We talk to Andrew Fowler about his business Andrew Construction Recruitment (ACR), the housebuilding employment market and what makes a great client.
You founded ACR in 2011. Please tell us a little bit about the company.
We are a housebuilding-specific recruitment business operating across London and the South East. Our clients base includes many of the leading PLC housebuilders as well as a selection of small and medium-sized privately-owned organisations. We supply temporary and permanent management staff to the construction, commercial, technical and sales disciplines.
Have you noticed any major changes to the industry’s recruitment market over the past 12 months?
The sector is fluid and changing all of the time. The continued rise of social media continues to both help and hinder recruitment. People are now more accessible than ever before, and this has affected candidate stability and made continuity of employment and retention of staff harder to achieve.
We are seeing a growing number of our clients commit to preferred supplier lists (PSLs) and combining this with their own talent acquisition/internal recruitment experts. We would always encourage our clients to engage their recruitment supply chain in such a way because it helps to regulate the use of agencies and places the onus on businesses like ACR to provide a consistently high quality of service.
In terms of the market, we continue to experience significant demand. All of our large PLC clients seem busy right now. The second half of 2018 was buoyant with consistently high levels of demand across all disciplines.
The first quarter of 2019 was a bit more subdued, which you could put down to the political climate and we saw plenty of evidence of clients returning to the stricter recruitment sign-off policies typical of the period 2008-2013. Those unfortunate to be out of work, particularly at a senior level, were finding opportunities at a premium.
For Q2 of 2019 we have noticed an upturn with clients now seeming prepared to get on with things. A few of our clients reported a slow-down in sales in that first quarter and that probably impacted on confidence and commitment to recruitment (as well as candidate confidence to move), but with developers offering incentives to buy and a return to better sales, the market has picked up again and we have demand in all disciplines.
Are there roles that are notably popular, or difficult to fill?
In terms of difficulty discipline-wise, commercial roles, particularly estimators, have historically been a nightmare to recruit. Technical and design candidates are also in massive demand, particularly those from an engineering background with experience in pre-construction. Construction planners and programmers with software skills are also in short supply.
In the same way that candidates need to accept that a job is not always perfect, there are times when clients need to be prepared to compromise on certain criteria when recruiting. In our view it is not always the discipline that makes a job hard to fill, but a pursuit of perfection that rules out perfectly legitimate candidates before they have even attended an interview. We encourage clients to list key criteria but accept that in most scenarios at least one of those criteria will need to be compromised. This might be anything from location, budget or recent stability to education or even depth of experience in the particular role.
In terms of popularity, at ACR we have recently opened a desk focused on the supply of sales advisors and sales managers led by Jodi Reynolds who herself is a former sales manager who worked for Barratt Homes. Jodi has reported significant demand and we are busy identifying people who are open to entering the sales arena within house building and inviting them to assessment days that we are holding in order to pick out the best future talent for our clients.
What advice can you offer to clients that are struggling to retain employees or attract the people they need?
In a market sector known for being short on the required management talent, the first item would be to ensure you look after the staff you have – particularly future talent and key performers. Clients should review salaries at least every six months, particularly when considering people who are at a stage of their career where advancement in knowledge and contribution can be rapid. All staff should have a clear, well-defined career path and have regular reviews to ensure they understand how valued they are by a business, as well as being given a platform to express their own views. Ensuring commitment to this process will reduce the number of people who have their head turned and will help give people the confidence to speak to their manager before embarking on a job search.
Clients should consider their retention levels as a key indicator for the business. If people are leaving regularly, particularly those within the first two years of joining, it might be that there are issues with their recruitment strategy, their onboarding or their benefits packages.
In the world of employment today, people have a need to feel appreciated. Although money is a factor, we are seeing many clients impact on retention through the introduction of fantastic initiatives around flexible employee benefits as well as flexible working. In order to maintain a happy and motivated workforce, it is important to stay current and not get left behind. Naturally it is the clients that have a flexible approach to the world of work, and who invest in the progression of staff who tend to have far better retention rates and with that less of a need to recruit for reasons other than growth.
A client with fantastic retention that recruits primarily for growth can point to that as a way to attract people. Those companies that are struggling to attract staff but need them due to high turnover need to review their strategy. To attract people you need a good brand identity and a good reputation, and you need to make sure that the people doing the interviews appreciate the importance of selling the business not just grilling the individual. Any person leaving an interview should do so wanting the job, regardless of whether or not you want to employ them. The interview process can have a big impact on a company’s net promoter score. Don’t let someone leave glad they did not get the job!!
Are housebuilders generally easy to deal with?
To achieve an outstanding, value-adding service from an agency it is paramount that there is trust. Without this neither side will achieve maximum benefit. The onus should of course be on the recruiter to gain that trust through demonstration of professionalism and competence in communication, appreciation of client culture, and an expert understanding of the roles in question. Furthermore, the very best and most valuable recruiters will possess the intuition required to pick out the best candidates not always apparent from viewing CVs. Clients that place trust in the recruiter can benefit from this and the relationship will have the potential to flourish.
A trusted recruiter will gain from the client the information required to attract talent. They will offer their time to meet and discuss the need in detail. Statistics show that seldom do we achieve consistency of service when the client is not open to following our processes, and that usually starts with a meeting to discuss the need.
Recruiters can play a key role in advocating a client’s business to the marketplace and people are right when they say that a business is only as good as its people. Clients that invest their time to ensure they have the right recruiter representing them are the easiest to deal with.
Is there a ‘perfect’ way for employers to interact with specialist recruitment companies like ACR?
I have worked in construction recruitment since 1997. In that period the recruitment sector has matured considerably and there is now a greater acceptance of the key role that genuinely expert recruiters can play in helping clients attract talent and save time in the process.
In the first instance, if looking to appoint a recruiter to undertake an assignment or looking to compile a PSL, employers should put the recruiters’ knowledge to the test. Clients interview subcontractors and suppliers before issuing orders. I am always surprised when recruiters are given vacancies without being expected to validate their capacity to represent the client in an accurate and professional fashion.
Once a client has selected the recruitment company they feel best suited to represent them and fulfil their need they would, in a perfect world, meet the recruiter and give them the opportunity to get to know their business. A visit to the client offices is essential, as is a meeting with the hiring manager/proposed line manager. Timescales are key to keep things on track – identifying a date when interviews can be held so that the process is not strung out is valuable. The interview dates can be discussed in advance with interested candidates, and clients can keep a date free in their diary to dedicate to the process.
Provision of a job specification and benefits schedule to enable the recruiter to take a role to market is of course mandatory. Once the interviews have taken place a detailed review should be scheduled, with the opportunity to discuss detailed feedback on each candidate.
As I mentioned previously, trusting the recruiter’s judgement will often yield better results. Those that value a partnership approach and trust highly skilled recruiters to represent their business in an professional, accurate and diligent fashion when taking roles to market are fantastic businesses to work with. If a recruiter understands the client culture and gets to know the business in detail they can play a pivotal role in attracting talent. The businesses that are prepared to let recruiters in, and happy to provide the necessary armoury to enable a job well done, they are close to perfect!
Is there something about your approach to clients/applicants that you are most proud of?
I strongly believe in the adage that expertise is an inch wide and a mile deep! I am always grateful and humbled by the consistent repeat business that we have achieved from a very loyal client base that has enabled ACR to grow every year for the past eight years. We have always committed to sticking with our niche which is white collar supply to housebuilders.
In the early days of ACR, particularly with tough trading conditions, there was serious temptation to generalise and take on roles and help candidates that were outside of our scope of expertise.
Rather than do this, we went the other way and consolidated our expertise in housebuilding and this has been key in both growing and retaining our candidate and client base. I firmly believe that when clients meet us, they realise immediately that we are one of the leading recruitment agencies in terms of our network and knowledge, and candidates always value our honest, transparent feedback and dedication to helping them only if we are the best placed business to do so.
Our commitment to being a niche housebuilding recruiter while upholding these standards has been unwavering and it is that that I am most proud of.
For potential employees, does showing an interest in jobs in this sector always require qualifications and experience of a particular kind?
It helps of course, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility to enter the construction sector without qualifications and experience. I have seen accountants become surveyors, labourers become site managers, shop assistants become sales advisors. The housebuilding industry is blessed with so many interesting and diverse career opportunities and people with the right attitude, commitment and drive can succeed.
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