Meet our Oil & Gas specialist, Mark Wallace

Specialist Recruitment, Real People series.

Name: Mark Wallace
Title: Business Manager - Oil & Gas
Click here to contact Mark

We spoke to our Oil & Gas Business Manager, Mark, to discover how his team have helped clients with their specialist recruitment needs.

Question 1: How do you ensure excellent service for your clients?

Working in the Oil & Gas industry is both challenging and rewarding, working to find skilled candidates on an international scale.

My role as Business Manager for Oil & Gas is to ensure excellent delivery for our clients whose projects can be in remote locations, whether downstream or upstream, onshore or offshore.

The key to delivering excellence across our team has to be building positive long term client relationships. I believe that if you listen to a client’s challenges, requirements and needs, not just at the beginning but throughout the process, you can work in partnership and deliver excellent results. You become an extension of their team, caring about what they care about.

Our Client Services Managers are the key to excellent communication with our clients, and our experienced Recruitment team are essential to ensuring they are fully briefed on the great opportunities we have for them. When you get both right, it is a powerful combination. My role is often in facilitating those strong relationships, monitoring quality and tangible results. It’s essential to learn, develop and have flexibility in your approach.

Question 2: How do you ensure you have the right industry knowledge?

Having worked in Oil & Gas recruitment for over 21 years I have gained a lot of experience and knowledge. Regular discussions with clients about the market, projects, opportunities and threats, help us to devise proactive rather than reactive candidate attraction strategies.

Following industry news and topics helps too, but speaking to people directly who are experiencing the industry first hand is the key to being in the know, whether that be clients or candidates. No matter how long you’ve been in the industry, there are always new things to discover.

My team is made up of 3 Account Managers, 3 Senior Recruiters, 4 Recruiters and one Delivery Coordinator, who are focused on the relationship, building up strong market intelligence. In order to keep the whole team in the know of the latest happenings within the industry, we have regular team meetings to discuss and pass information to each other, whether that be increasing skills shortages, new projects in the pipeline and what kind of personnel our clients are looking for.

Question 3: What’s the most interesting project you’ve personally worked on since working in Oil & Gas?

Oil & Gas can be fast paced, with clients requiring a scaleable workforce within extremely tight timescales. It’s always a buzz to get one of those requirements, organising our agile team to exceed our client’s expectations.

In my career I have personally been involved in many challenging projects but one role that particularly stands out was when I first started my career at First Recruitment. There was a Senior Executive role with one of our key clients. The client had been struggling to fill the role for a long period of time so I felt determined to rise to the challenge and find the right candidate. As opposed to the standard recruitment process, it was clear that this role required an approach slightly outside of the box. We collaborated with the client, researched the market, and devised a tailored strategy to reach the most suitable candidates - more of a headhunting approach than standard recruitment. Our approach ultimately worked and the candidate is still working with the client to this day.

Question 4: What did you want to be when you grew up?

A footballer.