News and comment from the HVAC recruitment specialist

Make your CV a record of your performance

Posted August 29th, 2010 by james | No Comments
CV Tips, High performers | , ,

One of the most frequent emails we send out to candidates we give the nickname Improve Your CV. It says the following. 

Thank you for sending us your CV.
Employers have to wade through lots of CVs and will simply reject those that do not provide some evidence of performance in the role.
You can see a sample HVAC CV on our website at  http://www.thornhvac.co.uk/_downloads/Thornhills_CV_advice.pdf
If you will help us by redoing your CV we will have another look at your suitability for this role and others.

regards.

The reason for this is pretty straight forward. Most employers know that the best predictor of job performance is work history. If you have performed well in a similar job previously you are likely to perform well again.

So it follows that employers will be expecting evidence of performance outcomes in a role rather than just the activity or responsibilities. An example from the sample CV on our website is shown below for a sales engineer where the need is pretty obvious.

Current Employment
June 2001 – June 2006: Sales Engineer, UK Boilers
Company Description: UK Boilers is a boiler manufacturer for the commercial market.
They also design and install heating solutions into end users properties.
Responsibilities: My role was to sell the design and installation of these systems and
their appliances to small to medium sized commercial properties focusing mainly on the
public sector in the East Midlands area.
Achievements: In my first two years I hit target, and in subsequent years I was
consistently in the top 3 out of 11 salespeople. I managed to sell a record order of over
£2 million to Lincoln City Council.
Reason For Leaving: The company’s products are now outdated in the market place,
and I’d like to join a more progressive company.

For a sales engineer the need is pretty obvious. Yet most of the CVs we receive, regardless of occupation, fail to include performance measures. For any sales role with targets this is easier to include. But why should it be ignored for other roles? In our experience it is one of the characteristics that will distinguish the high performer from the average.

Increasingly companies are including KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in job descriptions and monitoring their performance in reviews so the figures are often available and just need to be brought into your CV to give an overview of your performance.

Even when a company does not regularly gather this kind of information itself shouldn’t the job holder but doing it for him or herself. How do you think it will sound to the prospective employer if you end up saying ‘we never had targets’ or ‘they never told me how I was doing’.

Most targets try to track that the company are are delivering what the customer wants at a profit. Key items are performance against schedule, budget, resources, risks, changes and customer satisfaction.  BRE and The University of Salford have developed some useful information on KPIs and a KPI Engine to help support the collection, reporting and analysis of data. The engine is an on-line tool that can be accessed from any web-enable location without the need for any additional software.

Keeping your job in HVAC in a recession

Posted June 19th, 2010 by james | No Comments
HVAC Jobs | , ,

Most jobs in HVAC are at a higher level of risk of redundancy than they were a couple of years ago despite the companies that buck the trend and continue to grow. And talking to employers and employees in the industry most seem to agree that a serious upturn is quite a way off still.

As a consequence, the priority for many candidates is keeping their existing job rather than checking out pastures new.The latest Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development survey gives an interesting perspective on this. It’s employees survey found that less than a third of employees trusted their senior managers and that trust in their leaders had reached an all time low.

So what can you do  to help keep your job in a recession? When your senior managers sit down with your boss to decide who is to go in the latest head count reduction, how do you influence his decision away from recommending you.

I would suggest looking at three areas:

Communication

We are a male dominated profession and I think it would be fair to say that communication is not our strongest point. Find out what the company’s business plan is and how it is doing against that plan. You may be employed within an enlightened organisation that shares this information with its employees but many don’t.

Try to find out also how it is meeting its cash projections and if it is managing to collect its debts. Most companies that go bust, do so because of lack of cash rather than lack of orders.

Do you have a set of objectives agreed with your boss and if so how are they measured? If you know these two things then it is easier to communicate your value to your boss and the company if and when it comes to head count reduction. You can ask for a regular review if you don’t already receive one and ask, ‘How am I doing?’

Empathy with and loyalty to your boss

Do you know what your boss’s objectives are and how he or she is measured? How could you help your boss achieve his or her objectives? To a large extent we develop loyalty within our network by doing favours for each other. Little things that don’t cost money like passing over an interesting article on a subject the boss is interested in or working on.

Contingency planning

What would you do if your boss put you onto the redundancy process today? How prepared are you? Who is recruiting in your sector? Could you go self-employed and if so what would be your competitive advantage? I hope redundancy doesn’t happen to you but is it worth doing some contingency planning in the event that it does?

Boom and bust construction – we can’t go on like this

Posted January 17th, 2010 by james | No Comments
Construction Industry, HVAC Jobs | ,

Constructionskills, the new name for the old Sector Skills Council for the construction industry, announced this week an extension to the £1000 sweetener offered construction companies for taking on an apprentice made redundant by another construction company.

It must be devastating  for a young apprentice to discover he or she is out of a job so soon after the heady and optimistic days of the boom. And 2194 of them have been displaced over the last 10 months alone according to Constructionskills.

But it seems to me as an HVAC recruiter that the conditions are never right to take on apprentices in an industry that is so subject to boom and bust.

During boom conditions employers only want new employees who can ‘hit the ground running’ because they are so busy they haven’t the time or spare manpower to train. While in bust conditions employers are so worried about where the next project will come from they only take the bare minimum of staff and still want only those who can ‘hit the ground running.’

How the message has changed in only 18 months.

Back in June 2008 the incoming Chief Executive for Constructionskills Mark Farrar warned that despite a 20% growth in the construction workforce since the early 1990s we faced an aging workforce with the number of older workers ( those aged 60 and over) doubling over the period and those aged 24 and under falling by 25%. He talked about a ‘workforce time bomb’. Now they sympathize with frightened employers and offer a bribe.

But the time bomb wasn’t in the workforce. It was in the low interests rates, unsafe loans, the political claims of an end to boom and bust and the lack of regulation that fuelled the greed and asset bubble built on debt that has now burst.

And now, young and older workers are both laid off. The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts that business failures in the building sector will rise by 101.8 per cent over 2009 compared with 2008 levels.

What a way to run an industry

Selling Air Conditioning to the Local Authority market in London

Posted November 19th, 2009 by james | No Comments
High Performers looking for jobs, High performers | , , ,

Fifty four year old high performer 3618 has sold splits and VRF sales to specifiers in this market for an AC contractor with considerable success over the last 20 years.

Some of 3618’s achievements have been:

  • Consistently achieved or exceeded sales targets up to £1.5m at margins between 25% and 40%.
  • Developed an innovative finance leasing package for clients, thereby increasing sales and improving cash flow.
  • Retained most customers for 15 to16 years.
  • Has been selling between 250k and 500k per annum to local authorities for more than 15 years.

One chief mechanical officer of a London authority said about 3618’s performance: “It is the understanding of our needs that I like. It has led to working with other people and departments in the authority because of that reputation. As far as this authority is concerned I would rate performance as edging on 5 out of 5.”

So I asked High Performer 3618 for some of the reasons for this success.

James Thornhill

Why is that market such a good market?

High Performer 3618

The good thing about that market is it is just repeated work all the time. They have got countless schools, admin offices, libraries. It’s just a constant flow of projects. I have so many buildings and so many of these places require air conditioning. They are constantly refurbishing their premises. They are constantly building new premises, so that’s why it’s never ending. And everywhere they go, they want air conditioning. So for example, schools, I have done constant work on school classrooms. Take computers in classrooms, whereas years ago, when you and I were at school, we never did that sort of thing in the classroom. But now because there are 30 computers in a classroom, they have to have air conditioners.

James Thornhill

How did you first get into the market and then build it up?

High Performer 3618

I got a project for about £200k I think. Well to be honest, a couple of times, one of the guys in one of the authorities left there and he went to a couple of other authorities, and every time he moves around, he is stuck and he calls me in. So he has introduced me to two of them. So a lot of it is also recommendations as well. But a couple of ones I called cold. They all know it other and it just snowballs like that if you are doing your job properly.

James Thornhill

How do you make sure you are doing a good job?

High Performer 3618

Well it is not only me when it comes to that; it's the actual company that you work for, the people that put the equipment in. You are only as good as your last job. You have to make sure the job is installed correctly because if they mess up then you could lose them pretty quick.

I constantly monitor their work all the time. I go around, not what you call snagging, but as the job progresses, even though I may not be running that job. I call in on the off chance of catching them out or not catching them out to make sure it has been installed correctly.

I also try to make sure the customer is happy and talk to them of any problems they might have. So I am constantly monitoring the standard of work that a contractor does, the actual workmanship of your company. It’s not only from the customer’s side; it’s also from the inflation point of view as well. That’s what Local Authorities look for, standard of work.

James Thornhill

How do the margins you earn on Local Authority work compare with other types of work?

High Performer 3618

They are slightly more contested, because so many people are trying to get into that type of sector. So I guess profit margins are not quite as high as perhaps other organizations.

You have to be aware that if you put too much profit on the job, you are not going to get it. Although they come back to you repeatedly, those people are aware of what things cost. They have got a feel for what a thing should cost, and if they think you ripped them off, they will know about it. They know. So your prices have to be fairly keen.

If you would like to see the CV or meet this high performer then contact us.

How to create a good presentation for an interview or CPD seminar?

Posted November 13th, 2009 by Jason | 1 Comment
HVAC Interview Tips | , , ,

This article was written by a successful candidate who has just obtained a Heating Specification Sales role. He used this excellent PowerPoint presentation on “Solution Selling” as part of the interview. His methodology is explained below with links to the actual slides and notes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My simple process for a presentation of this kind is as follows;

- Devise your theme and summary with the important points you want to deliver to your audience

- Shape the presentation according to time available and audience knowledge

- Create an intro - why you think it’s important, what does not work and why, what does work and why its better, examples with facts and figures, and finish with a neat summary.

In many cases when delivering a presentation like this unless I had some graphs and numbers to share I probably would not use a PowerPoint presentation but simply deliver the message and offer to share a pre-prepared handout at the end summarising the presentation.  As this was an interview I guessed they may wish to see if I could put a slide show together akin to the ones used for CPD's.

In terms of slide creation I tend to put some info on a slide pack but use it as a guide with a separate script of notes and for my time allocation of 10 minutes I think five slides is the max you can get away with.

I tend to create a presentation featuring the highlights of what I want to talk about, then add detailed notes and rehearse to assess time take and then iterate the presentation until I meet the time target whilst keeping the key themes.  Once this is done I rehearse several more times to an imaginary audience and then reduce my notes to a series of easily identifiable words so I can make eye contact with the audience and only occasionally glance at my notes to keep the presentation shape and discipline.

I have attached an early draft and the finished version I used on the day (version 2).  You can see the shape and emphasis had changed through several iterations, some according to time and some to enhance the impact.  All about preparation I guess.  The key difference between the early draft and the finished version of the presentations is the significant difference in the notes section (the presentation material looks very similar). The first illustrates how detailed my script is and the final version is always one with single words, phrases, or sentences to keep my presentation structure. I guess someone looking at the bare presentations may get a bit perplexed trying to see the difference.

Hope this is helpful for any of your candidates who may be required to make a presentation and have done little presentation experience.  My over-riding concern is trying to put myself in the chair of the recipient - if I sat there listening would I be engaged and interested and does it make sense.

Recession busting in HVAC

Posted October 27th, 2009 by Orion the Hunter | No Comments
Service & Maintenance | , , ,

So, how’s the team performing?

Hopefully by now everyone in your organisation is fully focussed and knows that they are all part of the sales process – not just the good old salesman - or sales woman.

Many ‘non-sales’ people do seem to be taking ownership of this ethos and that can only be good news for us all. Whilst they still have their ‘day jobs’, they are realising more and more how they can be directly responsible for not only continued business with existing clients, but also contribute to NEW business.

Service is paramount. If a client contacts your company they are looking for a solution, an answer – make sure you give it to them or can find someone who can. That way they are satisfied and you get the brownie points.

Next time the client calls they know they can rely on you for assistance; which should lead to both a continuing relationship and, hopefully, continued business. It’s all about faith and trust. Fail to provide a satisfactory answer or solution then they become concerned and may start to question not only your abilities but those of your company. If left, this can only lead to one thing – goodbye Mr Client!

In the current market this is the last thing any business wants.

Whilst there does seem to be a slight upturn in business over recent weeks and the general feeling is one of hope, it will be many months, or even years, before we can say we are back ‘on the crest of a wave’.

This is where we all need to remain at the top of our game and never give our clients the excuse to leave us or the competition the opportunity to jump in.

Whilst many have used triplet-idioms such as ‘education, education, education’ and ‘sell, sell, sell‘ or even ‘location, location, location’ it is time for all of us to ‘focus, focus, focus’ and make sure we all provide a first class service within our own area of work that helps to not only keep our clients, but to keep them coming back for more!

Greener buildings are good for public relations

Posted October 12th, 2009 by james | No Comments
High Performers looking for jobs, High performers | , , , ,

A question a lot of building owners ask themselves today is how the corporate image of their company can appeal to the public in general?

One way I have found is being seen to take an active part in the Green Issues that confront us today. By this I don’t mean dressing up in your “student gear” and taking part in the next demonstration in your neighbourhood! I mean addressing your Carbon Footprint.

One such client came to me recently with his consultant and challenged us with this question. We are going to build a new Company HQ in the North East and we need to be seen to be to taking a responsible approach concerning this point.

Basing my expertise on air movement and room conditioning, we looked at the building uses and proposed a mixture of Passive and Active Chilled Beams. Together with other key components from our range that complemented our initial proposal, we were then on the right track by giving a system proposal and offering a “one stop shop” option in respect of the room conditioning and air movement.

This complemented the thoughts of the Project Architect who had a high BREEAM rating in mind. The architectural options of tinted glass and Bris Solie meant that the beam expectation would not be as high as first envisaged due to reduced solar gain. Therefore no fan powered air terminals in general areas would be required. Knowing how to introduce the air into the space using the right terminal meant less air velocity. In turn this reduced the capital plant fan requirement.

CFD models prepared by independent consultants have proved that fan power can be reduced overall by over 20%.

With the client agreeing to this approach, the project went to tender. The client then raised another question. “How can you make this project REALLY stand out”? I researched the options and came up with the idea of a Bore Hole cooling and heating. The client was taken with this but wanted to know the payback period. We estimated on the size of his building and application it would be considerably shorter than the conventional approach. There were objections to this, however using reversible heat pump technology; he agreed it would certainly make him stand out in respect of his Green Credentials!

The scheme depended on the “trial holes” producing the required results. These holes produce water at a constant 12C. The size and quantity depend on your cooling requirement. However having the added incentive to return the warmed water to the hole and forming your natural reverse heat pump does make this appealing to a number of building owners. The test results found that the ground in which the building was to be situated was suitable.

With the partnership I had formed with the Bore Hole specialist, we were uniquely specified and awarded the contract.

The original concept of Chilled Beams paved the way to introduce additional complementing product lines. In turn with the proposal of the cooling source, this pushed up the margin beyond what we originally thought we could recover from the project. It gave the client the following savings and advantages:-

· A single point of contact for the system design, supply and operation.

· Savings due to the non requirement of capital plant, i.e. boilers and chillers.

· Reduced construction costs due to the inclusion of multi service beams and removal of false ceilings.

· Reduced fan and pump power requirement.

· Reduced on-site co-ordination due to beams being multi service and carrying lighting, smoke detection, PA and sprinklers.

· Off site manufacturing meant a reduced on-site programme.

· Building delivery being quicker meant a quicker return on investment

· Reduced planned maintenance costs.

· Reduced taxes due to reduced carbon emissions.

· A corporate identity in tune with today's environmental topics.

 

By High Performing Business Development Manager 816

A 46 year old top class business development manager with HVAC manufacturing and contracting experience, based in Cambridge is seeking a new challenge in HVAC systems selling.

Achievements.

· Single handedly delivering a project in Tokyo, Japan worth £4.0M which involved establishing agent agreement, securing a manufacturer and installer to manufacture, complete and subsequently maintain works.

· Project Managing a tunnel ventilation project in Melbourne Australia (value £10M) delivering on time and ahead of budget.

· Designing and securing a £4.7m Chilled Beam supply and install project.

· Raising a contractor’s profit margin 15% within his first year.

His MD said about him: “ He is very effective in systems type selling because he can anticipate the problems on site and consultants don’t always understand how it will work on site. His knowledge of the logistics gives the consultants confidence. From a sales point of view I would put him in the top 25% particularly when he is able to see things through to the contractor.”

If you would like to see the CV or meet this high performer then contact us.

Should our service and maintenance engineers be better salesmen?

Posted October 7th, 2009 by james | No Comments
High performers, Service & Maintenance | , , ,

I was talking this week to a maintenance supervisor for one of the major property owning industrial companies and he was pretty fed up. His responsibility is to provide a technical audit of the contractor operating a PPM contract on the 100 or so buildings in the company’s estate.

He had come to the view that the engineers were not looking after the buildings on a regular basis and were getting away with it because they were not supervised. The contractor had cut down on supervisory staff.

One example he quoted was when a tenant of one of the newer buildings complained that it was boiling up. They were getting huge temperature differentials. They had windows that wouldn’t open that made it all the worse. And an independent investigation showed that 75% of the fan coils were either not operating to control or where not operating at all.

My interviewee could not understand it. He had spent most of his career on the other side of the fence working for contractors, where contracts were viewed as business opportunities rather than fixed specifications to be met at the lowest possible cost.

Regardless of how tightly priced, if he found a maintenance contract for £100,000, he would be sorely disappointed if after 18 months he hadn’t got that contract value doubled, he told me.

His business model depends on the commercial and management skills of the supervisor and ignores the engineer and I wonder if this is not part of the problem. The person who is in the best position to spot the problem or business opportunity depending on your perspective is the engineer doing the work.

Yet most engineers don’t like being called salesmen even if they are responsible for the sales process.

How many service engineers are trained to spot these ‘sales’ opportunities and to gather the information necessary to sell the opportunity?

How many service engineers are rewarded for the leads they gather with a small percentage of the profit that flows from it?

How many service engineers have a selling qualification from the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management (ISMM) or have attended a sales course along with all their technical accreditations and qualifications?

I well remember talking with a high performing project sales engineer about the reasons for his success. One, he pointed out, was the work he had put in to developing his relationships with the service engineers on his patch and their skills in developing a ‘nose’ for opportunities.

James Thornhill, Director of Thornhvac

This article first appeared in ACR Today in the October 2009 issue

Introducing Autodesk Inventor Professional using an in house expert

Posted September 17th, 2009 by james | No Comments
High Performers looking for jobs, High Performing Design Engineer, High performers | , , , , ,

By High Performing Design Engineer 3274

Autodesk Inventor is a 3D engineering design and digital prototyping package. It provides a vast array of tools, aiding the design engineer to perform a multitude of tasks. Typical functions include:

· Sheetmetal design

· Solid part modelling

· Surface modelling

· Frame generation

· Cable & harness design

· Stress analysis & dynamic simulation

· Photo realistic rendering and animation

· Tube & pipe design and routing

The software also includes functionality to aid in the design of belts, pulleys, sprockets, bolted connections and shafts. Design calculations can be traced to first principles within the software for validation and proofing.

Manufacturing drawings can be created and annotated with extreme ease, and automatically updated as your 3D parts or assemblies change. BOM lists can link with assemblies through “smart properties” for process streamlining.

As the data created is “real geometry”, it can be used to directly control your manufacturing processes. Cutting, punching, folding, milling, routing, tube bending, plastic processing and almost any automated routine can now directly interface with an Inventor model.

The benefits of this include reduced time to manufacture with minimised error potential, reduced setup and process time, and less manual instruction transmission. Repetition and design update times are removed by the single source of data.

Legacy data can easily be imported, retaining existing design work. If suppliers or contractors need the old formats, exporting is simple and can regenerate as your parts change.

As with any complex software package, there is a premium to pay. This initial expenditure is easily shadowed by the manufacturing benefits, but there are additional costs to consider. Implementation and setup of the system can be a difficult process, and is not suited to beginners or standard users.

Consultancy firms are often used for this, but at costs exceeding several hundred pounds per day. This may take weeks to complete, and is an expensive outlay. To use a third party trainer to bring staff up to a professional level could cost £5k per user. Add to this the need for an initial dip in productivity while the system comes up to speed, and the goal can start to look a little less attainable.

An intelligent solution is to employ an expert user capable of performing setup, configuration and training exercises. He or she will also be able to build the library and templates required for the company, allowing other users to transfer onto the system at a gradual rate. This will minimise or eliminate the drop in productivity.

In addition to all this, an expert user can provide ongoing cost savings. As he/she maintains knowledge of developments within the software, it is possible to plan for improvements and upgrades as they come. This allows utilisation of new features as they are released, bringing improvements to your company at the fastest rate possible.

As a specialist, an expert user can also provide higher level services than the standard user. These functions would allow better interfacing with ERP and data management, and utilisation of otherwise hidden or unknown features.

Acquiring an Autodesk Inventor “expert” can unlock the potential of the world’s premier engineering design tools.

Is your company looking for a high performing senior design engineer or know someone who is?

This 27 year old has designed and developed his group's most successful range of Close Control AHUs offering less energy use and less foot print. And he introduced into the company and is one of the UK’s most proficient users of the Autodesk Inventor Professional System.

Promoted twice within his current company and currently managing up to 10 engineers he has demonstrated good management skills and real innovation combined with sound business acumen.

He is looking for a new challenge either within areas he knows such as humidity control, air conditioning or air handling or a new area within HVAC and is prepared to move from his West Midlands base.

If you would like more information or have an opportunity in this or any area of HVAC please let us know. We reference check the performance of all candidates before putting them forward. Contact me for further information.

How do you prepare for an interview?

Posted September 10th, 2009 by Jason | No Comments
HVAC Interview Tips | , ,

A few months ago I got a candidate an interview for an HVAC Manufacturer. I tried to prepare the candidate by describing the job and the company. I sent an email with the company’s website details, and explained the importance of investigating the company before the interview.

For one reason or another, my candidate did not have much time before the interview to prepare, and didn’t really check their website.

During the interview it quickly became apparent to the interviewer that my candidate didn’t know much about the company. The candidate said, “The interview was over in twenty minutes, but it felt like he’d made his mind up after the first few minutes.” To make matters worse the interviewer asked some fairly detailed questions about the company like:

  • “How many employees does our company have?”
  • “What was the turnover and profit of our company?”

My poor candidate stood no chance!

Not all interviewers will expect such detailed knowledge. But the information can usually be obtained on any limited company from Companies House where you can download company accounts for only £1.

On a separate point, many HVAC companies are struggling at the moment, but some are pulling through. It’s critical for candidates to understand what a company’s finances are like before you go through the interview process. As with many redundancies still being made, its normally the case of the the last in, is first out.

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