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Brendan Kelly, Director was featured as the top quote for the cover story of April's issue of CIF Construction magazine. Brendan echoed the underlying ethos of our #HireInspireTrainRetain initiative by stressing the importance of long term investment in the best candidates, and forming deeper professional relationships with the kind of people that can impress a client:

 “Candidates often ask about salary before allowing their CV to be put forward. If your salary and benefits package is not attractive, you are immediately making things difficult for yourself. However, if you mainly supply short-term contracts, you can appeal to operatives by delivering payment on time and being open, honest and transparent with them throughout the duration of their placement.”

The Director also explained the advantages of bigger companies in recruitment as well as the importance of offering candidates opportunities to grow as a professional:

 “Many people think that it’s much easier for bigger companies to attract talent because they often have the bigger, higher profile clients and contracts. This may be true and access to these types of projects is something that any company of that size should sell itself on. However, small to medium-sized companies are able to offer candidates the chance to work on projects from inception to completion. This can be very attractive as it gives opportunities to grow as a professional, in addition to having project ownership and the satisfaction of seeing a project through.”

Brendan also offered point by point advice on how to recruit the best talent:

1. Plan ahead and source your preferred person early, whether for contract or permanent positions.

2. Use company profiling to determine the best fit for the employee and what qualifications are required. Prioritise requirements and be flexible in that you may not get a perfect fit.

3. An experienced professional may take longer to find, but is always worth pursuing over a lesser experienced candidate available immediately.

4. Keep lines of communication open – keep candidates informed. Good candidates have options. Lack of feedback could send a candidate elsewhere

5. Recruitment can be time-consuming and costly. Recruitment firms have talent pools and knowledge of salaries, career expectations and available skill sets.

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