, and more cost-effective.
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