Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
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Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#2Most important for me is:
> "We purely interview for personality," says Mr Timpson, who has been leading his family's firm for the past 42 years.
> In explaining the thinking behind this rather novel approach to recruitment, Mr Timpson, 74, says that while you can train someone to do a job, you cannot train their personality.
Timpson are good in the UK because for a long time they've been happy to interview ex-offenders.
https://www.timpson.co.uk/about/careers-at-timpson
> Timpson really are an equal opportunities employer. We consider anyone for our vacancies as long as they are able to do the job. This includes ex-offenders and other marginalised groups. We recruit exclusively on personality and expect all of colleagues to be happy, confident and chatty individuals.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...
> Susanna Stephens is laughing as she explains an early quirk of her job. "It did seem quite weird that I was going out of a prison to cut keys," says the 37-year-old who works for Timpson, the shoe repairer and key-cutter that has been a family business for five generations.
[...]
> But Stephens is no conventional recruit because, like 270 other Timpson staff, she joined the company from jail – for a while going to work in the day and returning to jail at night, under the Prison Service’s Release on Temporary Licence scheme.
Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#3Most important for me is: > "We purely interview for personality," says Mr Timpson, who has been leading his family's firm for the past 42 years. > In explaining the thinking behind this rather novel approach to recruitment, Mr Timpson, 74, says that while you can train someone to do a job, you cannot train their personality. Timpson are good in the UK because for a long time they've been happy to interview ex-offend…
I never realised they hired so many people out of prison - Bumps them up quite a lot in my books, will try and consider them in future for more things!
Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#4I found it a bit of an odd article. I alternate between Mr Happy, Mr Grumpy, Mr Angry, Mr Sad. (Fortunately, I'm never Mr Tickle.)
While it was interesting, I'd hate for people reading this article to think it was genuinely a good idea as a hiring practice. People are complicated, and cannot and should not be pigeonholed into such simple categories.
Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#5Most important for me is: > "We purely interview for personality," says Mr Timpson, who has been leading his family's firm for the past 42 years. > In explaining the thinking behind this rather novel approach to recruitment, Mr Timpson, 74, says that while you can train someone to do a job, you cannot train their personality. Timpson are good in the UK because for a long time they've been happy to interview ex-offend…
John Timpson (chairman of Timpsons) was on panel of this episode of BBC Radio 4's "The Bottom Line", that was when I first heard about them having a more open mind about ex-offenders. It's an interesting discussion:
Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#6I found it a bit of an odd article. I alternate between Mr Happy, Mr Grumpy, Mr Angry, Mr Sad. (Fortunately, I'm never Mr Tickle.) While it was interesting, I'd hate for people reading this article to think it was genuinely a good idea as a hiring practice. People are complicated, and cannot and should not be pigeonholed into such simple categories.
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Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#7I love that they actively try to hire convicts for a job that involves cutting keys. Im sure it is a non-issue in reality, i just laugh at the irony.
I wonder if they would be more or less likely to cut me a set of bump keys if asked?
Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#8Most important for me is: > "We purely interview for personality," says Mr Timpson, who has been leading his family's firm for the past 42 years. > In explaining the thinking behind this rather novel approach to recruitment, Mr Timpson, 74, says that while you can train someone to do a job, you cannot train their personality. Timpson are good in the UK because for a long time they've been happy to interview ex-offend…
I would expect the additional step of
> "If they tick all the right boxes then we put them in the shop for half the day."
is also very important.
Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#9If you're not aware of Timpsons they do key cutting, dry cleaning etc and these days mostly operate out of kiosks in supermarket car parks.
It's a pretty trainable job to anybody, and the ideal job for somebody who can't get another one. I'm not sure about the Mr Happy thing though, because i've met plenty of grumpy staff there.
Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters
#10I love that they actively try to hire convicts for a job that involves cutting keys. Im sure it is a non-issue in reality, i just laugh at the irony. I wonder if they would be more or less likely to cut me a set of bump keys if asked?
I bet this is a non-issue, I'm not sure how many burglaries are carried out by someone that picks the locks or uses bump keys but I'm pretty sure it is close to zero. In addition you probably don't want to be burgled in this manner as proving that you didn't leave the property unlocked would be difficult if there was no forced entry, which would make any insurance claim difficult for the property owner.