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ARE YOU LOSING THE GLOBAL MINING TALENT WAR? -PART ONE The Global Mining industry is one of the most occurs in organisations with a high level of staff interesting, lucrative and challenging sectors in the turnover, and because of the ‘always on’ recruitment world today, and attracting the best management and situation, the process has become mundane and leadership is crucial to on-going business success. ineffective. Remote locations and new ways of working are driving the mining industry to review staffing This leads to the wrong people being hired - practices to ensure they find and retain the best perpetuating staff turnover. The organisation finds people. itself in a vicious circle, where morale, productivity and business performance decline. There’s a global shortage of talent in many sectors, and incredibly, some organisations still see Finding and retaining the best people has never been recruitment as an inconvenience, an annoying facet more important, and to help our clients, we’ve created of working life that just gets in the way. This often two short eBooks outlining the reasons global mining is failing to attract the top talent.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS BRADLEY With over 20 years direct recruitment experience, initially in BARRETT Engineering and Technology, Bradley has been recruiting exclusively for the Global Mining sector since 2009. With operations in London and South Africa, Bradley is immersed in the sector and provides a very high level of support to his business clients and leading candidates. He has an intuitive insight and an enviable track record matching talent to the right opportunities throughout the management hierarchy and up to C-suite level. Brad has travelled extensively, coaches’ football, plays golf, and has a love of music, festivals and fine dining. +44 (0) 203 355 6961 [email protected] DOMINIC Starting his recruitment career in the Healthcare, Project BURENTARAWA Management and Project Control areas, Dom has over 18 years’ experience helping organisations locate the right people for their role vacancies. In 2009 Dominic and Bradley started their recruitment business which focuses exclusively on the Global Mining sector. Service excellence, project delivery and an ability to understand a client’s underlying and future needs has enabled Brad to make long standing appointments that have hugely benefitted the individuals and the companies. He has become a highly sought-after recruitment professional across the global mining sector. When time allows Dom is a keen amateur boxer, footballer and loves the movies. He currently finds golf a little too slow for his tastes, but expects to grow into the game in the coming years! +44 (0) 203 393 8859 [email protected]

KEY CONSIDERATIONS TO HIRING TOP TALENT IN MINING THE BEST PEOPLE ARE NOT PACKAGE & SALARY DETAILS USUALLY LOOKING Unclear salary details can be very off-putting. It makes people think that you’re out of touch with It’s likely that the very talented people are not actively current rates, or that you’ll try to ‘low-ball’ an offer looking for a new job. They’ll be successful in their further down the line. Other elements of the package existing roles, and at best, they’ll be passively looking are also very important in global mining, such as at the jobs market. Leading professionals, who are medical cover, security, and home travel happy where they are will not be impressed by arrangements. Ensure you highlight all the opportunities with generic, boring job descriptions, or components of the package and make the information by a few scrambled bullet points on an email. as clear and unambiguous as possible. Recruitment is a two-way street, and strong candidates in the market will almost certainly be considering several options. A professional approach from start to finish is essential to lock-in the talent. A FAILURE IN PREPARING TO RECRUIT TIMELINES AND COMMUNICATION To attract the best, the recruitment process must run The time taken to complete the recruitment process is like a well-oiled machine. LinkedIn research reports another MAJOR gripe from candidates. that 83% of top candidates are put off by a poor Communication is vital, and a failure to update recruitment experience. A clear and concise candidates regularly about their application progress understanding of the capabilities required is essential, and the next steps will cost you dearly. Often this and customised job profiles with role briefs will help points to lack of engagement with internal identify the skills required. Management ethos, team stakeholders, causing delays in arranging interviews. and organisational structures with reporting All stakeholders must be bought into the recruitment responsibilities both up and down including any process, giving it the time and focus it deserves. This matrixed management requirements are useful in impresses candidates, and by showing them how creating the supporting pack of information needed professional your company is, they’re more likely to for candidates. choose you ahead of the competition.

PROJECT AND OPERATIONAL INFORMATION Top candidates are naturally interested in the specific detail of the project and business operation. What exactly is the company doing, how long has it been operating in that location, where exactly is it, is security taken care of, and what are the facilities like? Some organisations expect people to find this out themselves, but others provide excellent information with detailed descriptions of the site, and in some cases - professionally created videos. Such care and attention will impress the best candidates.

ONBOARDING USING MULTIPLE RECRUITERS ORGANISATIONAL REQUIREMENTS TO FILL THE ROLE Attracting the top talent is a very competitive, so This is the perfect way to confuse people, as consider how people feel if they have to organise their candidates often see a role advertised several times by own medicals, inoculations, and travel arrangements, different organisations. Additionally, candidates may especially if the site is in a difficult location with be contacted directly by a number of recruiters about challenging internal travel arrangements. If a top the same role. This creates a disorganised impression, candidate is considering two roles, and one has a heightening the feeling that there may be problems at dedicated person to deal with this, and the other one the company. Weaker candidates won’t be put off, but doesn’t, it’s pretty obvious which role the candidate top talent may think twice about moving forward will lean towards. with such a role. POOR EMPLOYER BRAND REPUTATION UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS AND LACK OF FLEXIBILITY Organisations with a poor employment record and questionable feedback on sites like Glassdoor and At the other end of the spectrum, one of the reasons others will struggle to attract good people. It’s like many hiring managers struggle to find ‘perfect’ booking a table in a restaurant known for bad food candidates is because they simply don’t exist. Creating and service - why would anyone do it? Companies unrealistically high expectations can mean wasting a stuck in this rut will almost certainly experience poor lot of time hunting for the perfect person who employee morale. Perhaps the business is struggling probably isn’t out there. Appreciate that the 100% and as a consequence, staff turnover is high. It could perfect candidate rarely exists, be flexible in your point to management issues, because it’s known that approach and understand that a compromise may be more people quit their bosses than quit the job itself. needed. This is where a refocus on the essential job elements will help identify the core requirements RECRUITMENT JUST ISN’T needed in candidates. SEEN AS A PRIORITY The reason companies use professional recruiters is to For many organisations, recruitment just doesn’t seem save valuable operational time, enabling them to focus to be priority, it’s a reactive thing as a vacancy occurs. on core business activities. In our follow-on eBook, we It’s likely such organisations have high levels of staff look at the ‘value added’ reasons underpinning turnover, and the reason they don’t like recruitment is professional recruitment, along with the more subtle because they are always doing it. Investing in angles at play in the global mining talent recruitment recruitment best practice to find the top talent drives market. business performance improvement that feeds directly to the bottom line. Productivity and efficiency With over 20 years combined experience recruiting increase, along with levels of staff motivation. People top leadership talent for global mining businesses will enjoy working in a thriving business and want to across the world, we’ve developed a network of stay. Staff turnover goes down and a process of trusted contacts that we are continually growing and continual improvement is in place - it’s how smart evolving. businesses do it. The quality and expertise of the people we recommend is always excellent, and only the very top talent remains in the nucleus of our network. If you’d like an initial meeting or consultation with us, at no cost to your organisation, then please reach out. We’re always willing to discuss and share best practice with like-minded professionals.

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