How to brief a search for a site manager
What to agree before a specialist search starts, so the shortlist is people who can run the job.
A site manager search goes well when the brief is specific. A position description that lists every duty on the project is not a brief. It tells us the seat exists. It does not tell us who will succeed in it.
Start with the job in front of them. What is being built, in which state, and what package they will actually run. A high-rise structure and a civil road package ask for different people, even when the title on the advertisement is the same.
Then say who they report to, and who reports to them. A site manager with a project manager above them and subcontractors below them is a different search from a site manager who is the senior person on a remote job.
Say what good looks like in the first months. Is the priority a clean start, a recovery, or holding a programme that is already under pressure? We cannot reference someone against a hope. We can reference them against work they have already delivered.
Agree the brief before the search starts. From that agreed brief, the shortlist is due in 10 working days. The written terms of the six-month replacement guarantee on a permanent placement are still to be settled, and they belong in the engagement letter, not in a job advertisement.
If you need someone to run the work, permanent or on a contract, submit the role.