Case study: Director of Preconstruction placed in 23 days

A growing general contractor in the Midwest had been trying to fill a Director of Preconstruction role for months. Posting on job boards. Talking to staffing firms. Getting resumes from people who looked right on paper but weren't making moves for the right reasons.

They called us in January. Twenty-three days later, they had a signed offer letter.

What the role required

This firm was on a growth trajectory, and this wasn't a plug-and-play hire. The Director of Preconstruction owns estimates, proposals, client relationships, and project handoffs. They're the bridge between business development and the field. Get it wrong and you lose bids, blow budgets, or burn client trust before a shovel hits dirt.

The client had a clear picture of who they needed. They just couldn't find them.

Why the usual approach wasn't working

The client had posted on job boards and talked to staffing firms. They got applicants, but nobody with the right combination of experience and motivation. The applicant pool for a senior precon role is small, and working one channel only covers part of the market.

They needed both sides covered: applicants screened properly and outbound sourcing to reach people who weren't actively looking. And across both channels, they needed someone who could tell the difference between a candidate with the right resume and a candidate with the right reason to move.

How we found the right person

We used the Career Gap Method. Instead of screening for skills and hoping motivation would follow, we started with motivation. We mapped the market for precon leaders at large GCs and looked for a specific gap: people whose ambitions had outgrown their current role.

Within the first week, we had three candidates. All employed. All qualified. One stood out.

The candidate's career gap

Our top candidate was a precon director at a large general contractor. Good company, good pay, no urgent reason to leave. But they were one of several precon leads, running a process someone else had built. They'd hit a ceiling they couldn't see past.

What they wanted was a seat where they could build a preconstruction department from the ground up. Own it. Shape it. A firm growing fast enough to need that department but small enough to let one person define it was the fit.

We didn't have to sell the opportunity. We just had to connect the dots.

The result

Kickoff to signed offer: 23 days. Total time the client spent on the process (calls, interviews, decision): 5 hours. The candidate accepted the first offer because they'd already decided this was the move before the final interview.

That's what happens when you recruit around motivation instead of availability. The right person moves fast because they've been waiting for the right situation. You just have to find them first.