Case studies

Living the dream since 2014!

Before SER I was a recruiter in the grad markets and working in my local Italian whenever I could lend a hand! I am now applying my skills to the niche engineering sector of machine tools.

My favourite thing about this sector is speaking with candidates that are so knowledgeable within the industry and helping them find their next career steps.

 This quarters 'EMPLOYEE AWARD' has been awarded to one of our newest recruits, Arran Kelly.
The employee of the quarter award is a type of recognition given to workers for exceptional performances. As the name suggests, the employee of the quarter award is offered on a quarterly basis.

Arran joined SER only six months ago, and became part of the Packaging team

Congrats Arran on your outstanding work. We are continually impressed by the results you produce! You play a crucial role in our team and the company's success. You've done amazing to accomplish what you have in such a short amount of time, and you've exceeded our expectations at every step.

Dan Walton his manager said: "Our rising star Arran Kelly has really taken well to recruitment since he started 6 months ago, he is an exciting addition to the packaging team and the SER family as a whole. Keep up the hard work Arran, first of many awards I am sure. Congratulations"

On Thursday 31st March to Friday 1st April, the SER team took part in a 36 hour virtual bike ride in the offices at SER HQ. We peddled through the day and night and the event was all live streamed via Twitch

The team rode an incredible 500 miles in 36 hours raising over £3,000!

Associate Director, Joe Reed commented "we enjoyed raising the money, we will be looking at doing more weird and wacky events in the future to raise money!"

Everyone at SER would like to thank everyone that donated! We were overwhelmed with the amount raised and all the messages of encouragement kept the team peddling throughout the night and into those final killer few hours

Future fundraising events will be announced soon....

Past the eleven year service mark

Thank you, Congratulations, Well done and every other accolade that there is to Wendy Evemy and Lee Geldart. Both Senior Recruitment Consultants here at SER Limited have past the eleven-year serviced mark. It’s a rarity in the recruitment sector to see such loyalty and it is really apricated.

Both lead the way in their specialist fields of Building Services and Machine Tool Engineering, working closely with many of the industry leading names. Their approach has helped SER Limited grow from the old days of a hand full of recruitment consultants to where we are today.

SER Limited as a business and a company has changed so much since their first weeks some eleven years ago, numerous office moves, re-structures and of course the attending of lots of splendid team building events.

From the bottom of our hearts SER thanks you for all your efforts over the past ELEVEN years.

Working with an Engineering Recruitment Agency

Recruiting in the current market is extremely difficult. Rising salaries in the engineering sector, an ever-increasing skill shortage, Brexit and changing working visa regulations are all on-going problems that just won’t go away. The benefits of outsourcing your recruitment to a specialist engineering recruitment agency couldn’t be stronger in the current climate.

If you are struggling with recruitment and haven’t used a recruitment agency in the past or moved away from agency biased recruitment because of a bad experience or simply couldn’t justify the cost then hopefully this blog can outline how SER Staffing can work with you to significantly improve your recruitment process in all aspects including, quality of candidates, time to hire and reduced administration.

In the first instance we would always say, stick with one single engineering recruitment agency in the first instance, more recruiters does not mean more candidates. It’s quite the opposite. The engineering sector has a huge skill shortage and as such one recruiter may well be speaking to the same engineer as another. What you as the employer doesn’t want is to have your position touted about and “mis-sold” and “mis-represented” to any engineer that would listen. It will dilute your fantastic position. Working with a single recruitment agency will allow them to commit to working on your vacancy in a logical and professional manner, as opposed to a first come first served who’s at the top of the pile approach. You will also remove that double agency claim risk which can happen when two recruitment agencies introduce the same candidates CVs at the same time, therefore both claiming a fee! Yes, that does happen, and more often than you would think, practically in engineering recruitment.

If you work with a recruiter on a sole agency bases, it doesn’t stop you running your job adverts. SER Limited encourage our clients to run adverts practically if they have the free Indeed job credits. At the very least you as the client will have a gage, something to judge against, how better the CVs from the recruitment agency actually are, compared to those from your adverts. If they aren’t better don’t interview them and save the fee money.

A good recruiter will take the time to talk to you about the role, interested to discover what you as the employer are looking for in times of attitude as well as skill set. It should be important to the recruiter to really understand the role and what working for your company is like and what type of candidates in the past have gone on to be extremely successful within your organisation. It’s not just a case of asking what is the job title and how much are you paying. A good recruiter needs to understand everything about your vacancy and your company in order to successfully sell the opportunity to great candidates.

The recruiter will then compose a brief plan on where they are going to find these candidates and then start the process. The recruitment process for resourcing can take anything from a week to 3 months+ to complete, just depending on the vacant position.

A good recruiter will proactively target people with the right skill set, often contacting targets via sourcing referrals from industry contacts, gaining recommendations and using social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Of course, a specialist engineering recruiter will have a database of candidates but a good recruiter will always open up their search in order to ensure you get the best possible candidate and not just the best available on these job boards and CV databases.

Its then the recruiter’s role to sell your opportunity, this is one of the key reasons for taking the time with you at the very start of the process as there is a need to draw out the benefits of joining your organisation. What sets this position apart from the others?

Once candidates have been highlighted and have expressed an interest, it’s the job of the specialist recruitment consultant to interview the candidate in a manner that tests their suitability while still maintaining their interest in the job, if not increasing their interest. The recruiter should find out information such as the list below but obviously with further points depending on the position:

• Current salary and package information
• Working environment – hours, office culture, average age of work force, managerial type, current company size
• Reasons for interest (and there is always more then one reason)
• Reasons from leaving previous roles
• Qualifications and where possible copies of certificates
• Engineering experience and if applicable types of projects and duties they regularly work on
• Run through and job specification that you may have provided to gain feedback on each and every point, where possible asking the candidate to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 5
• Asking for and taking references
• Personal situation in regards to family life, possible working away, requirements to be home etc

Once we have all that information SER Staffing Limited will send over the CV and interview notes for you to make a decision as to interview or not. Remember this is a FREE service until you actually make a hire, so you don’t have to interview if you don’t feel they candidate is right.

Saying that it free to see CVs and free to interview as many candidates as you wish, its only when you hire someone that there a fee to pay, however with SER Limited we provide a guarantee period, so if it doesn’t work out with your chosen hire for whatever reason then you are entitled to all or part of the fee back, depending on how long the candidate was in your employment for.

Once you start interviewing, the recruiter should then be busy taking references on your interviewees and carrying out social media checks on Google, Facebook and LinkedIn just to ensure that the work history matches the candidates CVs and there are no hidden secret’s.

To conclude the process the recruiter will work with you to ensure that what you offer the successful candidate in terms of salary is enough to ensure you get the candidate that you want.

Finally, the recruiter will stay close to the candidate as they hand on their notice, help them see past any counter offer that may come and keep them engaged until they finally start with you. Its than just a couple of check in calls to ensure all is good throughout the probation period.

To conclude the key benefits for you when using a specialist recruitment agency include:

• Significantly reduced administration
• Significant time savings
• Better quality of candidate CVs
• No requirement to send rejection emails or take calls from unsuitable candidates
• Approach interviews from a far more informed point of view, making the interview process quicker and more engaging for the candidate
• Guarantee your investment by receiving a rebate period from the point the candidate starts
• Able to target competitor companies to get on board candidates who can hit the

ground running

• Better picture of what your competitors are doing and paying package wise
• Smoother recruitment process and experience for the candidate

In a candidate driven recruitment market which is what we have currently a good specialist engineering recruitment consultant can be worth their weight and add significant value to your business. Not only by sourcing great candidates that otherwise would not be known to you, they also provide great insight into what your competitors are offering and paying, who is winning what contracts and who in key positions could be open to hearing about new career opportunities.

If you feel that working with a specialist engineering recruitment agency is something that could help you, then please contact us here at SER Limited – info@serlimited.com and of course we would be pleased to run through our recruitment process and discuss what we can do for you to improve your recruitment process.

Account Manager

£30,000 - £40,000

Manchester

ROLE DESCRIPTION

The Account Manager is a pivotal role within the internal sales team. As Account Manager you will ensure customer orders are actioned promptly from initial enquiry through to delivery and aftersales, ensuring a high level of customer service is maintained throughout the process. You will also support the external sales team.

Role and Responsibilities.

• Work from customer designs or concepts to calculate quotes and BOMs for production whether introduced by the external sales or direct contact from the client.
• Manage a portfolio of accounts.
• Query management.
• Maintain and expand relationships with existing clients.
• Complete all administrative work as required for own clients.
• Continually strengthen client and customer relationships by meeting and wherever possible exceeding customer expectations.
• Receive incoming leads and enquiries and share leads with the appropriate Account Manager.
• Cover and support other Account Managers where required.
• Process orders and deal with enquiries from the external sales team.
• Support the external sales team with any administrative requirements.
• Work with other departments to continually improve customer service levels.
• Attend meetings as needed/directed - internal and external. directed.
• Work with little supervision, ensuring self-motivation and ensuring focus on delivery.
• Complying with company policies.

Skills required (not all essential): -

• Previous experience in the same or similar industry and an understanding of fabrication methods and material processing would be useful.
• Used to working in a fast-paced environment with ability to multitask
• Amazing communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Articulate and able to liaise with all levels.
• A high level of client relationship skills - with a high level of customer ethics.
• Experience in working in a client focussed environment.
• To have a high degree of attention to detail and a desire for high quality output.
• A good understanding of technical drawings would be useful.
• Excellent time management.

SER Limited are a specialist Engineering Recruitment Agency based in Blackburn. Providing recruitment services across the UK and overseas. James is a specialist recruiter operating within the lighting sector, helping companies across the UK fill positions within lighting design, lighting sales and other technical and operational roles.

It’s all about how we can save YOU time and money in your recruitment process

Recruitment Agencies are much of a muchness? They all do the same thing… badly…

v  Sending loads of CVs for candidates who aren’t relevant

v  Sending CVs of candidates who aren’t even interested in the position

v  Arranging interviews for people who simply aren’t right

v  Poor communication

v  Don’t fill half of the requirements you give them

Do any of these strike a cord? .. Probably.. so how does a GOOD recruitment agency add value to your recruitment process and more importantly save you time and money?

Passive and new candidates

We reach out to new “passive” candidates all the time, we are continually building our candidate network even when you are not recruiting. This means that unlike online Job Board adverting and the associated databases where the same candidate CVs keep popping up, we are speaking to and building new connections so that when you are recruiting, fresh talent is able to view and consider your opportunity instantly.

Proactive in our nature

We work hard on your behalf proactively contacting candidates and marketing your opportunity to them. Our job is part sales and part marketeer. We take your vacancy and model it to grab attention and inspire people to respond. Good people are in demand, good recruiters ensure that your message stands out for the dozens of weekly approaches.

We only send relevant and interested candidates – (they all say that – but we do)

Here at SER Ltd we work with Clients and benchmark our service. If we send relevant CVs then we pay you for wasting your time !

This way you are only viewing and giving feedback on candidates that matter, a far better service to you and the candidates. We remember that if we speak to a candidate about a position with your company then we need to provide the level of customer services to them that you would expect. A bad candidate experience with SER, could mean that candidate has a bad candidate experience with you also.

Can we replace your internal recruiter?
If you don’t hire too much and the roles in the main are highly specialist could we save you the cost of an internal recruiter over a 12month period? Good recruiters are worth their weigh in gold in a candidate driven market. They let you know when good talent is potentially available, they let you know when someone is leaving a competitor, they market your business continually, they can let you know what your competitors are doing recruitment wise, salary wise. They can respond quickly to business changes and fill gaps in your workforce fast.

Save you Time

This is probably the main reason why agencies remain the main calling point for recruitment.

With connections and databases to hand built up over years and years of networking, advertising and direct approaching. Specialist recruiters in most cases offer the fastest solutions.

We also save time through:

v  Initial candidate screening and interviewing

v  Referencing and vetting candidates

v  Administration duties – Right to work checks, DBS checks, Driving Licence checks

v  We arrange interviews and bring together feedback

v  Broker salary requirements and offers of employment

v  Tackle handing in notices and important dealing with employer counter offers

Guarantee Period or Rebate Period

We put our money where our mouth is and offer a rebate period over the first 3 months. This means that if your chosen hire leaves within the first 12 weeks for whatever reason we will give you all or a percentage of the fee you paid back. Meaning we carry some of the risk. It’s in our best interest to find you only the most suitable candidate.

So above is a guide to what we can offer you and how we save you time and money in your recruitment process. They are also a few things that we do which ensure’s that we deliver:

We need to chat at the start – a fair bit really

It’s key that we really understand you and your recruitment plan. Not just the skills that you are looking for, but the person, motivators, culture and what their will need to be a success in your organisation. It can take up to an initial 30 minutes conversation for us to gain all the information. Obviously if we can meet at your offices then that’s even better as we can feel first hand what the culture and environment is like. Even the small things are important, such as how easy your offices are the find and what the car parking facilities are.

Pressure

We are Consultants and so like to consult but we will never put pressure on you to meet a candidate, like wise we never put pressure on a candidate to attend an interview. We do however highlight issues, if we feel they are being overlooked or a candidate holds a certain skill but has failed to outline that on their CV.

Throw some CVs at it!

Some vacancies will generate more CVs then others, but good recruiters are able to screen candidates effectively and ensure that you only see the very best applications. We never just fire CVs over to you and hope !

Feedback

Some feedback is good and some feedback is bad, we talk to you no matter what the feedback is.

For further information on how SER Limited can save you time and money in your recruitment process, please call our office on 01254 781300 or email info@serlimited.com

It’s all about how we can save YOU time and money in your recruitment process

Recruitment Agencies are much of a muchness? They all do the same thing… badly…

v  Sending loads of CVs for candidates who aren’t relevant

v  Sending CVs of candidates who aren’t even interested in the position

v  Arranging interviews for people who simply aren’t right

v  Poor communication

v  Don’t fill half of the requirements you give them

Do any of these strike a cord? .. Probably.. so how does a GOOD recruitment agency add value to your recruitment process and more importantly save you time and money?

Passive and new candidates

We reach out to new “passive” candidates all the time, we are continually building our candidate network even when you are not recruiting. This means that unlike online Job Board adverting and the associated databases where the same candidate CVs keep popping up, we are speaking to and building new connections so that when you are recruiting, fresh talent is able to view and consider your opportunity instantly.

Proactive in our nature

We work hard on your behalf proactively contacting candidates and marketing your opportunity to them. Our job is part sales and part marketeer. We take your vacancy and model it to grab attention and inspire people to respond. Good people are in demand, good recruiters ensure that your message stands out for the dozens of weekly approaches.

We only send relevant and interested candidates – (they all say that – but we do)

Here at SER Ltd we work with Clients and benchmark our service. If we send relevant CVs then we pay you for wasting your time !

This way you are only viewing and giving feedback on candidates that matter, a far better service to you and the candidates. We remember that if we speak to a candidate about a position with your company then we need to provide the level of customer services to them that you would expect. A bad candidate experience with SER, could mean that candidate has a bad candidate experience with you also.

Can we replace your internal recruiter?
If you don’t hire too much and the roles in the main are highly specialist could we save you the cost of an internal recruiter over a 12month period? Good recruiters are worth their weigh in gold in a candidate driven market. They let you know when good talent is potentially available, they let you know when someone is leaving a competitor, they market your business continually, they can let you know what your competitors are doing recruitment wise, salary wise. They can respond quickly to business changes and fill gaps in your workforce fast.

Save you Time

This is probably the main reason why agencies remain the main calling point for recruitment.

With connections and databases to hand built up over years and years of networking, advertising and direct approaching. Specialist recruiters in most cases offer the fastest solutions.

We also save time through:

v  Initial candidate screening and interviewing

v  Referencing and vetting candidates

v  Administration duties – Right to work checks, DBS checks, Driving Licence checks

v  We arrange interviews and bring together feedback

v  Broker salary requirements and offers of employment

v  Tackle handing in notices and important dealing with employer counter offers

Guarantee Period or Rebate Period

We put our money where our mouth is and offer a rebate period over the first 3 months. This means that if your chosen hire leaves within the first 12 weeks for whatever reason we will give you all or a percentage of the fee you paid back. Meaning we carry some of the risk. It’s in our best interest to find you only the most suitable candidate.

So above is a guide to what we can offer you and how we save you time and money in your recruitment process. They are also a few things that we do which ensure’s that we deliver:

We need to chat at the start – a fair bit really

It’s key that we really understand you and your recruitment plan. Not just the skills that you are looking for, but the person, motivators, culture and what their will need to be a success in your organisation. It can take up to an initial 30 minutes conversation for us to gain all the information. Obviously if we can meet at your offices then that’s even better as we can feel first hand what the culture and environment is like. Even the small things are important, such as how easy your offices are the find and what the car parking facilities are.

Pressure

We are Consultants and so like to consult but we will never put pressure on you to meet a candidate, like wise we never put pressure on a candidate to attend an interview. We do however highlight issues, if we feel they are being overlooked or a candidate holds a certain skill but has failed to outline that on their CV.

Throw some CVs at it!

Some vacancies will generate more CVs then others, but good recruiters are able to screen candidates effectively and ensure that you only see the very best applications. We never just fire CVs over to you and hope !

Feedback

Some feedback is good and some feedback is bad, we talk to you no matter what the feedback is.

For further information on how SER Limited can save you time and money in your recruitment process, please call our office on 01254 781300 or email info@serlimited.com

How a Engineering Recruitment Agency will work with you to find that prefect candidate

All recruitment agencies will tell you that they will find “that perfect candidate” for you, however only a few will go through a full search campaign. Job Boards and CV databases have made accessing candidates easier and many recruitment consultants are happy to rely on these two methods, meaning that by using these “lazy” recruitment consultants you as the employee could be missing out on the real superstars at are out there, what we at SER Limited refer to as passive candidates, those who are interested in hearing about new career opportunities but not at that stage to activity be applying for roles. It’s the skill for a good recruiter to build strong relationships with these “passive candidates” and present to them suitable opportunities as and when they appear.

At SER Limited our recruitment search process is one that covers every base. Of course, we use the Job Boards and CV databases, we would be mad not to, but that’s just a starting point as we search for that outstanding unicorn of a candidate.

Our recruitment search process includes:

Spending a significate amount of time with you understanding the job and the type of person that you are looking to employ.

Working with you to produce and outstanding Job Advert that sells the opportunity, then posting this advert across the UK job boards.

Searching CV databases for candidates that on paper appear suitable. This can be anything from 10 to 150 potential targets depending on the role, salary and location. Then it’s a case of calling, texting and email each and everyone to establish any interest. This process alone can take days of calling and chasing.

We then speak to our contacts within the industry, do remember that we are specialist engineering recruiters and each consultant only operates within their chosen sector. Therefore, they build up outstanding connections over time. There approach these people looking for referrals and recommendations.

Its then a case of using social media to highlight potential candidates who are doing a similar role within a competitor, and making contact with them, in order to proactively “sell and promote” your opportunity. Of course, this is done without disclosing company names.

If we are still looking thin on the ground for candidates, we will then target companies that we know will have similar people within the company and look to headhunt and gain further referrals when possible.

Once this process has been completed, any potentially suitable candidates will be reference checked and present to you for feedback.

Permanent recruitment can be a long-winded process, this is why we look to work with companies on an exclusive basis.

SER Limited are specialist recruiters to the engineering sectors – call us on 01254 781300 if you feel we can add value to your recruitment process.