When you’re casting your bait for the perfect candidate for the job, be specific about the role and about what you’re looking for

An enormous pile of CVs to rifle through after a huge response to your job advertisement is all well and good, but how can you be sure that the owners of these CVs will actually have the skills required to do the job? How do you optimise the response to your advertisement so that you attract the perfect candidate?

First, you must know exactly what the job entails. If you want to attract the right candidate you have to produce a clear job description, detailing the role within the company and expectations of the successful applicant.

Next, create a person specification to focus on the skills, experience and qualifications needed for the role. Consider what you are looking for in a candidate – would high academic grades be a good indicator of their suitability for the role, or are soft skills more important?

Both the job description and person specification are of considerable value when using recruitment agencies, as the more information you are able to provide them with, the more successful they will be in putting forward suitable candidates for consideration.

Think about the level of response you would like to receive from your job advertisement. For junior or graduate positions it might be better to have a greater choice of candidates, whereas for senior and specialist positions it is often more beneficial to receive half a dozen excellent applications rather than hundreds of standard ones, which is where a recruitment agency can prove to be an essential filtering stage.

After assessing the competition and getting an idea of what other positions you are contending with, you can word your job description or advertisement so that it stands out. Words such as “leading”, “global” and “unrivalled” all sound dynamic and increase the appeal of your company, but don’t forget to be specific. Cover as many aspects of the position as possible – the remuneration package and benefits, the working atmosphere and ethos of the organisation. The decision to move jobs is one of considerable importance for the individual, so they should be as well informed as possible.

Ben Byram is a specialist building services recruitment consultant at NES International www.nes.co.uk

Apprenticeships

In 2006 the construction industry missed out on 12,000 recruits because of a shortage of vacancies offered by employers, according to figures from ConstructionSkills, the Sector Skills Council for construction.

The organisation is now calling on the industry to improve the situation in 2007.

To support employers ConstructionSkills has introduced a new complementary route to traditional apprenticeships called Programme Led Apprenticeships. PLAs will allow young people to undergo a full-time construction-based college course before doing a continuous placement to attain NVQ Level 2. The organisation offers mentoring and support, as well as a grant of up to £8,000 to support training.

www.constructionskills.net

Carbon footprint

How much C02 does each of your employees generate at work? Software provider systems@work has introduced a Carbon Footprint module to its suite of software
applications.

The module calculates the C02 from an employee’s expense claim form, based on journeys by air, taxi, car or train.

The system also allows an employee to see their carbon footprint at any time in the month or year.

It will also give firms the opportunity to prepare a league table of the worst offenders or, less controversially, to compare each employee’s year-on-year carbon footprint
performance.

www.systemsatwork.co.uk

Training

The Royal Academy of Engineering is looking to fund innovative UK training programmes. The organisation has made 72 training grants worth a total of £315,000 to support training, particularly in small engineering companies.

The academy is now inviting applications for awards to cover 2007/08 needs. As an extra incentive, there is a bonus prize of £1,000 if an entry is judged one of the top five most innovative and exciting programmes this year.

“We’ve been making these awards for 13 years now and each year we are impressed with the quality of the submissions,” says Robin Bond, lead assessor on the scheme.
The closing date for awards is 19 October 2007. For details email: ian.bowbrick@raeng.org.uk

Source

Building Sustainable Design