Your parents did everything they could to help you get into college. Bet you can’t wait to tell them the news that –wait for it –you’re going into construction.
Construction? Seriously? Is that why you spent four (or more) years in college?
Yup.
It sounds crazy, but today, more and more of the best and the brightest among recent college graduates are pulling away from the Facebooks, Googles, and startups of the technology world and instead are using their tech, people, and creative thinking skills in the field of construction.
Aside from the notoriously unstable life of tech startups, there must be a good reason why so many young, college educated people are going into construction, by which I do notmean to say are grabbing hammers or wearing tool belts.
Instead, construction, which could appear to be one of the most low tech and unchanging of industries is undergoing its most rapid transformation ever. And increasingly large numbers of bright young people are joining its ranks and making that transformation a reality.
Why? According to Eric Davis, an authority in the construction field and an advisor to the LISA Movement, “There’s nothing that gives you the satisfaction of leaving a job site at the end of the day and seeing the progress made on what you are helping to build.”
Davis references a chemical engineer who told him that he enjoyed his work in the lab, but “could only see what he was working on through a microscope. It’s one thing to work in the nanosphere. It’s another thing to work on buildings that will benefit people for generations.”
Davis points out that 90% of our lives are spent indoors, in built places.
“There will always be a need for shelter,”he says. “And even with trends towards working remotely, people still need workplaces. So the construction industry, though cyclical, will always keep growing over the long-term.”
More and more construction sites benefit from the Cloud, Davis points out. “If you’re in charge of document flow,”he says, “there’s really no need for you to be commuting an hour each day and then sitting in the trailer. Thanks to the Cloud, so much of technology work now takes place at whatever location is convenient for the employee. This is certainly true in construction as well.”
Davis also points out something that most young people don’t know about the construction industry—it’s incredibly well paying.
“It’s not unheard of for people with just a few years’experience to be pulling down six-figure salaries,”he notes.
“And as their skills and experience grow,”Davis adds, “they can make even more and more money. Everybody hears about the instant billionaires that the tech world creates. But the odds of working with the right startup at the right time are only slightly better than buying a winning Powerball ticket.”
College graduates and college students adept at coding, programming, or otherwise making use of new developments in Cloud technology will find a warm welcome in the construction industry.
“Not every construction company is open to new ideas, to be frank,”Davis cautions. “But the overwhelming majority of small firms are looking for a technological edge, and they will pay dearly for individuals who have the skill sets that will allow them to gain that competitive edge in the marketplace.
“For any intelligent young person with an aptitude for tech and his or her head in the ‘Cloud,’construction offers job opportunities—and compensation—that you probably cannot find in any other field.”
