How The Headhunters and CEC Mining Systems Partner to Recruit Top Talent 

In today’s competitive job market, finding and attracting top talent can be a challenge for many businesses. For CEC Mining Systems, a technology leader in solid-liquid separation equipment, this challenge has been met head-on with innovative recruitment strategies and a strong employer brand. To level-up their internal recruiting efforts, CEC Mining Systems also partners with The Headhunters, to ensure they find the right fit for each role on their team.

We had a chat with Cameron Stockman, Managing Director at CEC Mining Systems, and our own Dave Banns, who has been Cameron’s recruitment partner for several years.

What’s the story of how this partnership began?

Dave: Like many great relationships, it started via networking. In 2018, a mutual contact introduced us, and the rest is history!

Cam: When I met Dave, the conversation was easy and genuine. Sometimes professionals take themselves too seriously, but at the end of the day people do business with people, so making that connection is important. His recruitment expertise, extensive network, and knowledge of the market were evident, without him being overly salesy.

I liked what Dave had to say about how The Headhunters does business. Some other recruitment agencies are too transactional, but The Headhunters does more than just get ‘bums in seats’—the focus is on getting to know my organization and finding long-term employees who fit the job and our culture. I really like the Workstyle and Performance Profile and have done it myself. We integrated the WPP right away and still use it as a key part of our hiring process.

Why do you choose to work with a recruitment agency?

Cam: For a company like ours that doesn’t have recruitment expertise in house, the time and resources it would take us to hire on our own makes it worthwhile to outsource it to a recruitment agency.

The partnership gives us the expertise of recruiters like Dave, who knows the labour market and has a vast network. He’s able to efficiently screen a high volume of applications, headhunt if needed, assess candidates for work style, and put together a shortlist for me to interview.

Being able to interview a small handful of candidates, curated by a recruiter who I trust, is a much better use of my time than getting bogged down in the hiring process.

What does CEC Mining Systems do as a client that helps make this partnership successful?

Dave: From day 1, I’ve appreciated Cam’s honesty about his business. We can talk about the good and the bad. I have a clear understanding of CEC Mining Systems’ goals and culture, as well as their challenges. I like working with this kind of transparency because it means there are no skeletons in the closet to surprise me later, and I’m confident when presenting their job opportunities to candidates.

He’s also really good at articulating their employer brand story to candidates; where the business came from, where they’re going, and why someone might want to work there. Some hiring managers aren’t comfortable being an ‘ambassador’ for their company, but it’s so important to have someone on your team who can. That’s how you attract the best candidates. I trust that Cam knows how to sell the opportunities, but does so ethically and with integrity. It’s never a bait-and-switch to the candidate.

Cam: We’re all aspiring to do great things, but companies need to be realistic about what they’re good at, what they’re not, and focus on filling the gaps. Candidates don’t expect to find a perfect employer, they’re looking for a workplace that fits with their values, goals and the way they like to work.

Dave: Cam’s also an excellent planner. He thinks ahead to future projects and the staffing needs that will arise, and shares that with me. In turn, I’m able to be proactive and start searching with ample time to meet deadlines.

His hiring process is well laid-out, and consistent with every new hire. He’ll be clear on his timeline for interviews and offers, and moves quickly to ensure we don’t lose great candidates to other opportunities. The reliability of his process makes our partnership effective. When a new search comes up, we both know what we have to do and work really efficiently together.

Cam: Labour cost is my largest budget line every year, so for me hiring is a big decision that I don’t take lightly. When I come to Dave with a new search, I’ve already thought about it for a long time and am ready to go with any necessary authorizations or budget approvals. We have a fairly small executive team and no external shareholders, which means we don’t have much bureaucracy to navigate and can be nimble with our hiring decisions.

Dave, you specialize in engineering—are all the searches The Headhunters conducts for CEC Mining Systems in that field?

Dave: Engineering has been a big focus, but we’ve also helped Cam fill roles in other areas such as administration, sales, logistics, and procurement.

This is a great thing about partnering with a firm like ours; we have recruiters in many specialties and we work collaboratively. We can be a one-stop-shop for many types of roles, and we also have strategic partners who can help with other services such as assessments, coaching, and executive search.

Cam: Within a technology and engineering company, every role needs to have a technical foundation. Even in non-technical roles such as administration or procurement, everyone needs to understand the inner workings of how our industry operates. Their work history doesn’t need to be directly in our industry—over the years we’ve hired a lot of people from outside of mining, from areas such as water treatment or oil and gas. We can train knowledge, but it’s difficult to train personality, workstyle, work ethic, and critical thinking. We can teach our team members what a particular widget does, but they need to have the experience and aptitude to think through a task or challenge independently.

Cameron, what does finding the right ‘fit’ mean for CEC Mining Systems?

Cam: Soft skills and workstyle are the hardest thing to manage and to hire for. Every person we add isn’t just in a relationship with their manager and colleagues within their department, they have connections with the entire team. So, when we add one person, we’ve added an exponential number of new relationships for us to understand and manage. As our team grows, it’s important to constantly re-evaluate the culture and assess what we need in new hires.

Part of my job is to ensure I have a clear understanding of our team dynamics at a specific point in time, and communicate that clearly to Dave, so he can find the right people for where our company is right now. But also, our long-standing relationship means that he already has insight into our team dynamics and how they’ve changed over time, because he placed many of our employees.

We’ve found the Workstyle and Performance Profile to be a valuable tool for hiring and for managing our team, and we’ve also explored other products from TalentClick Workforce Technologies, to assess management performance and employee engagement.

Looking ahead, what’s in store for this partnership in the future?

Cam: I hope we continue to leverage the good will that’s been created in this relationship!

Dave: Agreed! I hope we continue working together for many years to come.

Cam doesn’t need a lot of follow up from me—I know he’ll come to me when he needs me. And in turn, if I come across good candidates who I think will fit well at CEC Mining Systems, I know I can bring them to him for consideration, even if there isn’t an active search in progress.

Cam: Yes, that passive approach is helpful; you never know when the right person might come along. It’s a major principle of ours that we can build businesses around great people. Sometimes that route is easier than the other way around.

Any final tips for employers looking to attract top talent in this market?

Dave: Be open and truthful about what your culture, management and company are really like. If you lie or sugar-coat it to get people in the door, they’ll realize sooner or later that it’s not real and won’t stick around. Your workplace doesn’t need to be for everyone. Different work environments are better suited for different people, at different stages of their career, and that’s okay! It’s better to be honest and attract people who want to work for you.

Cam: There’s no benefit to anyone to not fairly represent what the company is like or needs – it doesn’t help the employer because it leads to turnover, and it doesn’t help employees who are looking for stability.

My ongoing goal is to learn from each new hire we make. When a new hire is a success, we can distill what went well, and when a hiring decision doesn’t work out, we can learn from our mistakes. Focusing on understanding our value proposition and hiring candidates who truly fit is how we built a team from nothing to something we can be proud of.