The Challenge
In its 20th year of business, Sheffield-based Management Bank Recruitment was given a challenge from its longest-standing client, specialist manufacturer Gripple: find the new director of the innovation and ideas (I&I) department.

The company is named the same as its innovative product, the Gripple, which was conceived in the mid-1980s as a solution to the problem of joining wire fencing on agricultural land. Today, its uses span such varied places as the construction site to the vineyard, the farm to the factory and the supermarket to your garden.

Andy Davies, business development manager at Gripple, told Recruiter: “The director of I&I was a challenging role as we needed someone who could innovate, generate ideas, come up with pioneering and radical designs, as well as motivate the staff. We don’t have an actual HR department for recruiting.

Our managers will interview candidates but we prefer to send our job needs to Management Bank.”

Management Bank is husband and wife team Deborah and Les King, who started working with Gripple in 2000 and have been retained by the company since 2003. During that time, the Kings have recruited 125 Gripple staff at all levels.

Management Bank is like our external HR department. When you have suppliers like them, who have grown with you, they end up challenging you ANDY DAVIES

“Gripple is a forward-thinking, employee-owned company. It’s a very team-orientated approach,” said Deborah King. “All of Gripple’s products are patented - all innovative products. Our main challenge was finding a person with the right attitude, as well as the right skills.” The difficulties were that the candidate had to be a qualified engineer, have reached director level, must have brought patented products to market, have international business experience (as Gripple exports to more than 70 countries) and be living within travelling distance of Sheffield.

The Solution
Because of the tricky nature of the skillset - there are very few engineering firms in the UK which produce and manufacture patented products -; Management Bank decided to take several routes to find, what seemed to be, such an elusive candidate. King searched through Management Bank’s extensive database, undertook searches and headhunting, and also advertised the job.

“In the end, the successful candidate found our advert on a job board,” King admitted, “from which we had nearly 400 applications. However it was his covering letter, addressing many of the points the job required, which made him stand out from other candidates.” Davies added: “Recruiting for Gripple is never straightforward, you always need a bit of luck.”

King had to speak to a lot of people on the phone first to see exactly what their ‘fit’ could be. “And we interviewed more people than usual,” said King, as the job was so niche. King interviewed the candidate onsite at Gripple’s buildings in the Old West Gun Works in Sheffield city centre. “It’s important for candidates to get a feel of the company and its culture,” King explained. “There’s no point conducting interviews at our offices. It’s also important to get across Gripple’s cultural fit to candidates with the right engineering skills, as there are very few companies which make solely patented products.

“But despite this particular candidate standing out from the start, even then I wasn’t sure of his fit at first interview.” However, once he returned for the second interview, and met the Gripple team, both King and Davies recognised he was right for the job. “Alan had a vision and was himself an inventor of products,” said King. Davies agreed: “The really difficult thing to do is find the right person, culturally, for the right job, and in this case, as the many other placements Management Bank has found for us over the years, Deborah really did find the right person.”

Maybe the reason for this is that the husband and wife team are the only non-employee shareholders of Gripple, so it’s in their best intention to find the best people for the company. Davies sums the relationship up. “Management Bank is like our external HR department. When you have suppliers like them, who have grown with you, they end up challenging you. But they also take part in the success of the business.”

lessons learned

• Never give up. At times Deborah King felt it was an impossible position to fill. “The important thing to learn is not to give up but to keep on going.”
• It’s vital to find candidates with the right cultural fit, so get to know the client as much as possible
• “Although it might seem as though you are narrowing down the search, getting the initial job spec absolutely right will make it easier in the long run. You are more likely to get exactly the right person by defining your ‘wish list’ from the off,” according to Deborah King

Would you like to be involved in The Challenge?
Contact Vanessa Townsend at [email protected]