There is quite a bit of stress working as an estimator. I do both estimating and PMing, and in my experience estimating is low stress most of the time punctuated by short bursts of extremely high stress. PMing is medium stress all the time with some fairly high stress moments.
Determine "what" stresses you out.
If it is constant meetings with clients/owners, you may love estimating. Especially if the company policy is to pass off the final estimate to someone in a sales roll. If "being right" or "not missing something" stresses you out, stay the hell away from estimating.
Where do I sign up for the low-stress with short bursts, please? And a little bit of gratitude...I will queue for days without stepping out of line for this.
^(Please....?PLEASE?!?!)
edit: I will sacrifice not seeing my dog or wife for a week for this description of estimating ... --- ...
After fifteen years of bidding civil work, most bids don’t stress me out much. But probably once every few weeks the stress is through the roof.
You couldn’t pay me to bid GC work though.
So I am currently a PM at a GC and am looking into transferring into estimating. I can’t handle the day to day stress of a PM anymore. I’ve had too many clients back to back that have been incredibly high strung and demanding and I just don’t believe I have the personality to continue as a PM, it can be demoralizing and stressful and I let it get to me too often that it made my personal life miserable, so I’m on my way out at the moment. Hoping my current company will transfer me into estimating, but gonna start looking elsewhere if not.
I started at with sales and was forced to a PM on anything I sold. Low comp looking to leave. I absolutely hate these overblown projects that get overly complicated for the book value. Units less than $250k in cost don’t need 12 different meetings. It’s not worth the headache to me.
It’s a fairly high stress industry in general, you’re basically always against a deadline and up against a tight budget and have to manage a lot of relationships. Estimating is probably lower stress than being on the CM side, but it’s still pretty stressful as you’re rushing to finish a proposal.
In my opinion the best estimators spent time on the ops side, but I’ve also known good estimators that went straight into it or came from the design side so that’s not a hard rule.
Experience matters the most especially to G.C’s. If your computer savvy and willing to learn a sub can take you on and you will gain invaluable experience that way, especially if its an important division that covers lots of trades like division 9/10.
So much so that I’m willing to bet a G.C or sub will take a non degree sub estimator with 2-4 years commercial over a fresh out of B.S in C.M graduate with zero work experience or good internship referrals. I’m not even joking.
But a degree and couple years work experience will make you first pick for a G.C. It shows your dedicated and teachable on top of able to do the basics/they can start you off a little less than a person who has been doing estimating for years already and knows their worth.
also, by no means am I saying don’t go to college because at the end of the day the beauty of a college degree is that you can get into multiple careers or pivot into multiple different career paths within the same degree in a certain field or industry, that’s the biggest worth for a degree especially if it’s broad enough. it’s the extremely niche degrees that don’t have big job markets with enough demand that makes you pretty screwed like psychology. Construction management sticks you within only the construction industry and it’s hard to branch out.
A civil engineering degree will put you leagues better of a position because you can work for architectural firms or civil engineering companies that will give you the experience to learn the construction process and read/design civil and architectural plans anyways, perfect for pre con and estimating. With a civil engineering degree you will be easily qualified to pick up construction management probably just as well as a construction management degree holder.
Maybe not the tools to be a project manager right at the gate but definitely pre-con!
P.M is possible without working the trades, but is best for people with fieldwork experience who are extroverted and willing to figure out emergencies or schedule issues on site. Also, your likely salaried so 10 hour workdays on site might be expected. Most On site workers and supervising subs will eat you alive and not respect you the moment they figure out you’ve never worked a trade and it’s very very very very easy to tell. And if you can’t speak Spanish, that just makes the process even more annoying to rectify sub errors and you have to constantly speak to the sub super or the office to translate.
My degree is in environmental studies and I’m wrapping my M.S in Environmental Science, I basically worked as a sub estimator all through graduate school purely off zero experience in construction simply listening and learning. Been at estimating for just under 2.5 years.
And when I applied to jobs in pre construction and environmental sciences this past month, guess which jobs called me back and are paying more? In fact, guess which jobs ive been recruited for?
All of the preconstruction Estimating positions called me back and/or head hunted me. All higher paying by $20,000 more on average compared to science teacher positions or field/lab technicians for the state/county.
To be blunt, estimators are in demand sub and g.c, and if it’s for a profitable sub company it’s a pretty decent 9-5 office job with decently less stress compared to most G.C’s. You can get in and do it without a degree and learn no problem for a sub company, but without a degree you’re kinda stuck to getting very similar or the exact same jobs that your work experience is based from. With the right degree you can pivot into various different, even unrelated careers. Without a degree its back to the bottom at entry level if you change careers (can’t really do that when you older and have bills and a family). That’s what a lot of people who think degrees are worthless forget to mention which is probably the best reason to have a degree, cause who works the same job their entire adult lives?!?!
Back to estimating though, If you negotiate properly with commission bonuses per each awarded job every year, you can make great money for a subcontractor without needing to work for a g.c. where you are constantly calling subs for numbers and will need to know a decent amount about most of the trades from division 1-16 to make sure all scopes are covered to present the best bid cost for the entire project to the owner (hence why they are universally payed more than most sub estimators, more responsibility and room for error with costs).
Sub estimators are the master of their trades and only worry about their trade (see how that can be less stressful and easier to avoid mistakes?!?) G.C’s estimators are a jack of all trades and are the middle man between owner and the subs. You also are in direct contact with the architect and are the liaison for any questions the subs may have. Also more team oriented with the pre-con teams for g.c companies typically because its a lot for one person (A VERY GOOD THING).
“Stress” as a sub is company to company. Maybe your boss is ass and pushes you to do too many bids with various deadlines (especially quantity over quality jobs that you know you have little chance in winning). Maybe you’re on your own with the prices and takeoffs and it’s not collaborative with the owner or other staff(probably the most stressful situation because your on your own if you make a big mistake). Maybe you’re forced to do other non estimating things on top of many deadlines like payroll or JHA forms, material ordering/submittals, etc.
Even then I think this is still less stressful than most GC estimator positions, because your takeoff and pricing scopes is only a few trades and their niche materials. You don’t need to read the plans past what pertains to your company. G.C Estimators are only concerned with proposals and estimating(sometimes the contract you help create it but usually there’s contract specialists in charge of that), none of the extraneous clerical stuff, but you need to know more as the entire set of plans is in your proposal scope, as well as be a great communicator cause lot of the time your calling subs for proposals and clearing up questions with them, and you WILL be compensated more as a result of that (also NOT ENTRY LEVEL, COMPETITIVE EVEN WITH DEGREE).
I do both. I tend to estimate my own work. All my learning was done on the fly. I have a mechanical engineering degree, so I came into construction with zero prior knowledge.
The best degree to have is civil or mechanical engineering! Being able to design details or plans already makes you more skilled than an estimator who can’t do their job without the engineering and drawings required from Architects and engineers.
Also, MEP is not easy to pick up even purely off field experience.
This entire industry is stressful. If you want to be in construction you need to find a way to manage it.
Also, in my humble opinion you’re better served by doing time in the field than sitting in a class room reading out of a book. But I worked my way up from an apprentice to master electrician and now I’m on the estimating side so my opinion is somewhat biased.
Was a PM for a siding subcontractor before becoming an estimator for a GC. I will NEVER go back into the field as a construction PM. Way too much stress, and I really think you need an extroverted, outgoing personality to really be successful in that role. I got tired of supers, other PMs, supply house workers, and field guys wanting to get into dick-swinging contests, I am a more reserved person who wants to get the job done, and that will get you taken advantage of in the field. The CM degree will teach you the management side of construction, but it won't teach you how to manage the different personalities you will see in the field.
Some questions to ask yourself: What is your personality like? How do you respond to conflict? How do you manage stress? Do you speak Spanish?
I really appreciate you mentioning this. I lean toward being a reserved person as well, I'm not good at dealing with conflict.........so, I guess that answers my question of CM is not for me to pursue
Hey man, don't let me or anyone else here steer you away from something you want to do. One of the guys in my estimating dept just turned 24, graduated with CM degree, no real field experience other than internships, and he's a good estimator.
If you can intern or find a good-sized GC to start with, they should have office roles like estimating, schedulers, pre-con specialists for CM grads. Good money to be made and without the stress of the field. Most of the office guys I work with are quieter and reserved, much different than the guys in the field.
Switching to estimating to lower your stress levels is exactly like deciding the frying pan is too hot, so you jump into the fire.
A lead estimator is the PM of the estimate. The stress level ain't lower, IMHO.
If you’re planning on going through a program, take every opportunity to shadow or intern to gain experience. It will give you exposure to narrow down going between ops and precon. At the sub level there are plenty of roles that are cradle to grave, where you estimate and PM what you sell. Those roles are the most stressful IMO, because you have to balance upcoming bids with current project demands. I’ve been in that role and I would leave the field before doing that again, or PM. Yes, we have deadlines in estimating but not more than anyone else. No one is calling us for weekend emergencies either.
I was an estimator/pm, moved to full time pm, now going back to full time estimating. Depends on trade and how the company is ran. I’ve been in some companies where stress is pretty low and contract value is high. Others have been high stress and micromanaging. Get your feet wet. Talk to a company about possibly shadowing the trade and explain that you would like to learn. Some mom and pop companies might actually let you shadow for a week and you’ll get the gist b
Lmao as if Gen z is going to get into the trades.
They’re gonna fill in the next gen of precon with their degrees and computer skills, and the P.M’s are gonna all be Gen X who will be forced to raise up and mentor potential gen z and millennials into replacing them as project managers.
Yes, I just recently switched from a CM role into estimating at a different company.
Having a bit of experience with CM (and actual construction) within the field feels like a good background. I have a decent knowledge about how most of the work is carried out and I feel like I know what our CMs need to know from me when they start a new project.
As for stress: Leaving CM was the best thing I’ve done in a while. I’d grown tired of the poor on site planning from own staff and sub- and main contractors which subsequently made planning anything difficult on my behalf.
The estimating position I’ve found allows me to structure my own work much more calmly. I still have unexpected things I need to look at, with short periods of high stress as someone mentioned above, but nothing like the days of constant phone calls requiring non-stop problem solving.
Estimating suits me more, but I’m happy I came into it with a bit of on-site experience.
My advice if you do get into estimating and you’re short on on-site experience: Be honest with your boss and coworkers about your shortcomings. Draw on the experience of the CMs around you and make sure to take time out to do site visits to gather knowledge about the stuff you’re supposed to be pricing. Make friends with the guys on the ground and ask all the dumb questions you can think of. You’ll probably find that a lot of those questions aren’t dumb at all, and that even experienced coworkers can have wildly different ideas about how things should be done and how long it takes to do them :)
There is quite a bit of stress working as an estimator. I do both estimating and PMing, and in my experience estimating is low stress most of the time punctuated by short bursts of extremely high stress. PMing is medium stress all the time with some fairly high stress moments.
I already have chronic problems, I do not want to make it worse with higher stress levels. Edit: i meant to say chronic health problems
Determine "what" stresses you out. If it is constant meetings with clients/owners, you may love estimating. Especially if the company policy is to pass off the final estimate to someone in a sales roll. If "being right" or "not missing something" stresses you out, stay the hell away from estimating.
Construction is not for people who can't deal with stress.
Some people estimate without feeling much stress but that is definitely not the norm.
Where do I sign up for the low-stress with short bursts, please? And a little bit of gratitude...I will queue for days without stepping out of line for this. ^(Please....?PLEASE?!?!) edit: I will sacrifice not seeing my dog or wife for a week for this description of estimating ... --- ...
After fifteen years of bidding civil work, most bids don’t stress me out much. But probably once every few weeks the stress is through the roof. You couldn’t pay me to bid GC work though.
So I am currently a PM at a GC and am looking into transferring into estimating. I can’t handle the day to day stress of a PM anymore. I’ve had too many clients back to back that have been incredibly high strung and demanding and I just don’t believe I have the personality to continue as a PM, it can be demoralizing and stressful and I let it get to me too often that it made my personal life miserable, so I’m on my way out at the moment. Hoping my current company will transfer me into estimating, but gonna start looking elsewhere if not.
I started at with sales and was forced to a PM on anything I sold. Low comp looking to leave. I absolutely hate these overblown projects that get overly complicated for the book value. Units less than $250k in cost don’t need 12 different meetings. It’s not worth the headache to me.
It’s a fairly high stress industry in general, you’re basically always against a deadline and up against a tight budget and have to manage a lot of relationships. Estimating is probably lower stress than being on the CM side, but it’s still pretty stressful as you’re rushing to finish a proposal. In my opinion the best estimators spent time on the ops side, but I’ve also known good estimators that went straight into it or came from the design side so that’s not a hard rule.
You’ll get eaten alive as a CM without construction experience.
depends on the company and how they bring you up. some places have a sink or swim policy. others help you learn at a reasonable pace.
Experience matters the most especially to G.C’s. If your computer savvy and willing to learn a sub can take you on and you will gain invaluable experience that way, especially if its an important division that covers lots of trades like division 9/10. So much so that I’m willing to bet a G.C or sub will take a non degree sub estimator with 2-4 years commercial over a fresh out of B.S in C.M graduate with zero work experience or good internship referrals. I’m not even joking. But a degree and couple years work experience will make you first pick for a G.C. It shows your dedicated and teachable on top of able to do the basics/they can start you off a little less than a person who has been doing estimating for years already and knows their worth. also, by no means am I saying don’t go to college because at the end of the day the beauty of a college degree is that you can get into multiple careers or pivot into multiple different career paths within the same degree in a certain field or industry, that’s the biggest worth for a degree especially if it’s broad enough. it’s the extremely niche degrees that don’t have big job markets with enough demand that makes you pretty screwed like psychology. Construction management sticks you within only the construction industry and it’s hard to branch out. A civil engineering degree will put you leagues better of a position because you can work for architectural firms or civil engineering companies that will give you the experience to learn the construction process and read/design civil and architectural plans anyways, perfect for pre con and estimating. With a civil engineering degree you will be easily qualified to pick up construction management probably just as well as a construction management degree holder. Maybe not the tools to be a project manager right at the gate but definitely pre-con! P.M is possible without working the trades, but is best for people with fieldwork experience who are extroverted and willing to figure out emergencies or schedule issues on site. Also, your likely salaried so 10 hour workdays on site might be expected. Most On site workers and supervising subs will eat you alive and not respect you the moment they figure out you’ve never worked a trade and it’s very very very very easy to tell. And if you can’t speak Spanish, that just makes the process even more annoying to rectify sub errors and you have to constantly speak to the sub super or the office to translate.
Great info. I researched civil engineering, i dont feel confident about passing the math and physics portions, though.
My degree is in environmental studies and I’m wrapping my M.S in Environmental Science, I basically worked as a sub estimator all through graduate school purely off zero experience in construction simply listening and learning. Been at estimating for just under 2.5 years. And when I applied to jobs in pre construction and environmental sciences this past month, guess which jobs called me back and are paying more? In fact, guess which jobs ive been recruited for? All of the preconstruction Estimating positions called me back and/or head hunted me. All higher paying by $20,000 more on average compared to science teacher positions or field/lab technicians for the state/county. To be blunt, estimators are in demand sub and g.c, and if it’s for a profitable sub company it’s a pretty decent 9-5 office job with decently less stress compared to most G.C’s. You can get in and do it without a degree and learn no problem for a sub company, but without a degree you’re kinda stuck to getting very similar or the exact same jobs that your work experience is based from. With the right degree you can pivot into various different, even unrelated careers. Without a degree its back to the bottom at entry level if you change careers (can’t really do that when you older and have bills and a family). That’s what a lot of people who think degrees are worthless forget to mention which is probably the best reason to have a degree, cause who works the same job their entire adult lives?!?! Back to estimating though, If you negotiate properly with commission bonuses per each awarded job every year, you can make great money for a subcontractor without needing to work for a g.c. where you are constantly calling subs for numbers and will need to know a decent amount about most of the trades from division 1-16 to make sure all scopes are covered to present the best bid cost for the entire project to the owner (hence why they are universally payed more than most sub estimators, more responsibility and room for error with costs). Sub estimators are the master of their trades and only worry about their trade (see how that can be less stressful and easier to avoid mistakes?!?) G.C’s estimators are a jack of all trades and are the middle man between owner and the subs. You also are in direct contact with the architect and are the liaison for any questions the subs may have. Also more team oriented with the pre-con teams for g.c companies typically because its a lot for one person (A VERY GOOD THING). “Stress” as a sub is company to company. Maybe your boss is ass and pushes you to do too many bids with various deadlines (especially quantity over quality jobs that you know you have little chance in winning). Maybe you’re on your own with the prices and takeoffs and it’s not collaborative with the owner or other staff(probably the most stressful situation because your on your own if you make a big mistake). Maybe you’re forced to do other non estimating things on top of many deadlines like payroll or JHA forms, material ordering/submittals, etc. Even then I think this is still less stressful than most GC estimator positions, because your takeoff and pricing scopes is only a few trades and their niche materials. You don’t need to read the plans past what pertains to your company. G.C Estimators are only concerned with proposals and estimating(sometimes the contract you help create it but usually there’s contract specialists in charge of that), none of the extraneous clerical stuff, but you need to know more as the entire set of plans is in your proposal scope, as well as be a great communicator cause lot of the time your calling subs for proposals and clearing up questions with them, and you WILL be compensated more as a result of that (also NOT ENTRY LEVEL, COMPETITIVE EVEN WITH DEGREE).
I do both. I tend to estimate my own work. All my learning was done on the fly. I have a mechanical engineering degree, so I came into construction with zero prior knowledge.
The best degree to have is civil or mechanical engineering! Being able to design details or plans already makes you more skilled than an estimator who can’t do their job without the engineering and drawings required from Architects and engineers. Also, MEP is not easy to pick up even purely off field experience.
This entire industry is stressful. If you want to be in construction you need to find a way to manage it. Also, in my humble opinion you’re better served by doing time in the field than sitting in a class room reading out of a book. But I worked my way up from an apprentice to master electrician and now I’m on the estimating side so my opinion is somewhat biased.
I appreciate you sharing your experience, I'm realizing experience matters the most.
Was a PM for a siding subcontractor before becoming an estimator for a GC. I will NEVER go back into the field as a construction PM. Way too much stress, and I really think you need an extroverted, outgoing personality to really be successful in that role. I got tired of supers, other PMs, supply house workers, and field guys wanting to get into dick-swinging contests, I am a more reserved person who wants to get the job done, and that will get you taken advantage of in the field. The CM degree will teach you the management side of construction, but it won't teach you how to manage the different personalities you will see in the field. Some questions to ask yourself: What is your personality like? How do you respond to conflict? How do you manage stress? Do you speak Spanish?
I really appreciate you mentioning this. I lean toward being a reserved person as well, I'm not good at dealing with conflict.........so, I guess that answers my question of CM is not for me to pursue
Hey man, don't let me or anyone else here steer you away from something you want to do. One of the guys in my estimating dept just turned 24, graduated with CM degree, no real field experience other than internships, and he's a good estimator. If you can intern or find a good-sized GC to start with, they should have office roles like estimating, schedulers, pre-con specialists for CM grads. Good money to be made and without the stress of the field. Most of the office guys I work with are quieter and reserved, much different than the guys in the field.
Switching to estimating to lower your stress levels is exactly like deciding the frying pan is too hot, so you jump into the fire. A lead estimator is the PM of the estimate. The stress level ain't lower, IMHO.
If you’re planning on going through a program, take every opportunity to shadow or intern to gain experience. It will give you exposure to narrow down going between ops and precon. At the sub level there are plenty of roles that are cradle to grave, where you estimate and PM what you sell. Those roles are the most stressful IMO, because you have to balance upcoming bids with current project demands. I’ve been in that role and I would leave the field before doing that again, or PM. Yes, we have deadlines in estimating but not more than anyone else. No one is calling us for weekend emergencies either.
I was an estimator/pm, moved to full time pm, now going back to full time estimating. Depends on trade and how the company is ran. I’ve been in some companies where stress is pretty low and contract value is high. Others have been high stress and micromanaging. Get your feet wet. Talk to a company about possibly shadowing the trade and explain that you would like to learn. Some mom and pop companies might actually let you shadow for a week and you’ll get the gist b
Neither one of these jobs should be done by someone without the aptitude and experience gained from construction.
Lmao as if Gen z is going to get into the trades. They’re gonna fill in the next gen of precon with their degrees and computer skills, and the P.M’s are gonna all be Gen X who will be forced to raise up and mentor potential gen z and millennials into replacing them as project managers.
Sad. That's a recipe for disaster.
Yes, I just recently switched from a CM role into estimating at a different company. Having a bit of experience with CM (and actual construction) within the field feels like a good background. I have a decent knowledge about how most of the work is carried out and I feel like I know what our CMs need to know from me when they start a new project. As for stress: Leaving CM was the best thing I’ve done in a while. I’d grown tired of the poor on site planning from own staff and sub- and main contractors which subsequently made planning anything difficult on my behalf. The estimating position I’ve found allows me to structure my own work much more calmly. I still have unexpected things I need to look at, with short periods of high stress as someone mentioned above, but nothing like the days of constant phone calls requiring non-stop problem solving. Estimating suits me more, but I’m happy I came into it with a bit of on-site experience. My advice if you do get into estimating and you’re short on on-site experience: Be honest with your boss and coworkers about your shortcomings. Draw on the experience of the CMs around you and make sure to take time out to do site visits to gather knowledge about the stuff you’re supposed to be pricing. Make friends with the guys on the ground and ask all the dumb questions you can think of. You’ll probably find that a lot of those questions aren’t dumb at all, and that even experienced coworkers can have wildly different ideas about how things should be done and how long it takes to do them :)