There is a particular frustration that CHROs, VPs of Human Resources, and senior facilities leaders at universities and health systems know well.
The role is approved. The compensation is reasonable. The opportunity is genuinely compelling — a senior capital program, a new campus, a chance to lead a meaningful facilities organization. The posting goes live. The applications come in.
And almost none of them are right.
Matt Lesher, a search consultant at Real8 Group, works exclusively in the institutional facilities, capital project management, and construction leadership space. The pattern he describes above is one he encounters in nearly every search he manages for universities, healthcare systems, cultural institutions, and third-party owners’ representatives.
Here is why it happens — and what organizations should do differently.
The Candidate Pool Problem Is Structural, Not Incidental
When a university or health system posts a Director of Facilities Operations or Director of Construction role publicly, the applicant pool is dominated by candidates who match the keywords but not the context.
“The most common mismatch we see,” Lesher explains, “is residential and light commercial construction supervisors applying for roles that require institutional experience — research buildings, operating hospitals, 24/7 facilities, complex MEP systems. They meet the surface requirements but they have never operated in an environment where a construction decision affects active patient care or ongoing academic research.”
The second most common mismatch is commercial property managers and corporate real estate professionals applying for capital project delivery roles. Strong operators with limited capital program experience are genuinely qualified for some facilities roles — but not for a Director of Construction overseeing a $300M renovation program.
The structural problem is that the candidates who are right for these roles are not browsing job boards. They are running capital programs at peer institutions, managing facilities portfolios, or overseeing projects for major construction management firms. They are reachable — but not through a posting.
Why Internal HR Teams Face an Inherent Gap
Internal HR and talent acquisition professionals at universities and health systems are skilled generalists. They manage hiring across dozens of departments — clinical, administrative, academic, operational — and they are good at it.
Evaluating a Director of Construction candidate for an academic medical center requires a different kind of knowledge. Can you tell the difference between a candidate whose background is in owner-side capital delivery and one who has only ever worked on the GC side? Does that distinction matter for this role? What does a legitimate capital program delivery track record look like versus an inflated resume?
“This is not a knock on internal HR teams — it’s just a reality of specialization,” Lesher notes. “The same way a general practitioner refers a patient to a cardiologist for a specific condition, HR leaders benefit from a search partner who has spent their career in this specific space.”
Real8 Group’s consultants bring direct industry context to the evaluation process — understanding what differentiates a genuinely qualified candidate for a complex institutional role from one who looks right on paper.
The Retirement Wave Is Real and It Is Accelerating
One of the most significant macro forces shaping the talent landscape in institutional facilities and construction right now is the retirement wave among long-tenured leaders.
“We are seeing it across the board,” Lesher says. “VPs and Directors of Facilities who have been at their institutions for 15 or 20 years are retiring. Superintendents with deep experience in institutional and healthcare construction are aging out of the field. The people who know how these buildings actually work — the systems, the vendors, the institutional history — are leaving, and the pipeline to replace them at that depth of experience is thin.”
This is particularly acute on the construction side, where superintendents and senior field leaders represent a generation of institutional knowledge that cannot be replicated quickly. A Superintendent who has built five hospital expansions over 25 years carries expertise that takes a decade of focused work to develop.
The implication for CHROs and facilities leadership at universities and health systems: succession planning needs to start earlier than it historically has. Waiting until a retirement is announced to begin thinking about the next leader is, in most cases, too late.
The Owners’ Rep Complication
One development that has changed the talent landscape in institutional facilities hiring over the past decade is the significant growth of third-party project management firms — organizations like JLL, STV, Colliers, Macro, and Group PMX.
Many universities, healthcare systems, and cultural institutions now outsource construction program oversight to these firms rather than maintaining large internal capital project teams. This approach offers flexibility — institutions can scale project management capacity during a major capital program without permanently growing internal headcount.
But it has also created a more complex talent market. Third-party owners’ rep firms compete directly with institutions for the same candidates. They can often offer more project variety, faster career progression, and in some cases more competitive compensation.
“When an institution is trying to fill a Senior Project Manager or Director of Construction role, they are competing against the JLLs and STVs of the world, not just other universities and health systems,” Lesher observes. “That changes the competitive dynamic for compensation and for how the opportunity needs to be positioned.”
Real8 Group works with both institutions and owners’ rep firms. Understanding how both sides of this market operate — and what candidates at different career stages find compelling about each — is central to how searches are conducted.
What Better Searches Look Like
Based on the searches Real8 Group conducts for universities, health systems, and cultural institutions, Lesher points to several practices that consistently produce better outcomes.
Start the process before the vacancy is urgent. The best searches begin with enough lead time to approach passive candidates thoughtfully, allow for a proper qualification process, and give finalists time to consider a move carefully. Compressed timelines produce compressed candidate pools.
Define the role by what it actually requires, not by what the last person did. When a long-tenured leader retires, organizations often write a job description that mirrors the departing person’s strengths. A better approach is to define what the program requires over the next five to ten years — and build the profile from there.
Compensate competitively for this specific market. Healthcare facilities and construction leadership commands a meaningful premium relative to other institutional sectors. If your compensation benchmarking is based on what similar titles pay in a different sector or a different geographic market, you will lose candidates before the conversation gets serious.
Evaluate for institutional navigation, not just technical competency. The most technically qualified candidate is not always the right hire for an institution with complex governance, strong academic or clinical culture, and a stakeholder environment that requires significant relationship management. Search for both dimensions.
Real8 Group’s Role in These Searches
Matt Lesher and the Real8 Group team conduct retained and engaged searches for VP of Facilities, Director of Construction, Director of Facilities Operations, Senior Project Manager, and related roles at universities, health systems, academic medical centers, cultural institutions, and third-party owners’ rep firms.
The firm does not require large minimum retainer fees, which means institutional owners can engage Real8 on Director-level and management-level searches — not just the C-Suite placements that the major generalist firms prioritize.
If you are planning a facilities or construction leadership hire in the next 6–12 months, starting a conversation now positions you to move quickly when the search opens.
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Matt Lesher is a search consultant at Real8 Group, specializing in facilities operations, capital project management, and construction leadership search for institutional owners, construction management firms, and owners’ representatives across the United States.
