David Aplin Recruiting
It’s a time of growth and new opportunities for the Atlantic Region Office of David Aplin Recruiting.
The Atlantic Region Office, which opened its doors in 2002, serves clients in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. It provides temporary, contract and permanent staffing services, as well as payroll services.
Aplin was a winner of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies program in 2007 and requalified for 2008 to maintain their status as a Best Managed Company. This privately owned staffing firm has nine offices and some 150 staff nationwide.
“We focus on matching mid- to senior-level professionals with leading organizations across Canada,” says Atlantic Region vice president Amy Reid. “A secondary and newer focus is the growth of our office personnel division which focuses on placing office professionals. That’s a newer mandate with the David Aplin organization.”
It’s a mandate Reid’s office has embraced. “The quality of the people that we provide, they’re superior,” she says. “They’ve been pre-screened so well that what the employer is getting is exactly what we said we would deliver. As a result, our repeat business rate is just outstanding and, in fact, our office personnel division here in Halifax is leading the way for our organization across Canada today.”
Specialist recruiters serve the areas of engineering and technical, supply chain, information technology, sales and marketing, accounting and finance, human resources, legal, and office personnel. Client sectors represented include oil and gas, construction, telecommunications, healthcare, government, manufacturing, accounting and finance, information technology and more.
“Our recruitment consultants really have a genuine interest in finding the best talent for our clients,” Reid says. “So it’s not a quantitative procedure for us, it’s a qualitative search process. We don’t push candidates to clients for the sake of pushing résumés. We only refer those candidates who are best suited for the roles.”
Finding those candidates requires resourcefulness. “Any company out there in Halifax can put an ad up in the local paper or on a website to advertise for a position. We get the calls from those clients who need us to access every resource possible to find them that hidden, untapped talent.”
For example, Reid says her office proactively seeks Maritimers who are working in other areas of Canada and want to come home. Consulting with other Aplin branches across the country, working with local associations and drawing upon networking referrals are some ways in which the office makes many connections.
These connections are strengthened by a willingness to go above and beyond. “We certainly overextend ourselves to benefit the client and the candidate so that the interviewing process is as smooth and as easy as possible,” Reid says. “If that’s making a personal call to line up a rental car at the airport for that candidate to drive up to Sydney or if it’s marketing the individual’s spouse’s résumé to local employers so the spouse can find work here as well, then we do it.”
As Reid explains, creativity also comes into play whether it’s in marketing a particular position offered by a client or customizing a recruitment plan that’s in keeping with the client’s circumstances. “Certain clients have particular time frames, cultures and requirements. We are completely open to working whatever way that client needs,” she says.
An emphasis on how they meet the needs of clients and candidates is evident in how Reid measures the Atlantic Region Office’s success. While financial growth and the high caliber of clients are important measures, “To us, the biggest success in the life of a recruitment firm is to speak to a client and the candidate who was successfully placed in a role and to hear their excitement and their happiness over the match that we were responsible for making.”
Mark Healy is general manager of amec Black & McDonald, an oil and gas engineering company in Dartmouth. He says Aplin connects with its clients and understands the pressures of the oil and gas industry.
“It’s not an easy job trying to recruit technical oil and gas engineering people to this part of the world because of all the activity that’s going on elsewhere,” he says. “So it’s a challenge to not only find people and attract them here, but also to retain them once we have them. And they do a good job at getting folks in a position of wanting to come to talk with us about coming here to work for us, whether they’re local people or from other places.”
Denise Drake, human resources administrator for the Halifax Port Authority, has worked with Aplin to secure temporary administrative staffing. She appreciates Aplin’s conscientious follow-up and flexibility.
“They know what we want,” she says. “They’re very efficient in getting someone right away when we need to fill a position quickly. The caliber of their placements is very good.”
Reid says, “The spirit of doing business in Nova Scotia is very genuine, open and welcoming.”
The Atlantic Region Office carries forward this generous spirit as it supports volunteer involvement. For example, in fall 2008, staff put on their jeans to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.
Reid, who is from Hubbards, Nova Scotia, also appreciates the options the province provides in non-working hours. “A key reason for which my family and I choose to live, work and stay in Nova Scotia is the simple fact that we can go to the beach, we can go to our cottage, we can drive a few hours and go to the Cabot Trail for a hike,” she says. “We can then come to downtown Halifax and go to the theatre. We can do it all and that’s the beauty of Nova Scotia.”
She’s also enthusiastic about the future for Aplin’s Atlantic Region Office. “We’ve not even scratched the surface of exploring opportunity in this province, let alone all provinces in Atlantic Canada. Our future is exciting with our growth every year, with the phenomenal clients and candidates we have the pleasure and the opportunity to work with. We’re just beginning.”
Feature story written by Marie Weeren
