Here at Burns Sheehan, we know that a business is only as strong as its best employees- and we believe that all of our employees are the best. We sat down with Principal Technology Recruiter & Head of Onsite Oli Lochhead, who has recently celebrated 4 great years with us. Currently working onsite with CBRE as part of an ongoing partnership with the Real Estate Giants, Oli’s success not only within the company but industry wide, speaks for itself. This is what he had to say about being part of the Burns Sheehan family:
How would you describe the last 4 years at Burns Sheehan?
Joining Burns Sheehan has been life changing for me. I wanted to join a company that was built on relationships and that were passionate about providing a great service, so joining was a no brainer. Over the course of the 4 years I think back to my final interview with Sean and he said "we'll give you all the tools you need to be successful, but the one thing we can't give you is the attitude and the drive to do so", and I do think 4 years on he couldn't have been more true. In recruitment you have to take the rough with the smooth, there’s certainly been turbulent times, but the positives certainly outweigh those and you get through it together as a team and constantly learn from them.
I've had the opportunity to work with fantastic clients, some of the best recruiters in London and I've made some great friends as well.
What are some of the highlights throughout the years?
For my first year I didn't hit any of the incentives, since then I've been on 3 ski trips and 2 summer trips. It's an incentive for a reason, and it certainly drives you to want to be the best person in the office; to be at the top of the league tables and someone who sets an example for others.
Last year 16 of us in Dublin for a weekend was great, we went to Paris the year before which is certainly up there with one of the best trips I've had. To see Joss fall off the segway in front of thousands of people was a highlight! We’ve just come back from Mayorhofen in Austria for the annual Ski trip, and visited Val D’isere and Meribel in the last couple of years.
You have to work incredibly hard for these trips, but it’s so worth it! Hard work doesn’t go unnoticed at Burns Sheehan, which is important for anyone in the industry in my opinion.
What has been your biggest success whilst at Burns Sheehan?
My biggest success has certainly been the CBRE project we are working on. It was the first step for us to move into the onsite model and really expand our offering in that space. 18 months on it’s been a career defining role for me, and i’ve loved it! I’ve had the opportunity to forge some fantastic relationships internally, and we have built an amazing diverse technology team which has had a positive impact on the organisation as a whole, from a tech and cultural perspective… It’s something that I'm very proud of.
How did you get to where you are now within the business?
You’ll have to ask Baz and Burnsy…. I think it came from the success that we had at CBRE and identifying that this was a key growth area for us. We realised how we can become even more integral to our clients. We value how closely we partner with our clients and understanding the organisation and culture is paramount, but when you take the next step to become integrated with the organisation and you’re sitting amongst the team it's an incredibly powerful thing. We'd been successful at CBRE, and I’d had some experience of managing recruiters in the past so when the opportunity arose I jumped at it. I was so passionate about driving this part of the business forward and shared the vision of Chris Baz and Burnsy so I was very pleased to take it on. Since then we are onsite at 5 clients, with a few more in the pipeline.
What's your role day to day?
Tough question… You become a pseudo employee of the company you are onsite with, so no two days are the same. We can adapt the model to suit the organisations needs,whether a FTSE 50 or start up, we focus on addressing their pain points within recruitment.
I like to remain very hands-on so I try to dedicate as much time to resourcing as possible. As I became more integrated into the company I would get involved in setting the recruitment workflow and working closely with Finance and HR to contribute to define internal recruitment processes. The exposure that you get to all of the different business units and areas is such a learning curve, and great experience.
A key thing was to push out the brand into the technology community so planning events and meet-ups are always on the agenda. We have recently put together a 6 step marketing plan which we adhere to with new onsite partners.
I feel we're really on the crest of a wave at the moment from an onsite standpoint and I feel as though the continued success and great delivery on these projects should result in a lot of opportunities that spin out the back of it. Watch this space!
What's the most exciting thing you've got lined up that you're working on?
Burns Sheehan's on-site model. The embedded team that we’re building is extremely exciting. From both a personal and a Burns Sheehan perspective it’s a key initiative for 2020.
We've had some really good success with the clients that we're onsite with at the moment and we want to expand this offering even more. We’ve completed great projects at the Client Relationship Consultancy (CRC), Ostmodern and NotOnTheHighStreet, and we have ongoing projects at CBRE, Tom at Blackstone Real Estate and Jonny at iwoca. Having completed the CRC project, Gary has recently gone onsight with Bionic, who were voted 7th in the Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies to Work for in 2020!
