Construction Professional

Signing the best talent

Things are picking up, and that inevitably means increased activity in the jobs market. But recruiting the right candidate for your business is trickier that it might appear, says Viv Packer

IN 2013, WE ARE at last seeing signs of revival in the construction industry with residential leading the recovery across the country. As the industry looks towards growth,

companies are reviewing strategies to capitalise on the recovering market. This may include the recruitment of key individuals to drive business growth. Indeed, many surveys are showing that recruitment is booming. Last month, new fi gures compiled by InterExec, which acts as a confi dential agent for senior executives earning £150,000 to £1m+ revealed that unadvertised vacancies in the sector had shot up by nearly 200% from July 2012 to July 2013. That said, the recession led to many senior level executives being “let go”, which means that job advertisements are still attracting large responses. So how, in these still straitened times, do you fi nd the best candidate and persuade them that your business is the place for their future? As executive search consultants, we

still fi nd many prospective employers looking at the best available candidate for the job, rather than seeking out the ideal candidate through a properly conducted

search of all the relevant people in the market, not just those already looking for a new role. Recruitment consultants, meanwhile, keep a database of candidates looking to change jobs and if asked for candidates by a client, they trawl their databases, not the market. Using a researcher with specifi c

experience relevant to the role to target the market and likely candidates, we fi nd the highest achievers and interest them in a new, challenging position. In our experience, despite the battery

of psychometric tests available, many employers only look at past experience and performance as the best determinant of suitability. While important, used in isolation, it is too narrow a measure of an individual’s true potential. Assessing the aptitude and behavioural style of an individual demonstrates whether they possess the business acumen and cultural fi t to be a success within the organisation. Senior level recruiting needs large

investment of time, effort and money to fi nd the perfect candidate. Whatever your process, when a candidate who matches your brief is identifi ed, the next step is ensuring they join your business. When an offer is made, at a time when

BIM bytes: Intellectual property

Copyright and confi dentiality issues have mainly focused on the employer or end user having the right to use hard copy documents produced by contractors’ and consultants’ teams throughout the project itself and for future maintenance and possible extension. These will continue to apply to projects which adopt BIM, but there are new issues as well. At BIM Level 2, each contributing party

produces its individual inputs using various software platforms. These “inputs” vary, but can include design data, cost data, design processes, tables, databases and graphical

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information. Using BIM software specifi cally designed to interface between the contributors’ various software platforms, the inputs are coordinated to create a single federated but cohesive model. From a copyright perspective this is largely business as usual. However, one of the key benefi ts of BIM is the potential to assist and streamline the provision of facilities management services during the life of a building. Copyright licences from contributing parties need to be suffi ciently wide in scope to include use of the works for the future lifespan

of the building. Some existing drafting may need amending to clearly cover this. It is also possible that copyright will exist in

the federated models as well as the inputs from contributors. A BIM information manager, for example, might use suffi cient skill in adapting the software used for the project and collating the inputs of each contributor to become the owner of the copyright in the model itself. As project information is stored in federated models throughout a project, each contributing party’s intellectual property is more accessible

Bale in: Real Madrid successfully recruited Gareth Bale from Tottenham. But how can you attract the best candidates?

Despite the battery of psychometric tests available, many employers only look at past experience and performance as the best determinant of suitability

the employer and employee are about to embark on an important partnership, the relationship so often becomes fraught with diffi culty. Employers often ask why someone who goes through the search process then doesn’t accept the role.

To stay or to go? Candidates frequently ask executive search consultants “should I stay or should I go?” on receiving an offer. All the doubts, concerns and fears come to the fore when the exciting new role becomes a reality rather than a possibility. In the past, the majority of new hires were open to accepting an offer, but today they are much more cautious and risk averse. It is important to remember that recruitment is a two-way process —