Des Boyd (Director, Cirrus)
Interviewed by Colin Cardwell © s1jobs
Originally published: 22.11.2007
When Des Boyd says his approach is “constantly drilling down” to identify client needs and candidate
suitability, it’s perhaps a subconscious but remarkably apt description of his current challenge.
Boyd launched Cirrus Recruitment in 2002, specialising in recruiting professional sales and marketing people for clients in the construction, engineering and energy sectors.
He had previously spent five years as a national sales manager for Hilti, one of the world’s leading suppliers of power tools and specialised products for the construction industry and the impetus to found his own recruitment company was, he says, the result of having recruited on a national basis for Hilti, where as well as simply finding people to fill jobs, he was “mentoring regional sales managers and instilling best practice.”
He was also, though, experiencing a growing level dissatisfaction with the level of service he was receiving from some agencies.
“The Hilti products were extremely advanced and innovative and certainly had a ‘wow’ factor” he says. “And frankly, when it came to finding the right people to sell them I was often disappointed with the kind of candidate that recruitment companies were sending,” says Boyd, who adds: “I really believed there was an important market for recruiting high-quality sales personnel to clients in the construction industry.”
With fellow director Jo Gargaro, who joined in 2004 with some 15 years experience in recruitment, Boyd has concentrated on tracking down sales expertise to supply an industry that, with the recent long-term building boom, has seen huge growth in its demand for expert personnel.
Headquartered at the Barncluith Business Centre in Hamilton, Cirrus now has a dedicated team of ten recruitment consultants who work with companies throughout Scotland.
“To understand what a sales person does on a day to day basis is an absolute must,” he stresses. And that involves focusing on a market in which he has a previous track record and niche experience in “recruiting people who sell into the construction industry, either to the architect, specifier or the construction firm itself.”
Over the past five years the company has continued to develop its core sector but last year saw the launch of office support, commercial and accountancy and finance divisions plus contact centre, hospitality and technical sectors.
Cirrus has certainly benefited from a buoyant construction market and has seen growth every year – growth that has given Boyd the confidence to target a £1m turnover in the near future. However, as in many other areas of the recruitment sector, he concedes that the right candidate is often a rare and elusive catch.
The aim is not merely to supply a cadre of candidates to fill a shortfall, Boyd says, but it is to “understand the client’s needs and specific requirements. We ask them why they need this person – and what, precisely, is the role they want them to fulfil. “If you put the candidate in the wrong job they’ll wind up being miserable and performing at 50% of their best – or below. You have to match them with the right culture.”
One of the disciplines Boyd developed early in his career in the construction sales recruitment sector was a belief in the usefulness of psychometric testing – and also a series of competency based interviews before final interview.
Cirrus’ specific expertise also means, he says, that “companies can use us as a sounding board for ‘benchmarking requirements’ in the industry, for technical issues and even salary scales.”
He notes the focus on client needs – “companies now are much more aware of the need for retention” – but adds: “The candidate is fundamentally important. Will they come back to us for repeat business? That’s significant too.”
And if they are to do so, he believes in promoting and maintaining ethical standards at Cirrus. “We have developed training in ethics and integrity for our staff. And this includes avoiding practices which are commonplace among some other agencies – for example, we don’t send out CVs to other clients without informing the candidate.”
Boyd believes that specialised markets require expert sales skills. “When the market is tight it’s our job to find people with tight selling specifications to match, although the best candidate is sometimes not always the best employee. So, rather than look for an excellent candidate educated to degree level, we look for someone who is going to be an excellent employee and make a lasting contribution to the client’s business.”
