Build
to Last.
A candid guide to running your own career.
Sixteen 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.
Sixteen chapters. Four parts.
Read it straight through if you have an hour. Otherwise jump to whatever's live for you right now: Part One sets the frame; Part Two is for an active search; Part Three is for the offer in your hand; Part Four is for the long arc.
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 the inside of a five-year run.
Career goals as feasibility study.
Treat your trajectory like a project: scope, sequence, constraints, who's on the team.
Landing the right role.
The mechanics of an active search, from résumé to firm evaluation.
Resume as spec sheet.
Write the document a hiring panel can actually read in ninety seconds.
Interview prep.
The story bank, the failure stories, and the questions you should walk in with.
Interview performance.
How to answer the question they're actually asking, not the one they said out loud.
Evaluating the company.
Six questions to run on a firm before you accept. Most candidates ask none of them.
The deal.
For the offer you're holding right now. Negotiation, exit, and the first 90 days.
Negotiating with integrity.
Comp without theatrics. How to make the ask in a way that survives the first hard month.
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 new seat.
A career that lasts.
The long arc. Habits, character, leadership, and the boundary problem.
Five habits that compound.
Small weekly investments that look like nothing at year one and everything at year fifteen.
Character & 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 & 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 & the boundary problem.
Construction has one of the highest burnout rates of any major profession. Read this if that's where you are right now.
"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."
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Sixteen 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 seat you've just walked into
Two guides. Two sides of the table.
Build to Last is for the leader inside the trade running their own career. Hire in 4K is for the leader on the other side of the table hiring them. The same operating system, viewed from both seats.
Build to Last
For construction professionals. Sixteen 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.
Sixty-four pages. Free. Sixteen chapters across four parts, written by someone who's spent fifteen years watching what works.