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2020 has been a challenging year for both employers and employees alike ​Many companies have been faced with the unenviable task of furloughing members of their staff or making redundancies in an effort to navigate these choppy economic waters. Whilst doing so, how many employers are really thinking about the needs of their staff? Do they feel valued, developed or paid enough? Do they feel like their employers have communicated well with them through these uncertain times? With over 45,000 engineers in our database from the last 5 years, we have surveyed a cross section of engineers from a variety of industries such as Food, Automotive, FMCG and Aerospace. The consensus makes interesting reading: ​ 71% of those surveyed are still in work Of the 29% that are out of work, 68% is due to COVID -1959% felt that their company had communicated well or very well through the pandemic, 20% felt that the communication has been poor 64% are looking for a new role, of which 54% are still in work Of that 64%, 27% are looking to move due to a lack of progression and training and 50% are due to environmental factors including, salary and benefits, shifts, travel 45% who have applied directly to employers feel that their recruitment experience has been positive, whilst 29% rated it average and 25% said it was poor 45% feel their mental health has been affected by the pandemic ​As we move into 2021 and hopefully a return to normal, it is worth asking yourself the following questions as an employer ​Are you doing enough to retain your staff? Do they feel engaged? Is the flow of communication good enough? ​Or are you about to see your attrition rate increase as market confidence increases? ​A company is only as strong as the people it employs, so is it worth running your own survey? If you need support or advice, we’d be happy to help, we could even design a survey for you. We will also be releasing our annual Salary Survey in January 2021, which will convey data gathered from all the permanent and contract placements we have made throughout 2020. This extensive report, together with the feedback from candidates and their employment plans as the year draws to a close, ATA Recruitment hold the knowledge and expertise to ensure you're ready to face the growing concern of staff retention.​​​

As we entered 2020 the manufacturing industry was experiencing a marketplace with limited candidates and a widening skills gap. Our experts saw overwhelming evidence that most companies’ reaction was to increase salaries as their main tactic to incentivise people to stay or to attract new talent (data from ATA Recruitment’s 2019 Annual Engineering Salary Report).​Covid-19 arrived and changed the landscape dramatically with the supply and demand of vacancies and candidates reversing. Suddenly as recruiters, we saw advert responses increase - for one of our maintenance engineer vacancies alone we received over 300 applications!​Some employers saw an opportunity to tap into the increased candidate availability by advertising and hiring themselves. Although this may reduce recruitment spend in the short term, there are many potential risks of recruiting in the current climate. Chris Addison, ATA Director shares some key factors to think about when recruiting to help you reduce the risks:​Selecting unsuitable candidatesWith some candidates out of work due to Covid-19, or seriously worried about their job security, many people may be accepting roles just because they need a job, not because they want it. When interviewing a candidate ask yourself, is the candidate:​Overqualified?Used to earning a higher salary than you can offer?Used to a role that requires less travel or a shorter commute?Used to working the shift pattern/working hours you are offering?​​If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then the chances are these candidates will either continue to look for a job once they’ve joined. Or they will be back on the job market as soon as they feel it is safe to do so.​Why would they say no?Don’t just assume that in the current market a candidate will just accept your offer. Good candidates still have multiple opportunities available to them. Candidates who are in work are understandably nervous about changing roles - is the risk too great? Are they more susceptible to counteroffer than ever before?​Make sure you take the time to assess and get to know the candidate. Do this well and the candidate will always accept. If not, you may find yourself having to fill the role twice.​Can you spare the time?With so many applicants available how long is it taking to sift through all the CV’s? Are you able to reach out to all suitable candidates? Do you have the resource to speak to all relevant applicants? How do you ensure you interview the best person and not just the best CV? You may be missing out on good candidates if you’re not getting to them quickly or thoroughly enough.​Think about the futureWith so many candidates to respond to are you taking the time to acknowledge and respond to all applicants about whether they are successful or not? Just because you feel spoiled for choice now, in 6 to 12 months candidates who you may not want to meet could be suitable for other roles. Make sure every candidate has a good experience or you could end up damaging your company's brand.​When recruiting, the objective is always to find the right candidate in the most time-efficient and cost-effective way. However, recruitment always comes with its challenges, even for those who do it as their day jobs. ​So, think about the risks, is it better to do it yourself or will it be easier to delegate to someone else? There’s never a right or wrong answer, but our advice is to think through all the options before you begin the process. Try to choose the one that will give the best long-term results.​ATA Recruitment is here to support youHere at ATA Recruitment we can help eliminate the risks associated with recruitment by managing the whole process for you, or even part of it depending on your requirements. Our latest video interviewing platform, ATA Connect, is designed specifically for the screening and interview process to keep your pipeline of talent moving. We have been supporting the manufacturing and engineering industry for decades. Our experts have access to a wide pool of candidates, ensuring your business gets the right person, at the right time and cost, and more importantly, for the right reasons.​If you would like to have a chat about your current recruitment process or if you want to understand the potential risks involved, get in touch with our team of experts. ​​​​

As lockdown eases across the country, the engineering and manufacturing sectors are showing positive signs of the economy improving, with the PMI for manufacturing alone rising from 40.7 in May to 50.1 in June. So, as the industry begins to make its way back to recovery, businesses may be asking themselves these questions: ​How will you bounce back as a business?How as a business will you cope as the market continues to improve in the coming months? Are you nervous about increasing permanent headcount?How will you ensure that you can increase capability whilst there is still uncertainty? How will your recruitment strategy change?​How hiring an engineering contractor can help youHiring contractors is a great strategy to increase skills and grow teams especially when requirements are constantly changing. Contractors can be extremely useful in times like these as businesses try to balance their headcount and changing productivity levels. There are many benefits that contractors can provide to your organisation, and we’ve outlined them all for you here:​1.There is a large pool of skilled engineering contractors availableWe have been supporting the manufacturing industry for decades, which means we have built up an extensive database of contractors for our clients. We have contractors available across all types of roles, so whether its a hands-on manufacturing role or a senior appointment you need, we are able to deliver contractors suited to your exact requirements.​2.You can hire contractors quickly and safely through our Covid-19 safe hiring processOur new innovative hiring technology ATA Connect, allows us to remotely record interviews which are instantly available to you through the ATA Connect portal. This gives you a first look at the contractor prior to your interview with them, dramatically reducing the time to hire while operating safely during the pandemic. ​Here is what one of our clients thinks of ATA Connect: "Our team at Terex found the ATA-Connect extremely helpful towards filling one of our recent vacant roles. The video software gave us the opportunity to be involved right from the beginning and have increased visibility and control of the shortlisting process. The video screening was not only super-fast and efficient but also made the whole experience a lot more personal and interactive. I would definitely recommend it for any business and candidates who want to make the most out of the process.”​3.End to end solutionATA Recruitment has an end to end portal solution to keep all of your contractor information in one place. Whether that be live vacancies, CV submissions from various recruitment agencies, spend analysis, timesheet approvals and invoicing. You can utilise this portal as a neutral vendor or as a managed service provider, making it a flexible and versatile solution. ​4.Reduced time to hireATA Contract has an average time to hire of 4.5 days from vacancy brief to offer acceptance. This shows that you can access those niche-skills quickly, making your business flexible and ready to cope with increases and decreases in demand.​5.Contractors are a flexible resourceThe great benefit of using contractors is that you can engage with them quickly and release them quickly. Usually, contractors have a very short notice period and the process to let them go isn’t complex, you are paying for a service and if you decide you no longer need that service, you can stop using it. Contractors understand the nature of this and know they could one day be engaged on a contract and the next let go.​6.It isn’t as expensive as you thinkIt’s impossible to determine the cost of hiring an engineering contractor – this will completely depend on the experience they have, the work required, and the sector they’ll be operating in. You may panic when you see a daily contract rate, but keep in mind that there are no other costs involved, such as holiday pay or sick pay. The contractor is only paid for the time they work, which is great value for money, considering how sickness pay alone can impact your annual salary bill.​7.Payroll is coveredContractors are typically paid weekly, and we have a fantastic back office team that manages this all for you. All you have to do is, approve the timesheets and we’ll do the rest. We will make sure there are no issues with the contractors pay and any queries will be dealt with by the team directly with the contractor. ​8.Risk mitigated by ATA RecruitmentOur compliance team are excellent at mitigating risk, we have everything covered from making the sure the contractors has the right level of insurance through to IR35. Our consultants are fully trained to offer your business advice on a process to allow you to arrive at the correct SDS (Status Determination Statement) for the contractor.​If you would like to find out more about how a contractor can support your business, whether its now or something you may be considering for the future, please contact us by completing the form below or emailing info@ata-recruitment.co.uk. We would love to hear from you and discuss how we could help you.​​

​​In the current climate many businesses are facing challenges, however, some are needing to carry on as normal or even looking at growth. Face-to-face interviews are no longer taking place (or at least not without with considerable challenge), and more and more people are turning to video technology to maintain momentum with their hiring plans.Don’t let the current situation hold you back from achieving your goals. Positions still need to be filled, and you can still secure great candidates and get them up and running remotely. The companies that will be least affected by the unforeseen challenges Covid-19 has thrown at us will be the ones that manage to maintain operations as close to business as usual as possible. Don’t let social distancing stop you from securing your dream hire. ATA Connect, our new instant video interviewing software is the answer to business continuity and here’s why…FlexibilityFirst off, there’s no travel involved, and this means you’ll have access to candidates from further afield as they can interview from wherever, whenever giving you a much wider pool of talent to choose from. There’s also no time off required which is perfect for candidates who are considering their options but who might struggle to get time off from their current roles. With self-isolation and social distancing on everyone’s mind, the flexibility video offers is essential for combatting the impact of Covid-19.​TimeAdding video interviewing to your hiring process increases the interview to hire ratio by 70%. No longer are candidates judged solely by words on a CV (the usual ‘first sift’ process). Instead, they can talk through their skillset in detail using our solo interview screening functionality.We’ll conduct your first stage interviews for you. Then we’ll send these back to you in a candidate shortlist for review. So, you’ve immediately skipped a whole stage in the process. Plus you’ve avoided needless diary coordination and saved time sitting through interviews (even virtual ones) with people you know aren’t the right fit.​TalentThe fact is people are still hiring. Agile businesses are determined to keep going and are not taking this lying down. We know not every business is in a position to hire, but for those that are, they will need to adapt their processes to capture the best talent. Introducing video to your hiring process instead of putting a stop to it until it’s all blown over ensures you’re not missing out.Get In touchFind out how ATA Connect can save time and get the best talent to keep your business moving forward by completing the contact form below. ​

The whole world has currently had to change and adapt to survive in the new climate, and the engineering and recruitment sectors are no different. With most business being carried out online and social distancing measures in place, how can companies continue to hire new staff safely, quickly and in line with the constantly evolving COVID-19 guidelines? We have the solution, and we believe that you will agree that ATA Connect will help you continue to hire efficiently, safely and seamlessly now and after the pandemic has passed.One of the most common questions around specialist video interviewing software is, “yes it sounds good, but surely you can just use Zoom/ Microsoft Teams/Skype etc?”. Of course, these are all brilliant for video conferencing and since we’ve all been working from home, they have been great for keeping client, candidate, and internal meetings going ahead as planned. But that’s what they are designed for, video conferencing, not specialist video interviewing.​What’s the difference?Technically they both involve video, audio and more than one party so in that sense, not much. The needs of a hiring manager are very different to those of someone attending a video conference however, so the platform, user interface and ways of using this technology are very different.Here’s the main value ATA Connect can bring to you over just using other video conferencing software.​Live interviewsFor starters, ATA Connect allows you to host either a live interview which can be recorded to watch back or a solo one-way interview, where the candidate answers predetermined questions in their own time to submit for review. Both forms of interview differ to telephone or other online interviews in that you don’t have to just take the consultant’s word for it that they are a match for the role, you can watch for yourself.​Effective shortlistingWe send you a link and all the videos of candidates that we believe are a match. This means all the candidates are in one place, so there is no need for multiple emails. We can also attach the candidate's CV, documents and any notes in with their video.You save lots of time because if you don’t think they are a good fit for the role within the first 5 minutes of the interview you can either turn it off or skip to the questions you think are more important to make your decision. If the first stage interview was conducted on zoom, skype or teams and therefore not recorded, you wouldn’t know until the candidate sat in front of you (either live virtually or face-to-face) that they weren’t right but you would have to conduct the whole second stage interview anyway.​Support for candidates and clientsOur specialist video interviewing software has embedded training videos to metaphorically hold your hand while you’re getting set up. So, don’t be worried if you’re uncertain about the terms, “live interview”, “solo interview” or “shortlists” because there’s easy to understand instructional videos and demos to watch in your own time. And there’s a UK based support and development team who are there to help you or your candidates should any issues arise. Not only that, it is being hosted by a recruitment provider so if you don’t get the results you wanted, we’re already one step ahead in helping you find the right hire quickly and efficiently.​So yes, if you need to do some video you can use a conferencing facility. If, however you want an organised, sustainable and cohesive way of transforming your hiring for the ‘new norm’ then you should take a deeper look at ATA Connect.​Contact UsGet in touch with our team to discuss how ATA Connect works and how it can benefit your business by completing the form below.​​​

You’re likely facing a few months of uncertainty around hiring. Frustratingly, it feels like a long time to press pause on processes you've worked so hard to mature. For that reason we've taken measures to make sure you’re in a strong position, both during the pandemic and when COVID-19 passes.On average, a talent pipeline takes 2-4 months to mature. This means we run the risk of turning a 3-month problem into a 12+ month problem if we take drastic measures and press stop. But we can’t simply carry on as normal either. We must find a way to slow down your process enough to cope with the change, whilst maintaining momentum with candidates to support your hiring plans for the remainder of the year.​Our new instant video technologyIn line with our commitment to deliver excellence to our clients, we have launched our innovative instant video platform, ATA Connect.The video software is designed specifically for the screening and interview process to keep your pipeline of talent moving. Offering our clients increased reach, greater flexibility and hiring efficiencies during these challenging times.We understand that every business requires different levels of support when it comes to recruitment. So, whether you need help with part of your recruitment process or all of it, our flexible solution allows you to select the parts that are most suited to your current needs.​Record interviews and involve decision makersThis technology, which is the most streamlined available on the market, allows us to provide recorded live interviews between our recruiters and candidates. We can also now involve your hiring managers in the process too. These interviews can then be shared with any decision makers in your business, without the need for diary co-ordination. You will be able to give and view feedback instantly, allowing you to collaborate in a cohesive way over identical questions and responses.​Increased reach and easy to useWe’ve chosen a specialist provider that allows interviews to take place on laptop, tablet and mobile devices in low bandwidth situations, giving us access to even the most remote candidates. The tech requires no downloads, registrations, or dedicated logins, ensuring candidates with any level of technical ability can take part. We simply send a link, which they click once, and they’re ready to go.​Improved screening processWe have the ability to record one-way interviews of candidates. This means that you can give us written questions that display one at a time to the interviewee, allowing them to record the answers to the questions on their own and submit the video back to you.​Easy to access and reviewWe can present the videos back to you in an interactive shortlist page which gives you full visibility of everyone in the process. These pages have commenting functions for each candidate shortlisted, as well as a document viewer that can hold up to five supporting attachments, such as a CV, certificates or proof of eligibility to work in the UK. All of this means you retain complete control throughout, even during this time of unforeseen disruption.​Get in touchIf you would like to find out how we can keep your pipeline of talent moving or want to simply discuss your current recruitment challenges, please get in touch using the contact form below.​​​