The construction industry offers endless pathways for career growth, depending on a candidate’s skills, goals, and background. In our role as career advisors, we often work with construction leaders who have their eye on the next rung of the career ladder. Whether they’re seeking field leadership roles, moving from the field to the office, or aiming for the C-suite, our candidates are always focused on developing the skills and experiences they need to move forward in their careers.

To support their career development efforts, we’ve put together a Career Pathways Series. In each article, our industry experts provide their unique perspective on how construction workers can grow their careers along a particular path.

Previously, we’ve discussed pathways to estimating and senior project management roles in construction. For this article, we spoke with Zack Jaynes (Executive Vice President — Electrical) and Jay Dubac (Market Leader — General Construction) about what it takes to become a Project Executive in construction. Here are their insights:

In your experience, what’s the most common career path to a Project Executive role in the construction industry?

Jay: In general construction, most Project Executives do have a college degree — in construction management, architecture, or a related field. After college, they join a firm as a Project Engineer and grow to Assistant Project Manager, Project Manager, and finally Project Director or Project Executive. Skill wise, you’re moving from doing the paperwork for more senior people, to seeing more hands-on control and experience with operations, to running your own smaller-scale projects, to overseeing larger-scale or multiple projects simultaneously in addition to mentoring Project Managers. When you hit the executive or director level, you’ve been in the game a while and you’re handling both strategic and operational aspects of the jobs but also the overall performance of a business unit: results, mentoring, developing leaders, etc.

Zack: That sounds right, but I’ve placed a few Project Executives who didn’t have degrees — they came up through the field. I would say in electrical construction, you don’t have to have a degree to become a Project Executive but many do. That pathway from Project Engineer or Assistant Project Manager up through the ranks is the same in electrical, though.

How long does a typical Project Executive spend at the project management level before being promoted?

Jay: Depending on the size of the company, they’ll spend roughly 5-10 years as a Project Manager or Senior Project Manager with projects of the relevant size before they can be considered as a Project Executive.

Zack: Yes, that’s a fair time stamp. I’ve seen folks move up more quickly, especially at smaller companies — spending 3-4 years as a Project Manager before moving into senior project management and then another 3-4 years before moving into a Project Executive role.

Jay: And let’s say you have 10 years of project management experience but also 3 years of preconstruction or estimating, or even 3-4 years as a Superintendent: you’re going to be a lot more well rounded than someone who’s been strictly on the project management side. Even business development adds to that skill set since Project Executives are so forward-facing. So if you have all those other tools in your bag, you can get there a little faster.

What are the specific skills and experiences a Project Executive needs to be successful?

Zack: Most of the time, the biggest requirement is experience — for example, hiring managers want someone who has exposure to the $100 million data center or industrial projects they’ll be overseeing. The best Project Executives have also done some estimating or have field experience so they know the ins and outs of the projects. They’ve also got to have experience with full P&L responsibility and a strong strategic outlook. You’re the face of the company — you’re interacting with the GC, the client, etc., so that’s a key skill set as well. The specific project sizes and such will depend on the size of the company. For example, a $50 million company has different needs and expectations than a $1 billion company with multiple Project Executives covering a single project with a $200 million electrical scope.

Jay: There’s been a huge shift toward hiring candidates who can oversee and state performance objectives, budgets, and metrics — essentially, these hiring managers want a Project Executive who can come in and help them improve or rewrite a scorecard they have. They want someone who can really understand the numbers on how to get ahead of schedule, get ahead of cost. The other big thing is mentorship: everyone’s asking for a cultural leader who can come in and mentor because there’s such a need for it. Otherwise, it’s the usual analysis of whether they can get the job done: look at their operational and accountability results at their prior company, whatever the objectives were and how they performed on those, and apply those to the current company.

Zack: Ditto. “Money saved, money earned, problems solved.” Again, going back to that scorecard: what were your margins, how many direct reports did you have, how big of projects have you managed — it’s very similar in general construction and electrical in that sense.

Are you seeing any trends or changes in the industry right now that aspiring Project Executives should know about?

Jay: A lot of the companies I work with are promoting people at a much faster rate than senior leaders moved up the chain in the past. Project Executives are in high demand and short supply, so when a hiring manager finds someone good, they want to get them in the seat. At larger companies, that’s usually internal — usually Project Executives come up through the ranks at the same company. For smaller companies, they might look for Senior Project Managers at larger companies who don’t have the opportunity to move up where they are currently.

Zack: Agreed. I think it comes down to supply and demand. There’s only so many individuals out there who have experience running mega projects — and right now that is the biggest need in the midwest electrical construction industry. Promoting from within can be great for companies, if the potential leader is loyal, if they’ve been with the company a long time.

Any final advice for aspiring Project Executives?

Zack: Find a good mentor — someone who can get you up to speed on what the responsibilities of a Project Executive are, take you under their wing, etc.

Jay: And develop those mentorship skills. The ability to mentor people and manage a scorecard will help you stand out.

Thank you to Jay and Zack for their insights on career pathways to Project Executive in the general construction and electrical construction industries. Keep an eye out for future installments of our Career Pathways series, and let us know if you have specific construction careers you’d like advice on!