Transcript for "NextGen Estimation":
Hi, everybody, and welcome to NextGen. My name is Amelia McMahan. Just a little bit about me, at ConstructConnect, I handle construction projects when the very early stages. But we are so happy that you're able to join us today and can't wait to introduce you into the wild world of construction estimation. As a branch of ConstructConnect Academy, NextGen is a platform to encourage the next generation to become aware, interested, and involved in the commercial construction industry. We are here to educate and show various pathways and career choices in this booming industry with this session specifically focused on the role of a construction estimator. But first, let's quickly review some session tools. While all attendees are currently muted, we still wanna hear from you. So please don't hesitate to share any questions your classroom has throughout the presentation in the q and a section, which you'll find located on the right side of your screen. Savannah will be monitoring this q and a and pulling any questions for us to answer at the end of our presentation today. Teachers, you can also add responses to our questions from your classroom in the chat section, which is also located on the right side of your screen. I know everyone has already answered a couple of poll questions before we got started today, but at the end, we'll have another poll you can respond to in the poll tab. And lastly, feel free to turn on the closed captions by clicking on the CC button located on the bottom right of your screen. Now before we start jumping into the world of construction estimation, we have another question for you just to get everyone thinking more about the topic. Who do you know in the construction industry? Maybe you have a neighbor who's an electrician or a family member who's an equipment operator that gets to handle cranes and excavators. There are a lot of different roles people have in the construction industry. So teachers, you can add your classroom's answers, while we watch a quick 2 minute intro video all about the future of construction. Imagine a world where skyscrapers rise from a blueprint. Where a simple design turns into a functional home. Welcome to the world of construction. But did you know every project starts with a plan and a budget? That's where a construction estimator comes in. They are the financial architects of the construction world, ensuring projects stay on budget and on time. Construction estimators use blueprints, advanced software, and their understanding of construction to estimate the cost of a project. They're vital to a project's success. And it's not just about crunching numbers. Construction estimators interact with architects, contractors, and clients. They help turn dreams into reality. Think of the world's great structures. Stadiums, bridges, skyscrapers. A construction estimator was integral to each one. It's a career where your work leaves a tangible mark on the world. And it's not just about job satisfaction. Construction estimators earn a good living. Indeed notes that the salaries for construction estimators in the United States range from around $53,000 to north of $100,000 for estimators at large firms and with the right level of experience. But most importantly, it's a career that's in demand. Construction is one of the largest industries in the world, and it needs skilled estimators. The opportunities are vast. So how do you become a construction estimator? It starts with education. Courses in construction management, engineering, or architecture can pave the way. But this doesn't necessarily mean accruing massive debt. Programs are available from accredited third party organizations, as well as community colleges. And many schools offer programs specifically tailored to construction estimating. Ready to build our world? Consider a career as a construction estimator and shape the future, one estimate at a time. Now that should get you excited about construction estimating and construction in general. You can be the future of your city, state, even the country. We'd love seeing, those responses coming into the chat around construction. Construction is such an important field and will continue to grow. We'll get some stats on that coming up, along with many other great reasons you should be looking into the pre construction industry, as you're finishing out your high school years and making decisions that will affect the rest of your life. I know. I know. It's crazy to think about the fact that you have to make a decision that will affect the next 30, 40, 50 years of your life, pretty soon, but we're hoping to give you some career options today that are interesting to you and could be something that you would choose. Take a minute to look around the room that you're in. Think about the how that room came to be in existence. Who built that room? What materials were required to build that room? And how do they know how much how much materials to use in that room in in that process? So as you're thinking about that, I want your teacher to respond in the chat, what you're all seeing around around you, and we'll talk about some of those trades and some of those materials, that you put into the chat in a minute here. While you're doing that, my name is Jake Elmhorst, and I'm the academy event specialist and product specialist here at ConstructConnect. I grew up working construction for my older brothers. They have their own construction company and did a little bit of everything from concrete on up to roofing. Worked for them for 8 years. But some of you might know me from my teaching days. I taught elementary for 13 years before my career changed to train construction estimators how to utilize our software. So so and I also plan out, you know, some of the the different events that that we host like today's event. So, as we're seeing some of those responses coming into the end of the chat and the polls, you know, just thinking about what's around you guys. So we got, you know, some drywall. We got some some maybe tile flooring and windows, just the whiteboards in the classroom, all of those materials, there was someone that had to estimate how long that was gonna take to put that into place, how much materials were gonna be needed, what that cost was. And so we're gonna talk a little bit more about those specifics, in a minute. But let's talk about why you might wanna go into the construction industry. I know. I know. You didn't come here to to read graphs and charts and, you know, we we got the some of the the boring talk here, but wanted to give you, some, you know, reasons why you would want to go into the, the construction industry. So those of you that do enjoy crunching numbers, looking at charts, we have this chart in our presentation deck along with some others. At the end of this presentation deck, we're not gonna show them all today, but, if you go to the docs tab, your teacher can download this presentation and you could look more into these charts and and look specifically at the numbers. So these charts came from our chief economist, Michael Gucas, who spends every day analyzing data in the construction field to better support the contractors that we work with to understand trends and where they need to focus their company efforts. With that in mind, he understands where workers are needed in the construction industry. So, we have the one chart shown here and 4 total charts. This particular chart is focusing on construction wages pushing higher each year with more demand for workers. Some of the other charts that we have show the amount of money being spent in construction and continued growth each year. So what do these charts mean? Construction is a viable option as a career. That that's what we're trying to to get to you today. So not only did we talk to our internal team members, but we also surveyed and interviewed estimators that we work with. We surveyed over 300 current estimators, and we'll have some data from that server survey later in the session, but we're also going to highlight some of the responses that we got from those statistical estimators. So let's take a look at our first quote here from John T, who is a chief estimator. So entry level estimators are in demand, senior level estimators are hard to find, and the ceiling for growth is limitless. So viewing that quote here from from that chief estimator with several years of experience really focuses on the need of skilled estimators. Like we mentioned in some of the charts, that there is a growing need for more workers in the industry and those skilled skilled workers. So as we think about all of this need for more construction workers and more estimators, let's learn a little bit more about the industry to see, you know, some of the other career options that are available. So I'm sure you've seen construction going on around you, and, you know, you see all the the construction projects, the roads, buildings being built, but what does it take before that project even starts? So we have just a general flowchart of the construction process along with steps in the process. So we've listed the careers that can be associated with the steps in the process. That doesn't mean that these are all of the steps and the only careers that go with these steps. We kept this to the careers that we listed in our career resource that is linked in the docs tab as well, and on our website, which you can utilize to learn more about these careers and opportunities at your own pace. So feel free to to take a look at that later. So we wanna highlight, the work that is required before the construction project even starts, which the architect and estimator play 2 major roles in that process. So the architect is creating the plans or blueprints, and then the estimator is using those blueprints to figure out how long, how much material, and the overall cost of what that project is going to be. No construction project can happen without these things happening first. So let's take a closer look at what the estimator's role actually is in that process. For that, I'm gonna pass it over to Alana. Thanks, Shay. My name's Alana. I've been in construction my whole life from working on roofs and doing framing with my dad to working for a staffing agency that's specialized in construction labor and skilled tradesmen. And finally, for the last 15 years, I've sold construction leads and supported construction customers to really help them grow their businesses. Now we brought you here today to learn about construction estimators, so I'm sure you wanna specifically know how much they make, how many jobs are out there, and who are those jobs for, right? Well, as you can see, there's over 221,000 people in the US employed as a cost estimator. That's over 18,000 jobs anticipated each year, so there's a lot of growth. The middle section of that slide gives a bit of a breakdown to some of the demographics that make up that field. This is an inclusive career opportunity, and anybody can go after it. You just wanna well, you have to want it. You know? Now check out that salary range from 55,000 up to a 132 grand a year with an average being at 85,000. That's not something to take lightly, especially when you have bills and have to adult. Adulting is hard. Keep that in mind. Every company is gonna be different with what their starting pay is, what the requirements are for that position, and their expectations of an employee. You always have to sell yourself. Remember that. But hopefully, this data gives you a little bit more of an idea on the need in the industry and the potential salary that you can make for yourself. We do have a resource document on our website. It's also at the end of this presentation. It has links to job boards that show open estimator positions right now. It will help you see what we've discussed here in black and white, so don't take our word for it, look and do it yourself. Another report we're gonna share was done by the AGC, Associated General Contractors. It talks about how difficult it's been for construction companies to hire for these positions. And, you know, sometimes just getting the word out goes a really long way. That's why we're here talking to you. So where do they normally find these types of workers? Well, a lot of estimators come into our software training that used to be a trades person doing all the work on-site. They moved up within their company, became an estimator, started working in the office. And for some, it's a great option to even just start out as a general laborer, learn the trade, and then work your way into the office. That way, you can learn much more about blueprints and specification reading way beforehand. Alright. I hope I haven't put anybody to sleep with my boring data talk, but we wanted to make sure to give you some of the stats on why you should be looking at construction and pre construction as you're gonna make your decisions on your career very soon. Now we have another quote from Mr. John T, chief estimator and one of our customers. So traditionally we filled estimator positions with career trades people who've demonstrated the ability to successfully manage field operations on multiple concurrent projects. What John was really trying to highlight is there's so many ways that you can get into construction estimating. Like we mentioned, you don't have to go to college and get a degree. You could work your way into the role from being a laborer or a trades person. However, the options always on the table to go to college or more specifically a trade school with plans on becoming an estimator. Now, let's take a look at some of the questions we've asked several estimators in our survey. We asked about 300 estimators what they wish they knew in high school about construction and estimating specifically. As you can see, the highest response was just awareness of the trade. That is an option. And the majority of current estimators today didn't even know their current job was an option while they were in high school, and that's right there is why we're doing this here today with you. We want you all to know about the many career opportunities in construction that don't involve manual labor. We saw on some of the responses earlier that you thought construction was all about working on-site, but there's so much more to the industry than that. Now, the second chart is showing that the training that these different different estimators had when they began their first estimating job. And, again, majority said that they began with on the job training and working in the field. Now the next highest response was a college degree, so you can definitely go to college, get a degree for estimating, but it's certainly not a requirement. And, finally, what did mister John have to say to us again? The traditional path starting in the field and eventually moving into the office is no longer the only path, and that's exciting. Right? Because, again, his quote shows how the industry is growing and how careers are changing within it. Being a skilled labor or a skilled tradesman or a labor isn't the only path, still a viable route for anybody looking. But now that we've given you a little bit of the numbers that tell you why you should go into construction, let's talk about the construction estimating actually entails. I'm gonna hand this over to Brian. Thanks. Hi, everybody. My name is Brian Treadway. I, work here at ConstructConnect. I have a certificate in construction estimating from the American Society of Professional Estimators, and I create our instructional media here at ConstructConnect. And so I'm gonna discuss the career of estimating in general. So basically, what is estimating? Generally speaking it's the process of calculating all the required costs for a construction project. So what are those costs? When you think of what goes into building a structure, materials and labor are the 2 main costs that are generally incurred in a project, but there are other costs such as equipment, cleanup, permits, and insurance, just to name a few. So construction estimators perform this crucial step well before any actual construction takes place, and this aids owners and contractors so they can successfully finish a project profitably. So the estimator that that job can be performed with training and doesn't require a college degree. We've we've stressed that, and it is an important part of this. Construction companies depend a lot on a good estimator to ensure they're taking on jobs that they actually have the ability to compete as well as ensure that their price isn't too high or too low. So, the estimator essentially has to find that perfect sweet spot to be competitive against other contractors, but still make money for their company. So, like, how do you actually create that estimate? We said, hey. You know, we gotta calculate these materials and labor, but where do those numbers come from? So every project's gonna be dependent upon good blueprints and specifications or or, like, the details that tell exactly which materials will be used to complete the project. So we need to kind of dive in at least briefly on, like, what are blueprints and what are specifications. So I guess maybe a better way to illustrate this, have any of you ever built a Lego set before? Right? So if you think back to your childhood or for me, my adulthood, we think about Legos, you know, imagine you're trying to build a set. You've got that little instruction booklet, and it's like your your blueprints. Right? And the page that that tells you, like, how many of every colored piece there are, those are a little more akin to your your specifications page. So the plans tell us where everything goes. The specifications tell us exactly what type of material it is. So these blueprints are used throughout the construction process by estimators, by the contractors, by engineers. They're gonna be vital for everybody in getting this thing built. So the estimator is gonna use a blueprint or or often referred to as plans along with the specifications to figure out those materials and labor that are gonna be required to complete the project. So you can't just pull it out of thin air, you're gonna be referencing these plans. The foreman uses blueprints to ensure that they're building the project according to the plans so it's structurally sound. You know, you don't wanna collapse it on you. Right? And built the way the owner intended it to be built. And then as I mentioned, engineers will use those those plans and specifications to verify that the work was completed properly. So again, they're they're being used by everybody at every stage, and you'll see in a little while when when Eric and Raquel show us how an estimator gets those measurements, what type of work the estimator actually does. But first, let's let's go in a little bit more into what some blueprints actually look like. Alright. So I've got an image here of a pretty standard blueprint, and this is for what we call a floor plan. You can see the layout of, like, different bedrooms, bathrooms, stairways. It gives you basic layout, but it doesn't tell you exactly which materials are going into this. So it tells you kind of the layout, but not exactly what's going into that. So if we keep moving and then look at the specifications, this would be, more of a guide in terms of, like, what's gonna go into that. K. So we've seen the layout, but what is that built with? So this page has kind of specifications, and and this is looking at a at a roof. It's a little bit different than floor plan. It's the same idea. This is showing you, like, roof rafters and the exact length, material, and installation method. So the contractor has to reference these pages and they're important throughout the estimating and building phases to ensure that you get the correct materials and that the work is completed correctly. Depending on the size of the project, you might have just a couple of specifications pages or there can be, like, a lot, you know. So it it all just depends on on size and scope. And just to kinda give you another idea of what this looks like, as we progress from plans to building to completion, You can see here look kind of like the blueprint on the left, and then in the middle, we can see what it what it looks like once they actually start building, you know, put it in progress where it goes from image to actual real life structure and then the completed version on on the far right. So, you know, we use all these different plans to to know exactly which materials are required and, to know exactly how it's laid out for for success. So now that we've seen some of these blueprints and specifications, we have a little bit of a better idea of what those are and how they work. Let's talk to someone who is actually an estimator. So here's Eric to discuss what estimators actually do. Hey, everyone. My name is Eric, and, I actually used to be an estimator prior to, becoming a takeoff and estimating software trainer. When I first started estimating, I learned how to do a takeoff and estimating using paper plans. I actually have an example right here that you can see. Oh, wait. That's actually a poster. Here it is. So here is plans here. And what you would do is you would unroll these, and you take a rubber band, and you would lose it. And you would take these plans here, and you would set them on your desk. And then you would try to locate, you know, where the where these, where you needed to start doing some some takeoff. Right? Give me a moment. I'm going to switch my screen around or switch my camera, I should say. And let me do that now. Let me turn my filter off. Alright. So alright. So now alright. I'm I'm set up to go. I have my my paper plans here. Right? So what what happens is right? You have you have Billy that comes along. He's coming to school. You know? Oh, man. I'm late to school as usual. And, I'm gonna go and park right here. And then Billy's teacher comes along. Hey, Billy. I told you to not be you know, stop taking my parking spot. You know? You know? Alright. So enough playing around. Alright. There's a little bit of reason why I had a little bit of fun there because I wanna talk about scale for a moment. So this is a scale, and, estimators will use this and a lot of other individual use this, to actually figure out what the what the lengths of these walls and everything are on these plans. So just like these cars have been squished down in size, they've been, you know, to scale, the same thing as these plans. These plans have been squished down to, scale. And that's where you use this, and you would essentially look on the page for what a scale size is, and you'd flip this around. It might be a little bit hard to see, but there's some lines here. And you would take this, and you'd literally put it on the plans to a particular wall, and you would figure out how many feet this particular wall is. You would take a marker, mark it, and then a piece of paper over here, and you'd write down how long that wall is. K? Alright. So what we would need to do is we'd go through and count all of these walls, get you know, figure out the lengths of them and everything, and then you'd have something that looks like this at the end of the day. Okay? Hopefully, it's not not backwards, but you would have all of your your list of your materials up top, and you'd figure out how much that costs. Then you'd also have to figure out labor for your material. Then you would add these 2 together, add some overhead and profit, maybe some other expenses and things like that, and ultimately come with a number. Here's my made up number of $27,000, to do this. K? Alright. Now I'm gonna switch my camera back here. Give me one second. That probably felt like an eternity, so sorry about that. But, anyways, as you might imagine, that's a pretty inefficient way to do estimating. You know, if you think about it, you have to print these plans out. You have to use this scale here, and then you have to write it down another piece of paper. There's a lot of tasks that, that it takes to actually accomplish that. And me as as an s I used to be a previous estimator, and, we actually purchased a software program to help speed this process up dramatically and which is, which is great because Raquel now is gonna go ahead and demonstrate how a more efficient way of doing your takeoff to get your measurements and ultimately saving you time and Tylenol for your headaches. Alright, Eric. Thanks a lot for that. So my name is Raquel. I'm a product training team lead here at ConstructConnect. That means I'm actually talking with estimators every day to help them get better at their job using our products. So the process Eric just described might sound like a lot, but let me remind you guys. Our our good friend, John T, has talked a little bit about what, let me go and pull that up, What you need to remember about estimating. K? So at its core, estimating is basic. We count quantities of items from drawings and create a price using our company's experience. So that's all we're doing. We're we're doing something pretty basic. We're gonna go ahead and, as Eric described, we're let's see what happens when we add technology into the mix. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen. Here we go. Alright. K. So everybody should see, at this point, software layout, And there we go. Perfect. So this is a program called on screen takeoff. Eric talks to you all through how previous estimators measured by drawing on a paper plan, but now we're gonna make it faster. So let's compare the effort and output needed for Eric's manual method versus our digital approach. So I have a plan page that's open in on screen takeoff, and, basically, it is a coloring book that does math. I'll be talking you through how an estimator could use this program to get their measurements. I actually do this all the time in my day job talking to construction folks as a takeoff trainer. So as was mentioned in that video y'all saw earlier, everything starts with a plan. Different kinds of construction needs different plans, so a single building could have dozens, if not hundreds, of pages. It would be an absurd amount of work to draw everything at its actual size, so we need a way to make it more manageable. That's what Eric talked about earlier with scale, making everything smaller with a scale. Now he used those RC cars and shows you that physical scale ruler, but our scale is digital. Each drawing has a scale listed. I have mine highlighted in red just so y'all can spot it more easily. But that tells the program how to do the math. Now I have already identified that scale and told the program, hey. This plan needs to be masked like this, so we're gonna focus on what we're measuring. Now when the program does the math, it we are actually drawing basic shapes and providing additional information from the plan to represent specific objects. Depending on the kind of construction, we can add details to those shapes to get more complicated calculations. But in general, you can draw a freehand shape, so like this blue area usually intended for surface area. Maybe use that to know if I have enough carpet for a room, paint on a wall. I can draw lines like you'll see down here, these little colored lines. Maybe it's to determine if I have a long enough cable to go from the outlet to my TV or how long is a hallway. And lastly, we can have shapes. I don't have any on the page at this time. I'll show you guys what it looks like in a second. But you might use a shape to count how many times a certain item appears on the plan, like the number of flowers in a garden or windows in a building. Now my example on this page is a single apartment called unit a. Remember folks that you can always full screen the page. So if it looks like it's a little little small in your browser, make sure you hit that full screen. But in this apartment, I need to measure an area ceiling, a linear wall, and count some doors. Like Eric talked about earlier, part of the estimator's job is gonna be reading through the pages, figuring out what to measure and where, like Brian talked about with those plans and specifications. Now in our example plan, I have the same overhead view twice because each one is intended for different objects. I happen to already know what I'm measuring in each version, so I'm gonna go ahead and adjust my page a little bit. I'm gonna zoom in. May actually start working on this. So some plans may actually identify for you, here's what they expect, but we don't know what that means. We'd have to go and look at the specification to understand what it means. I've already done that part, so I'm just gonna go ahead and grab my takeoff item, my condition on the left. I'm gonna start clicking in each corner. So this is basically just playing connect the dots in a coloring book. But when I double click at the end to close off that shape, look, my total has updated immediately over on the left side. The takeoff program did the math for us. Unlike the manual method that Eric showed us, the program adds up all the drawn objects for us. So as I'm drawing more of the same object or if I edit the shape, that total updates immediately. So I'm gonna go ahead and come over. Right now, we're looking at 4 31 square feet. What happens if I add some more? Click and drag. Let go. And in just seconds, 563 square feet. Now what about those other shapes that I mentioned? I'm gonna go ahead and scroll down. I've got my other plan down here to focus on some of the other details. I'm looking at the wall length and how many doors I have. Missing some walls here, so I'm gonna go ahead and find it on the left side. There we go. A 4. And I'm just gonna click and drag. Holding my mouse button down, dragging all the way across. This is stuff that I don't have to do in my head, so it's currently 18 linear feet. Keep an eye on that total on the left side. When I let go at the end, it's increased to 31 linear feet. Now I'm not limited to just the length value. I previously told the program what I anticipated the wall height to be, so our results also show a vertical surface area, 627 square feet. That would let me do paint or wallpaper or other kinds of materials that I might need to purchase. And let me emphasize just how flexible those digital measurements are. Let's say it turns out, whoops, the wall height that I put in was wrong. If I need to change it and update that, I would receive the corrected number immediately. A manual estimator like Eric would be grabbing Tylenol and having to redo all those calculations by hand. Lastly, I'm gonna go ahead and grab some doors. I have some doors that are highlighted on the page. So I'm gonna grab my door, click onto the plan. And if I really wanted to, I could rotate this. This is digital. I can move it around if I want. But, honestly, as long as I have the total number of doors, I'm feeling pretty happy. If I were to accidentally forget to measure an object and get all the way to the building phase, I could wind up without enough materials or end up paying extra money to get a rush order. So an estimator's job in making sure that they've counted off everything that they're responsible for is really critical. I do have a couple of other pages where the work is more complete so y'all can see what a completed page might look like. Let me go ahead and hit next here. So, for example, unit b, again, has everything split out onto 3 pages, everything on a separate section. I've got all my ceiling, my walls, my doors, and I have all this flooring down here as well. I have another example of an apartment where the estimator had done the same thing, but instead of leaving it all separated out, combined everything into one singular location. So there's a lot of different ways to slice that. Now I saved a lot of time simply by going from paper plans to digital, but I wanna go even faster. So in my example, I needed the length of wall and the surface area of the floor, but let's go ahead and jump to a new page. So not too hard lines, areas, but then I get to a plan that looks something like this. That could be a lot of time investment for me. I could do it by hand, but instead, I'm gonna use a machine learning based tool, an AI called takeoff boost that's built into our program to jump start the process. Now I would still need to double check the page's scale. I've already done that, but I can come up here now to this green takeoff boost button. It gives me a little pop up, and it tells me, hey. These are the kind of measurements to expect to get back. It gives me a little bit of an idea why I might use these. And I'm gonna go ahead and click the run takeoff boost button, and I could hit next to do the same on the next page, use this as a stretch break while grabbing a drink, start working on other pages. Gonna hit next. And so once takeoff boost finishes processing displays results, the estimator could now analyze this plan more in more detail, delete unnecessary results, start refining that information, go check out the plan specifications, and get more, detailed information into the program. But this saves a ton of time in comparison to the first two approaches, hand drawing with pencils and markers on paper, hand drawing with a mouse and keyboard on a digital screen. This is even faster and more efficient. So this means an estimator could use a tool like takeoff boost to finish measuring a plan, move on to the next one, because the more jobs a company can bid, the more they can win and make even more money overall. Now speaking of money, we haven't really seen our costs represented in the program just yet. Eric showed you his paper full of money earlier. But at this point, I have a whole bunch of quantities that the software has calculated based on our drawings. There are a lot of different approaches estimators use from this point to incorporate the price of materials and the cost of having workers do the labor, but I'm just gonna show you a quick method that's built right into our example program. This is a tab up at the top called worksheet. This allows me to plug in rough cost numbers based on the unit of measure, titled as UOM. So I'm gonna go ahead and pull up, let's say, my walls. I measured this in linear feet. Maybe I happen to know 1 foot of wall is $5. If I plug in that dollar amount as I go through these walls, you can see that this total at the very bottom right increases as I go. If I add a dollar value to all of the objects that I've drawn, the program could then, therefore, extrapolate and do that math for us to get a rough idea of how much money we'd be either spending or making. Now we've touched touched on some of the ways that estimating has evolved over time. It's probably gonna keep changing. More than the how or the what of the presentation today, I want y'all to remember the possibilities that are available in the construction industry. To talk more about where you can go from here, I'll go ahead and pass things back to Chrissy to close this out. Let me go ahead and stop my screen share. There we go. My name is Christie Osborne. I report on construction projects from conception to completion at ConstructConnect. Now that you've heard a lot of great things about estimating, including the stages of construction and several career opportunities, the need for more workers in the construction field, what an estimator does, and how they fit into the construction field, Are you interested in learning more about how you can become the next estimator? You can access our NextGen by Academy web page at the link included and utilize the construction careers page. Both of those resources are linked in the docs tab on the right side of your screen. The American Society of Professional Estimators and the Associated General Contractors or AGC are organization organizations that provide additional training and resources. Educators, you can access the post event survey in the ticker at the bottom of your screen and contact us directly for additional information and support at
[email protected]. Students, we will provide you with a QR code later in the presentation for feedback survey on today's presentation, and we'll provide a link in the chat if that is more convenient. The world is waiting for what you'll create. 1, I'm gonna unmute myself before I talk. Right? I go ahead and just monitor a couple of our q and a questions. So we're gonna have our team coming out onto the stage with us so you'll see everyone that you've heard from today, and we're gonna be throwing out a couple questions towards our team that you guys have sent in today. I've got, you know, a good variety. I'll give you guys I'll, toss the question to you and then some of them I will open up for everyone to give some advice on those. So we had a couple really good ones come in. One of the big ones that I definitely wanna highlight for us, I think, Raquel and Brian, you guys would probably be good to jump in on this one. But will AI be replacing the role of an estimator? Oh, that is a really good question. Honestly, at this time, I don't think so because even if AI is going to speed up things and make the role of an estimator more refined, I don't think the role of estimator can really vanish in the same way that, I think a lot of people fear. In many cases, for example, the tool that I showed y'all, the takeoff boost, that is intended to be a tool in an estimator's toolbox, not necessarily just say, hey, it's a one click button, You don't have to think about it. Brad, what are your thoughts? I'd say AI in general, not even just estimating, but in the world as a whole is a great supplemental tool. It's there might be a few jobs it replaces, but overall, it's going to allow you to scale your efficiency more than it's going to replace what you do. It's gonna allow you to work faster and do more, but the human element at this point is still very much mandatory. And I'll say, just kinda jump in there too. And I know, Brian, you use AI quite a bit in in your role, and and I was saying, like, it's not replacing you, but you're using it to be more efficient and and be better at your job. And and that's When I create graphics, things used to take me, like, hours to do simple things, and now I can do it in about 30 seconds. You know, things like that where it allows me to scale and create things real quick, it's it's beautiful for. But I still have to be there to know where to place it and know, like, what I wanted my end product to be. And and if I may, you know, it's it is the human element and something that we really didn't nail too much in this conversation. When you're an estimator, a lot of the times you have to have relationships with other people, other companies, right? Because maybe your piece of work isn't the full scope of the work. But you're gonna need those other individuals, whether it's a supplier, giving you materials, whether you're the general contractor that's kind of the babysitter of the job, and you're working with all all the subcontractors to make sure the bathroom gets built the right way and all of those things, you have to pick up the phone, and you have to have relationships with those people to get you the numbers that you need to try to win that job. Very difficult for for a robot even with all the the duping that you guys see these days. Right? The fake stuff. It's gonna be very difficult to replace that. So, certainly more of a an enhancement and a tool than a than a person. Absolutely awesome. This next question, I'm gonna toss to Eric because, Eric, you were an estimator. So we've got a question coming in, like, how long did it take to become an estimator? Like, what did that look like for you? To be honest, it's not okay. I was in one career doing project management for product, development, and then, ended up being an estimator at a, of of a friend that I got a job with, and I didn't know anything about construction. Nothing. And then so, yeah, you really don't have to necessarily have experience. A lot of it is is is com computer skills because there's a lot of, subcontractors out there that they're, they know the construction industry. They're just not very good with computers. So, you know, they need someone as good with computers. That's me. And a lot of the stuff that I did, in in reality did help me, learn how to read the plans and things like that. But I mean but, a lot of times, you know, I I I guess I'm just got kinda lucky because I knew someone, but, you know, that's that's half the battle anyways. But, you know, I don't think it would it would relationships. Yeah. Relationships. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's really any job you you know, it's better to know someone than, you know, just applying at random. But, but, yeah, I mean, I don't I think that's the main thing is, you know, if you're good at computers and things like that, there's a lot of people out lot of subcontractors, a lot of general contractors that need, you know, people that are savvy with that type of stuff. You know, they'll basically take their brain and start giving it to you who knows the tech you know, knows technology better and can pick things up with the computer faster. And good at computers doesn't mean, like, you code on the weekends. Like, just you know your mouth you you know a mouse and you can left click and right click and know the difference, gives you a big jump start. You know where the escape key is. Yeah. That's Yeah. Okay. Our next question, I'm gonna kinda open up a little bit because, it has to do with the software. And we've got, you know, at least 4 of us here that do know kind of the software that Raquel was showing today. So I'll go ahead and start off with Jake. But how long did it take you guys to learn to use that software? Yeah. That's a great question. And, like, kind of like Eric said, it just kind of depends on, you know, different people and everyone's a little different. But, you know, learning learning how well you know how to use a computer is gonna be the the biggest part. Like, if you're if you're able to pick up on utilizing different programs, it'll make it easier. For me, I was training other estimators within, like, 3 weeks of starting at the company. So, you know, I guess essentially within 3 weeks, I had learned enough of the software to to train other people how to utilize it. Now I had a little bit of a background in construction. You know, like I said, I grew up working in construction. I took some classes in high school. I knew how to read the general concept of blueprints. I mean, I I didn't do commercial construction. It was mostly residential, but very similar, transition. And then having a teaching background helped in that as well. But, like I said, being able to understand how to utilize a computer and and use it, like Raquel said, you're not actually coding, but you are using the the devices the way that they're supposed to be used will will make that process a lot a lot easier for you. Yeah. I'd add sorry for Brian. Yeah. I'd just add that, you know, learning the points and clicks of the software is pretty straightforward and pretty easy. But software is always just a tool. It's not the job. So you kinda have to, like, balance that with, like, learning, you know, whatever trade you go into. If you're gonna be a drywall estimator, you have to just know a little bit of the basics of how a wall is built before you can understand what you're doing on the computer screen too. So, like, the software is probably the easier part than the trade, but that's where, again, you know, whatever contractor hires you will impart that knowledge on you as as Eric said, and then then you go and start putting it in the computer. Yeah. Coming from a very different background than Jake, like, I started as a a corporate trainer. I didn't do construction or anything like that. I was training people on the software in about 4 weeks, but, I mean, I also had the luxury of that was my job, learning how to do that. And I will say that that, like Brian was saying, like, the software is just one part. I spent a lot of time on YouTube, a lot of time asking, hey. Show me how a wall is built. What does it look like when when a painter goes to work? Because I needed to know that in order to be able to communicate with our clients. So, once again, YouTube, YouTube's gonna be your friend. Okay. And then I've got 2 more questions. Both of these questions are gonna just be open up to the whole team. I'll go ahead and probably start us off with someone, and then we'll go from there. You guys are welcome to, jump in on this. So the first question is how can they use the knowledge that they are learning today with us to help them gain employment? So what would you guys kind of make that next step be for them? We'll go ahead and, Alana, if you have anything to jump in on with this. And I'm throwing that right at you real quick, so you might need a second to think. Okay. Going into a conversation, but sometimes real life experience, right, is the key. And if I were you, look at internships. And it could be as simple as my neighbor's in construction, or my neighbor does these things. And asking the questions, going on job sites, coming to an office, seeing people that do those jobs every single day. I know that we focused on estimating here, but here's the cool part, especially about construction. There are a ton of different positions, an office manager, a bookkeeper, a project manager. And these are just all within the office. If you go into the field and actually get into skilled tradeship, labor, like Jake had mentioned in many of us, there's specific trade schools that'll take you under that umbrella. But there's a lot of companies that without any experience or any education will take you and train you just the same. So sometimes it's about who you know, and it's about being interested enough to look at other opportunities that might be a little outside of the box. So that that would be the best advice I'd have. Yeah. I'll I'll add on to that. And I think, the like I said, exploring what what is out there because, you know, we want a lot of the estimators that we talked to said they didn't even know that it was a career option. And so, obviously, that's what we're trying to to get those different opportunities out there, but there there's others that we didn't even talk about today. And like Alana said, you'd you know, if you know someone in in the industry, you can start there. But also if you don't, finding ways to learn about what career opportunities are out there. Now, you know, kinda throw it back to what Raquel said, YouTube. You can find about anything on YouTube and and just learn about, like, what do these people actually do? That's a quick and easy way to to find information about the different careers. Now obviously we mentioned AGC, ASPE, those are 2 training opportunities where, you know, they they actually have student, councils or student organizations. So you can join one of those organizations in your area and try to find, you know, other students and and other classes that are going on where you can join that. Hopefully, your school has a a trades, you know, classes that that you could, you know, take those to learn. Is this something that I want to do? Does this interest me? And and get more information, about those different careers to to decide. Do I actually wanna go to college for this or, you know, do I wanna go to a trade school or do I wanna go into this field? But, just keep exploring the all the different opportunities that are out there. You can also try googling, student construction and your state name because there are often very state specific in the, foundations or organizations that want to facilitate the pipeline of let's get youth in construction. 2 industries that I know that are struggling or not struggling, but very, very desirous of new new people in the field are plumbing and electricians. So if you're, if you're interested in hands on in the field, because that just sounds like fun to you, See if somebody that does plumbing or electrician work in the area either has a school or has openings or a lot of them offer on the job training. So, what, like Alana was saying, we focus on estimating today doesn't have to be the only thing that you go for. And I'll throw out one more curve ball just especially because of my background. If you're not good at math, that's me, but you're good with people, sales is also a big thing. Look at around your room. Right? The exercise that Jake did, how many desks are in your school? Somebody got paid per every desk that they sold to that school. And sometimes that can be a great lucrative opportunity. So keep your options open. Saying that's our our team wouldn't be here if we if we didn't have a sales team selling our products. So that's that's So true. You said obviously a big part of it. Yeah. And I I would just say this probably not really on topic, but kind of on topic, but, you know, gain gain more knowledge in it. You know? I I I grew up when I was a kid, there was TV, you know, just channel surfing with a remote control. You know? Now it's the TikTok and, you know, Facebook just sitting there scrolling mindlessly. Well, you know, instead of holding it this way, turn it landscape, pull up YouTube, and start looking at some different trades and estimating 101 or, you know, dry you know, like, kinda I think what what Carl was saying, you know, change it from this and scrolling to this, you know, and look up YouTube. There's so much so much information out there. I mean, we talked about plumbing. I have never in my life, I recently replaced a a toilet, and holy moly, you know, that's a plumbing thing. And I did it in YouTube videos. So yeah. Yep. And then my my my my boss always told me too when I first started. He's like, he's like, look, Eric. It's not rocket science. If I can do it, you're smarter than me. You can do it. The and that those were his words, like, day 1. And, yeah, I picked it up picked it up quick. And even on TikTok, it's really popular now, so you guys can definitely check that out. I just watched I was just at a conference, you know, last week, and I just watched a really big TikTok construction influencer do some demos. So you can find them on TikTok too, and they're pretty cool. So, we are, you know, getting close to the end of the time. Our last question actually kinda ties with this one. It is just, you know, do you guys have any further advice for these guys as high school students looking to go into this into the future? So I know that ties a lot with what you were answering now, but just kind of bringing that back to right now where they're at and what they can do right now. Right? I mean, I would say just kinda like we said, keep keep your mind open and and look at the the different possibilities because when I was in high school, people looked down on construction and and said, oh, you know, you don't wanna be working construction, and I think that's not the the case. I mean, there's a lot of great careers within the construction industry, and like we showed, the the wages are are higher than a lot of others. And, you know, some people go to college and have a degree and then don't use it. And, you know, you got then you gotta find a find another job. So, and then you're still paying off from all those student loans. So, I think just kinda explore the any options that are out there and don't, kinda say, oh, this is my only path and I'm I'm sticking to it. You know, keep kinda keep your mind open to to the different opportunities and possibilities out there. Yeah. One of our other mentors on the team had mentioned that, like, if there's probably construction in your neighborhood or near where you go to school or you're driving by it as you commute, look to see what company names are there. They'll usually identify 1 or 2 of the companies that are listed as as working on those. Google them. See if they have openings or internships. At least gives you somewhere to start. Yeah. I would yeah. I would definitely just to wrap up, I would definitely reach, you know, you got aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, whatever, reach out to them. I'm sure they know someone in in the construction industry. And a lot of times they just want people who are available. They don't necessarily need to have experience, you know, so keep it in mind. More bodies. Uh-huh. Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for your time today. We have had a blast being with you. We hope that you have enjoyed being with us. Bye, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye, guys. Take care.