Birmingham City Council approve Aston Villa plans
4th January 2023
Construction Recruiters – despite many doom and gloom articles – there are still lots of major projects providing opportunities for you and your fellow Recruiters across Trades & Labour, M&E, Civil Engineering and Architecture. Don’t fall for the dramatic headlines – we are the victims of a media industry that knows that bad news sells way better than good news.
I know I know – you think it’s easier for me to say – but I have been there before – through recessions and downturns several times. What I have learned is that nothing stops. It may get a little harder, you may have to work a little smarter but so what? If you’re skilled who cares. You have been working in the same market just the mirror image – too many jobs not enough candidates.
Listen up my Recruiter friends – it doesn’t stop. Recruitment is a pendulum. Your market swings back and forth between candidate and job shortages. Deal with it. It’s recruitment. If there was never a shortage of either or if it was super easy you wouldn’t be able to charge 20% of a salary for your service now would you?
So dry those tears they are a waste of time. Stop sulking that the market has changed. Suck it up buttercup. Change is good for Recruiters. It sorts the weak from the strong. For the great Recruiters your market gets better. For the bad… well… we’ll leave it there.
So now the tough love agenda has been set ( and I set with much empathy and love as a fellow Construction Recruiter).. it’s time to get real…
One of our weaknesses is that too many times we attack our desks as single islands, often finding opportunities far too late in the recruitment cycle and find ourselves almost shut out.
Why is this?
Well usually it’s because we are behind the curve. Well behind. Take this project as an example…If you work for a built environment recruitment agency with Recruiters operating in other markets such as Architecture, Property, Trades, Building Services and Civil & Structural Engineering you have a huge opportunity and advantage against your single discipline rivals. Are you leveraging this advantage?
If you are then you can be the brand name at the start of the project and stay there until the end – working together with your peers to ring fence projects like this.
Let’s take this Aston Villa project as an example…
This project was approved by Planning Dept at Birmingham City Council, the client is Aston Villa, the Architect is Grimshaw and Trivandi. A feasability study is in progress between West Midlands Combined Authority and West Midlands Rail Executive to determine the necessary transportation upgrades that will be required. The project itself confirms Schlaich Bergermann Partner as structural engineer, WSP as civil engineer and CoreFive as cost consultants.
Can you see it yet?
Long before the contractors are appointed and confirmed your fellow Recruiters should and could be well entrenched in the project – their Architects, Planners, Surveyors, Structural Engineers and more are working away on this project long before a Contractor hits site later this year (expected end of 2023)
Don’t wait for a new alert to tell you this. Work with your fellow Recruiters in Architecture, Surveying, Civil Engineering and Building Services NOW – if they are good at what they do their freelancers and perm placements are active in the project and will be influential in what happens next.
Rumour has it that the Contractors most likely to be confirmed will be Buckingham (the firm behind the rebuild of Liverpool’s Anfield Road end), McLaren (which has completed new training grounds for Leicester City and Spurs) and perhaps McLaughlin & Harvey (which built the main athletics stadium that was used at this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham).
But hey – I didn’t need to tell you that did I? Or did I?
As an industry we are guilty of playing for today, this week and this month due to the pressure of financial targets but stop for a moment and think about how your actual market works – it bids far ahead for projects that commence 1-3 years down the line typically. They feed their pipeline well in advance. If that pipeline is dry they have time to address and take action. They cannot think in the month – they have to win work, plan staffing, procure materials, seek permits and hire or purchase equipment far in advance.
If you are to survive in Construction as a Recruiter and emerge as a dominate expert you must align yourself fully with your industry, make strong internal connections with your fellow Recruiters in supporting disciplines and ensure you are ahead of the curve.
If you’re in the region for this project start talking to your counterparts now. Start talking to the likely Contractors now. Start creating candidate pools of Site Managers, Project Managers, Estimators, Quantity Surveyors with similar project experience NOW. Don’t wait for the job to come in – you’ll be in one in a long line of Recruiters working the same job with little percentage chance of conversion.
Be smart – strike now. This is just one project example. Each region of the UK has many like it. So what if there is 10%, 20%, 30% less project wins. You have never achieved a 100% job fill rate anyway. What you need is access to vacancies before they are known – your clients see recruitment as a headache – if you can access the vacancy early and get the job done so they can crack on with the actual job at hand (Construction) they will let you.
So go to it – you’ve got this.
Data Sources & Credits:
Glenigan
Aston Villa FC
Building News
