Loyalty, loot (and leaving early)

The construction industry is short of skilled management. A recent report compiled by CIOB president John Bale revealed that Britain's universities are producing fewer and fewer construction managers while construc-tion orders are growing at a healthy rate. This should be good news for those of you in the market for new jobs.

But what is the real story? Construction Manager in association with recruitment consultant Hays Montrose surveyed 300 readers in an attempt to find out what is happening.

Of the 300 who responded to the questionnaire that appeared in the May 2000 issue of Construction Manager, 28% were site or project managers, 12% contracts managers, 12% building surveyors, 11% quantity surveyors and the remainder included planners, facilities managers, estimators and buyers.

Fifty-six per cent of you said you had been approached by a headhunter in the last six months; and 55% said they had been approached by a rival company.

The issues of greatest concern are the image of the industry and recruitment of young people. Both concerns attracted the votes of over 50% of those surveyed. IT and the fear of dropping orders concerned about 20% of those surveyed, while green issues and government procurement reforms, such as prime contracting, secured less than 20% of votes each.

<b>Get chartered and get that pay rise</b>

But most readers believe that their careers would suffer if they left early. Only 20% say leaving early would not affect their careers

They call it the stretch. The volume of construction orders is expanding and junior managers in their early 30s are being promoted quickly through the ranks, creating a big gulf between young associate members of the CIOB, not yet ready to take on greater responsibilities, and the chartered members moving on to senior project positions or into more commercial jobs.
Job prospects have never been better for those who can fill the gap. But it's not quite that easy. Who's got time to think about the essay and subsequent interview needed to satisfy the judges in Ascot that you can become a chartered builder?
Lecturers at London's South Bank University have come up with a solution that can give busy young professionals the push they need. John Knowles and Gill Trodden run a kind of “crammer course” for those wishing to convert their associate and incorporated memberships into full memberships (and, it would be hoped, impress their employers that they are ready for bigger things).
The course comprises two parts and is run over two evenings at South Bank's built environment faculty in Wandsworth, south London. These two parts relate directly to the two-part nature of the CIOB professional interview method of conversion. The first part consists of a 2000-word essay covering the students’ careers in construction; the second part is an interview based on the essay before a panel of the CIOB's great and good.
So the first part of the South Bank course focuses on how to write the essay. Knowles explains that the session is broken into two. “There is an element of us telling them what to focus on,” he says. “And there is an element where they break off in groups of two and talk through their careers to each other. This helps them recognise which bits of their careers are the most interesting.”
With the aid of a few notes, the students leave South Bank with a deadline for submitting their essays to Knowles and Trodden. The two tutors check over the drafts and feed their thoughts back to the students at the next three-hour session a few weeks later.
And at the next session, Trodden and Knowles also conduct mock interviews and give tips on how to handle the interview questions and what kind of questions they can expect from the interview panel.
The conversion isn't cheap. The course costs £80 and it costs £125 for the professional interview and administrative costs after a successful interview. But the rewards can be impressive – especially now with contractors struggling to recruit managers with the right kind of experience and qualifications.