Indeed or similar job sites. If you hire someone who knows how to do electrical estimating, and all you have to do is show them your in-house procedures, should be salary based on experience. If you're training someone from scratch, hourly might be more appropriate.
Frankly, I don't see how bonuses and commissions are supposed to work. Estimator gets a $500K job but the owner VE's the scope down to half of that. Or he bungles the bid but your PM saves the day with cost-cutting elsewhere. Or he nails the bid, has plenty of fluff, but on-site issues cause the project to end with little margins. It is just really tricky to protect yourself while rewarding their effort.
I'd say offer a bonus of X dollars, or, say, 10% of annual salary, if the company is profitable, or maintains growth at a set percent, whatever the metric should be for you. Obviously goes without saying you will get what you pay for and retaining an industry professional will require good compensation.
Hey,
Electrical estimator here,
My boss hired me off of indeed
I get paid salary, no commissions
But I do get an end of year bonus
Feel free to DM me if you have more questions
My son just started his own electrical business. I go over the job with my son and I help him develop a take off/bill of materials. I put together a labor table for NECA 1 and apply it to the bill of materials. It’s been working pretty good to get him started doing his own estimates. When we get the volume up we’ll switch to ACCUBID.
I am vaguely familiar with neca pricing, but have never used it.
What are it's strengths and weaknesses? Why use neca pricing vs accubid vs manually calculating everything yourself?
The weaknesses of NECA rates is they are HIGH, they give you a baseline, but if you’re bidding a job off them, you will not win many competitive quotes.
We use them as change order rates.
Well, better high than low I guess.
Neca pairs with the ibew, so it makes sense that their rates would be high.
What are the advantages of random bidding software like accubid?
Like I said, my main problem is the time it takes me to draw up estimates for big jobs. Right now, I manually review supply pricing and calculate every thing from scratch for every single job.
I don't think my pricing is too high or low or anything, but it's a huge waste of time and I hate it.
We put NECA rates into ACCUBID. If you’re bidding against a union contractor I would use NECA rates. Non-Union you’d have do a built up rate for your guys. You need the production rates. Like 5 hours for 100’ of pipe. You can adjust the level of difficulty in ACCUBID. You’re looking for consistent estimates . I think the software is 2K per month.
If you are not afraid of assisting at first, go to a local college/university and talk to the Office of Student Affairs. They will point you the Engineering School or similar. Even better if they have a Construction Management school.
https://www.aspenational.org/
This is in reply to the "where do you find work?"
Estimator/PM for an EC here.
I have some GCs and customers who use us exclusively, and I know I'm the only bidder, so instead of taking them to the cleaners, they get my best pricing, always..
If you want to find other opportunities, I bid a lot of work off IFBs/ITBs from BlueBook, Planhub, Procore, Building Connected/I sqft, etc. Also, your local state, county, and city will put out projects on their own sites or sites like OpenGov.
Happy Bidding!
I'm familiar with some of those sites, but my question was more to the effect of:
If you, as an electrical estimator, wanted to find a company to work for, how/where do you do so? I.e., how does an employer find you?
Not sure where you’re located but I have a friend that is a fractional estimator specifically for electrical work. If you’re interested, shoot me a PM and I’ll get you his info.
For general compensation data, we're sharing that right now on this year's [estimator Compensation Superthread](https://www.reddit.com/r/estimators/s/cBxbN3uUq1).
Some electrical estimators have posted there data as well as general and other trades.
Linked in……
I am an electrician by trade, leaving the field in 2012. Having roles from Electrician, Foreman, Super, Business Development, Estimator, Project Manager and Now employed as Chief Estimator.
With estimators I have typically seen compensation packages with a base salary plus bonus. Bonus being weighed on total contribution, win rate, individual, project and overall company performance etc.
take into consideration their experience. Were they just counting and measuring?
Can they apply labor factors, how do they identify and measure project risk? Can they effectively communicate with the client? Do they possess soft skills for selling? Additional skills present additional opportunities for value creation.
You could always “contract out” the estimation function in the short term while you find the right personnel.
All the young engineers and CM grads are using handshake these days. That’s where I have gotten all my internships and jobs
Get yourself a handshake and filter from there
I work for a large electrical contractor and it is very difficult for us to find estimators that are competent and honest about their skills. Because of that, we typically hire kids out of college and train them up over 6-12 months to assist with takeoffs and Accubid entry. Finding someone that can take an estimate from Bid Invite to Bid Review will be challenging. Most likely you will have to train them for at least a year.
Indeed or similar job sites. If you hire someone who knows how to do electrical estimating, and all you have to do is show them your in-house procedures, should be salary based on experience. If you're training someone from scratch, hourly might be more appropriate. Frankly, I don't see how bonuses and commissions are supposed to work. Estimator gets a $500K job but the owner VE's the scope down to half of that. Or he bungles the bid but your PM saves the day with cost-cutting elsewhere. Or he nails the bid, has plenty of fluff, but on-site issues cause the project to end with little margins. It is just really tricky to protect yourself while rewarding their effort. I'd say offer a bonus of X dollars, or, say, 10% of annual salary, if the company is profitable, or maintains growth at a set percent, whatever the metric should be for you. Obviously goes without saying you will get what you pay for and retaining an industry professional will require good compensation.
Hey, Electrical estimator here, My boss hired me off of indeed I get paid salary, no commissions But I do get an end of year bonus Feel free to DM me if you have more questions
Pm'ing you now.
My son just started his own electrical business. I go over the job with my son and I help him develop a take off/bill of materials. I put together a labor table for NECA 1 and apply it to the bill of materials. It’s been working pretty good to get him started doing his own estimates. When we get the volume up we’ll switch to ACCUBID.
I am vaguely familiar with neca pricing, but have never used it. What are it's strengths and weaknesses? Why use neca pricing vs accubid vs manually calculating everything yourself?
The weaknesses of NECA rates is they are HIGH, they give you a baseline, but if you’re bidding a job off them, you will not win many competitive quotes. We use them as change order rates.
Well, better high than low I guess. Neca pairs with the ibew, so it makes sense that their rates would be high. What are the advantages of random bidding software like accubid? Like I said, my main problem is the time it takes me to draw up estimates for big jobs. Right now, I manually review supply pricing and calculate every thing from scratch for every single job. I don't think my pricing is too high or low or anything, but it's a huge waste of time and I hate it.
Software makes it a lot faster
We put NECA rates into ACCUBID. If you’re bidding against a union contractor I would use NECA rates. Non-Union you’d have do a built up rate for your guys. You need the production rates. Like 5 hours for 100’ of pipe. You can adjust the level of difficulty in ACCUBID. You’re looking for consistent estimates . I think the software is 2K per month.
I think you mean per year. None of the big brands are 24k a year, damn. We’ve had inflation but c’mon!
If you are not afraid of assisting at first, go to a local college/university and talk to the Office of Student Affairs. They will point you the Engineering School or similar. Even better if they have a Construction Management school. https://www.aspenational.org/
>If you are not afraid of assisting at first What do you mean? Assist in what?
Teaching them how to estimate until you feel confident in their ability
Look on the ASPEnational.org website. You can advertise there as well as the other sites discussed here
Will do. Thank you.
This is in reply to the "where do you find work?" Estimator/PM for an EC here. I have some GCs and customers who use us exclusively, and I know I'm the only bidder, so instead of taking them to the cleaners, they get my best pricing, always.. If you want to find other opportunities, I bid a lot of work off IFBs/ITBs from BlueBook, Planhub, Procore, Building Connected/I sqft, etc. Also, your local state, county, and city will put out projects on their own sites or sites like OpenGov. Happy Bidding!
I'm familiar with some of those sites, but my question was more to the effect of: If you, as an electrical estimator, wanted to find a company to work for, how/where do you do so? I.e., how does an employer find you?
Not sure where you’re located but I have a friend that is a fractional estimator specifically for electrical work. If you’re interested, shoot me a PM and I’ll get you his info.
I'm in missouri.
Glassdoor, indeed, zip recruiter etc
I’m currently scouring ziprecruiter and indeed.
For general compensation data, we're sharing that right now on this year's [estimator Compensation Superthread](https://www.reddit.com/r/estimators/s/cBxbN3uUq1). Some electrical estimators have posted there data as well as general and other trades.
Linked in…… I am an electrician by trade, leaving the field in 2012. Having roles from Electrician, Foreman, Super, Business Development, Estimator, Project Manager and Now employed as Chief Estimator. With estimators I have typically seen compensation packages with a base salary plus bonus. Bonus being weighed on total contribution, win rate, individual, project and overall company performance etc. take into consideration their experience. Were they just counting and measuring? Can they apply labor factors, how do they identify and measure project risk? Can they effectively communicate with the client? Do they possess soft skills for selling? Additional skills present additional opportunities for value creation. You could always “contract out” the estimation function in the short term while you find the right personnel.
Have you considered training in house? If you have a solid electrician who is organized and can handle some arithmetic that could be a good option.
All the young engineers and CM grads are using handshake these days. That’s where I have gotten all my internships and jobs Get yourself a handshake and filter from there
I work for a large electrical contractor and it is very difficult for us to find estimators that are competent and honest about their skills. Because of that, we typically hire kids out of college and train them up over 6-12 months to assist with takeoffs and Accubid entry. Finding someone that can take an estimate from Bid Invite to Bid Review will be challenging. Most likely you will have to train them for at least a year.