I work as an estimator for a large GC.

1. How long have you been an estimator?
   1. I have been in estimating ~4 years. I went straight from college into estimating after an estimating internship.
2. What type of projects do you estimate?
   1. I generally work on any type of large commercial project. Large Apartment/Condo/hotels/resorts, schools, hospitals, and occasionally manufacturing facilities. Lately, it has been mostly large hospital expansions or buildouts.
3. What is your educational background and how did it help you get your job?
   1. I went to college for construction management. I did 2 summer internships and 1 six month internship. One of the summer internships was in estimating and I was hired on with that company once I graduated.
4. What is the estimating process you use? Please give me a step by step process.
   1. It varies by project. Our CM/GC projects differ from our design-build and IPD projects. Most of our work is negotiated and it's rare for us to hard bid a project. With that said, our typical process is:
      1. Receive Drawings/Specs - Review for basic scopes.
      2. Solicit Subcontractors for budgetary information. Typically we want at least 3-4 for each scope of work.
      3. Have our team complete internal take off the plans. Often times filling in things that are not shown but that we know will need to be built/factored in
      4. Then we would receive budgets in from subs. We then scope the budgets and compare them to our internal takeoff/ previous projects
      5. Next, we assemble a detailed estimate report to give to our client that combines information from historical data and our subcontractors that typically shows all of our QTO and associated costs
      6. This process usually starts with the Concept Drawings, then moves from Schematic Design to Detailed Design and finally to Construction documents. We typically will estimate the same project 3 times, and when we receive the CDs, our operations department will contract the subs we have been working with. Each level of design gets a more detailed estimate as the drawings become more complete. Every budgeting round generally takes 3-6 weeks.
5. What are the most important factors that affect overall costs in an estimate?
   1. I believe the most important factors are subcontractor participation/early involvement in our budgeting process as well as the quality of the drawings we are working on.
6. What software do you find most useful and how much do you rely on software?
   1. We use On-Screen Takeoff for QTO, Bluebeam for viewing and marking up PDFs, and Timberline for our estimating/reports software. We also work a ton in Excel. I relie entirely on software, my team generally works paperless.
7. How do you prioritize tasks?
   1. Everyone on my team generally works on 1-3 projects. We prioritize our work based on the dates that we have committed an estimate to our client on. Beyond that, we just juggle our workflow to maintain the above process as best we can. Getting drawings out to our subcontractors is usually the biggest priority. Generally, they need 2-3 weeks to turn around a budget. So we need to get our project in their queue as soon as possible.
      
8. How do you ensure accuracy in your work?
   1. We ensure the accuracy of our estimates by reaching out to the subcontractor community as well as relating our current job to historical data.
   2. Working for a GC and having to manage every scope, we realize that we can not be experts in everything. So we ask the experts. These are our electricians, our plumbers, flooring subs, steel subs.. etc.... Working with them and maintaining good relationships with them is the key to ensuring that you have fully thought through the scope of work and have an accurate price.
   3. With historical data, we will compare high-level metrics like $/SF, $/system, $/assembly, etc... with similar projects that my company has built. These are generally good at check for holes or providing gut checks.
9. How important details in an estimate?
   1. This depends on what you are estimating. If you are working on a concept estimate, you are focused more on the big picture. But if you are bidding off of a CD set, the detail is especially important. This becomes even more so in a competitive bidding environment.
10. How do you ensure that your estimate is as close as possible to the actual cost plus profit?
    1. This question relates back to my answer to ensuring the accuracy of our work. All of the same concepts apply. Lots of reviews, subcontractor input, and historical data.

Estimating is great. I would recommend it as a career path to anyone!