Pros
Swift is a lean, tight-knit company—less than 10 office staff—so you get to know everyone quite well. This company is a good stepping stone for getting into the bigger world of construction. If you force yourself to survive the trail by fire, you can get some good experience to bankroll into a better estimating job down the road at a higher profile company. Management is understanding about family events for the most part. Contracted 8-4 shift with paid 1 hour lunch break. Not much corporate “red tape.” Medical benefits are offered after a few months, but low quality.
Cons
Overworked staff: Swift takes on far too much bid work for such a small team. Expect to work long hours and get no commendation; it’s expected, unappreciated, and goes completely uncompensated. There are no bonus programs in place for those who go above & beyond. Unreliable management: The VP & owner are consistently contradicting each other, giving mixed instructions to staff, causing confusion. This often ends in heated outbursts of frustration towards both office & field staff due to staff only being able to follow 1 set of instructions per task. Expect to be called out on any “mistakes” like this in front of all office staff; it’s never done professionally or privately like it should be. Hearing and receiving threats of being fired were common and completely unnecessary, building an environment where all workers are watching their backs with no peace of mind, waiting to be let go for anything and everything. It feels like you have no job security, walking into the office every morning with a knot in your stomach, brimming with stress. Little guidance: For the most part, the estimating team is expected to find solutions to all problems themselves, as management refuses to get involved with the decision-making process of choosing which bids to pursue, which grey area scope to capture, which GC’s to focus relationships with, the BAFO process, and solving missed scope issues with the field team, Only when a solution is found by the estimating team does management get involved, just to say they wouldn’t have done it that way and they should have known to do it his way. New hire process: Most staff who are hired have no experience and are expected to be trained by longstanding employees while still keeping their workload consistent. This could be viewed as a pro some cases, for myself included, as i had no experience when hired and now have moved on to a large construction company.