RECRUITMENT: SIMON OWEN
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whether that is through provision of advice, asking questions that get you thinking as well as put you in contact with consultants that can help. In fact, by building a relationship with a recruiter, you will be gaining a very strong ally to help you find trusted consultants in the future. As for the here and now, a recruiter will have invested many years and a great deal of money in having knowledge of people both within your geographical area and further afield who can help with your role. While rail projects are regional, the standards and methodologies used are national, as are the problems which you are looking to address. As such, talking to someone from a different region could be a useful exercise.
But how do you find that connection; how do you know? First of all, you need to prepare a brief highlighting what you want to achieve, the parameters you are working to and provide enough information about the situation for them to be able to make an informed decision about their abilities to deliver, their level of interest in working with you, as well as commercial arrangements. It also helps you consolidate your own thoughts while having a framework means everyone knows where they stand. For a single position, it may be a job description and a person specification, while if you are looking at a more far reaching project, the document names will change from those used to brief/
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identify your need for a single person, but the questions remain the same; what do I want to achieve, how, why, when and who, or more specifically, what attributes will my problem solver possess? We all appreciate a proper brief;
there is nothing worse than trying to deliver to someone who has used words like possibly, appropriate, circa, maybe and considering as opposed to ones which demonstrate commitment and clarity of thought. You may well be finding it difficult to formulate one as the situation is hard to encapsulate or the issue complex, in which case this is where you will need to invest time and meet with consultants to gather their advice and ask questions to help define the parameters of the brief. Potentially this is a great opportunity for the right consultant to make themselves obvious to you minimising risk of failure further. Do they ask the right questions? Demonstrate insight? Seem to care about you and your objectives primarily, or their own? In order to truly achieve mutual
benefit from this, there are also some other questions that need to be asked before this process is started and each could equally apply when bringing in an insider, not just when considering a consultant:
Do I have buy in from the appropriate people for sharing the information needed by the consultant, the costs involved and also to hear their answers?
Is someone else going to be the best person to do this task, or should I pass on something that I enjoy more, but possibly am less able to do due to time or knowledge constraints?
The third question is the big one and key to it all. Am I ready to let go?
While this may seem more
appropriate for engaging an organisation and excessive for a relatively straightforward appointment, such as the Design Manager above, it is worth considering; what are the costs of getting wrong? They are bound to be beyond the rate paid to the person and as such you should be as thorough and therefore confident with a commission worth a few thousand pounds as you would be with one valued at several hundred thousand.
By applying this methodology, being comfortable answering each of the above questions honestly and working with people you trust, you will be well placed to ensure success while minimising risk; after all, would you want to make an appointment on any other basis?
*Maven: A maven (also mavin) is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. Thank you to Mel Starrs who taught me this word and whose name should also be included in the definition of it.
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