Project reference · Engineering & industry · Recruitment
The plant’s managers changed. Our terms did not.
A European industrial manufacturer was building a plant in a Ukrainian regional city and had no one there to run it. Over twenty-six months it came back to us for two plant managers, two machine operators and a chief accountant. The people who briefed us changed along the way, from head office to new local managers. Every hire still ran on the agreement it signed within three weeks of its first email, with a short annex for each new kind of role.
5 hires under one set of terms: two plant managers, two machine operators, a chief accountant
Hires
Under 7 weeks from the first email to the first signed offer
Speed
About 850 candidates considered across the plant’s searches
Reach
0 job adverts that named the client
Discretion
The shape of it
Twenty-six months, one set of terms
Months counted from the client’s first email. The people briefing us changed; the terms, and the way each new role was added, stayed the same.
The brief
What the client actually needed
The first email asked for “reliable technical staff for leading positions” at two production sites: a technical degree and a second language. On the first call it narrowed to one job: a manager for the new plant. A month later the client decided that he would build the rest of the team himself.
The client was a European group with production in several countries and no recruiters of its own in Ukraine. It wanted one supplier, one contract with its Ukrainian company in local currency, and job offers it could sign without first learning local practice. We drafted each offer on its behalf.
As the plant grew, the requests changed: a chief accountant, a second plant manager, machine operators, a shift deputy, a warehouse head, and in the end the plant’s first chief accountant. They came from different people each time.
Why it matters
A new plant outside the capital
A plant in a regional city draws on a small local pool. People with production experience and a foreign language mostly work for competitors nearby, and few in the capital want to move. Head office sits in another country and decides on pay; local management changes while a plant finds its feet. A recruiter who has to be briefed from scratch every time costs months the plant does not have.
The hard parts
Where it gets difficult
One agreement, an annex per role
The agreement fixed the fee, the replacement guarantee and the paperwork once. Each new kind of role got a short annex with the requirements and the conditions, so a new search could start the week it was asked for.
A different person briefing us
Head-office managers briefed the first search. A new local director, and later the plant manager we had placed, briefed the next ones. We kept the job descriptions, the stop list and every earlier shortlist, so nobody had to start again.
A name from the first shortlist
The second plant manager had been on our very first shortlist for the client a year earlier. His profile and our notes were still on file, and he was back in front of the client within two weeks of the new brief.
Budget or language
Candidates with the English the role needed asked for more than the budget; those inside it lacked the English. We set the trade-off out for head office. It decided in the first days of the new year, and an offer followed two weeks later.
Regional pay, not capital pay
The client read our first market figures for the shop-floor roles as capital-city pay. The conversation moved to what the regional market would bear, and the first machine operator signed an offer three weeks later.
The payer must match the paper
When fees began to be paid from the plant’s own branch account, we signed the same terms with that entity, so the invoice, the act and the payer always matched.
The plant’s first chief accountant
Until then outside firms had kept the books. The role needed IFRS closings, English and regular trips between sites. We shortlisted and set up video interviews with the group’s finance manager from our office.
What we did
Agree once, then add roles
- Weeks 1–3 — Agree. Offer and agreement with the client’s Ukrainian company. At the client’s request the search began over the holidays, before the signature.
- Weeks 3–7 — First plant manager. Shortlists in the first days of the new year, interviews, an offer we drafted on the client’s behalf, signed in under seven weeks from the first email.
- Months 9–10 — A first finance search. An annex for a chief accountant and a market check; the client did not take the role further at the time.
- Months 13–16 — New management, second round. A second plant-manager search, pay data for the region, two machine operators hired and the same terms signed with the plant’s own entity.
- Months 25–27 — Finance again. An annex the day the request came in, a shortlist interviewed by video with the group’s finance manager, an offer and a start date.
Not every brief became a hire: the first finance search and two shop-floor roles stopped at the client’s request. Every hire that did happen ran on the terms signed in the first weeks.
How we work
We do not show you another company’s name
The client and the people we placed are not named here, and they will not be named in a meeting either. We are glad to talk this project through in detail. What we will not do is discuss the last client that way with you, or you with the next one.
Next step
Opening a plant, or rebuilding the team that runs one?
Tell us the roles, the site and the budget. We will tell you what the regional market looks like before you sign anything.