Construction management

[2ski]

Read this one again. This applies to most every job if looking for advancement but it is the truth. You need to make your goals and intentions clear in order for your superiors to allocate time/thoughts to helping you reach them.

It sucks having good employees leave who never made their goals/desires known.

Beat me too it but this is spot on.

 

[CApighunter]

You have to have PM experience to get a PMP cert.

Yep just looked into it, 5 years experience in management or a bachelors and 3 years experience. Neither of which I have. Down the road it’s something to think about, but unfortunately not an option at this time.

 

[2ski]

Yep just looked into it, 5 years experience in management or a bachelors and 3 years experience. Neither of which I have. Down the road it’s something to think about, but unfortunately not an option at this time.

Then its a goal. Lay out 3 obstacles to that goal and make a plan to overcome each of them.

 

[Dos Perros]

Yep just looked into it, 5 years experience in management or a bachelors and 3 years experience. Neither of which I have. Down the road it’s something to think about, but unfortunately not an option at this time.

Assuming you have the “skills,” and drive yadda yadda, I think I’d love to hire someone like you with real world experience.

I can only speak for myself, but I would recommend some education. Get a degree. Start at a JUCO if you must. I went to a traditional 4 year school (engineering) and there were a few guys that were 40 years old wanting more from life. I have a deep respect for people that like. Employers do too.

At my current work there are a few folks who have worked from the bottom up, gone to school at night and received engineering degrees and are now working as engineers. I think you can do this, just takes some time and sacrifice and grit but you’ll be better off in the end.

 

[cnelk]

One of my favorites that applies here.

 

[cnelk]

One of my favorites that applies here.

 

[gbflyer]

They’ll buy you a steak and offer you a pickup. Sucker you in and then they’ll abuse the shit out of you. Superintendent and above become salaried and get to work twice as many hours for the same money, or less. The best duty on the job is on a shovel. Maybe something with a cab if it’s cold out.

PM gets to shuffle paper all day. Industry is looking for 30% or more administration. If it’s government work, they are paying for administration and by God they are gonna get what they paid for. The quality of work is secondary to the critical path and Gant schedule, daily’s, etc. Better have stainless steel knee pads, too. And your head is the first to roll when it goes south. There is no loyalty.

Been at it a long time. I do my own thing, a little guy who cannot work and administer at the same time. It’s a tough size to be. Yeah I’m a little bitter. No divorce and not a total drunk yet. But I’m practicing. If your gonna do it go corporate and drink the expensive koolaid. At least you’ll most likely have some others with more experience that might feel sorry for you and help at first.

 

[7718Sallee]

This is basically my current strategy. I’m on a first name basis with the owner and all the PMs, I always stop and chat when I have time. I also sat with the owner and his family at his daughter’s college graduation. The issue seems to be that our operations manager can’t afford to lose me out of the shop so while he has no issue paying me more, he won’t promote me. I’ve been told by several people that the best way to get promoted here is to be bad at your job...

I’m in this same situation. Been in my construction job since 95’ have been a foreman since 01 then senior foreman. In my trade the foreman has to be the lead worker 90% of the time. Cant seem to get moved up out of the field even though I’ve been promised opportunities, been to 4 different shops in 25 years and I can see that there aren’t guys to replace good working foreman in the field and they hire/ promote guys that have degrees but no trade experience or a guy with trade experience that sucks at the job. Although comparing pay they start out about 70% of what I’m making. I’m basically resigned to hanging on for 10ish more years till the kids are out, house paid off and taking some part time job and letting my wife carry me for awhile.

 

[RoJo]

If you are set on staying in the construction industry, try to get hired on at an employee owned company that is doing well. I work for one, and many of the people who stay with the company for the long term retire as millionaires. The work is not necessarily any less stressful, but being employee owners seems to make more people give a shit.

 

[CApighunter]

Assuming you have the “skills,” and drive yadda yadda, I think I’d love to hire someone like you with real world experience.

I can only speak for myself, but I would recommend some education. Get a degree. Start at a JUCO if you must. I went to a traditional 4 year school (engineering) and there were a few guys that were 40 years old wanting more from life. I have a deep respect for people that like. Employers do too.

At my current work there are a few folks who have worked from the bottom up, gone to school at night and received engineering degrees and are now working as engineers. I think you can do this, just takes some time and sacrifice and grit but you’ll be better off in the end.

I definitely understand the struggle of going back to school as an adult, I watched both my parents do it when I was young. My mom got her bachelors and then masters in nursing and my dad got his teaching credentials after almost 30 years as an engineer for HP/Agilent. It’s hard, but doable.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

One of my favorites that applies here.





View attachment 250357

My Dad printed this out and hung it on the door of his office. For a short time, they hired a young chick to oversee his department of guys who have been doing their work for a combination of over 100 years of work experience. She came in with her "book" and was out in less than 6 months.

 

[boom]

i know a lady that rocketed up the Construction path. she was a force to reckon with and did her job so well, they handed her a 1.2billion dollar project to finish up. she kicked ass.

she would take time off to kill an elk with her dad annually. she was bad ass.

i work with a lot of very talented construction females. i refuse to paint with such a wide brush as that meme. i personally know more idiot men in the business.

back to the OP. get some schooling. construction is a big industry that for the most part can ride the wild waves of our economy fairly well. Construction Management. all the people i encounter, have a degree in CM.

i also live in Santa Rosa. you see the construction in our area. we have wildfires and floods to fill in the dead times.

 

[dubllung4]

As others said, put pressure on the company you work for. Tell them you want to move in to a manager role or you will look elsewhere. If they value you, many will be more than willing to work towards that.

I'm a PM for a mechanical contractor. I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a CWI, both are worthless for my job. I can't see how going to school would be beneficial. I need to have excellent people skills, be fluent in Excel and with an accounting software and other various computer programs. The rest (planning, estimating) will get better with time if you have a decent base to start. The majority of our PMs are Foreman that have worked their way up, I am definitely the minority having no trade experience prior.

Until you have several years in and work you way up you will find the salary will be a pay cut from what you are used to working 6 -10s. The excellent benefits certainly help. I work for an excellent company and couldn't imagine doing anything else.

 

[huntnful]

Considered it, and it is an option. Currently studying for my CWI exam but it’s tough working 6 day/70 hour weeks. Planning on taking the test this summer. It would definitely be a step towards a foreman position at another company, though I have no interest in being an inspector.

I've been a pipe welder here in CA for 11 years now. This IS going to be your fastest way out of the labor part of the field. You'll still be around welding, but CWI's have it made haha. I got my CWI when I was 24. I went to the Hobart School in Ohio. They do a 2 week training course and it's freaking awesome and if you're fairly sharp you WILL pass the test. I passed with like a 93% of something. It's a two week commitment but you're talking about an entire future than you're investing that two weeks into for. There's a few other random little qualifications that some companies require, on top of the CWI, but those are normally fairly easy to obtain if needed. I'm still choosing to weld at the moment, but having the CWI is nice insurance on a good income should I choose to go that path. Good luck man! Whatever happens, I hope it works out great for you!

 

[roadrunner]

You have to have PM experience to get a PMP cert.

You used to have to be a CAWI before you could be a CWI once upon a time ago. Now you can just take a crash course for a week, take the exam, and walk out with your cert.

That would be the quickest route to a PMP cert. You could manage projects with the CWI and build from there...

 

[Deadfall]

Go to school. Paper matters

 

[roadrunner]

Go to school. Paper matters

Connections matter more...

 

[Silveroddo]

A few others may have alluded to this, but I'm going to play devils advocate a little.
Are you sure you want to be a PM? Usually a salaried position, baby sitting dumbasses, fielding calls between engineers that screw the same print up on every job, subs that are the lowest bidder and can't read a spec sheet or contract, and corporate management that just want to see your numbers lower? Oh yeah, if you didn't Dot the I's and cross the T's in your previous time in the field as a hand, guess what, now you get to enforce corporate safety policy, and if you don't when things go side ways you get to answer for it because you didn't make Jose tie off when he was 6.5' in the air. Did I mention you're probably salaried? Also for most of the lucrative project management jobs you get to spend weeks, months, or years in the middle of nowhere, living in a hotel, eating out every night, getting to use half of your vacation a year, and if you do leave the job in the middle of something when you come back your tasks really couldn't be delegated and you're doing 2 weeks worth of work the following week.
If you answered yes to most of those questions and don't mind the idea of being a construction secretary, then welcome to project management.
On a serious note I've got a project management degree, the killer for me was the lack of time off. My day dream would be been to be a civil superintendent, as a Supt. depending on the craft you might not get stuck on the same job for the same duration as the PM, your pay would be pretty similar in most situations (You might even be hourly) and when the job is over you might have half a chance of taking some time off in between. Every situation is different. My experience was in Industrial Construction as a field engineer. It was a good gig, paid well, but I opted to get into government work so I could live where I wanted to live and get some time off. I'm currently hourly, work 4 tens in the summer, get 4 weeks off a year plus holidays, and can bank my overtime as comp up to 150 hours. I also make half of what I made on the road. I bring all of this up just to say it depends on your priorities. I am by no means discouraging you from becoming a PM, just throwing some things out there to think about.

 

[hodgeman]

Yep just looked into it, 5 years experience in management or a bachelors and 3 years experience. Neither of which I have. Down the road it’s something to think about, but unfortunately not an option at this time.

Are you sure it's years? When I got mine it was hours and you couldn't count 100% of a year. Without a degree it was 10,000 hours... even as a full time PM I had to go back 8 years to hit that number. I was working for an aerospace firm and they audited my claim through our payroll. What a PITA.

 

[Breddoch]

Being a construction project manager is like riding a bike except, the bike is on fire and you are on fire and everything is on fire and you’re in HELL!

I’m only funning with you but after 16 years on the PM side, it’s not far off.