How to Build a Career in Survey That Actually Matters: The Final Principles From Elevating Construction Surveyors

Brandon Monteiro and Jason Schroeder close out the recorded drafting of Elevating Construction Surveyors with a final session that moves from technical skill into professional identity: how to train people effectively, how to become a mentor who develops the whole person, how to find your sweet spot and chase it down, and how to build a culture that outlasts any single project.

Train Others With Effectiveness, Not Just Effort

There is a difference between training and training effectively. Brandon’s story from early in his career makes this clear. He was running a level loop on his first surveying job, and the party chief needed him to rock the rod. The party chief had never taught him the hand signals. Unable to communicate, the party chief threw his radio into some nearby bushes.

That is the furthest possible thing from effective training. The person being trained cannot learn by osmosis. They need specific, well communicated information in a format that matches how they actually learn. Some people need a sketch. Some need a five minute video. Some need to put their hands on the instrument. Some respond to written descriptions. The signal is in how they communicate with you: if someone starts drawing a picture when they are confused, that is your cue to draw pictures. If they want to go straight to the equipment, they are telling you how they learn.

Training is also not a one time event. Time and effort spent training daily compounds over time, building professionals who visualize, solve, and perform tasks faster than they did the day before. Every senior person on a survey crew has knowledge that the person beside them does not yet have. Even three months of additional experience contains things worth sharing. Share them.

Become a Mentor Who Develops the Whole Person

A mentor is invested in the long term development of another person, not just their technical output. Brandon describes giving feedback to someone on how they wrote emails: the emails were factually accurate but read as defensive and disconnected. That is a mentoring conversation that goes beyond technical skill into professional communication, emotional awareness, and career health.

The most lasting mentorship often has nothing to do with survey math or equipment operation. It has to do with how someone handles a difficult situation, how they manage their emotional response to pressure, how they show up when things go wrong. Those soft skills shape a career more than any technical certification.

Being vulnerable about your own mistakes creates a person to person bond that technical feedback alone never achieves. When the person being mentored sees that the mentor has also struggled and learned, the relationship deepens and the feedback lands differently.

Weigh In on Costs and Participate in Bidding

Understanding cost is a differentiator at every level of a survey career. Brandon describes the moment of surprise that comes when someone first begins to engage with project bids: things that seemed simple turn out to carry significant costs once all the components are assembled.

The practical path is straightforward. Find a blank bidding or proposal spreadsheet. Bid the task or project you are working on right now. Compare your estimate to the real numbers. When there is a large gap, ask why. What are you not seeing? What assumptions are built into the real bid that you did not think of?

The sooner you start exercising your thinking in this area, the faster you develop the ability to create accurate, competitive estimates. That ability also makes you more cost conscious in the field, where small decisions about method, time, and resources translate directly into margin.

Find Your Sweet Spot and Chase It Down

Do what you are genuinely good at. Make a name for yourself doing it. Brandon describes how he found his: he joined one of Jason’s boot camps, added value wherever he could, and at the end of the week told Jason directly that he wanted to keep doing this work. Not passively. Actively. That directness led to a shift in his professional focus from purely technical survey work to training, coaching, and consulting alongside Elevate Construction.

The sweet spot is not a place to rest. It is the place where your most valuable skills and your deepest professional satisfaction overlap. Once you find it, pursue it deliberately. Talk to your supervisor about how to do more of it. Ask the department manager how your strongest skill can create the most value for the company. Build your reputation in that area and let it pull you forward.

Interpreting and Writing Scopes With Precision

The devil is in the details of a scope of work. Brandon illustrates this with a sanitary sewer layout example. A vague scope says: layout all structures and bends at maximum 30 foot intervals. That same scope, written with precision, specifies: two mobilizations maximum, two offset stakes at each structure and bend, one offset stake at 30 foot intervals maximum, additional mobilizations charged at the two person crew hourly rate. The second version protects the surveyor, sets clear expectations for the GC, and removes ambiguity about what happens when the project team changes the plan.

Writing a scope vaguely is not kindness. It is setting up a conflict for later. Clear is kind, unclear is unkind. Taking the time to specify mobilizations, stake counts, offset requirements, and overage rates means that everyone on the project team knows exactly what was agreed before anything happens that generates a cost dispute.

Build a Cohesive Department Without Silos

In a cohesive team, no one separates themselves from the group. When silos appear, the symptoms are predictable: miscommunication, duplicated effort, work heading in opposite directions, competition where collaboration should exist, and mixed signals going out to clients and trade partners.

Silos form in two ways. Either someone distances themselves from the group when they feel opposition to their ideas, or the group pushes someone out when they feel that person is a threat. In both cases, the team can no longer prosper as a whole.

Brandon sees this play out in boot camp simulations. When the scenario gets difficult, introverts go into their heads, extroverts take over the conversation, and others shut down. The result is a collection of individual movements in disconnected directions rather than a team moving toward a solution. The antidote is transparent, continuous communication: everyone knowing what the message is, who is doing what, and what the direction is.

Create a Culture by Being the Culture

Determine your values. Declare them. Live by them in every interaction. Brandon describes his own culture as quality and helping people grow. He builds his career around those values because they are genuinely his values, not because someone told him they were organizational priorities.

The key phrase from this section: be the environment you want to see. When you walk into a trailer where the culture is disengaged and flat, you do not absorb that environment. You bring yours. You start asking questions, showing genuine interest, creating energy. Not because you will change every person in the room. Some people will not come along. But you will not be changed by them either. The culture is in you, and you carry it wherever you go.

A culture of accountability is unstoppable. When people know they will be held responsible for the quality of their product, they bring their full attention. When they know everyone else is committed to their best, they rise to meet that standard.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. The principles in Elevating Construction Surveyors apply to every professional on a construction project, not just those holding a rod or operating total stations.

How a GC Can Work Effectively With Surveyors

The general contractor and superintendent should expect and require constant communication from the survey team: an up to date control plan, look ahead planning input, and check in and check out conversations at the beginning and end of every visit. When that communication is missing, the project team makes decisions without the input of the people who know where the control is, what the obstacles are, and what is coming next.

GCs should also use surveyors where they create the most value. If the survey team is being pulled into carpentry tasks, trade partner layout QC, or serving as a tape and square for field engineers who should own those checks themselves, the surveyor is not being used at the precision level where they justify their cost. Carpenters, field engineers, and trade partners should own their own QC. The surveyor should be focused on the precision work that cannot be done any other way.

Brandon’s closing thought is worth carrying: your career will be so much better if you care about it. That caring is what flavors everything you do and everything you become.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you identify what someone’s learning style is when training them?

Watch how they respond when they are confused. If they reach for a pen and start drawing, they need visuals. If they start asking questions about the sequence, they are processing verbally. If they are restless and want to get to the instrument, they learn by doing. The clues are there. You just have to look for them.

What should a GC do when a surveyor shows up, does their work, and leaves without communicating?

Address it directly and early. Set the expectation at the start of the project: the survey team checks in at the start of each visit and checks out with a summary of what was done and what comes next. If that is not happening, it is a professional standard issue that can be raised with the survey company’s project manager.

What is the most important thing a department manager can do to prevent silos?

Communicate the direction, the standards, and the expectations with enough clarity and repetition that every team member can describe them independently. Silos form fastest when people are unclear about the direction and fill that uncertainty with their own interpretation.

Why does caring about your work matter beyond the obvious professional reasons?

Because caring is the root of everything that separates adequate from excellent. A person who cares will catch an error the person who is checking a box will miss. A person who cares will make the extra call that prevents a callback. Caring is not a personality trait. It is a professional choice.

How do you find your sweet spot if you are still early in your career?

Try things. Say yes to unfamiliar tasks, observe what comes naturally versus what requires exhausting effort, and pay attention to what kind of work leaves you energized rather than drained. Ask the people who have observed your work what they see as your strongest contribution. That outside perspective is often more accurate than your own assessment alone.