# Business development for construction recruiters

> Contractor owners, VPs of operations, project executives: who hires in construction, what to say to "we use our network", and when to call.

By Franck Durandot, founder of Odyn. Updated October 20, 2026.

Construction recruiters win clients by writing to the owner of a contractor, the VP of operations or the project executive, about salaried roles: project manager, superintendent, estimator, preconstruction lead. For these buyers an open seat means a job with no one running it, and it is a seat that a staffing agency's craft labor does not fill. The hiring pressure is documented. In the AGC and NCCER workforce survey of July and August 2026 (1,830 respondents), 82 percent of firms had salaried openings, and 87 percent of those said the openings were as hard or harder to fill than a year earlier ([AGC, September 2026](https://www.agc.org/news/2026/09/03/construction-workforce-shortages-remain-acute-despite-soft-market-conditions-data-centers-strain)).

## Why are contractors short of salaried people when work is uneven?

The same survey is mixed: 37 percent of firms cut headcount by at least 5 percent over the past year, and 34 percent added at least 5 percent. The split follows firm size: AGC reports that 79 percent of firms with more than $500 million in annual work were growing, against 30 percent of firms at $50 million or less. Data center construction adds pressure: 28 percent of respondents worked on data center projects, and 58 percent of those report more competition for skilled workers.

So the market is not one market. Large contractors, especially those with data center work, are the ones adding project managers and superintendents. Smaller contractors are much less likely to be adding people, so a larger share of their searches are probably replacements. A recruiting firm that writes the same pitch to both gets the same silence from both.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics adds the long view. Construction manager employment is projected to grow 9 percent from 2025 to 2035, against 3 percent for all occupations, with about 49,700 openings a year and a median wage of $114,990 in May 2025. Most of those openings come from people leaving the occupation or retiring ([BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/construction-managers.htm)).

## Who decides in a contractor?

At a specialty contractor (electrical, mechanical, plumbing) or a regional general contractor, the owner or president decides, including whether to call a recruiter, and is often on a job site at the hour you write. A short message and a call do better than a long email. There is usually no procurement step and no vendor list; there is a person with an open position and a project start date.

At a mid-sized or large contractor, the buyer is the VP of operations, the regional or division manager, or the project executive who needs a project manager for a job already won. Preconstruction needs go to the director of preconstruction or the chief estimator. Larger firms have a talent acquisition team and a few firms they already use; the hiring manager still defines the need.

Superintendents and project managers raise needs but do not pick the firm. Ask the one who answers for the name of the person above them. For more on the method, see [finding the hiring decision-maker](https://www.odynagent.com/en/resources/finding-the-hiring-decision-maker).

In what Odyn has measured on French postings between June and October 2026, close to 5,000 of them, employers with a single posting online across two months gave about three times as many interested replies as other employers. Many smaller contractors fit that profile. These are trends measured over a few months, which we remeasure each night; the full figures are in [prospecting companies that are hiring](https://www.odynagent.com/en/resources/prospecting-companies-that-are-hiring).

## What do you say to "we hire through our network"?

Most contractors say it, and it is partly true. Superintendents move between jobs they know about, through people they know.

"We hire through our network." Ask what happens when the network has already been asked. A project manager role that has been open for six weeks is not a network hire.

"We use a staffing agency." For laborers and tradespeople, that is the right call. You are not competing for those jobs. Say so, then ask about the role that supervises them.

"We're not hiring right now." In a mixed market that is often true for the office and false for the job site. The question is whether a project has been won and who will run it. Ask that, and ask when the next start date is.

A note on sorting postings: an old one is not a better lead than a new one. In the French postings Odyn wrote to, a three-week-old posting drew about the same share of interested replies as a three-day-old one.

## Where do contractors post?

Company career pages, Indeed, LinkedIn for project managers and above, state and local association job boards, and often nowhere at all: a superintendent is recruited by phone from a competitor's job. A prospecting method built on postings will not see those searches, and you should plan for that. A call to a chief estimator you know still beats any list.

## What does a message to a contractor look like?

Short, specific about the project type and the city, with a time for a call. The reader is on a job site.

> Subject: Your superintendent search in Nashville
>
> Hi Carla,
>
> I saw you're hiring a superintendent for a multifamily project in Nashville. I place superintendents and project managers with contractors across Tennessee and Kentucky, and I know a few who are employed and not browsing postings.
>
> Could I call you tomorrow at 7:15, before you head to the site? Ten minutes would let me understand what the job needs.

The early hour is deliberate. A contractor owner picks up before the day starts or at the end of it. The longer format, with follow-ups, is in [a business development email for recruiters](https://www.odynagent.com/en/resources/recruiting-business-development-email).

## When does construction hire?

Three clocks run at once. Weather: in northern states winter slows sites and spring restarts them, so searches open in February and March for April starts. Public funding: most U.S. states start their fiscal year on July 1, and public lettings follow, which means public-works contractors plan their staffing around award dates. And the backlog, which matters most: a contractor that just won a large job needs a project manager now, not next quarter. A recruiter who watches for the win beats one who waits for the posting. We do not have a month-by-month measurement; this is how the cycle works in practice. Manufacturing runs differently, as [the page for engineering recruiters](https://www.odynagent.com/en/resources/business-development-for-engineering-recruiters) explains.

## How Odyn fits

Odyn, the AI prospecting agent for recruitment firms, reads the job postings that match your target: your roles, your states and metro areas, your segment (commercial, multifamily, infrastructure, specialty trades). It filters out the postings that staffing agencies and recruiting firms publish, so you do not write to a competitor. It looks for the person who decides the hire, often the owner or the VP of operations, drafts the message from the posting and your specialty, and sends it from your own email and LinkedIn account. It stops as soon as a decision-maker replies, and when someone accepts your LinkedIn invitation it suggests that you call. The whole process is covered in [the AI prospecting agent guide](https://www.odynagent.com/en/resources/ai-prospecting-agent-for-recruiters) and on the [pricing page](https://www.odynagent.com/en/pricing). If you are still choosing where to start, [how to get clients for a recruitment agency](https://www.odynagent.com/en/resources/how-to-get-clients-for-a-recruitment-agency) gives the overall picture.

## Frequently asked questions

### Should I start with general contractors or with specialty contractors?

With whichever you already have candidates for. A recruiter who knows ten estimators in the Southeast is more credible to a Charlotte contractor than one who studied the industry last week. Specialty contractors decide faster; general contractors hire more roles.

### Do project managers and superintendents count as search work or contingency work?

Both, and the pitch differs. For a role that has been open for months and where the client wants confidentiality, a retained or exclusive job order is reasonable. For a faster, competitive search, contingency is the usual deal. Decide before the call which one you will propose.

### Is a contractor hiring a project manager through a staffing firm a lost cause?

Not necessarily. If the staffing firm provides labor, it is not working the project manager seat. If it is a firm that places salaried staff, the contractor may be open to a second firm with a different network, as long as you do not ask it to drop the first.

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Odyn, the AI prospecting agent for recruitment agencies. Book a demo : https://www.odynagent.com/demo
Updated October 20, 2026. Page : https://www.odynagent.com/en/resources/business-development-for-construction-recruiters