A bridge contractor wins a package on Friday. By Monday the mobilisation plan needs a site-in-charge, two foremen, a billing engineer and a surveyor with a total station. The owner rings four people from his old projects, signs the first two who say yes, and discovers in October that the billing engineer cannot prepare a running bill without help. The surveyor leaves after the first monsoon shutdown.
Contractors hire in bursts, against a tender, with a start date set by the client. That pressure produces the wrong hires. This guide describes a hiring process that fits the stop-start rhythm of EPC work and still finds people who stay. The wider sector page is the infrastructure and engineering contractors hub.
Hire against the package, not against the vacancy
Before you advertise, list the package in terms of jobs: earthwork, sub-base, pavement layers, pier caps, girder launching, cable trenching, tower erection or pipe laying. Then list who must be on site for each. A planning engineer for the bar chart. A quantity surveyor for measurement books. A QA lab technician for cube tests and field density. Welders for pipe joints, and crane or paver operators. The headcount follows from the work, month by month, and the workforce planning page for road companies shows a way to draw it.
The roles that decide whether a package makes money
- Site-in-charge or project manager: reads the contract, holds the client meeting, controls cash.
- Billing and quantity surveyor: measures, certifies and prepares the running account bill. Slow billing starves the site.
- Planning engineer: updates the programme, flags delays before the client does.
- Surveyor and levelling assistants: set out alignment, check levels, keep the as-built record.
- Foremen and gang supervisors: keep labour and plant working a full day.
- Operators: excavator, grader, paver, roller, crane. Wrong hire here damages machines costing lakhs.
A hiring process in six moves
- 1
Write a one-page role card
State the package, location, camp facilities, travel pattern, reporting line and what the first ninety days require. Candidates leave when the camp turns out different from the story.
- 2
Source from three places
Past project colleagues, a trade referral, and an open search for the technical roles. Ask each source for names, not CVs.
- 3
Run a short trade test
A billing engineer measures a drawn culvert quantity. A surveyor reduces levels from a field book. A foreman plans one shift of a paver crew on paper. Twenty minutes each.
- 4
Talk about the last site
Ask why they left, what the camp was like, how often bills were delayed and who they reported to. Phone two references who sat above and beside them.
- 5
Tell the whole truth in the offer
Posting, rotation, leave policy, advance for travel, who pays for the shift to the next package. Surprises cause exits.
- 6
Check at day thirty
Meet the new hire and his site head separately. Write down what was promised and what was found.
Hiring plant operators and labour gangs
Operators often arrive through sub-contractors or a gang mukadam, with their own tipper, JCB or roller crew. Even so, ask to see the licence, check hands-on skill with a short operation on idle machines, and keep a record of who operated which machine. For labour gangs, the mukadam and the owner should agree the headcount, daily muster, wage dates and the safety induction before the gang arrives. The workplace safety page for road companies is a good prompt for the induction list.
Plan hiring around the monsoon and the demobilisation date
Earthwork stops in July. Bridge girder launching waits for river levels. Cable trenching halts in a flood. Decide in advance who is held through the shutdown, who moves to another package and who is released with a clear return date. Engineers who hear nothing for six weeks sign elsewhere. Write down the demobilisation date for every package, and offer each person a transfer list: next package, location, likely start. A lull handled this way becomes a chance to cross-train a surveyor in total station set-up or a foreman in shuttering inspection.
What makes people stay on a site
- A camp with clean water, a mess that serves on time and a working generator.
- A leave pattern known at joining, such as a fortnight on, three days off.
- A bill that gets certified within the promised days, so salary and advances do not wait.
- A visible next package, so people see a career beyond this stretch.
Our recruitment process consulting page describes how we help design role cards, tests and offer letters for firms that hire in bursts. Send your next package list through the requirements page if you want to start.
