What 8 Years of Construction Hiring Taught Us About Interviewing Speed
TJ Kastning
If you want to win top talent, you can’t interview like it’s 2015.
After eight years and 1,000+ candidate introductions in the construction industry, we’ve seen how top builders hire—and where most get stuck.
The takeaway is simple, but game-changing:
Slow hiring is rarely about caution. It’s usually a sign of confusion.
Let’s break down what the data reveals.
⏱ Time-to-Offer: What the Numbers Show
After filtering out long-tail outliers (searches that dragged past 180 days), here’s how time-to-offer played out across construction leadership roles:
- Median Time to Offer: 28 days
- Typical Range (25th–75th percentile): 17–53 days
- Mean (Average) Time to Offer: 66 days
What’s the difference between median and mean?
The median represents the middle of the pack—half of all offers were made in less than 28 days.
The mean, or average, is skewed higher by slow-moving searches that stretched 90, 120, even 160+ days.
That’s why we pay more attention to the median. It tells the truer story of how long it really takes in most cases—if you’re not stalled out by indecision or process gaps.
🛠 Time-to-Offer by Role
| Role | Median | Typical Range | Mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superintendents | 24 days | 16–39 days | 33.6 days |
| Project Managers | 27 days | 17–46 days | 38.2 days |
Superintendent searches tend to move faster with tighter variation.
PM roles usually take longer—often due to more stakeholders, broader scope, and less clarity on what “great” looks like.
What Delays Are Really Costing You
Every week of delay comes with a hidden price tag:
- You lose the candidate’s attention—or their interest entirely
- Top talent accepts other offers
- Internal teams forget their impressions and start second-guessing
- A vague or passive process becomes a signal: this is how we operate
“I had no idea if they were still interested. After three weeks of silence, I took another offer.”
— Actual candidate feedback
The longer it takes, the more risky your hire becomes.
And it’s not just risk—it’s culture.
Candidates don’t just notice slow hiring—they internalize it.
Your hiring process is often the first taste of your leadership culture.
What Fast (and Smart) Hiring Actually Looks Like
Let’s be clear:
Fast doesn’t mean sloppy. It means prepared.
The best teams don’t react to candidates. They ready themselves before interviews start:
- ✅ A clear scorecard aligned to real needs—not a generic job description
- ✅ Assigned interview roles by focus area (not just “who’s available”)
- ✅ Structured, consistent feedback
- ✅ A 24–48 hour debrief rhythm to keep momentum strong
- ✅ A single point of decision ownership
Hiring should move like a well-run project.
If your PM delayed a concrete pour by three weeks with no updates, you’d act fast. But many companies do exactly that to candidates—and expect great outcomes.
Self-Check: Are You Ready to Move Fast?
Here’s a 30-second hiring speed readiness checklist:
- ☐ We have a clear, role-specific scorecard
- ☐ Interviewers are pre-assigned with clear focus areas
- ☐ We debrief as a team within 48 hours
- ☐ Feedback is structured and consistent
- ☐ One person owns the final decision timeline
If you can’t check most of these off, you’re not ready to hire decisively.
Your Benchmark: 20–25 Days
Based on years of firsthand data, here’s what we recommend:
If you’re hiring a superintendent or PM, aim to make your offer within 20–25 days of the first candidate intro.
That’s the sweet spot where:
- Candidates are still engaged
- Impressions are fresh
- Decisions come from confidence—not committee fog
And most importantly, it reflects leadership clarity.
Want to Speed Up Without Sacrificing Quality?
If you’re ready to hire better and faster, we’ll walk you through our strategic recruiting + PXT process and show you how to cut lag without cutting corners.
👉 Schedule an exploratory call
The market isn’t getting slower.
The companies that win in 2025 will be the ones who’ve stopped treating hiring like a guessing game.
