We provide recruitment services to marine sector companies, mainly operating in New Zealand, although we have enjoyed success with some overseas employers as well because of the high regard that New Zealand marine skills are held in - whether at a drawing board (or nowadays, behind a computer screen driving a CAD program), in the boat yard, down in the engine room or even on the deck of a high-performance race boat or superyacht.
We have made placements in a wide range of professions: to name but a few, we have secured Naval Architects, Draughtspeople, Shipwrights, Boat Builders (wooden, aluminium and steel), Fairers and Painters, Marine Engineers (to Chief Engineer level), Marine Technicians and Workshop staff, Electricians and Electronics wizards, Composites Specialists, Riggers, Sales and Service Management personnel.... the list goes on.
The majority of positions are permanent land-based roles, predominantly in New Zealand, although through our expanding network of industry contacts - and, pleasingly, word-of-mouth from happy customers and candidates alike - we are developing new avenues and responding to more enquiries.
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The Challenge
Our primary challenge is to win interviews for appropriately skilled and qualified people, and then to assist those people into their new job.
The process is simple: we receive a job brief from a company, and first review our extensive database of trade professionals to see who might be an appropriate fit. If we do not find anyone suitable/available, then we advertise, primarily on the web using this site and leading internet job boards.
All short-listed candidates are interviewed (unless located offshore at the point of application) to get to know them better, and we then take up verbal references to verify that people are REALLY as good as they say they are. We also conduct a concise psychometric assessment of personality, sharing the report with the candidate to get his or her view on how well it matches their own perceptions of the person they think they are.
At the end of this process, if we think we still have a good match to the client brief, a candidate will be introduced to the company for closer consideration; the company will first receive a detailed electronic profile on the candidate, in order to determine if they would like to proceed to interview.
This will normally be a very productive meeting: the company will already know a lot about the interviewee, and their career background will have been carefully checked with verbal referees through a diligent discovery process. The candidate will have been pre-briefed about the company and the demands of the role, and so the discussion can focus on employer and (potential) employee working out if they are right for each other.
It is therefore not unusual for a candidate to receive a job offer during that first interview.
The addage that says "you're only as good as your last placement" means that we are very choosy about who we work with: openess, honesty and integrity are central to everything we do, because our reputation, within what is a relatively small commercial community, is inextricably linked to the quality of the people we introduce to our clients.
We are also mindful - from direct personal experience - of what many recruiters can do very badly, and strive hard to be the best. Indeed, the watch words are that we treat people in the way that we'd wish to be treated ourselves.
In instances where a candidate is inbound to New Zealand from overseas, we can do a lot of preparation ahead of arrival to make the best of the time available. If successful, we will work in conjunction with both company and candidate to assist in the application for a Work Permit*.
Flipping the coin over, we can also work with candidates who need assistance with preparing a professional CV and presentation profile suitable for New Zealand employers.
We offer a service and fee structure which is geared specifically to customer requirements and the work required to do it right first time. In the world of recruitment, you will find us very competitive. In the world of marine recruitment, you will find us almost unique.
* Please note that we do not provide Immigration advice. Since May 2009, Immigration advice in New Zealand may only be provided by licensed practitioners. If this is a service you need, we can refer you to suitably-licensed Immigration Consultants.
However, there is also a huge amount of information in the public domain about how best to approach this challenge, and if you are organised, diligent and thorough, you can actually accomplish everything yourself.
Rob has nursed an obsession with all things nautical for most of his life, being happier on, in or under the water than anywhere else since the age of two.
He holds RYA Day Skipper and progressed through teaching windsurfing at university to cruising on yachts from 26 – 44’. He and his wife have cruised together extensively throughout the Mediterranean and Caribbean on 'bareboat' holidays, plus a catamaran cruise through Tonga.
He has also owned several motor boats in the UK, culminating in an 11-metre Jeanneau fly bridge motor cruiser, in which he cruised in the Solent, West Country and the Channel Islands.
More recently in New Zealand, Rob has enrolled as a volunteer with the NZ Coastguard as is currently undergoing an extensive training programme.
Rob built a successful 23-year career in the UK and international automotive finance sector before he and his wife relocated to New Zealand in January 2007. Rob elected to follow his dream, leaving the automotive scene behind and became involved in the NZ marine industry. Noted for his methodical approach and obsession with customer service, this marine consulting role brings together Rob’s extensive experience in leadership, team building and HR practice, commercial acumen, project management and general business experience, wrapped up in his passion for all things maritime.
Rob’s Career Biography will clearly demonstrate that Rob has the experience to support managerial and trade candidates alike to advance their careers, together with the organisations they own or represent.
Career Biography
Setting out in field sales for Mercantile Credit Co. Ltd (Barclays Bank group), Rob worked through a management development programme, which duly led to a managerial appointment in a specialist vehicle leasing subsidiary.
After three years, Rob was invited to establish a BSi-accredited quality management system from scratch throughout the group (450 people).
He then worked increasingly on numerous project and trouble-shooting activities within the Dial Contracts group, including business acquisitions, senior strategic reviews, business change interventions and systems development projects.
Rob exhibited a passion for achieving challenging objectives through motivating and empowering the team around him.
Returning to the franchised division as Head of Operations, he next took on the challenge of a major customer service revamp and systems enhancement programme. Leading a team of 55 people, three years were spent restructuring the team and re-engineering the operational backbone of the business. The systems platform which resulted has maintained a market-leading position and a basis for sustainable business growth, with over 34,000 vehicles on the road, 150+ Franchised brokers and 18,000+ small business customers supported at the point he moved on.
Rob was invited to participate in – and subsequently in 2005 to lead – an international project for LeasePlan Corporation, based in The Netherlands. A collaborative enterprise across ten countries, this project focused on the creation of a new multi-channel small business enterprise template, and capitalised on all the skills Rob had learned in his 20+ years within the vehicle finance and leasing industry.
Late in 2006, however, an opportunity in New Zealand caused Rob and his wife to re-evaluate their career paths and life-style, and they elected to make the move down under and effectively start over with fresh challenges to face. The chance to move into the marine industry proved too great a temptation for Rob to resist!
He joined a niche specialist recruitment business early in 2007 to take responsibility for the marine business portfolio; from a scratch start for Rob, he built it until it was the highest-performing division in the agency. However, the global recession took its toll, and in 2009 Rob had the opportunity to acquire the marine portfolio he'd nurtured when the agency ceased to operate, an opportunity which he seized.
Operating as a sole trader, Rob has continued to work with his clients and candidates, now based from his Auckland home. A year on, having weathered the worst that the recession could throw, Rob decided to incorporate the business to consolidate its standing in the NZ marine community, where it remains the only recruitment service dedicated to the marine industry sector, and an active Associate member of the New Zealand Marine Industry Association (MIA).
