Airbus Supplier finds Specialist Engineers through ATA Selection

When one of the Airbus A380 suppliers needed to take on extra highly-skilled staff, ATA Selection managed to find them key candidates very quickly.

SPS Aerostructures makes the integral parts of the sophisticated wing tips which enable the large “super-jumbo” to fit a normal runway.

The Nottinghamshire-based firm makes wing parts for a range of other civilian and military aircraft and employs more than 650 people on two sites around 10 miles apart.

The A380’s near-vertical wing tips – which mimic an eagle’s wings - are so cleverly designed they were recently highlighted on the BBC television series Richard Hammond’s Engineering Connections.

Without these wing tips, and the extra lift they give, the A380’s wings would have to be manufactured much wider and would be too large for commercial airports.

When working on the Airbus A380 contract, SPS Aerostructures found it needed to boost its CAD-CAM department by doubling the number of experienced Computerised Numerical Control programmers it employed.

After failing to find suitable candidates through the firm’s usual channels, Engineering Manager Peter Steffen turned to ATA Selection’s Leicester branch, which was swiftly able to supply programmers with the right engineering background.

After his initial discussion with Chris Deverson, Contract Engineering Consultant at ATA Selection, Mr Steffen was surprised to receive a return call within an hour offering him three suitably-qualified candidates straightaway.

Mr Steffen said: “It is not usually a problem finding candidates – but it is a problem finding candidates with the right experience.

“Plenty of candidates may appear on paper to have experience of a particular software system used in CNC programming, but often it turns out they have used it just for design, not for manufacturing.

“ATA Selection was quite refreshing: they did not waste our time. They do seem to come up with good quality candidates quickly.

“The people they put forward were qualified to do the jobs we needed to fill. That is why, if I needed extra staff in the future, ATA Selection would be the first people I would phone.”

Using their expertise in resourcing and interviewing skills they are able to find and understand the rare skill sets in demand.  This capability combined with the speed of delivery ATA Selection are able to offer and their unique understanding of the local market place, truly adds value to the recruitment process.

ATA Selection places great emphasis in drawing out a candidate’s abilities, aspirations and motivations by in-depth face-to-face interviewing, so that candidates can be suitably matched to vacancies that will meet both the client expectations.   

Coupled with this methodology, its recruitment consultants take the time to talk to clients and often visit their workplace so that they can fully understand and appreciated a company’s needs before selecting any candidates for them to consider.

In SPS Aerostructure’s case, ATA Selection was able to pre-select candidates with the right engineering background and experience to fit into the expanding aeronautics company, which supplies both civilian and military aircraft manufacturers.