Episode 11: Liz Allan and Stuart Middleton - The rise of smart mobility and clean tech recruitment

okay so on the podcast today i've got stewart middleton from interval and he is a recruiter money gin director of recruit called interval i've just said that i'm not

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let me just start

worries

again because my i've got produce can do this you can edit this thank

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god right okay

yeah yeah

okay let's start again okay so on the podcast today i've got stewart middleton who is the managing director of a recruitment company called

a

interval and he deals specifically with smart ability clean tech recruitment so stewart welcome welcome to electrical evolution thank you ever so much for joining me so can you just give everybody a little bit of background to our career and how you got into recruitment

yeah sure

please

well first of all thank you very much for having me your podcast much appreciated happy to share share my insight so so my career into recruiting well i suppose like a lot of people um going into recruitment i kind of fell into it really i actually started my career

m

off in the arm forces believing i left school and immediately joined the romarines and spent five years working with those guys then o make the

wow

lead of faith to into the private sector so i didn't really know what recruitment was altogether in fairness and i knew i knew a friend who was doing it or actually i didn't know at the time he was doing it but he kind of we got talking one day he invited me and we got talking to the founders and the owners of the business at the time and just felt it a good match and i always kind of lok nothing that i had nothing to lose at the time just come

m

out the arm forces so old i was willing to anyone take me you

ah

might be sure i wasn't scared of hard work and i was certainly determined so yeah that's that's kind of how how i fell into recruit itself

okay okay so so why specifically smart mobility and clean tact what what drew you to that and kind of you know why how do you see it's

yeah

important

i'd say once again it was it was accidental i think that i felt i fell into to the center so at the time i was i was working for a company there were a traditional it tech business

m

and we come about eight years now

m

eight years ago a lot of the work that was was kind of happening was all around drivers cars and autonomous vehicles that's where government put a t of money from innovatukn and

m

i started working with it a client that was doing a lot of research and development into

m

that sector and i suppose that's where that's where it all started because as things have progressed over the last eight years we've kind of gone from this autonomous vehicles drivers cars into sustainable transportation from there

kay

looking at different

yeah

modes of transportation to lower co two and carbon emissions to

m

end up to where we are now which is bit of business which solely focuses on supporting companies that are developing new products and services for both the world of smart ability and clean taking that that is quite broad still in what we do but electric vehicles plays

m

a big part of what we do it's the spine of the business is where we built our

m

reputation certainly

hm

and every kind of feeds off the side really

so what kind of what size companies are you working with and and what type of jobs are you recruiting

yeah

for mostly

so the stage really does vary we're very fortunate we've got a real mix of clients right from your pre start up pre investment should we say to post investment to large corporates and consultant

m

so it's very very broad you know from from a

oh

kind of skill set level point of view that also varies because one thing we really try and do is we look to come in and partner with our clients okay we're not we're not looking to kind of work with every your company out there but we want to work with businesses that share our values we know that we well together i think that's really

ah

important in business so we go down the approach of let's let's part with you let's let's kind of take everything hat you've got right now and look at how we can develop that how we can help your employ value propositions basically doing more than putting bumps on seats and i think that's typically the past

yeah

where some recruitment consultancis

yeah

kind of developed

yeah

a bad reputation for themsels or the industry i think there are some

man

very good people out there and those

m

are sort of people who try to add value to their client more than just kind of throwing c vs around and is actually looking to advise and coach the gettin think about how they're received in the market the candid experience the whole journey which is which is vitally important

m

when you're doing that you're getting

m

the most out of each other in the day

yeah

that that super imposing

so okay so go on what is what is your what do you see is the biggest value that you provide is it is it that is it that experience is it is it that journey and what kind of what on average what kind of a journey do you tend to give your on both sides your your the organizations you're recruiting for and

yeah i

the

suppose

candidates what would it collextperience

yeah

b

it's a really good question so i think first of all we need to it's about communication all comes down to communication it right from the start it's about us really understanding

ah

who who are clients are what

m

their cultures like what what's important for them old we want to be an extended arm of our clients extend on of the business titely so that

m

we understand that when we're going out of market on behalf of the client we are the first point of call between the candidate kind of knowing this opportunity so we have to represent we have to be sure we represent the client in a way that they want to be represented and haven't that and to understand the stories who are they what

m

they're doin what's it at project are they evolved at

o

the moment but really kind of peel back the layers and get under the skin of who they are as a business what they're looking to achieve what are their values so that we can really betray that to the client therefore we can add more than just kind of saying look here's a job but you're interested from our point of view our job is to make sure that we are doing both sides so one thing kind of sly talking to a candidate about opportunity

my

but we also have to dig deep and understand the candidates what are they looking for what's

m

what's important to them why are they looking because you know it's more than just kind of i suppose it just presents an opportunity and finding out about the situation and then moving on at we want really kind o get underneath the skin of what's their motivations why there looking to leave what they're lacking is a progression is is it location there's a lot different reasons as to why people leave other than just perhaps a pay rise for example

yeah okay and what would you say the sort of the top say three or four jobs that have been recruited for it at the moment

yeah

the technical are the sales are the operations

yeah i would

what

say

would you say they

the main

are

skills that we're seeing at the moment it does depend on what kind of vertical you're looking at if we're talking about v in particular

m

mainly i would say sales sales and commercial and the reason for that is because there's such a job to take place in regard to kind of

yeah

the rolling out and making people aware v charging and how it works so

yeah

yeah we've seen a lot of sales teams being built a lot o commercial teams being built and ultimately then you've got the delivery aspects of the project management element as well in operational piece sorry just got a flight signed to fly around my face and on to ave a conversation

yah don't worry we can we can edit that but

yeah

flies at this time of

actually

year

believe it so so yeah skill

m

setprdominaly sales commercial the project delivery aspect of the moment specifically with v charging on the whole sector as a whole s g ability is obviously a big big topic topic at the moment it's a top of agenda of all most managing directors and cos at the moment and how can the business contribute to obviously zero carbon emissions reducing all those levels which

ah

is vitally important on the whole an they make it a part

we

of that if they are flat and things like

oh

that

exactly so would you say then currently there are gaps that you kind of go the the recruiting for this and this but maybe they're not doing that yet so are you are you kind of seeing things and sort of like going well they're probably going to come back to us for these types of people eventually or are you going back to the companies and going have you thought about employing

yeah

somebody like this is that

i think

you know

a lot of the companies we work with do rely on us to present skill sets to them that they perhaps don't know exist in the market right now and that comes from and the fact that's

m

where we had value because we have understand that the market and and what what what's needed ultimately moving forward i suppose there are other challenges really within the sector and the main challenges are the fact that demand is out stripping up i companies are running at hundred and ten one or at the moment they're running really fast they need to hit the ground

yeah

running all the time i get it i do because they don't have the time to always up skill people or invest the time in people as much as they probably want to because it's such a such a fast moving space at the moment what we're try and advise clients is look you know try and look away from just the obvious places there's lots of people who sit in the ray of this sector who are dying to

m

get into it who so passionate about

oh

what they do and could probably bring so many more different skills into the space that don't exist right now so we do a lot of work of our clients to really understand that element because i think it's vitally important because if you if you keep circulating around around the same kind of pool you're not going to get of probably the level of disruption that you really ideally need and there's amazing people with amazing

m

skill set to who can transfer into the sector and we try and really work hard to get to get decision makers to really understand that and i think we're getting there because you kind of you hit a cliff edge which is there's no one else with the relevant experience becase perhaps moved around two or three jobs already i can't

m

it's just like a carcel almost we need to kind of look outside because these companies are heavily invested in some cases they're rapidly growing we need to do more

i suppose the other thing is you don't know what you don't

yeah

know

yeah

do you you know it isn't

m

it isn't until you have somebody like you you know kind of backing back in a company but given given support that you will see trends going on in different companies and see

m

right kay these are these are the gaps that you need

yeah

to create because at the moment there's a lot of innovation going

ah

on isn't there in the electric vehicle infrastructure sector and vs full

yeah

stop

absolutely

there

absolutely you know it goes back to what i was saying earlier which is all around being close to our clients if we

yeah

can get brought into them and

yeah

understand their challenges that they're frustra tis what they're struggling with paps areas they need growth not now but in the future we we can actually start supporting and working with them a lot closely and we do that with most of our clients nowadays because we've kind of proved ourselves that we can do that and i think that's where the value comes in to the added value you can't that doesn't come at a price

m

that just comes through experience and what and how we had we try and separate us from the noise that exists out there among other people as well

values so important isn't it like you say that's that's kind of your u s p the value that you give your clients you know on both

hopefully

sides

hopefully

isn't it so

i'm uh

oh

uh

yeah i mean you i can tell just from talking to you the kind of person that you are so actually we were talking about entrepreneur

yeah

ship weren't we earlier and actually you weren't class yourself as an entrepreneur but i would say the way that you're talking is very much entreprenarial very quite quite you know innovative as well so so that is what's needed because like you said recruitment i mean i've had i've had recruitment experiences in the past that haven't been particularly fun and i've kind of said people before god recruits can be a right paying but actually if you if the if you add that value

m

that is where word of mouth makes a really positive

yeah

you know kind of impact for you

absolutely

doesn't it

it's something that we work we were really hard to maintain were very passionate about us obviously with it being my business you know we we want to make sure that that's kind of portrayed amongst the staff that we've got because reputation takes a long time to build and can very quickly get the story we all know i think that you know

yeah

we haven't set our sides on being the biggest company that exists within the sector but what we have set our sides on being the best by ensuring that we know what we're talking about the week a value in every step of the process and that gives comfort in both our candace and our clients that we know what we're doing that for me so is so important it really is

and i was going to point out as well so stewart an interval also sponsor

you

the v cafe that i'm a big

yeah

fun of so so yeah that's how i i i kind of saw in the first place because they're they're really big advocates of electric viclyouknow the stuff that

yeah

the guys together they're just

i mean

a

they're

brilliant

a great bunch

aren't they

you've got you've got some amazing people in there some great minds who do some really really important things for the industry and i think they've done a great job in

m

um m share in experiences that teaching element and i think that when you're when you're working within this sect of day and day out you kind of forget that there's a load of people the within the population who still are they're not converted they don't see it as

m

important right now they they're probably uneducated

m

no not so why vs are important but how to use v that's kind of

yeah

what got me really interested in the guys of v because they were kind of talking at baciclevnd i think education is vitally important if we are to kind of create this transition in the quickest way possible people need to realize that this isn't this isn't complex and don't be afraid to not know something it's okay we need to talk about that a lot

yeah

a lot more because you know actors while its exploding while there's a lot of good stuff happening there's still a lot of people out there that don't know anything about it

exactly and some people it won't even come on their radar for ages i mean we've got we've got seven years now just over seven years until petrol and des cars are no longer you know they're not able

yeah

to be produced and actually at this last few years with the pandemic and everything the time just flies just like that doesn't it so so seven years is just going to fly by and and i agree with you there's a real lack of education and so in a number of areas where as the v caffre kind of providing that and actually that's what i'm trying to do as well with this podcast it's basically trying to take people through you

m

know the average joe as you call as you know to me it's kind of there are things that we want to do i want to do as for my strategy in my business you know as an individual under as a you know and actually i was talking to somebody earlier about the little things that you can do it isn't always within people's budgets to move straight over to to an electric vehicle for example or to get air source heat pumps and solar which is what we're currently looking at but but actually there

i

god tell

am

me

very lucky i ave mecede's q c i'm very very fortunate

oh oodness me and so you've got this about you said there's eight eight of you working together does anybody else get a company

yeah

car is it just is

so

it just

no

yourself

so we we we there's eight years a ight of use in the business right now we currently have looking out across the office

yeah

right now

yeah

we remember half the business who are who have the rest of the half are still kind of going through their the transition period obviously

yeah

wave times significantly long at the moment much longer than any of us would like

ah

but there's definitely a willingness and a want to everyone to go sustainable

to do

transport but away from jsvsthe team that work they very very sustain bit conscious so where the people who don't have an just yet they fortunately live local so they use pikes they use the mobility of the schemes that are one around milton kens which is great you know milton teams is is not always the best place but but the transport that provided here is very low carbon and sam are really good

yeah

so where we can we try and usage of vehicles just in general because i think we were talking about sustainability and

yeah

transportation you know we need to move away move it into more active transportation because he's no there's no better way of moving around zero carbon and you know the legs that we've been given to walk

in

around

a

and to you so that's that's the kind of approach we typically try and make

that's that's a brilliant approach and and it's good that everybody s kind of heading heading in that heading in that direction it does you know like i say it's just the it's the small things i'm not going a pen everywhere and these are small things that that you can that you just do you know you do on a daily basis i've got to say so and kind of talk about my husband a fair bit because he works in climate change so it's quite that's how the other reason why i'm doing this podcast

wow

and it's not always that easily easy for me to get to and i sit in my car and i just think oh god i want to you know really want to move over to a nictrodevehicle because i've seen it's so important for me because i don't want to be i don't want to be kicking out missions

yeah

you know i want to do what i can is i can't always get to these places on public transport you know i have to use the car

yeah

but it's about using the altrouknow kind of making we've got a i've got a push towards kind of getting getting an e v whether that's buying or

m

or leasing

m

because journeys aren't

yeah

going to stop

ah

that's the thing but i will use susan public transport as much as

yeah

i possibly

i think

can

there's a massive kind of mindset that needs to change and i think we'll see more of this as the generations go on as well and different age groups come through you know we're already seeing a lot people that we interview these days at the more kind of june don't have driving licenses which means they're relying on public transport and remote working in order

as

to kind of obviously to get around ultimately which which in turn reduces co two missions and and this is this is the kind of change that we need to happen there's nothing

yeah

in my opinion i'm still you know delusion is you know meet and face to face is still vitally important in everything than we do but as long as we try and keep that in a sustainable way as possible whether that is using a literary vehicle or public transport to as long as the public what is clean and you know otherwise you're kind of defeating the object but he's still a great

yeah

great amount of work going on in some very very amazing minds out there that are making a real difference

yeah exactly it's funny you should say about young people i have a seventeen year old and he's just message me this morning to say he's learning to drive now he's learning to drive in a manual so obvious it's not it's not electric but he's already said that he wants to go you know once his past his test he wants to go you know drive an electric car because of that mind set of the younger one younger genera so younger generation and actually he's just said that

for him

today

god on him

so he's heading in the right direction but yeah you're right over the years as the youngsters are coming through actually it's going to be really important they're going to be pushing because you know we're going to we are leaving were we are you know they are inheriting what we're leaving

ultimelyye

aren't they

absolutely let's not forget v is a great fun to drive what do you want

you know i am going to i am going i'm pushing to find a drive day so i can try someone out because at the moment i have

ah

no frame of reference but i will be doing that definitely yeah we'll have to have a charge about what you're driving but so i just like to kind of finish just by you letting people know how they get hold of you how where do where do they content is there an email address and a website that they can contact you if they're either a candidate or a company wanted to recruit

yea

into

absolutely

this sector

look you know in a kind of throw out there that i'm happy to talk to anybody whether or not it's somebody looking for a new job a client looking for skill sets or somebody just wondering how they can get into this set always happy i have an open conversation so

m

you can contact me on linton i've kind of live and breath on their being a recruiter so you be a fivemalstewart middleton i've got an email address with his stewart dot to interview group dot com and i can also happy for you to kind of share any details when you when you post this with my details for anybody to get in contact and always happy to have conversation and if i can't there'll be some in the team who who will be more than happy to help you out who is more than capable

brilliant so it will definitely share all your details following following the as it actually gets gets kind of sent out so so yeah but thank

pleasure

you steward it's been brilliant you i really appreciate it and yes ll end just say thank you and i shall see everybody next

your

time thanks again by

oh

yeah