Over the past ten years the environmental services industry has undergone a dramatic transformation. In the 90’s the focus was on collection, haulage and filling holes in the ground. However today the industry is more focused on treating waste as a resource and extracting value from it.
Climate change, resource scarcity and legislation are amongst the main factors that have contributed to this sea change and there are no signs that these trends will be changing anytime soon.
Businesses in the environmental services sector have been rushing to keep up with the pace of change, redirecting their efforts to stay competitive and exploit new niches.
However one area of business that has not reflected the pace of change is recruitment. Too many companies continue to focus on recruitment from within the environmental services industry and do not actively search out and pursue candidates from other related sectors.
It is very easy when recruiting to overestimate the importance of specific industry knowledge, in the process overlooking valuable related skills. Even at the interview stage it is only natural for employers to feel more empathy and comfort with candidates speaking the same language and jargon that they do.
The problem with this approach is that companies are recruiting from a relatively narrow pool of talent and missing opportunities not only to recruit exceptional executives but also to develop their company’s capabilities in the areas of new opportunity that are opening up.
Many may also be reluctant to recruit outside the sector due to past experience when it was a lot harder to attract people into the industry. Five years ago candidates from, for example, the power generation sector would have been reluctant to even consider a transfer into ‘waste’. However these old boundaries and prejudices are blurring as the industry modernises.
At Spindler we are already helping companies in the sector to recruit high calibre executives from related industries with talent sets developed in similar environments. In the past six months alone, we have successfully recruited talented people from industries as diverse as paper, building materials, chemicals, energy, logistics, automotive and asset management (to name just a few) for clients in the waste sector.
If you are interested in find out more about how we can help you to ‘recruit outside the box’ and find the right executives for your business then please give us a call.
