Punching Above Your Weight

Or how to be noticed in the motorsport crowd

For those interested in the subject of people at work, the recent ‘Forum’ letters from Carolynn Campbell and Thomas Henderson are fascinating.  In a way, they reflect the theme of my own ‘Straight Talk’ contributions to the April and August editions of Racecar Engineering when I enquired as to how far motor-sport folk actually related to the world outside or, indeed, related to the communities in which they live and to real people at all.

As Thomas wrote:  sometimes “people [at motor-sport trade shows] can’t even be bothered to make eye contact”.  That tends to suggest that they are just not particularly comfortable in their own skin.

For eleven years now, I have been running one of the most widely respected motor-sport dedicated B2B websites around, encompassing a significant on-line motor-sport recruitment facility, with an HR training and advice centre.  From that fairly lofty perch I see what’s happening in the sport as a whole and in the performance engineering sector, on both sides of the Atlantic.  And it’s not always a very impressive sight.

As it happens, I have worked as a personnel management professional in several other arenas – distribution, retail, chemical engineering, manufacturing, not-for-profit, building & construction.  Nowhere have I found such arrogant and ‘unplugged’ job seekers, applicants and recruiters as I have found in motor-sport – not always, of course, but far too often.   The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that I have included employers and employees in this observation.  Employers routinely fail to explain what they are really looking for or to define the role; too frequently, they are happy simply to see ‘what turns up’.  Candidates cannot be bothered to read the response instructions, or to put in a reasoned letter of application, or even to begin to spell the written word correctly. Sometimes, their own name is spelt in two or three different ways within a single communication.  It is nowhere near as bad in other industries or commercial sectors.

Interestingly, those employers who take a more professional and methodical approach end up achieving enhanced success on the track – they find themselves employing appropriate, committed and enthusiastic people within their businesses and teams.

Six years ago in this magazine, Charles Armstrong-Wilson expressed the view that Britain’s many colleges and academic institutions, which offer motor-sport related courses and qualifications, tended not to teach things of real ‘hands-on’ value and, because of this, often failed to meet employer needs and expectations.  Referring to the attitude of British Universities to the Formula Student competition, he commented: “Of those that do embrace the challenge, too many tackle it as a design exercise, when the event needs to be approached as a management challenge”.   The breadth of skills that spawns both leading-edge innovation and improvised solutions to practical problems still seems to be hard to find at the end of 2010.

The Historic Motor-Sport sector is one area that is really booming in both North America and in Europe but it is desperately seeking straightforward, hard-working race mechanics and car prep people, and it actually has difficulty in finding them right now.

I have seen thousands of motor-sport job applications.  In these days of economic reality and slashed budgets, job seekers need to show genuine flexibility and persistence if they are to gain employment at all, let alone in their preferred field.  The quality of the application in such competitive and hard times is crucial.

And how many of the motor-sport applications I see are from people who are actually a member of at least one motor club?   The answer is around 25%.  The rest, I presume, have no deep-rooted feeling for the sport or for the industry; they neither live nor breathe motor-racing and their souls are simply not stirred by it.   Nor can they therefore expect to be employed in an environment where passion is paramount.

Published: “Racecar Engineering” Volume 20 Number 12 - December 2010