UK Charter Operation Case Study
AEROPROFESSIONAL CASE STUDY
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UK Charter Operation Case Study
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Client Requirements and Process
Recruiting at this level is the ultimate consultative service. It requires the agent to get completely under the skin of the business and understand it from the ground up so they can visualise the role. As a specialist agency who lives and breathes in the aviation industry, we understand the demands and nuances in our sector, giving us a head start on our initial fact-finding missions.
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To really excel in the preparation of this c-level selection and appointment campaign, our team spoke to a selection of key people in the business including the incumbent individual, other senior directors and even an immediate subordinate. Only then did we truly understand what characteristics an individual needed to thrive in this role
While the appointed individual would challenge and push the business forwards, it was equally important that they could connect with the team around them and respected the current ecosystem they would be part of and develop.
While the appointed individual would challenge and push the business forwards, it was equally important that they could connect with the team around them and respected the current ecosystem they would be part of and develop.
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This crucial part of the process allowed our team to build a comprehensive profile which covered off a raft of areas: technical knowledge, qualifications and skillset, professional experience, man management and leadership, cultural, personal values.
Once the preparation stage had been completed, the next step was to map out the market to identify potential sources for qualified candidate pools. A large proportion of this comes down to networking and as one of the leading specialists worldwide, AeroProfessional has an established database of exceptional aviation talent, as well as monitoring new appointments and structural shifts within organisations. In conjunction with leveraging contacts, a pro-active search process was undertaken, searching through competitor businesses, various geographical locations and even complimentary industries.
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The art of then filtering, screening and interviewing the candidate pool is all about having a consistent metric against which to measure candidates. At this stage, our initial candidate pool was filtered through a phone screening exercise, for which we took a pre-determined list of questions with the ability to score answers in real-time and collate relevant notes. Our experience has taught us that it also helps to have some “killer questions” in place to help highlight any immediate red flags.
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At this point we shortlisted and discussed three candidates to progress forwards to a more detailed interview. In previous cases this has been conducted face to face (a 2:1 ratio is best) under a careful constructed setting and agenda. Detailed competency-based interview questions may cover a range of areas including; people management, corporate governance, finance, sales & marketing, operations (especially if it is a postholder role – plenty of EASA regulation knowledge testing questions). In this instance we even included some essential aptitude testing.
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Delivery
After a thorough and consistent interview process, our team constructed a report on each individual and presented them (in person) to our client. We presented these in order, with our strongest candidate being reviewed first. The recommendation to our client was to interview candidates 1 and 2, with our extended support to sit in at the final interview, although this was something our client wanted to manage directly at this stage.
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After our client interviewed candidates 1 and 2, our role was simply to support with anything additional that come out of a final interview…
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The client offered the job to our 1st candidate. He accepted (and is still their 10 years on)!
