Alison Reilly, group HR director at McLaughlin & Harvey, discusses recruitment challenges, emerging roles and why AI can both help and hinder candidates.
How do you assess whether a candidate will be a good fit for your company culture or project teams?
Gone are the days when candidates just needed a relevant qualification or experience to be considered for a role. Now, it goes beyond being technically competent to ensuring people have the right behaviours to be a good fit for our team and projects.
This is particularly pertinent given the introduction of the Building Safety Act, which requires us to demonstrate that every individual has the necessary skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours.
Ensuring that candidates align with our company values – We Collaborate, We Commit, We Care – is key. We’re looking for people who are prepared to work as a team and be agile and invested in delivering the highest-quality buildings and infrastructure that make an impact locally.
For senior hires, we assess whether people can lead by example, ensuring that standards and attitudes cascade throughout the team.
What common mistakes do candidates make in interviews or applications?
Recently, we’ve seen an over-reliance on AI for applications. While candidates may think it’s helping them to answer the question in the best way, it doesn’t represent them as a person and can catch people out at the interview stage.
However, grammatical errors are also prevalent in CVs and there are AI tools that can be used to prevent these.
Are there any emerging roles where demand is outpacing available talent?
Digital construction and sustainability roles can be challenging to recruit at a senior level because these areas are relatively new to our industry, and there is a small pool of candidates who have built up the necessary experience.
International students are filling many of the entry-level digital roles because the uptake for courses in this discipline is lower in the UK, so there are fewer candidates available.
There’s also a lack of awareness of the different roles available within the industry that sit outside of traditional roles, such as site management, quantity surveying and engineering, but they are fundamental to project delivery. For example, there is a shortage of estimators and planners because people just haven’t considered these as opportunities.
What strategies are you using to attract candidates to these hard-to-fill roles?
We’re using a two-fold strategy to fill roles: focusing on early-career hires and developing our own talent and attracting career changers who don’t realise they have the skills to excel in a construction career.
Our young people go on rotational placements to experience different areas of the business and get exposure to positions they may not have considered.
For roles like estimators, we’re looking at people currently working in other areas, such as civil engineering and quantity surveying, who have transferable skills.
Equally, people in completely different sectors, such as accountancy, could be a great fit. It’s about encouraging people who might want to make a change to think about how their experience can apply.
What do you think the next generation of construction leaders will need that’s different from today’s workforce?
An understanding of the fact that it’s about leaving a legacy. The next generation of construction leaders should be focused on purpose and ensuring that they’re making a tangible impact. Not just in delivering a building, but through creating social value, being environmentally conscious and growing relationships within communities.
They’ll also need an awareness of how every area intertwines across the business, whether it’s digital, sustainability or social value. It’s no longer just about focusing on your own area, but looking at how it all interfaces.
What would you change about how the recruitment process in construction typically works?
To attract career changers and people with transferable skills into hard-to-fill roles, we need to go to a wider pool of candidates and be open to people who may not be the most traditional fit on paper. This means that the best candidates don’t always come from an external agency, but from internal teams, encouraging people to think about how they could make a difference elsewhere.
At McLaughlin & Harvey, we’ve recently shifted to a more regional approach to recruitment. Where previously we focused on hiring in Scotland and Northern Ireland, meaning people have to travel to projects across the UK, we’re looking at candidates who live in the areas we consistently deliver projects in, ensuring they are visible to clients and, importantly, that they understand how to make a difference locally.
This has benefits all round, providing a better work/life balance by reducing time working away from home, increasing retention and wellbeing, and providing the most suitable project team for clients.
What’s great about McLaughlin & Harvey as an employer?
We’re genuinely committed to ensuring and enhancing the wellbeing of our employees and supply chain because we recognise that our people are our biggest strength.
YouMatter is our health, safety and wellbeing initiative and at its core is our YouMatter Health & Wellbeing Roadshow, a custom bus that tours our sites across the UK every year, bringing vital checks to employees, subcontractors and clients.
Through the initiative, participants can access health checks, stress-relieving massage, mental health support, healthy eating advice and appointments with a nurse, ensuring any issues are identified early and people can make small lifestyle changes that can make a big difference.
Every year, we receive great feedback that participants value the roadshow, and it really is an industry-leading initiative that highlights our dedication to wellbeing.
McLaughlin & Harvey also invests in its staff through a number of graduate and apprenticeship programmes, ongoing learning and development such as ILM leadership and management qualifications, line manager e-learning modules and upskilling programmes.
Are you looking for top construction talent? Want to get ahead of the competition? Contact Sophie Holland at CIOB Jobs.
