Klarius "Dragons'" Recruitment "Den" Offers Trials to Graduates

One of Europe’s largest automotive aftermarket manufacturers, Klarius has held a recruitment day inspired by the BBC television series, ‘Dragon’s Den’, in which promising graduates are given the opportunity to “pitch” themselves directly to the company’s board of directors. The day offered a variety of UK and European trial positions – which could potentially become permanent – for the successful candidates.

The presence of board members at the recruitment stage is part of Klarius’ active, hands-on management setup. The company clearly believes in the involvement of its executives at the earliest stage with new employees, and the directors present enjoyed some lively interchange with the graduates. The event was held at the City Inn Hotel, Manchester on Monday, 7 September 2009.

Jobs in production management, design engineering, sales, purchasing, IT and finance are all on offer. Candidates had to pass an initial round of interviews and CV checks to make it into the final round where the best students were given the opportunity to pitch directly to the Klarius board. Board members present included managing director, Andrew Jones; financial director, Dave Cheetham; business development director, Paul Hannah; and Charles Greaves, director of manufacturing, UK.

Jones was stirred by the talent he saw: “We were impressed with the students that made it on the day, proving that we do have high calibre motivated young people on the market.  The ‘audience with the directors’ gave the most promising candidates the opportunity to impress the board and take the next step into a valuable and rewarding career.”

Successful candidates will be offered an induction and three month trial period with a potential permanent position at the end of it.

Veronique Auger, the European Marketing coordinator at Klarius arranged the event. She comments, “unlike many other companies in the automotive sector Klarius is expanding both its product range, its market share and it’s distribution reach across Europe. We have manufacturing operations in the UK and Italy, the company is dynamic and moving quickly, so we need graduates that have the same energy and enthusiasm as the rest of the team.”

Details were posted on internet recruitment site Monster.com and sent to local universities: UCLAN, Lancaster, Staffordshire, Manchester and Liverpool, although students were welcome to attend from anywhere in the country. The success of the event means that Klarius are likely to run a similar day again in the future.