CASE STUDY: Coventry City Council – MRF Project

“Our brief to WasteRecruit was very clear: Explore the market for the best MRF manager who would be happy not running a MRF for the next three years’ and who can help us design and build a state of the art MRF which will serve us for the next 20 years’. 

We were highly impressed with their approach to the whole project and their willingness to share the risk of the recruitment by splitting out the recruitment fee over several payments. 

I’ve never known a recruiter willing to do that and I think this unique approach will provide us with a recruitment partner for many years’ to come.”

Project Director, Coventry City Council

Situation:

Coventry City Council embarked on a first of its kind project: to design and build it’s own MRF from the ground up. Doing this would enable them to have more control over collections and materials recycled. It would also place them closer to the supply chain, enabling them to broker their own deals and extract more value, not only from processing but also option up alternate recycling revenue streams such as biodiesel.

They wanted someone with the right technical knowledge and previous operational experience in running a MRF. Someone who could start with a blank page and help oversee the design and build process including negotiations with contractors. A major challenge was the time constraints to fulfill the role. From the time of contract terms being signed to interview dates was less than 6 weeks. 

Process:

This groundbreaking project required a very specific skill set and was also a fantastic opportunity for the winning candidate to have major input in the success of the project. Despite time constraints, Waste Recruit succeeded in shortlisting seven candidates by the interview deadline.

Each one went through preliminary interviews and the rigorous assessments that are part of WasteRecruit’s evidenced based hiring process. This provided a shortlist of top candidates to make a selection from. The successful candidate started working remotely before the end of March. 

Outcome:

For a project of this nature, the council had a great deal on their plate in terms of getting everything going. They needed a partner who they could take on the hiring process for them and be able to deliver the right candidate in a very short space of time.

WasteRecruit’s robust recruitment process ensured that all candidates were assessed in exactly the same way to determine who had the right combination or skills, experience and personality best suited for the role. The Coventry City Council was able to make an informed decision without having to invest excessive hours in the recruitment process. They could make their decision based on the detailed assessment reports provided and the final interviews.

This resulted in an efficient and successful hire, within the allocated timeframe. A key element of this was finding someone who was used to being in an operational role, taking them out of that for a period of 3 years while they oversaw the project and ensuring they would be happy to stay for the 3 year duration of the build. Personality played a major part in finding the person who would be the right fit for the role.

Additionally WasteRecruit backed up the promise of 100% success rate by sharing the risk. Offering a rebate payment agreement to reflect their confidence in the hiring process.