Selecting a general contractor is one of the most consequential decisions a developer makes on any project. The GC’s competence, financial stability, subcontractor relationships, and management culture will determine whether the project delivers on time and within budget, or becomes a two-year dispute over change orders, schedule claims, and defective work. An interview process that goes beyond reviewing a proposal and checking references provides the information to make this decision well.
Before the Interview: What to Know About Each Candidate
The GC interview should not be the first information you have about each candidate. Before meeting, review: the GC’s financial statements for the past two to three years (a GC without adequate bonding capacity, working capital, or creditworthiness will struggle to manage subcontractor payments and supply chain relationships on a complex project); their license status in the applicable state; their safety record (OSHA recordable incident rates); and any litigation history from publicly available sources. A GC with multiple active mechanic’s lien disputes against prior owners or active subcontractor payment litigation is a GC whose financial management practices warrant scrutiny.
The proposal the GC has submitted should also be reviewed thoroughly before the interview. Not just the total price, the schedule of values, the assumptions listed, the exclusions and clarifications. The interview is your opportunity to explore the gaps and assumptions in the proposal, not to receive a presentation of it.
Questions About Relevant Experience
What are the three most similar projects you have completed in the past five years? Similar means the same product type (multifamily, mixed-use, commercial), comparable scale, and comparable complexity. A GC who names three dissimilar projects in response to this question is telling you something about the limits of their relevant experience.
What was your role on those projects, and who was the project superintendent? The superintendent is the person who will actually be on your site every day. A GC who is named as project manager but whose superintendent has never run a project of your size or type is presenting principal-level credentials for field-level execution.
Were those projects completed on schedule? If not, what caused the delay and how was it resolved? The answer to “were you on schedule” is almost always “mostly”, what matters is how the candidate describes the delays that occurred, whether they take responsibility or deflect to the owner and design team, and whether the resolution they describe sounds like active problem-solving or passive management.
Questions About Team and Resources
Who will be assigned to this project as superintendent, and what is their experience? Ask for the specific superintendent by name, and ask for their experience on projects similar to yours. Request a meeting with the superintendent as part of the interview process, the superintendent’s communication style, attentiveness, and organizational instincts are more predictive of project outcome than the GC’s principal’s experience.
What is your current backlog, and how does this project fit into your current workload? A GC who is significantly over capacity will distribute their management team across more projects than those projects can sustain. A GC who is near capacity but has capacity planned to come available as your project starts is a more honest answer than “we always have capacity for the right projects.”
Do you have established subcontractor relationships in this market? In markets where subcontractor availability is constrained, Seattle, Austin, Phoenix, a GC with established relationships has preferential access to subcontractor capacity that a GC without those relationships does not. Ask specifically about the trades that are most critical to your project type.
Questions About Financial Management and Subcontractors
How do you handle subcontractor payment? A GC who pays subcontractors promptly, regardless of whether the owner has funded the draw yet, is a GC whose subcontractors want to work for them and who will not have subcontractor abandonment problems mid-project. A GC who pays subcontractors only after the owner funds draws, using owner funds to float their cash flow, is a GC whose subcontractors are aware of and resentful about this practice.
Have you had mechanic’s lien claims filed against your projects in the past three years? Lien claims are a lagging indicator of subcontractor payment problems or owner-GC disputes. A GC with no lien history is operating differently than one with multiple claims in recent years.
How do you price and process change orders? The GC’s answer to this question should demonstrate that their change order process is systematic and well-documented, not that they are eager to generate change orders, and not that they have an adversarial posture toward change order discussions. A GC who explains that they price change orders from subcontractor quotes plus their overhead and profit markup, document the change in writing before work proceeds, and maintain a running change order log is describing a professional process.
Reading the Interview Room
Beyond the specific answers, the interview reveals information about the GC’s culture and management style that the proposal doesn’t capture. A GC whose principals are engaged, ask questions about your project, and demonstrate genuine curiosity about the design and program is different from a GC whose presentation is polished but whose questions are generic. A GC who defers immediately to their project manager and superintendent for field questions is demonstrating appropriate humility; a GC whose principal answers every question personally without involving the project team is a red flag about how decisions will be made on site.
The interview process that surfaces a contractor’s actual decision-making culture, their real subcontractor relationships, and their honest assessment of their own capacity provides more useful selection information than any proposal review or reference check conducted without a direct conversation.
Related: Construction Management Services · How to Evaluate a Construction Bid · Owner’s Representative Services · Construction Management Guide
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