The start of the 2023 New Year is the perfect time to think about how you can develop your professional career. The career path for those in construction has the potential to be rewarding, but you may find that it is challenging to navigate a constantly changing landscape.
To help make it a little easier to get started in the New Year and to focus on professional development that furthers your career, we’ve gathered advice and insight from 17 professionals who are thriving in their roles in construction.
Further Your Career By Always Learning
Continuing to learn is essential, according to several leading industry professionals. How can learning impact your career? This is what they had to say.
Stay Engaged
– Adam Plunkett, Group Manager of Business Technology & Planning at John Holland
Keep Learning
-Matt Allread, Education Manager at Gaylor, Electric, Inc.
Looking for learning opportunities? Check out our Construction Master Class series designed to help construction pros advance their careers in BIM, project management, estimating, quality control, and more!
Embrace Change
– Maribel F. Barba, Associate at MG2
Leverage Your Experience
– Jacob D’Albora, FMP Director of Digital Building Operations at VIATechnik, LLC
Try New Things
– Kristoffer Flygare, Technology Manager at Bravida Sverige AB
Be Adaptable
– Kacie Hokanson, Virtual Construction Specialist at Miron Construction Co., Inc.
Grow Your Network
Sometimes, who you know matters when you’re looking for work or trying to improve your skills. Keep this advice in mind.
Get a Mentor
– Danielle O’Connell, Sr. Director, Emerging Technology at Skanska USA Building Inc.
Build Relationships
– Breawn Felix, Regional Support Services Manager at Swinerton Builders
Keep Networking
– Landon Arciero, Senior Project Manager at Largo Concrete Inc.
Share Your Work
– Christian Waldo, VDC Manager at Lydig Construction
Use Tech to Your Advantage
Technology is changing, and it’s being used more than ever in construction. Here’s what industry experts want you to keep in mind about the advancement of technology and digital spaces.
Carve Out a “Tech-Savvy” Career
– Andrew Cooper, VDC Engineer at AECOM Hunt
Be Ready to Go Virtual
– Brian Harlow, VDC Specialist at Interstate Electrical Services
Prepare for Digital Collaboration
– Muhammad Khalil Bin Shaiful Bahari, Deputy Director of the Group Technology Office at Boustead Projects Limited
Build Meaningful Team Environments
Building better and more meaningful team environments could help you get a step forward in your career as it develops, according to these professionals.
Listen to Others
– Adam Bear, Strategic Digital Manager at Wessex Water
Value Authenticity
– Jason Moss, Mechanical Engineer & Project Manager at AKF Group
Take Pride in Your Work
– Katrina Smith, Project Manager at Pan-Pacific Mechanical
Follow the Three H’s
- Honesty – Commit to honest deadlines, honest feedback, and honest reviews of milestone durations for any task or activity. Be honest if you are running late or breaking bad news to a client. When you let someone know something, be honest about the action or inaction. Use bulleted lists for discussions and presentations with a focus on what the audience (boss/client/vendor) gains out of it. This is a very intentional part of disseminating information honestly. The importance of this task cannot be reiterated enough.
- Hard work – In the initial years of a construction career, it is all about physical hard work, like going to job sites, figuring out production in the field, and understanding the unspoken challenges of being on job sites. This hard work improves your core understanding of different facets of construction, like the time taken to do certain activities, deal with existing conditions on a job site/tenant improvement, or even understand work challenges outside normal working hours. Dealing with crews, and being available for the team to help with answering questions when a project is happening on 12/16 hour schedules…all of this builds your knowledge base at an exponential rate.
- Hustle – Being good construction personnel is a testimony to your ability to hustle. The more you can get stuff done and not give up easily, the more your ability to hustle will improve. Hustle in itself could be working with multiple vendors and getting good pricing, making a sufficient number of phone calls to find a certain type of temporary material in a short span of time, building a good network of subs and clients who can help with your existing projects, or putting together a network that helps get you your future projects.”
– Suchayita (Sue) Bhattacharjee, Director of Preconstruction at Herrero Builders
Thrive in Your Construction Career
2023 is almost here, so now is a great time to start focusing on what you want out of your career in construction in the New Year. Consider what these professionals had to say about working well with your team, getting used to and familiar with technology, and building relationships, so you can see real results from your efforts.