Join/Renew
In an effort to strengthen retention and quality of hire, Kiewit Corporation refined its college hiring strategy to place greater emphasis on career readiness skills.
“While academic performance is important, GPA isn’t the sole measure of a candidate,” says Haleigh Festing-Smith, Kiewit’s senior university recruiting and relations manager.
“We value soft skills and invest in developing people. We’ve also broadened the majors and schools we consider to improve hiring quality and long-term success.”
Rather than relying on standardized assessments, Kiewit prioritizes interviews as the primary way to evaluate candidate fit, with in-person interviews preferred. Face-to-face conversations allow interviewers to uncover practical skills and professional behaviors that may not be visible on a resume. For example, students who worked while in school can more clearly demonstrate time management, teamwork, and initiative during in-person discussions.
To support this shift, Kiewit made a significant investment in rolling out a competency-based interview training program across the organization.
“We launched a revamped competency-based interview training and delivered it in person, when possible,” Festing-Smith says.
“We developed a comprehensive train-the-trainer model that rethought how interviews are conducted. The program blends shadowing, peer mentoring, and timely feedback to build consistency and strengthen interviewer capability across the business.”
The training is highly interactive and includes role-playing exercises that encourage interviewers to reflect on how they ask questions and elicit meaningful responses. Interviewers also participate in role-specific exercises that examine past performance to identify the competencies that drive success in each position.
“We collaborated closely with operational leaders and hiring managers to define the core competencies for each role,” Festing-Smith explains.
“While there is some flexibility to address local needs, many competencies are consistent across positions. From there, we developed behavioral interview guides, with interviewers selecting several questions from each competency area. We also train interviewers to draw out complete responses using the STAR method.”
Festing-Smith notes that many of Kiewit’s field and design roles require an engineering or construction degree. Beyond those technical qualifications, the company looks for candidates who demonstrate a passion for construction, a willingness to learn, and the drive to succeed.
“We have seen candidates from nontraditional majors be very successful when they bring strong transferable skills,” she says.
To measure the effectiveness of these efforts, Kiewit’s university recruiting team tracks indicators such as one-year retention and performance review outcomes.
“We continuously monitor turnover, and since refocusing our interviewing approach and placing greater emphasis on long-term fit, we’ve seen measurable improvements in quality of hire,” Festing-Smith says.
As part of this broader effort, Kiewit also refined its internship strategy and introduced a more skills-based approach to intern hiring. Since making these changes, internship-to-full-time conversion outcomes have improved.
When candidates decline offers, Kiewit’s university recruiting team gathers feedback to identify opportunities to enhance the candidate experience. One recurring theme has been the importance of timeliness and transparency throughout the process.
“Today’s students have more options than ever,” Festing-Smith says.
“Clearly communicating our culture, vision, and the realities of the work early on helps ensure the decision is a mutual fit for both the candidate and Kiewit.”
