The thing that’s bothering a lot of field guys
Here’s the simple version, and what’s bothered me for years:
A lot of construction companies are hiring college grads with Construction Management degrees into project leadership tracks, while the experienced guys in the field get treated like they’re “only production.” If you’re a go-getter in the field and you want to climb, the ladder feels a lot shorter than it used to be.
And that’s important for two general reasons:
- Jobsites should run on competence and credibility.
- Construction used to be one of the few industries where you could move up without a degree, if you were good enough.
I’m not anti-college, but I am a lifelong tradesman. So I will try to remain neutral, but my bias may show up from time to time.
After high school, I didn’t have the option to go to college. As the child of a hairdresser raising me on her own, money was tight, and we didn’t know how to pursue loans or grants. So I started a career in the trades, first as a mechanic, and for the last 21 years as an electrician.
It was only through grit and hard work that I earned a career that supports my family, but it involved breaking through ceilings by changing employers only to find that the field-to-office door was securely locked from the inside.
The moment a degree becomes a gate instead of a tool, you change what kind of leaders get produced, who sticks around, and how much resentment builds between the field and the office. This has always been a rocky relationship, but it’s getting worse.
Why companies are doing it
There is a business decision behind this shift, however, and it’s important to understand why it’s happening.
1) They’re short on people everywhere
The AGC 2025 workforce survey shows 80% of firms had openings for salaried positions and 88% had openings for hourly craft positions. It also shows approximately 92% of firms reported difficulty filling both salaried and craft openings. Associated General Contractors
It makes sense that companies are choosing whichever recruiting strategy is most predictable.
2) Campus recruiting is a clean path
Big contractors have formal campus recruiting programs for interns and entry-level hires. Turner is a clear example, with a structured “Students & Entry-Level” recruiting pipeline built around university engagement and internships. Turner Construction Company
Schools produce candidates on schedule, and the company can train them “their way” and in their company culture.
3) The job has become more paperwork and risk-heavy
Submittals, RFIs, schedule updates, cost codes, documentation for claims, software systems, coordination. The office side of construction has grown and requires more people to run it effectively.
4) A degree is an easy screening tool
Construction education literature is blunt that employers use completion of a formal program as a hiring screen for entry-level roles, seeing it as a shortcut to getting qualified candidates.
The problem becomes what happens when the shortcut becomes policy, and then that policy becomes a locked gate to those without degrees.
5) Official guidance nudges the market that way
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says construction managers “typically need a bachelor’s degree,” and also notes that large firms may prefer candidates with both experience and a degree. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Therefore, a lot of companies take that as: “Degree required.” Even when the reality of construction is far more flexible.
What gets worse when leadership has theory, but no experience
This is where I find myself getting frustrated, as kids with iPads tell me how to do the job I’ve done for two decades. Cue old man yelling at clouds meme.
1) Theory doesn’t sequence a job
You can understand CPM scheduling and still not understand what crews need to be productive. You can know the spec and still not know what’s realistic on a Monday morning with half your manpower missing, a late delivery, and the effect of weather.
Field experience teaches you what external and internal elements slow a job down, what looks good on paper, but isn’t feasible in the field, and what trades need from each other to keep momentum going.
2) Credibility becomes a daily problem
A 24-year-old can be smart and hardworking, without a doubt. But if they walk onto a job trying to “run” people who have done the work for 15 or 25 years, they’re setting up for failure. I never wanted to tell someone to do something I hadn’t done myself.
The results of this are passive resistance and communication breakdown. Eventually, people will do just the bare minimum or simply quit and find a new company to work for.
I’ve seen it, and I’ve been the guy who jumps ship due to these conditions.
3) Mistakes get expensive
Rework is not a rounding error. CII notes that rework costs on typical projects can run 2% to 20% of the contract amount. Construction Institute
Rework often comes from coordination failures:
- bad sequencing, or poor coordination
- missing constructability thinking
- trades fighting for space or shared access (like crane picks)
- unclear direction
- pushing the schedule without understanding the production reality
I’m not saying Construction Management grads cause rework. I’m saying leadership that isn’t grounded in field experience makes it easier for rework to happen.
4) Safety suffers when accountability and authority don’t match
A lot of safety problems live in the gap between what the plan says, and what production demands.
If the person “in charge” doesn’t understand the work, they can unintentionally push unsafe sequencing. Then the field gets blamed when it goes sideways. I’ve been to more than one Safety Stand Down due to this disconnect.
The hidden damage: the ladder gets removed
This is the part that doesn’t seem to get discussed outside of a select (and frustrated) few:
Construction historically worked like an “internal ladder.” You could start at one end and, if you were sharp and reliable, move into leadership. In fact, one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked under went from an apprentice to COO. He understood every aspect of the work from experience and had intuition bordering on precognition.
Economists have a name for this: internal labor markets. The basic idea is that firms build promotion ladders and develop people internally, rather than only hiring leadership from outside. ERIC
When companies seek those with degrees as the main path, that internal ladder starts missing a few rungs.
And once field guys see that, one of two things happens: they disengage, or they leave for greener pastures. I did both.
FMI’s talent research approaches this from another angle: it points out that field leaders are the backbone of construction firms, but they’re often overlooked for training and development even as the work gets more complex. fmicorp.com
That’s the recipe for the construction revolving door: complex work – weak development – blocked advancement – burnout and turnover.
It makes one feel that they may not be worth training, among a group who have been told they’re “less than” for a long time.
Credentialism: when the degree becomes a gate instead of a tool
There’s an academic term for what’s happening in a lot of industries: credentialism.
Randall Collins’ work on the “credential society” argues that education often functions as a form of status sorting and access control, not just skill building. Columbia University Press
It’s something a lot of us in the trades have understood for a long time, though it took researching this paper for me to put a name to it.
A degree starts as a useful signal, then it becomes a requirement, then it becomes a barrier.
Eventually everybody needs it just to get in the door, whether it actually predicts job performance or not.
In construction, this gets especially ugly because so much competence is only learned through field experience and responsibility.
Why this widens the field–office divide and turns “field leadership” into a no-man’s land
Let’s talk about the cultural side, the side that matters more than people think.
When a company treats the degree track as “management,” and the field track as “labor,” you create a status boundary.
Now you have office people who feel responsible for outcomes, but don’t always understand production, and field people who feel disrespected because their expertise doesn’t equal a path to leadership.
And then you get the worst kind of construction politics: the office vs the field.
The field leadership roles (foreman, general foreman, superintendent) sit right in the middle.
They’re expected to be leaders, planners, safey representatives, quality managers, psychologists, production experts, and babysitters.
NCCER flat-out says there’s a limited supply of qualified field leaders and points to aging and turnover pressure as part of why superintendent hiring is especially difficult. NCCER
So if the industry already struggles to produce supers, it doesn’t make sense for that path to be harder than it needs to be.
What it means for the industry over the next decade
1) Leadership shortages don’t get solved
If you hire a bunch of CM grads into PM/PE tracks but don’t build field leaders, you don’t solve leadership.
You end up with more office coordinators, fewer true builders, and a thinner superintendent roster.
This AGC survey shows firms struggling to hire superintendents and project managers. Associated General Contractors
2) Productivity stays stuck
McKinsey’s productivity research is famous for a reason: construction has lagged for years and years. It cites global construction labor productivity growth averaging about 1% per year over two decades, compared to 2.8% for the overall economy and 3.6% for manufacturing. McKinsey & Company
This won’t improve if we keep repeating a system that produces more friction.
3) More adversarial projects
When the field and office don’t trust each other, everything becomes documentation and finger-pointing.
That pushes contractors into defensive contracting behaviors and mistrust of the field, leading to an “us vs them” mentality. The Ivory Tower vs the trenches.
4) The industry becomes less attractive to ambitious field talent
If the message to a young tradesperson is “you can work your whole life and still hit a ceiling unless you go spend four years in school,” some will do it, but many won’t even bother.
During a labor shortage.
FMI cites ABC analysis that the industry needed to attract a large number of additional workers beyond normal hiring pace to meet demand in 2023, and it also notes demographic pressure with many workers nearing retirement. fmicorp.com
5) You get a class boundary that turns into culture rot
When one group is treated as “thinkers” and the other as “doers,” you create bitterness. It’s a feeling that affects company culture and rots it from the inside out.
A fix that may work: dual-ladder leadership
Now, I’m not suggesting the solution is to stop hiring college grads, or that the field guys should run everything.
The fix is: two legitimate paths into leadership, with one shared standard for competence. Talent can come from either path, and it should be recognized, nurtured, and implemented. A culture based on merit.
Path A: CM grads
- Mandatory field rotations that include actual work (not two photo ops and a safety orientation)
- Shadow foremen and supers, learn sequencing and production planning
- Earn credibility by being useful and respectful of the craft, not by the title on your business card.
Path B: Field leaders
- Bridge roles: assistant super, field engineer, QA/QC coordinator, safety leadership
- Formal training in contracts, scheduling, estimating, cost coding, documentation
- Time in the office learning the systems, with support
One standard: competence over credentials
This is where professional certification can be useful, when it’s used as a bridge instead of a gate.
CMAA’s Certified Construction Manager (CCM) framework is an example of credentialing that emphasizes verified experience and competence areas, not just a diploma. CMAA+1
And on the education side, ACCE frames accredited programs as “work-ready” and aligned with industry demand, which is fine as long as companies still require true field exposure. ACCE+1
What contractors should do
1) Stop using degrees as a filter for leadership potential
Sure, they can be a benefit, but they’re not the whole story.
BLS even says large firms may prefer a mix of degree + experience. That’s the correct direction. Bureau of Labor Statistics
2) Build a real “field-to-office bridge”
If you want loyalty and retention, you need a pathway:
If workers believe that their career is capped due to a degree they can’t afford, or can’t reasonably obtain, they disengage or leave.
3) Require field rotations for new grads and measure them
Not “I walked the site”. Get in the trenches as a helper, use the port-a-potty, work on exremely hot and cold days. See how difficult and taxing the physical work can be, and the logistics of getting it done.
4) Train field leaders like they’re the backbone
FMI says field leaders are widely overlooked in training and development even as complexity rises. That’s simply not sustainable as demand increases. fmicorp.com
5) Promote based on outcomes and trust-building
Project performance will show quickly. Even people who simply need the right professional tools to succeed. Some workers are best suited for the field, sure, but others may just need the opportunity to excel.
What CM grads should do
1) Don’t lead with your degree
Lead with humility and usefulness.
2) Treat the field like your graduate program
You’re going to learn more in one hard month with a strong foreman than in a semester of “means and methods” slides. Learn the jargon, the sequence learned from decades of experience, etc.
3) Ask better questions
- “What’s going to kill us on this schedule?”
- “If we only fix one constraint today, what should it be?”
- “What do you need from me to keep your crew moving?”
4) Earn the right to push
Once you’ve built respect, you can bring the systems value. Hybrid competence and acceptance depends on mutual trust. Field guys are typically weak at documentation, paperwork, and systems. This is where we can work hand-in-glove together.
What field guys can do (if you want to move up)
1) Learn the office language
- RFIs
- submittals
- cost codes
- schedule logic
- procurement lead times
- documentation habits
2) Build a “leadership portfolio”
- project scopes you ran
- crew sizes
- production wins
- problems solved
- quality saves
- schedule recoveries
3) Ask for a trial bridge role
“Give me 60 days on submittals and procurement while I still support the field.”
You’d be shocked how many companies will say yes if you’re competent and persistent. And everyone wants someone to take problems and turn them into solutions.
4) Target companies that still promote from within
They exist, but they seem to be a dying breed unfortunately.
Final point
Construction is already in a labor crunch. The AGC survey makes that obvious. Associated General Contractors
Superintendent shortages are a problem. NCCER
Productivity has been stuck for decades. McKinsey & Company
Rework costs money. Construction Institute
So this is a bad time to build a system that tells field talent, “You can’t lead unless you bought the right credential.”
The industry needs builders who can manage, and managers who can build.
Not more walls.
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