Build
to Last.
A candid guide to running your own career.
Twenty-five chapters across four parts. How to think about your trajectory, evaluate firms before you join, negotiate without burning bridges, and recover from the bad chapters every long career has. Candid, specific, written for construction.
Most career advice isn't written for construction.
Generic playbooks tell you to optimize your LinkedIn and "tell your story." Construction is small-world. The PE who poaches you knows the GS who quit your last job. Subs talk. Owners talk. How you negotiate, how you exit, and how you show up in the first ninety days follows you for the rest of your career.
Build to Last is the long version of the conversation we have on the phone with candidates we've matched for fifteen years. Honest about the trade-offs, specific to the trade, written from the inside.
Twenty-five chapters. Four parts.
Foundation.
The frame the rest of the guide hangs on. Read this even if you're not in market.
Hiring optimizes for judgement.
Judgement = IQ + EQ + Experience + Character. The frame the rest of the guide hangs on.
Passion vs. purpose.
The questions that surface what you can't see from inside a five-year run.
Career goals as feasibility study.
Treat your trajectory like a project: scope, sequence, constraints, who's on the team.
Should you move at all?
A lack of pain is not growth. The honest stay-or-go check before you touch the market.
Landing the right role.
The mechanics of an active search, from resume to firm evaluation.
Never interview from desperation.
Confidence comes from options. Build the war chest before you need it.
Your resume is a spec sheet.
Write the document a hiring panel can read in ninety seconds.
Interview mastery, part one: preparation.
The recon and the three story banks you walk in with.
Interview mastery, part two: performance.
Answer the question they are really asking, then use the silence.
Honesty is a filter, not a performance.
Honesty pushes away the wrong firms and attracts the right mentors.
Evaluating the company before you accept.
Six questions to run on a firm before you sign. Most candidates ask none.
Seven dimensions of fit.
Score the role instead of feeling it, and know which misfits you can fix and which mean leave.
Vet the recruiter representing you.
Five recruiters to run from. The one worth trusting acts like a matchmaker.
Choose references who tell the truth.
Glowing is the problem. Pick the ones who can name a real growth edge.
The deal.
For the offer you are holding right now. Negotiation, exit, and the first 90 days.
Negotiating with integrity.
Build an agreement that holds, not a moment you squeeze.
Negotiate the raise where you are.
Out-prepare, do not out-pressure. With the 2026 comp ranges and what public numbers hide.
Know your unique value.
Name the value that travels, and test a strength from a habit, before you hand in a resignation.
The honorable resignation.
Subs, vendors, and competitors all talk. How you exit matters as much as how you enter.
The first 90 days.
Decoding beats doing. The site survey for a role you have just walked into.
Building a career that lasts.
The long arc. Habits, character, leadership, resilience, and the boundary problem.
The five career-building habits that compound.
Small weekly investments that look like nothing at year one and everything at year fifteen.
Character and skill.
The two variables a hiring team can diagnose in an hour, and how to grow them on purpose.
How you operate signals everything.
The way you run a meeting, return a call, and close a punch list is the resume people remember.
Mentorship and sponsorship.
The difference, why both matter, and how to ask for either without being awkward about it.
Leadership before the title.
How to be the person the firm promotes before they have to be talked into it.
Stress and the boundary problem.
Construction has one of the highest burnout rates of any major profession. Read this if that is where you are.
Career resilience: plateaus, setbacks, and pivots.
Plateaus, getting fired, and pivots. Careers last because you recover and re-range.
"Construction is small-world. The PE who poaches you knows the GS who quit your last job.
How you negotiate, how you exit, and how you show up in the first ninety days follows you for the rest of your career."
Open Build to Last.
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Twenty-five chapters across four parts. The same conversation we have on the phone with candidates we've matched for fifteen years, written down so you can read it before you need it.
- The judgement equation: IQ + EQ + Experience + Character
- Six questions to run on a firm before you accept
- The seven dimensions of fit, from the candidate side
- Comp negotiation without theatrics
- The 90-day plan for a role you've just walked into
Two guides. Two sides of the table.
Build to Last
For construction professionals. Twenty-five chapters across four parts. Trajectory, firm evaluation, negotiation, and the long arc.
You're hereHire in 4K
For construction leaders doing the hiring. Four chapters plus three appendix worksheets. Scorecards, structured interviews, references, fit.
Get the Hire in 4K ManualRun your own career
on purpose.
Eighty pages. Free. Twenty-five chapters across four parts, written by someone who's spent fifteen years watching what works.