News and comment from the HVAC recruitment specialist

Stress free recruiting or advancing your career

Posted March 9th, 2011 by | No Comments
High performers, High Performers looking for jobs, HVAC Companies, HVAC Jobs, HVAC Recruitment | , , ,

In these days of recession and financial uncertainty, businesses have to ensure that their workforce is not only lean but also highly effective. At the same time, people looking to further their careers by securing a new role are finding it difficult to find the right placement. Talented people will always progress, but many will be hesitant to move companies in the current market conditions, considering it a risk.

The plumbing, heating and ventilation industry relies on people with a diverse range of skills. For example, engineers with the right qualifications to meet the changing marketplace; sales people with technical knowledge to enable them to match their products with applications; sales people with commercial sense, so they can negotiate prices and contracts, and managers who can work with numbers and people, overseeing budgets and motivating teams.

Clear high performers need to be filtered from the general applications and fast-tracked, making the recruitment process quick, pleasurable and effective. To successfully match people with HVAC job vacancies, and to spare businesses and job candidates from the pitfalls, a recruitment agency needs to have good knowledge and experience of our industry sector. Thornhvac was set up eight years ago exactly because it has this.

Thornhvac’s aim was to provide a stress-free service to companies and managers, by taking care of the whole recruitment process: advertising, filtering CV’s and – crucially - interviewing all short listed candidates. References are taken-up at this stage with previous employers, so that the candidates can be ranked. Only after getting satisfactory references will they put the candidate forward. Performance being the most important criteria in this process. By the time the interview takes place, the applicant is 50% of the way there.

A key element of taking the stress away is ensuring that the elements of a job requiring technical knowledge elements are dealt with by someone who understands the requirements fully and can converse professionally with companies and candidates alike, to match needs and skills. This is another reason Thornhvac was set-up to serve the HVAC sectors - the Thornhvac team have technical backgrounds in heating, ventilation, air conditioning and renewables and can evaluate skills in all these areas, saving time and frustration in the interview process.

Sales, marketing and managerial skills are also covered and assessed by people who have had many years of experience working in the industry.
Whether you work in sales, marketing, management, or technical engineering roles, Thornhvac can find a role to suit you and your aspirations. And if you are an employer, Thornhvac will not only find you the high performers you need, but will also check they’re the right fit for the team they are joining

John Forster
Technical Consultant
Thornhvac Ltd.- HVAC Recruiters

Why can’t we measure on performance?

Posted January 27th, 2011 by | No Comments
HVAC Recruitment, Recruiters | ,

Have you noticed how often people, organisations and companies measure themselves on their activity rather than performance.

How many times when a politician is asked the question, what are you doing about X,Y or Z they will reply that they have spent a record amount on the problem, x more pounds than the opposition ever spent.

Managers in business will talk about the number of projects they are working on, the number of products launches done, the number of customers processed. Hospitals will cite the number of patients treated, charities, the amount of money raised, social workers, the number of clients visited and recruitment agencies, the number of CVs they send to clients or the candidates they place.

All of this is activity and not necessarily related to performance. The projects may fail to achieve their expectations, the products may be inferior, the customers unhappy and leave, the patients not get better, the money raised be wasted or misappropriated, the clients of the social workers be left unaffected by the intervention and the recruiter’s CVs not result in a placement or the placement in a successful period of employment.

Increasingly and even politicians are saying this, voices are saying performance measurement should be about outcomes not activity. If we measured initiatives in this way we would do less but achieve more. This is because so often, particularly in politics, initiatives have unintended consequences, often the opposite of what is intended.

So we are trying to do our bit. Our latest search product guarantees to replace free of charge any candidate we place who does not meet an agreed above average performance level after a year or stay for the same length of time. Keep your fingers crossed.

Where can HVAC companies go to get cheaper finance than the banks?

Posted November 20th, 2010 by | No Comments
Getting Finance, HVAC Companies |

As banks concentrate on rebuilding their capital, regardless of what the government tells them, then lending to smaller businesses inevitably gets squeezed. And with around 90% of all banking services to SMEs provided by Britain’s five biggest banks, according to market research company Mintel, is there anywhere else to go?

Fortunately necessity is the mother of invention and a number of new financing alternatives are becoming available including www.fundingcircle.com, a web based social funding site that has lent around £1m to SMEs since it started 10 weeks ago.

The Economist reports how Scotmas, a family owned company in Scotland who exports water treatment chemicals and equipment was helped. In August it wanted to bid to run a water-disinfection project in Dubai, but its bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, said it would take eight to ten weeks to approve the £30,000 of funding it needed to secure in advance of bidding. Funding Circle was able to lend the money to Scotmas within 2 weeks at a rate of 7.7%.

A laser engineering company in the North East has just borrowed £20,000 for working capital at a rate of 7.8% over 3 years. And a ductwork manufacturer and installer in the North West borrowed £10,000 to buy another machine at 7.8% over 12 months.

And if these rates seem cheaper than the 11 to 12% rates typically on offer at the banks when they do offer a loan, they are. Launched at the beginning of August, Funding Circle allows savers to lend money to small businesses in exchange for returns of between 6%– 9%. Money goes direct to credit-worthy small businesses in the UK.

Small businesses can apply for loans of between £5,000 and £50,000, to be paid back over a one or three-year period. Funding Circle estimates that typical interest rates charged to borrowers on the loans will be between 6% and 9% depending on your credit rating. Once funding is agreed, small firms will also have to pay Funding Circle 2% of the amount borrowed.

With the average savings account rate in Britain currently around 0.78%, social lending sites such as Zopa and Funding Circle have come into their own. They are organised like an auction so borrowers get the cheapest average rate that lenders are prepared to accept. Funding Circle claim that more than £3m has been bid for the £1m so far lent so this tends to bring down the rate even further. Expect more sites to follow.

Make your CV a record of your performance

Posted August 29th, 2010 by | 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 | 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 | 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 | No Comments
Air Conditioning, High performers, High Performers looking for jobs | , , ,

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 | 1 Comment
Heating, 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 | 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 | No Comments
High performers, High Performers looking for jobs, Renewables | , , , ,

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.

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