As the weather starts to warm, mining companies are beginning to recruit to fill seasonal contract needs. While some mining companies may use direct recruitment efforts, it’s more common for mining and exploration companies to use a recruiting service.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A MINING & EXPLORATION COMPANY
The success of your project depends on the quality of experts you hire to work on it. This makes a partnership with a high quality mining recruiting firm imperative.
SPECIALIZES IN MINING, GEOLOGY & EXPLORATION
There are hundreds of thousands of recruiting companies, but only a small fraction of them specialize in mining, geology, and exploration. Without this specialization, it’s difficult for a recruiting company to be able to objectively analyze the skills and experience of a potential contract worker.
YEARS IN INDUSTRY
The best mining, geology, and exploration recruiting companies will have a decade or more in the industry, and preferably some actual boots-on-the-ground experience by management as well. We know every industry is “unique,” but mining, geology, and exploration truly are significantly different from traditional sales, retail, marketing, and other business roles. It takes a deep understanding of the industry and expertise in the work to make a project successful, and the best knowledge comes from actual experience.
DEEP CONTRACT NETWORK
Unlike industries such as sales or retail, mining, geology, and exploration are tighter, more specialized industries. It can be incredibly beneficial to have a recruiting company that already has a deep network of contract workers to draw from–and who has worked with a huge number of these workers and knows their strengths, weaknesses, and the types of environments they thrive in. The more knowledge a mining recruiting company has about their network, the more benefit you will get from it.
TRIED & TRUE RECRUITING METHODS
Is the recruiting company relying only on job boards, or do they have other methods of recruiting? The best mining recruiting companies will rely on a mixture of recruiting methods that they’ve tested and honed over several years. From recruiting boards to social media networking, newsletters and targeted network reachout, the better the methods, the better the results.
IN-DEPTH QUALIFICATION
Qualifying your workers should take more than reviewing applications and resumes. Actual interviews can tell a recruiter so much more about a worker’s experience, work ethic, communication skills, and more. If your mining recruiting company doesn’t include person-to-person interviews as part of the qualification process, you can typically expect placements to be less successful.
GREAT COMMUNICATION
While you certainly want updates on the recruiting process, it’s also important to look for a company that will communicate with you even after the worker is placed. At Rangefront, we call these our “Right Fit” interviews, where we will talk to the worker and direct manager(s) to ensure the placement has been a successful one. If there are improvements to be made, we either facilitate those improvements or, in rare instances, change the placement.
CONTRACT LABOR MANAGEMENT
Managing seasonal contract labor can be a pain, from time sheets and benefits, job numbers, HR, and more. Some recruiting companies will offer contract labor management to take care of all the details so you can focus on what you do best.
Learn More
Learn more about why Rangefront has been a top-tier recruiting company for mining, geology, and exploration operations across the globe for 15 years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRIAN GOSS
President, Rangefront Mining Services
Brian Goss brings over 20 years of experience in gold and mineral exploration. He is the founder and President of Rangefront, a premier geological services and mining consulting company that caters to a large spectrum of clients in the mining and minerals exploration industries. Brian is also a director of Lithium Corp. (OTCQB: LTUM), an exploration stage company specializing in energy storage minerals and from 2014 to 2017, he fulfilled the role of President and Director of Graphite Corp. (OTCQB: GRPH), an exploration stage that specialized in the development of graphite properties. Prior to founding Rangefront, Brian worked as a staff geologist for Centerra Gold on the REN project, as well as various exploration and development projects in the Western United States and Michigan. Brian Goss holds a Bachelor of Science Degree with a major in Geology from Wayne State University in Michigan.
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