Most construction recruiters spend 90 minutes on a first call with a Superintendent candidate. We spend 45. We do not spend less time because we care less. we spend less because the structure of the call has been sharpened by enough placements that we know exactly which 45 minutes matter.
This is the template we use at Amundson Group. If you are a hiring manager who runs your own first-call screen, take whatever is useful and ignore the rest. If you are working with us and you want to know how we are filtering before someone hits your inbox, this is exactly the process.
What a first-call screen actually has to prove
Before any candidate gets routed onto a real interview loop, the phone screen has to prove three things and nothing else. Anything beyond these three is curiosity, not screening.
- Does the experience actually fit the scope of the project? A Superintendent who has run $50M commercial vertical builds is not the same hire as one who has run a $50M earthwork-and-utilities campaign. The titles look identical on a resume.
- Is the candidate genuinely open right now? “Open to a conversation” is not the same thing as “ready to move.” We will not waste a client’s interview slot on a candidate who is fishing for a counter-offer.
- Is the comp expectation in the same zip code as the job? If their number is 25% above the band, we will say so on this call. There is no value in moving forward and letting both sides find out at offer stage.
That is the entire job of the first 45 minutes. Everything else. culture fit, leadership style, reference detail, project specifics. happens in the interview loop, not the screen.
The 12 questions and why each is on the list
1. Walk me through your last three projects in 60 seconds each.
Forcing brevity surfaces the operator. The candidate who can hit total contract value, schedule, scope, and outcome in 60 seconds has run the projects. The one who needs 5 minutes per project has not.
2. What was the dollar value of the largest project you had P&L responsibility on, not just attendance?
Attendance and ownership are not the same. We are specifically separating the project a candidate is putting on their resume from the project they actually ran.
3. What was the schedule performance vs original baseline on that project?
If the answer is vague (“on time” or “ahead of schedule”), we ask for the actual variance in days. Candidates who own delivery answer in days, not adjectives.
4. What was the budget performance?
Same logic. “Within budget” is not an answer. “We came in 2.4% under against a $34M baseline because we caught an underground utility relocation early” is an answer.
5. Tell me about a project that went sideways.
If the answer is “never had one” or “all of them went great,” we stop screening for fit and start screening for honesty. Every senior superintendent has had a project go sideways. The interesting question is how they recovered.
6. What sub-contractors do you have a working relationship with in this market?
Sub relationships are a moat. A superintendent moving into Houston with a working relationship to the right earthwork or concrete subs is worth materially more than one who is starting from scratch.
7. Why are you open right now?
The cleanest filter on candidate seriousness. Vague answers (“just exploring”) usually mean a counter-offer fishing expedition. Specific answers (a stalled bonus, a sector shift inside their current firm, a personal relocation, a project ending) are signals the candidate is genuinely moving.
8. If we offered you the right role tomorrow, what is your timeline to actually start?
Anyone “open” should have an answer in 30 seconds. Anyone who stumbles or starts adding conditions is not actually ready. We move them to a longer-term nurture pipeline instead of a live search.
9. What is your current base, total comp, and what would it take?
One question, three numbers. We ask all three together so the candidate cannot anchor on a single one. If the gap between current total and target is more than 25%, we surface it immediately.
10. What does your day actually look like on a current job?
This question separates the field operator from the office operator. We are not screening for one over the other. we are screening for fit to the specific scope of the role we are running.
11. What is the smallest team and the largest team you have run?
Range matters. A Superintendent who has only run 40-plus crews has a different rhythm than one who has run lean six-person crews. Most GCs in the Sun Belt need both, but they need to know which one they are hiring.
12. Who else are you talking to right now?
We always ask. Not to compete, but to understand timeline pressure on our side. If a candidate is final stage with another firm, our internal pacing changes immediately.
Red flag phrases we listen for
None of these is automatic disqualification. but each is a signal to slow down and ask follow ups.
- “That was before my time.” Used to deflect questions about a project they were on. Sometimes legitimate. Often used to dodge schedule or budget detail they do not actually own.
- “I was kind of running it.” Either they were or they were not. The “kind of” is rarely a good sign.
- “Compensation is flexible.” Almost always means the opposite. Candidates with a specific number do not use this phrase.
- “I’m just having conversations.” A leadership-level candidate who does not know whether they want to move probably is not going to land on an offer for anyone in the next 90 days.
- “My current employer doesn’t know I’m looking.” Fine if it is the truth. Worrying if the candidate volunteers it three times unprompted.
Green light signals. what we are listening for
- Specifics, not adjectives. Numbers, dates, named subcontractors, named projects.
- Ownership of failure. Candidates who can clearly describe what they would do differently on a project that went sideways are usually the operators we want.
- Asking us at least two questions about the role. Candidates who treat the call as a one way interview do not have leverage; they have desperation. The ones with leverage interview us back.
- A clear “no” to anything they are not interested in. Candidates who say “honestly, I would not move for a commercial role, I am specifically looking for heavy civil” are easier to place and more likely to close. They have done the self-reflection.
What we do when a candidate calls us back with a question of their own
The candidates who actually move in the next 90 days will follow up with a question 24 to 48 hours after the screen. The ones who go silent rarely become live.
When the call comes in, we answer immediately and we answer the question, then we ask whether the candidate has thought further about the comp range or the timeline. The willingness to share an updated number after sleeping on it is one of the most reliable indicators of a serious candidate we have.
Why the 45-minute call works
The template above is dense but not exhausting because each question has a specific purpose. We never waste a question on something we could get from the resume. We never re-ask something we already covered. Every minute is operational.
For our team, it means we can run 6 to 8 screens a day per recruiter without quality drop. For our clients, it means the candidates who land in their interview loop have already cleared the three filters that matter.
Use the template, work with us, or both
If you want a clean PDF version of the 12-question template to use on your own first-call screens, we are putting one together for hiring managers as a follow up to this post. Drop us a note and we will send it when it lands.
If you would rather just outsource the screen entirely, that is what we do day to day. The same template runs across our recruiting team in Houston so the candidates landing in your inbox are pre-filtered to the standard above.
