A specialist CNC Programmer, two candidates, one hire
A shortlist of two filled a role that months of volume had not. The client’s word for the difference was accuracy.
The brief
The business had struggled for months to find a specialist CNC programmer. The constraint was not the number of applications but their fit: a programmer who can set and prove parts on the machines in question is a narrower pool than the job title suggests, and a long list does not surface them.
How ARG worked it
The process below is ARG's standard approach to a specialist brief, documented on how to hire. It is what every brief gets, described as such rather than as a narrative about this one.
- 1A briefing call that establishes the competence the role actually gates on, the shift or travel pattern, and whether the budget and the brief can both be true.
- 2A direct search rather than an advert, worked against the sector network rather than a job board, with RecXchange widening the pool beyond ARG’s own book.
- 3A shortlist of three to five people with a written summary on each, screened before submission so the hiring manager interviews only the people worth interviewing.
- 4A 12-week staggered replacement guarantee on the placement: 100% in weeks one to four, 75% in weeks five to eight, 50% in weeks nine to twelve.
The outcome
ARG put forward two candidates with no padding around them. One was hired. The client’s own summary is that the agency is not working to volume but to accuracy, and that this is what made the difference on a role that had already resisted the volume approach.
“We'd struggled for months to find a specialist CNC programmer. ARG put forward two strong candidates, no padding. It's not about volume with them, it's about accuracy. That's what makes the difference.”
Where this comes from
The brief and the outcome above are the client's own account, taken from their review on ARG's reviews page and quoted in full. Nothing about the client, the fee or the timeline is stated beyond what they published. The process section is ARG's standard method, not a reconstruction of this search.
Where to go next
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