As 2016 ends, and a New Year rapidly approaches it’s time to reflect on our achievements over the past twelve months.
Starting from a largely blank canvas we remain resolute in our aim to create a fairer, and more sustainable recruiting model. We hope in time that a ripple effect will encourage others to restore the human element, and banish unethical practices.
2016 has been a brutal year for our industry. We know only too well that the situation for many is now one of survival. All too frequently we witness the sheer frustration of candidates applying for suitable jobs and hearing nothing back, not just once, but time and time again.
I owe a huge deal of gratitude to friends, family, work colleagues, business partners and a growing number of supporters, without who, I would have given up months ago.
Risking my family’s livelihood on a venture that focuses on doing the right thing was a tough decision. As a consultant Engineering Advisor at the peak of my career, I know that there are much more secure ways to earn a living.
Working on candidate CV’s, or spending time on the phone discussing career objectives has occupied most my time over the past 12-months. Not once has it been about a race to win candidates over, an attempt to convert ‘hot leads’, or a tactic to get someone ‘onto our books’.
NatResPro has been a collective effort.
We now have four specialist ‘Skill Pool Advisors’ each with 30+ years of technical industry experience, and able to offer individual career advice.
Together we cover well completions & well testing, drilling and geology/geophysics.
At NatResPro our motivation is different, not just slightly so, but very different.
Our mantra is simple; dealing in the sale of candidate details to third parties is a business that has the potential to wreck careers. Distributing candidate details to third parties or other agencies denies those candidates any control over the further onward distribution of their personal data. I can recount first-hand personal experiences relating to the consequential career damage caused.
No matter how difficult and challenging it has been, our steadfast resolution is to lead by example and to demonstrate that there is a better model. One which affords candidates the opportunity to regain control, while at the same time offering employer’s efficient and commercially attractive candidate access options.
The oil and gas industry is still in the depths of a bust cycle. Competition for jobs is brutally fierce, and the supply and demand balance weighs exclusively on the employer’s side.
In today’s job market, employer’s can afford to be particularly careful with their candidate selection process. Generic candidate selection is no longer the accepted base model. Job functions need to supplemented with a demonstration of specialities. Furthermore, if this were not enough, candidates ‘soft skills’ are become increasingly important.
We take immense pride in helping candidates to ‘sell themselves’ and always encourage upgrading generic job descriptions. A list of job functions held; countries worked; and a vague job description isn’t enough in today’s tight job market.
Our Skill Pool Advisors are all more than capable of offering career advice and are available to help our candidates get back into suitable employment. Assistance comes in the form of sensible suggestions based on their experience as past Hiring Managers.
A measure of any company’s success must be how they performed in the previous year.
We worked with discretion, and in doing so put many people back to work in 2016.
As an example:
A call, late on a Sunday night was received from an operator needing several people. Our reaction was swift. Subsequent conversations between individuals located in four separate continents ensued. A series of face-to-face meetings took place, and a solution proposed within 48-hours. A team then swiftly mobilised from one side of the world to the other. There was no ‘Exclusive Job Opportunity’ posting on any social media sites. We relied on what we do best – a sophisticated network of first & second-degree connections and telephone conversations.
We are not interested in a numbers game. We are not and will not be driven by ‘billing statistics’, nor offering any financial reward to our ‘best billers’.
There are no pictures of Porches, Ferrari’s or any other excesses on our site, and there never will be. These images are boastful reminders of the profits to be made from either candidate ‘finders fee’s’ or candidate CV ‘after sales’.
We have a lot of fresh ideas in store for 2017.
After a rapid learning curve, we have realised that career advice and recommendations are simply too invasive for many candidates, especially those used to the traditional hassle-free CV drop.
Considering candidate preferences, we are in the process of rolling out a three-tier candidate profile system. Depending on the information candidates are willing to share with us, we will create a profile for them which precisely matches that information.
We look forward to maintaining our robust candidate pledges, and we live in the hope that perhaps 2017 will be a year that heralds the start of a dynamic shift in recruiting.
Perhaps 2017 will be the year that employers realise that there is a robust, accessible, quality & affordable way to access properly screened candidates without all the smoke and mirrors? We hope so.
A thank you seems an inadequate way to reach out to all those that have supported us so far. We wish we could offer more than a sincere thank you. We hope that we can do so in the coming year.
Our pledges are clear, and our intentions honourable. Let’s hope that we can deliver more success stories through the course of the next twelve months.
