The importance of good recruitment

Cundall’s goal is to be excellent in everything we do, and the number of disciplines in which Cundall can be considered truly ‘excellent’ is growing, but that only makes it that much more challenging to continue to exceed our own high standards. As Engineers we’re constantly looking to evolve and redefine ‘excellence’ in our respective services. The same can be said for our support services - and you won’t be surprised to learn that in my opinion ‘Resourcing’ is the lynchpin of our every success (and failure).

Little is worse for any business than a bad recruitment decision, because you only ever know that such a decision has been made when something goes wrong, and then something else goes wrong, and then….you get the picture. More often than not it takes years to unpick all the effects of a bad recruitment decision as it can impact morale, staff retention, client relationships, standards of work, the list goes on.

A good decision? Well that’s a lot easier. Quality work. Happy colleagues. Happy clients. And that is true for any role in the organisation, which is why it is so important that we take this approach to excellence and innovation throughout all of our services.

This is why right now we’re doing more work than ever before to ensure that when we need to recruit new staff into the business, we are attracting not only highly skilled talent, but also individuals with the kind of values and behaviours we need to keep driving Cundall to deliver consistently outstanding work. The Resourcing Team have been working on enhancing the way we use the more traditional routes to find people (Careers page, social media, referral schemes, videos, job boards, publications, staffing agencies etc.), while also introducing new technology, processes, proactive networking opportunities, intelligent ways of assessing and interviewing candidates, and crucially – telling the world why Cundall is a great place to work.

…..and it’s working!

• 32% increase in visits to careers page
• 182% increase in applications received
• 76% increase in new hires

(Figures represent percentage increases from Jan to July 2015 vs the same period in 2014)

As ever, we are keen to hear from staff and potential candidates about what kind of things you would want to see when looking for a new job, and what you think we could do better to attract talent to join Cundall. In the meantime, the team are busy ensuring our 19 global offices have the necessary tools at their disposal to make the best possible recruitment decisions.