For even the most successful businesses, there are always a number of influencing factors which can push any project off course at any given time. So, imagine just how tough it has been for many firms over the past few years from an operational, scalability and recruitment perspective.
However, people will always be a key component in any successful business. Meaning that continual investment from a training and development perspective in existing members of the workforce should remain a priority, even in the most challenging of times. And for those firms looking to recruit, this also means maintaining a clear focus on recruiting the best in class across a potentially broader spectrum.
Focusing on the recruitment process, while approaches are likely to differ from firm to firm, it’s important to understand the background and historic values of the industry in which they operate. As this will allow them to assess where theirrecruitment policy sits within this and how to find a competitive edge.
To highlight some of these behaviours, research commissioned by Barrington Hibbert Associates showed that law and financial services remain “elitist industries”, with more than half of employers only hiring from eight top universities. The survey of 1,600 hiring managers from leading UK industries found that 41% of law firms, and a quarter of accountancy, banking and insurance companies, are unlikely to hire anyone without a degree.
An ‘alarming’ 52% of legal, and 51% of financial services companies quizzed will only consider candidates from Oxford, St Andrew’s, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial College London, Durham University, UCL, or the University of Bath. Despite this, two-thirds of legal firm hirers (67%) also believe it’s easy to learn skills on the job, without a relevant university education. And 73% admitted that they have been pleasantly surprised after hiring someone without a degree.
As outlined in the commentary around this research, this demonstrates – rather unfairly – that talented people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds still face a much harder battle to be employed in certain sectors and this is something that we, as an industry and as an individual business working within financial services, need to be fully aware of.
Focusing on the surveying sector, in order to meet future demand, it’s no secret that we have to constantly evaluate how we can make surveying an attractive career option for more people, whatever their gender or race. This is why the CSS trainee programme remains so important, not only for our business but also for the wider sector as it continues to attract people from different professional and cultural backgrounds and puts them through an extensive training process before sending them out into the field.
We’ve already recruited 400+ new surveyors since the inception of our training academy – which represents approximately 12% of the entire ‘lender panel’ workforce currently working in the market. It’s taken time to establish a clear recruitment and educational pathway to enable us to attract people of the right calibre into the sector. This highlights the importance of finding the right balance between qualifications, experience, attitude, ambition, and transferable skills. In reality, it’s impossible to get this right 100% of the time but it remains our corporate responsibility to invest in the right people as early in the process as possible and support them throughout this process as best we can.
Of course, not all businesses have the resources, capabilities, or appetite to build such a pathway. However, for those firms who are looking to grow in the near or medium term, it’s prudent to have some kind of plan in place when it comes to identifying, hiring, and developing diverse, untapped talent. As investing in people remains the best and most obvious route to future success.
Matthew Cumber is managing director of Countrywide Surveying Services
