How does recruitment look for Tribosonics now?

As part of our first instalment of this blog series, Recruiting in a Pandemic, we look into how our Commerical team grew during this difficult period. Meet our intern Kieran Wade – currently studying for his BA in International Business with French and Spanish from Nottingham Trent University and is our Strategic Partnerships Executive intern. We also recruited recent graduate Ari Bastian – holding BA in English Literature from the University of Sheffield, she is our Graduate Strategic Partnerships Executive. Both Kieran and Ari joined Tribosonics’ commercial team amidst the current pandemic to support our Head of Strategic Partnerships, Christina King. Christina led the recruitment process and in this blog, we interview Christina to find out more about recruiting during ‘lockdown’.

How did you find Ari and Kieran?

Kieran approached the business via a mutual contact to see if there were any opportunities for an internship. We recruited Kieran through Tribosonics’ internship programme and part-funded by Santander’s SME Internship Fund. Then, we recruited Ari through RISE which operates across the Sheffield City Region connecting graduates with SMEs. RISE vets applicants through a four-stage process, before they meet the company for the first time.   Whilst the RISE process offers external support in the early stages of the recruitment stages, Tribosonics maintained full control over the later stages of interviewing, hiring and induction

What qualities were you looking for and was it difficult to assess for these during ‘lockdown’?

We are looking for people who meet our core values such as respect, curiosity, fun, community, collaborative, openness and individuality. We look for challengers, for innovators, for motivated individuals- but our people must be committed to teamwork as much of our work is collaborative.

For both candidates, we took the opportunity to use the RISE interview tool kit for a remote formal interview.  Virtual interviews do feel awkward, and it is important to acknowledge this and help people to feel at ease.  We found they are more tiring than a face to face interview. Therefore, we factored this into our expectations of the number of questions we aimed to ask.

But despite talking remotely, you can still be rigorous in the standards you are assessing against.  Both Ari and Kieran took the process seriously by engaging with and preparing for the formal interview process. Kieran presented himself really well in the interview and impressed us with the effort he made.

Ari demonstrated strong verbal communication skills and drive which helped her immensely when getting to know a team she has never met in person.  Likewise, we were certain from Kieran’s interview that he is motivated and enthusiastic to get the job done remotely in the fast-paced environment of a tech scale-up business.

What work have Kieran and Ari been focused on during lockdown?

Ari has been our driving force behind content creation, digital marketing, and building our brand.  In addition, Ari introduced a great initiative to Tribosonics – a collaborative Spotify playlist that any member of the team can add to.  The initiative has been a great talking point, connected team members and a positive impact on staff wellbeing.  We now have two team playlists: a ‘relaxing’ playlist and an ‘upbeat’ one!

Kieran is currently researching, developing, and reporting on a high-impact project. In addition, he is supporting the Commercial team by creating visual content and running marketing meetings and much more.  Kieran has also helped organise our highly-anticipated Tribosonics summer team quiz!

What advice would you give to other tech businesses looking to recruit interns and graduates in these uncertain times?

Take advantage of what is on offer to you from the universities and don’t limit yourself to just the local universities. With most of us working from home, we could effectively have had a student from anywhere! There are so many schemes available; funded internships, part-funded internships, student projects, MBA projects. Examples are:

• XR stories
• University of Huddersfield Funded Internships
• Venture Matrix – SHU
• University of Sheffield Management School’s Host a Student
• Scale-up 360
• Sheffield Innovation Programme

Locate the dates of these programmes and schedule them into the business calendar. Then you can easily access resources as and when they are needed. 

You make it sound easy!

Recruitment is not easy during a pandemic but there are excellent schemes available and there are people that are willing and accessible to help grow businesses locally and at a national level. We are particularly grateful to the support of Ellen Logan and Sarah Stanley at RISE, and to Santander for facilitating our annual internship scheme.

It makes all the hard work worthwhile when you can recruit such motivated and talented young people like Ari and Kieran!