Executive Search / Process
Methodology

A search built on labor market visibility.

Most construction searches fail because they start blind — sourcing before the market is understood. We invert that. Every search begins with intelligence and ends with a hire that holds. Six phases, qualified shortlist in roughly ten business days.

Shortlist in ~10 business days
The Core Difference

Active applicants are a fraction of the market.

The operators capable of running your most important work are already employed. They don't appear on job boards. Reaching them requires market visibility most firms — and most recruiters — simply don't have.

Active Candidates
~15%

On job boards, responding to postings, often between roles. The pool every traditional search competes over.

Passive Candidates
~85%

Employed, running active projects, not searching — and statistically the strongest operators in any regional market. This is where we work.

The Methodology

Six phases. Each reduces a specific category of hiring risk.

01

Intake & Role Calibration

Days 1–2

We calibrate the role against your actual operating environment — project type, scope, reporting structure, and the operational profile that predicts success.

Risk reduced Reduces mis-hire risk before sourcing begins.
02

Labor Market Mapping

Days 2–4

We map every competing firm operating at your project scale in your region — and where the operators capable of running your work currently sit.

Risk reduced Eliminates the blind spots that stall most searches.
03

Passive Identification & Compensation Benchmarking

Days 3–6

We surface the operators already succeeding in environments like yours — by name, employer, and project history — and calibrate your offer against live regional compensation data in parallel.

Risk reduced Reaches talent job boards never surface — and prevents losing finalists to a comp gap.
04

Outreach & Engagement

Days 5–10

Direct, market-informed conversations with identified operators — leading with project sophistication, backlog stability, and operational autonomy, not a job posting. A focused shortlist of screened, genuinely interested operators typically lands within ten business days.

Risk reduced Screens out exploration that won't convert; compresses time-to-shortlist.
05

Shortlist & Interview Loop

Days 10–25

You receive interview-ready candidates, and we feed real market signal back as the process runs — how your role, comp, and process compare to what candidates are seeing elsewhere.

Risk reduced Surfaces problems while they're still fixable.
06

Offer, Close & Retention

Days 22–35

We support the offer through close — counteroffer framing, resignation management, and the early-tenure factors that determine whether the hire actually sticks.

Risk reduced Protects against late-stage falloff and early attrition.
What It Produces

From market map to shortlist.

A representative search funnel — the methodology narrows an entire regional market down to a shortlist of operators who can do the work and will actually move.

Representative search funnel ~10 days to shortlist
Competitor firms mapped
35
Qualified operators identified
120+
Direct outreach
78
Active conversations
24
Qualified shortlist
3
Illustrative funnel derived from AlphaHire search activity across construction verticals.
Start the Search

Want a clearer view of your hiring market?

Tell us the role, region, and project type. We'll help identify where the right candidates are likely working and what's slowing the search down — before it starts.