As soon as Charlie Westwell ordered a club sandwich, I knew I had to offer him a job.
Don’t worry, Stuart Energy won’t be swapping power generators for sandwiches any time soon, but I only needed to watch Charlie order a sandwich to see the people skills I was looking for.
You can’t train for attitude
I’m a great believer that you can train for skill but you can’t train for attitude. Charlie has a really good attitude.
I’m sharing this story to highlight Stuart Energy’s unique three-stage approach to recruitment.
By way of background, Stuart Energy is a family-run firm that supplies power generators.
We’ve achieved record growth and for two years running we’ve finished 8th in the Sunday Times Top 10 Small Businesses to Work For.
None of this would have been possible without great staff.
We regularly get 50 applications for every job advert and pay significantly more than the industry average because we only want the best.
ChatGPT means anyone can write a CV or an application letter these days so you have to dig a bit deeper to find the best.
Charlie applied to join us as an engineer.
Three-stage interview process
He’s only 21 and completed an apprenticeship at a local plant hire firm before taking part in our three-stage interview process.
In part one, I sat in the corner of the room and didn’t say a word as other members of the team interviewed Charlie. He probably thought I was the cleaner!
The second step was a practical interview. In Charlie’s case he was taken into the workshop and was tasked with fixing a machine that had broken down.
We knew what the problem was, but we wanted to see if could troubleshoot. Again, I watched Charlie from a mezzanine floor so I could see how methodical he was around the machine.
One of the things I look for from new recruits is how they interact with other people and we indulged in a bit of role play with Charlie.
A member of the team played the part of a stressed site manager who needed his machine back up and running and Charlie had to deescalate the situation.
Flying colours
Charlie passed with flying colours so he went forward to the third and final stage of the process, which was when I revealed myself for the first time as the managing director.
The third step always takes place at a local restaurant or hotel, where we have something to eat.
How somebody orders food and engages with the staff tells you a lot about their people skills.
In Charlie’s case I told him what I wanted to order but only after I’d spoken to a waitress to find out what food wasn’t available.
That was how he came to order the club sandwich.
Charlie got an eight or nine out of 10 in the restaurant stage and I knew we’d be offering him a job at Stuart Energy.
He’s a rough diamond and I’m delighted to say he’s recently passed his probationary period.