Division: Engineering, Science & Space
Role/Assignment: Health & Safety – Three-Month Temporary Assignment
The Challenge
A large scientific business needed to recruit someone for a three-month temporary Health & Safety assignment, with the potential for the position to become permanent longer term.
The role involved working across several areas of the organisation, including research laboratories, logistics, manufacturing, facilities and Health & Safety.
The successful candidate also needed to drive and transport materials between multiple sites across Oxfordshire, making reliability, trust and the ability to work independently particularly important.
While the duties of the position were clearly defined, there was an additional challenge: four senior leaders were involved in the recruitment process and had different views about the ideal candidate profile.
Some favoured an experienced individual with significant work and life experience who could operate independently, while others were interested in someone at an earlier stage of their career who could potentially develop into a Health & Safety Technician.
The temporary nature of the position narrowed the available candidate pool further.
Our Approach
We worked closely with the senior stakeholders to understand the different priorities and identify what the successful candidate genuinely needed to deliver.
Our advice was to prioritise someone with sufficient experience to demonstrate a conscientious and trustworthy approach, particularly given the requirement for lone working, driving a company vehicle, transporting materials and potentially operating manual handling equipment.
However, we also incorporated the client’s preference for someone who could potentially develop their career within Health & Safety.
Following an extensive search and pre-screening process, we presented two strong but deliberately different candidates:
- An experienced logistics professional with significant Health & Safety awareness and an excellent work history.
- An emerging professional with specific Health & Safety qualifications but less work and life experience.
This gave the four senior stakeholders an opportunity to compare the relative benefits of experience and formal qualifications against the practical requirements of the position.
The Outcome
Both candidates were interviewed within a few days of their CVs being submitted.
The hiring team saw strengths in both profiles, making the final decision a difficult one.
Ultimately, the client selected the more experienced candidate with fewer formal Health & Safety qualifications, aligning with our original advice about the practical requirements of the assignment.
The successful candidate integrated well into the team and contributed to the organisation’s Health & Safety activities.
Key Results
✔ Three-month temporary Health & Safety requirement successfully filled
✔ Two carefully selected candidates presented
✔ Both candidates interviewed within days of CV submission
✔ Different candidate profiles provided to help align four senior stakeholders
✔ Successful candidate selected in line with our original market advice
✔ Candidate successfully integrated across a complex scientific working environment
