Rail Professional Magazine (May 2022) Article: Consultancy skills for recruiting specialist roles
In an article published in Rail Professional Magazine, Jo Lawrence, Business Development Director at the OPC, shares details of client support to help identify the best employees for unique specialist roles or large-scale recruitment programmes.
With over three decades of experience, the OPC provides customised talent acquisition solutions and assessment tools for rail, engineering, and transport organisations globally. Specialising in safety critical role selection and safety performance, the OPC collaborates with clients to tailor-make talent acquisition solutions to fit their needs. While they often support high-volume recruitment projects for roles such as Train Drivers and Conductors, increasingly they’re being asked to design bespoke selection processes for specialised positions such as part-time Tram Drivers, Heritage rail roles or high-level Director positions.
The article shares insights and considerations for both types of selection processes – high volume and specialist:
High volume recruitment
In recruitment drives, these are some of the factors that the OPC emphasises:
- Fair international recruitment standards: For some roles the talent pool can be global, therefore, it’s important for clients to establish common selection standards, so all candidates are assessed fairly.
- Determining the applicant pool: Having a more diverse applicant pool can allow clients to choose from an abundance of high-quality candidates.
- Candidate experience: Large-scale recruitment campaigns can be very impersonal making candidates feel like just a number. The article shares steps that organisations can take to enhance applicant’s journeys, such as providing them with timely and valuable feedback.
Specialist Role Recruitment
For more unique roles requiring special skills or qualities:
- Thorough job analysis is crucial to identify the key requirements of the role, to be able to find the best-fit candidate who will perform the role to the highest safety standard.
- If the role is unique or new, OPC Psychologists and expert Assessors can draw on experience from similar functions in other organisations to create an initial job profile.
- Then, an assessment tool matrix can be created, to select tests that most align with the job profile’s characteristics.
Case Study
Within the article, the OPC presents a case study of a bespoke recruitment campaign designed for an overseas client. They conducted job analysis, which led to the creation of an assessment tool matrix. This matrix featured tools such as the Customer Service Situations (CSS), the Core Skills Abstract Reasoning Test (CoreA) and the Rules Acquisition Aptitude Test (RAAT).
These assessment tools were delivered online, using OPC Assessment’s user-friendly online testing platform CandelaTM. The article highlights the benefits of using CandelaTM, emphasising its convenience and efficiency. Assessments can be set up anytime and anywhere, with results being available at the touch of a button to best inform final selection decisions.
"The OPC’s in-house Bureau Service provides psychologists and trained assessors to assist global clients with any size projects, from high-volume recruitment drives to specialist roles. We support clients throughout the selection process, ensuring a top-quality shortlist to help find the best and safest employees. Time and distance are no barriers to us!"
Jo Lawrence, Business Development Director
You can read the full article here...
Get in touch with the friendly OPC team if our Bureau Service could help with your recruitment projects, whatever the size.