Real talk on recruiting, talent, and building America's future — from 22+ years in the trenches.
Explore InsightsStrategy, trends, and hard-earned lessons from two decades of construction executive search.
Big firms promise the world — massive databases, global reach, brand recognition. So why are the best construction executives quietly choosing boutique partners? Because in construction recruiting, bigger isn't better.
Read Full Article
Big firms promise the world. So why are the best construction executives quietly choosing boutique partners instead?
Read More
In construction, delays cost money. The firms winning $400M+ projects fill key roles in days — not months.
Read More
The biggest competitive advantage in infrastructure isn't equipment or capital — it's people.
Read More
Big firms promise the world — massive databases, global reach, brand recognition. So why are the best project managers, superintendents, and construction executives quietly choosing boutique recruiting partners instead?
Because in construction recruiting, bigger isn't better. Faster, deeper, and more personal is.
Large staffing agencies operate on volume. They blast job postings, collect hundreds of resumes, and send you a stack to sort through yourself. Their recruiters often cover multiple industries — healthcare on Monday, construction on Tuesday. They don't know the difference between a design-build PM and a CM-at-risk superintendent.
For candidates, the experience is worse. You're a number in a database. Your resume gets keyword-matched by an algorithm, and if you don't fit the filter, you disappear. No conversation. No context.
Boutique executive search firms like RCD Group operate differently. We've spent 22+ years building relationships in heavy civil, data centers, solar, and infrastructure — not checking boxes on a screen.
Most of our clients hire the first candidate we present. That's not luck — it's what happens when your recruiter actually understands the work.
When a contractor needs a PM for a $400M+ highway project, they don't need 50 resumes. They need the one person who's done it before, wants to do it again, and is ready to move.
The best engineering talent has figured this out. They know boutique recruiters have access to exclusive roles that never hit job boards. They know they'll get a real conversation about their career goals, not a form email. And they know that when RCD Group calls, it's because there's a specific opportunity that actually fits.
In an industry where relationships are everything, the firms that treat recruiting like a transaction are losing. The ones building real connections are winning.
Big firms promise speed — boutiques deliver it.
In construction, time is money. Every day a key role sits unfilled, projects stall, schedules slip, and costs climb. Yet most companies still tolerate recruiting timelines measured in weeks or months.
Think about what happens when a $200M data center project doesn't have a Senior PM locked in. Subcontractors wait. Schedules get redrawn. The owner starts asking uncomfortable questions.
RCD Group averages a 3-day turnaround from search kickoff to shortlist. Not three weeks. Three days.
It's not magic. It's 22+ years of building a deep rolodex of passive, elite candidates who aren't on job boards. When a client calls with an urgent need for a construction manager on a utility-scale solar project in South Carolina, we're not starting from scratch.
Large staffing firms can't do this. Their model requires posting jobs, waiting for applicants, screening hundreds of resumes. By the time they deliver candidates, the best talent has already accepted another offer.
The contractors winning the biggest infrastructure jobs in America right now — the $400M+ highway mega-projects, the mission-critical data centers — are the ones who staff up fast. They work with recruiting partners who already have the talent pipeline built.
In construction recruiting, speed isn't about cutting corners. It's about having done the work upfront — the relationships, the industry knowledge, the years of trust.
The biggest competitive advantage in infrastructure isn't equipment, capital, or even technology. It's people. And finding the right ones has never been harder.
Construction is booming. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is pumping billions into highways, bridges, and transit. Data centers are being built at a pace nobody predicted. Solar projects are exploding across the Southeast. But there aren't enough experienced leaders to run these projects.
The engineering talent shortage isn't coming. It's here. And it's creating a crisis that most companies aren't prepared for.
When a critical role goes unfilled — or worse, gets filled by the wrong person — the damage ripples across the entire project. Schedules slip. Subcontractors lose confidence. Owners start asking uncomfortable questions. A bad hire at the executive level doesn't just cost a recruiting fee. It can cost millions in blown deadlines and damaged client relationships.
Industry data shows the cost of a bad executive hire can reach 5x their annual salary when you factor in lost productivity, project delays, and team turnover.
The stakes are too high to rely on job boards and keyword-matching algorithms. The leaders running $200M+ data center builds and utility-scale solar installations aren't scrolling Indeed. They're already employed, performing well, and not actively looking.
The best talent in construction is passive. They're not applying to your job posting because they're busy delivering results on their current project. Reaching them requires trust, industry credibility, and a network built over decades — not a LinkedIn InMail blast.
This is where specialized executive search earns its keep. When you have deep relationships with the top PMs, superintendents, and VPs in heavy civil, data centers, and solar, you can pick up the phone and have a real conversation. That's how the right hire happens.
The firms winning the biggest infrastructure projects in America aren't spending more on recruiting. They're spending smarter — partnering with specialists who know the difference between a design-build PM and a CM-at-risk superintendent, and who can deliver the right candidate without wasting months.
In an industry built on trust, precision, and delivering results on deadline, your recruiting partner should operate the same way.
RCD Group has spent 22+ years placing the leaders who deliver.
Contact RCD GroupWhether you need one key hire or an entire project team, RCD Group has the connections to deliver.
Get in Touch