Oliver James’ Post

Transcript

So my name is Helen Van Tonder. I'm Head of Customer Contact for Air Lingus. Aer Lingus is an Irish operated airline, although we're part of a larger group IG with our sisters British Airways, Welling Iberia. We carry about 12 million passengers a year. We operate transatlantically in most destinations across North America and we also have a very strong European network as well. My role as customer contact for Air Lingus means that I look after everything to do with the customer getting on board that flight. But as an organization we're very large. We have a very meaningful technology department. We have HR functions, we have our in flight crew and our airports operations teams are very varied across both the jobs that are available and the positions that are available within those. Jobs. We have a number of very challenging varied roles where we need a level of expertise that is the best in the marketplace. To try and be an expert in going out and finding that headcount is very, very difficult. So to go to somebody as experienced and as valued as Oliver James is in this space was a no brainer for us. It was a silver bullet. So here are there Lingus. The one thing that ties us all together is the major transformation program we're undergoing. And I think that's where Oliver James has really found a niche. They're brilliant at finding people who are change masters and whether that's process analyst, specialist in technologies for specialist finance functions, they really understand that organizations like ourselves who have very demanding transformation programs underway. Require people that can land and expand the minute they get here, and that's what they're great at. If I give you some examples, we've placed some candidates in very strong positions around product management, process development, finance, transformation, and some very specialist roles around quality training and automation. We need very niche skills quickly and we need the best people in their in their environments to come to us. If I give you some examples, through conversational AI, we have requirements around variants, AWS service cloud and it's very difficult to source those individually. As a company, by engaging with Oliver James, we feel very strongly that not only do we get the best talent in that field. But we get the best talent matched with our business requirements. Everybody that comes to us is very successful in a very short space of time. So the impact that Oliver James has had in our recruitment process probably felt in three ways. The 1st is for the candidate themselves. I'm very confident having gone through the process that Oliver James is not just presenting us in the most positive light and realistic light possible, but they're also making sure that that candidate is really understands what the role specifically for Air Lingus is going to entail. And they come with very clear. Expectations. The 2nd place I feel they're impact is in my speed to hire. I take probably 6 to 8 weeks off every recruitment cycle as a result of the pre screening that Oliver James will do on all candidates. And the final piece for me is the impact that that person is able to make very, very quickly in our organization as a result of being the right person. Not only did they support us in transformation and the contact center, finance, the technical teams, but they also support us with short term, long term permanent employees as well. Oftentimes actually when we recruit somebody as a day rate consultant, they're so brilliant at their world that we actually convert them to full time employees. And I think that's a true calibre of the skill of Oliver James. They can fit my requirements at a point in time, but they recruit the candidate. The longer term position in mind so sometimes I hadn't thought about it, but by the time I meet them I'm already starting to think about how I can make them full time. It takes time to build up a good relationship with somebody. By developing and and and investing in that relationship up front, you're able to have a single partner that can really pivot across a variety of roles and functions for you. I believe our relationship with Oliver James will go on for a long time to come. We are a very ambitious organization with big plans in the years to come, both around transformation and customer experience and the deployment of leading edge technologies to do that. And I am so impressed with their ability to find expertise at a very high level in some niche activities that we need support. But I think another reason that our relationship with Oliver James will go on for a long time is that, you know, even when things don't always go right, it's the solution mindset that they come with. You know, there's never been a day where there are not in touch with me about the roles that I'm recruiting for. And as I said, you know, for me, when we're trying to bring such an experiential difference to our customer base around the caring airline, I need somebody that is the top of their field in recruitment and finding me the best candidates. That I can make sure that our ambitions are achieved.