The brief in front of leadership.
A growing commercial general contractor running concurrent projects across Florida and the Carolinas. Healthy backlog, strong client relationships — and a PM bench thin enough that a single departure turned into a portfolio-wide problem. Overloaded PMs absorbed extra jobs, degrading delivery across every project they touched.
The client needed bench depth, not another one-at-a-time backfill. Reactive hiring kept the firm permanently behind: by the time a replacement was in seat, the damage from the vacancy had already landed on schedule and margin.
What the market actually told us.
| Signal | What we found | Severity |
|---|---|---|
| Bench too thin | The contractor ran lean on PM headcount — any single departure forced load redistribution across already-stretched project managers, converting a contained vacancy into portfolio-wide delivery risk. | Critical |
| Regional PM scarcity | Sustained population and commercial growth across the Southeast kept PM demand consistently high; experienced multi-project PMs were scarce and actively courted by competing GCs. | Critical |
| Turnover elevated | PM turnover was elevated industry-wide, making bench depth a structural necessity — reactive hiring could never stay ahead of a recurring vacancy pattern. | Elevated |
| Compensation variance | Pay had risen across both Florida and the Carolinas, with regional variation that complicated offer consistency and created risk of underbidding in one market. | Elevated |
| Mid-stream readiness | PMs had to absorb active jobs with minimal ramp — narrowing the viable pool beyond raw experience to candidates who could step into live work immediately. | Elevated |
| Counteroffer pressure | A hot Southeast market meant constant competing offers; stability signals had to be screened carefully so new hires didn't recreate the churn they were hired to absorb. | Moderate |
What was at stake if nothing changed.
A single PM vacancy on a concurrent portfolio doesn't stay contained. Overloaded PMs stretch across extra jobs, and the degradation compounds — slower RFI cycles, deferred submittals, superintendent communication gaps — until schedule slippage and margin erosion become the result. Each unreplaced vacancy multiplies that exposure.
Reactive, one-at-a-time hiring keeps the firm permanently exposed. By the time the replacement clears onboarding, the next departure has already created the next emergency. Without proactive bench depth, the portfolio is always one resignation away from a crisis.
What we did about it.
The search led with mapping PM supply across both regions and a portfolio-risk framing, then targeted outreach to multi-project PMs who could step into active work.
- Multi-region mapping. Built a structured map of commercial GCs across Florida and the Carolinas in comparable sectors, identifying where multi-project PMs with relevant delivery history sat.
- Bench-oriented identification. Identified multi-project PMs and prioritized for both capability and stability — building depth against the portfolio, not filling a single open seat.
- Compensation benchmarking. Pulled live comp data across both markets — base, bonus, vehicle, and per-diem norms — to keep offers consistent and competitive across regions.
- Portfolio-risk diagnosis. Helped leadership quantify vacancy exposure across the project portfolio so hiring targets matched the actual risk profile, not just the most visible opening.
- Targeted outreach. Led with project mix, backlog stability, and a sustainable workload — substance that moves PMs burned out by overloaded roles at competitors.
- Operational screening. Screened for multi-project capability, mid-stream readiness, and tenure predictors to avoid adding to the turnover problem the hires were meant to solve.
What it produced.
A single PM vacancy on a concurrent portfolio doesn't stay contained — it forces overloads that ripple into schedule slippage and margin erosion. AlphaHire mapped the Florida and Carolinas commercial PM market and built bench depth that converted reactive backfilling into proactive vacancy management.
- 40 commercial GCs mapped across Florida and the Carolinas in comparable project sectors
- 104+ project managers identified running concurrent commercial work at similar scale
- 9 qualified passive candidates delivered across multiple regional markets
- Vacancy exposure reduced by building bench depth instead of scrambling per opening
- Schedule and margin risk contained as overloaded PMs were relieved before slippage compounded
- Compensation intelligence across two regional markets kept offers consistent and competitive