How Mark Beamish Waterproofing Hired a Bilingual HR Manager in 10 Days with Amtec

The Challenge

Mark Beamish Waterproofing is a family-owned construction company with 130 employees and a fast-growing footprint in Southern California. Like many family-run businesses crossing the threshold from mid-sized to enterprise, they had reached a point where their HR function needed to grow up.

Previous HR hires had been homegrown, capable people who’d learned on the job but lacked deep professional HR experience. With the company scaling, the leadership team needed someone different: a bilingual HR Manager with real construction industry chops, the energy to keep up with a fast-paced field workforce, and the people skills to actively shape company culture rather than just maintain it.

Specifically, the new HR Manager would need to:

• Communicate effectively in English and Spanish across office and field teams
• Hold their own with a “rough and tumble” construction workforce while staying approachable
• Set a high cultural bar without losing the family-owned warmth the company was built on
• Handle employee issues with both empathy and firmness

This is a narrow profile. Bilingual HR professionals with construction-industry experience and the right cultural temperament are a small candidate pool.

Why It Was Tricky

Before engaging Amtec, the client had been pursuing a candidate they liked. That candidate ultimately decided the role wasn’t a fit for her, leaving the team back at square one, but with a clearer picture of what they were actually looking for.

That picture mattered. The “type” they had been chasing wasn’t just a list of qualifications; it was a feel: energy, presence, the ability to walk a job site and command respect. We took that signal and went to work.

What Amtec Did

We ran our standard direct-hire process for professional and management-level placements, which includes spending an hour or more with each candidate before they ever reach the client. For a role this culturally specific, that depth of pre-screening matters more than resume filtering.

We presented Mark Beamish Waterproofing with several qualified candidates who matched the bilingual, construction-experienced, high-energy profile they needed. The shortlist narrowed to two finalists.

Here’s where it got interesting: the client chose the finalist with less overall HR experience.

On paper, the other finalist had more years and a deeper resume. But the candidate they ultimately hired had stronger alignment with their business goals, their cultural style, and the specific kind of leadership they wanted in the role. Amtec’s process surfaced that alignment and gave the client the confidence to make the less obvious choice.

The Results

• Job opened: September 5, 2025
• Offer made: September 12, 2025 (7 days)
• Start date: September 15, 2025 (10 days from open)

Within her first few weeks, the new HR Manager was already making a noticeable impact. She quickly jumped in to support employees, handled issues with the company’s construction crews, and brought the balance the role required: approachable enough to earn trust, firm enough not to be walked on, and confident enough to help raise the bar for the company’s culture.

She turned out to be a natural fit for exactly the dynamic the leadership team had been worried about: tough enough for the field, warm enough for the family-business feel, professional enough to elevate the HR function.

Why This Worked

Three things made this placement land:

1. Listening past the first candidate. The original candidate the client was chasing didn’t work out, but she gave us a clear read on what “right” looked like. We treated that as data, not a dead end.
2. Depth over speed in screening. Spending real time with candidates before presenting them, an hour minimum at this level, is what surfaced a finalist whose strengths weren’t obvious from a resume alone.
3. Trusting fit over credentials. The hire with less experience won because alignment with the company’s goals and culture mattered more than years served. Amtec’s process is built to surface that alignment so clients can act on it confidently.

Looking for the Right Hire for a Specialized Role?

Amtec has been placing HR, executive, and specialized professional talent in the construction industry since 1959. Whether you need a bilingual HR Manager, a project executive, or a specialized field leader, our direct-hire process is built to find the candidate who fits, not just the candidate who applies.

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