Introducing ICS-PLACEMENT

What ICS-Placement Is All About

ICS-Placement is a boutique executive search service for employers of Construction Project Time Management professionals. Our one-of-a-kind approach facilitates the identification, qualification, ranking, representation, and promotion of candidates whose skills, experience, qualifications, and personal attributes most closely align with the employer’s specific staffing needs. We accomplish this with a two-punch: an Employer Needs Assessment followed by a meticulous Candidate Vetting Process.

Why ICS-Placement Was Created

For as long as we can remember, Job Searching and Candidate Recruitment have been a major frustration for Construction PTM practitioners and employers, respectively. For the candidate, there have been two primary challenges: finding the opportunities, and distinguishing yourself from the competition.

  • Finding job openings has usually meant scouring the trade journals, online job posting services, software vendor web sites, personal networking, etc.
  • But the bigger challenge has always been explaining one’s unique qualifications to a headhunter who doesn’t have the foggiest idea what a Scheduler does, or that there actually is a difference between a Planner and a Scheduler!

The employer, too, suffers from the ignorance of the matchmaker:

  • A third-party recruiter that doesn’t understand construction means and methods, Project Management, or Construction PTM.
  • All too often, the recruiter’s sole criterion for referring an applicant to an employer has seemed to be appearance of the word “scheduling” appearing somewhere in the candidate’s resume.

A Critical Word About the Keyword Criterion

Using the presence or absence of choice keywords in a resume — as a way to reduce thousands of candidates to a short list of a dozen or less – is frustrating to both candidates and employers. Candidates openly complain about being overlooked simply because a particular keyword was absent. Employers routinely complain that the eventual short list of candidates are not necessarily qualified for the open position.

Addressing this recruitment nightmare is one of the main reasons we created ICS-Placement. Our core philosophy is simply, “it takes one to know one.” Hence, all of our recruiters have extensive experience in Construction Project Management, and Construction Project Time Management.

Whom ICS-Placement Is Intended to Serve

Both candidates for open Construction PTM positions, and the employers who seek to fill them, will be delighted to learn about ICS-Placement.

  • To Employers: ICS-Placement is unique among employment search firms in several important ways when it comes to searching for Construction PTM practitioners.
  • Every ICS-Placement recruiter is seasoned Construction Planner or Scheduler, with years of specialized experience in all facets of the Construction PTM.
  • To earn our recommendation, all candidates must complete a battery of exams and interviews that comprise our formidable Candidate Vetting Process.
  • Our fees are below industry average.
  • Our structured Employer Needs Assessment ensures that we know, with great precision, just what you are looking for. Our boutique approach uses your detailed search criteria to guarantee that we know what you want us to look for.

  • To Candidates: ICS-Placement can help you find the perfect career opportunity. With our unique Candidate Vetting Process, we very well may learn more about what you have to offer, than you know yourself. Because our search is guided by a detailed Employer Needs Assessment, you can be confident that the match we recommend is really ideal for both of you. This will lead to greater job satisfaction and employment longevity.

How ICS-Placement Is Organized and Functions

We employ the construction industry’s toughest Candidate Vetting Process, designed to assess each applicant’s knowledge and experience in four key areas: Critical Path Method, Project Time Management, Construction means and methods, and overall computer dexterity. Our Candidate Vetting Process proceeds through five steps:

  • Cursory Compatibility Review: We perform a perfunctory review of candidate’s resume to determine initial compatibility.
  • Online Skills Assessments: The candidate is required to complete a four-part, online Skills Assessment examination, designed to quantitatively assess the candidate’s knowledge in four key areas: Critical Path Method, Construction PTM, construction means and methods, and general computer aptitude. Our Skills Assessment testing usually takes about two hours for the applicant to complete.
  • Resume Deep Scrub: Our recruiter performs a deep study of the candidate’s resume, with an eye toward content consistency, presence of hyperbole, and self-harming omissions.
  • Web-Based Exploratory Interview: Following insights gleaned from the Resume Deep Scrub as well as results from the Skills Assessment, our recruiter conducts a 250-question, 45-minute web-based interview with the hopeful candidate. Carefully scripted questions are designed to identify and capture insights into the candidate’s abilities, experience, desires, ambitions, requirements, and more.
  • Applicant Profile: As a final work product, each candidate referral that we send to a client is accompanied by both the candidate’s initial resume and our patented six-page Applicant Profile. The Applicant Profile provides notes, graphs, tables, and over 300 pieces of raw data about the individual, as derived from our exhaustive Candidate Vetting Process.