What’s hard about finding people in construction management? Why is it a candidate short market?
Several things come to mind:
😎 Industry Popularity
Remember when it was cool to be a tech bro? Know someone aspiring to be the next Wolf of Wall Street? In my eyes, Bob the Builder is the exact kind of guy I would want to befriend, but construction just doesn’t have the “cool factor” that some other industries have.
↘ The Great Recession
Construction was one of the hardest hit industries of the Great Recession. It was also one of the slowest industries to “come back.” This resulted in more than a few problems. First, many professionals left the industry because they could not afford to wait for projects to start. Second – and this is being felt right now – many would be construction professionals went into other fields. Not many students were pursuing construction management degrees from 2009-2014. When a company ask me to find a Project Manager with “10-15 years of progressive experience with a CSM degree,” the pickings are that much slimmer.
📕 The Narrative
Once upon a time, parents and teachers told us to “go to college and get an office job.” And, for those of us that followed the conventional ticket to success, construction was not a consideration. Meanwhile, my colleagues and I are recruiting some extremely sharp and ambitious construction professionals who simply knew better.
👩🔧 The Gender Divide
There are fields that seem to attract relatively equal numbers of men and women. Obviously, construction is not one of them. When much of the population is not even thinking about a career in construction, that sets the workforce back that much more.
🏫 The Lack of Early Exposure
Was “shop class” even an elective at your school? The construction industry is now scrambling to get into schools and introduce younger generations to the trades, but there is a lot of ground to make up. Generations of students (who are now the majority of the workforce) missed out.
