Conibears is a family business serving the agricultural and building products sector based in Crediton, Devon. They are the UK’s leading stockist and distributor of corrugated fibre cement profile sheeting, Cedral Facades, cladding and roofing slate products along with Brett Martin and Hunter rainwater goods.
Alistair Magor contacted Sharples Davies as they were looking to appoint their first external salesperson to generate business within the national and independent merchants across the South West and peripheral area.
Alistair Magor – Why Sharples Davies?: Sharples Davies were recommended to me by contacts within the industry as being pro-active and specialising in exactly the sort of recruitment we were looking at. With no prior experience in-house in this field we needed someone who really understood our requirement – probably better than we did!
What did you ask Sharples Davies to recruit? I contacted Sharples Davies on the 4th December 2023 and spoke with Jo Hulme. I explained that we were looking to push the Conibears business to the next level and our first requirement was to appoint our first external Regional Account Manager within the Southwest and peripheral region. The brief was quite specific as we were looking for an individual who had very strong contacts within the national and independent builders and roofing merchants who would be able to push our business further. With this being the first external appointment, we were also seeking someone who would be able to make the transition to manage the external sales team, as we take more people on during the next 12-18 months.
Jo provided me with a shortlist of 12 candidates who she had screened over the phone, and who all possessed the experience and relevant route to market. We then narrowed this down to 4 candidates, 2 of which we invited for a Teams interview with myself, and both were selected for face to face interview at our office in Crediton.
I was impressed within both candidates and due to their location decided to offer both candidates a role as I felt they would be able to work together and push the Conibears business further afield. The offers were made on the 9th January 2024, so a months turn around from start to finish.
Jo handled the whole process from identifying the candidates, screening, arranging interviews and following the process through to a successful offer being made to both candidates.
Alistair Magor thoughts on this recruitment: It was clear from the outset that Jo understood what we needed, and the shortlist of candidates was extremely useful with some excellent people. We were able to narrow down the shortlist using some quite exacting criteria, and this saved us an enormous amount of time and effort. From start to finish Sharples Davies have been excellent; quick, pro-active and very easy to communicate with. To have appointed the two successful candidates within a month of the initial contact, allowing for the Christmas and New Year break in the middle, is nothing short of a miracle!
