The Railway Recruitment Process Explained

As a forces leaver it’s likely that you’ve never been through a civilian recruitment process; if you have it's likely to have been a long time ago. Most forces leavers I speak with have only ever experienced the military recruitment process via the Armed Forces Career Office (AFCO).

I Googled “How to find a job” and it gave me these results…

This is pretty good generic advice for job seekers…but it’s not fully applicable to the Rail Industry, particularly if you’re looking for a technical role. If you begin at step 1 and work your way down, at best you’ll waste a lot time/energy or worse, become disheartened and give up as it’s likely you’ll struggle to get anywhere.

What should you do?

The short answer is…speak to some recruitment agencies. They are the civilian equivalent of the Armed Forces Careers Office (AFCO).

In the ‘good old days’ companies would do all the recruiting themselves; they would advertise their vacancies in the press, magazines, online and by word of mouth. Nowadays recruiting is a huge multi-million pound industry, so things are done very differently.

It’s fairly rare that train companies advertise a job on their website and people apply directly to them. It’s much more likely that a train company have an agreement in-place with their preferred recruitment agency. This agency will manage all their recruitment for them.

How does it all work?

At the point in which a train company wants to employ someone they will advise their preferred recruitment agency, supplying them with a profile of their ideal candidate. This will include a job description, roles/responsibilities and all necessary skills/experience required. The recruitment agency will then begin to look for suitable candidates; via their database of candidates and publicly via LinkedIn or on job sites.

The recruitment agency will vet each candidate to ensure they fit the profile and have the necessary skills/experience required by their client. If the recruitment agency believes you fit this profile they will put you forward to their client (i.e. the employer) for the role.

Your CV will be sent to the employer via the recruiter; at this stage you will not be put in contact with the employer directly (it’s unlikely you’ll know the name of the employer or the exact salary). As I mentioned, this is a multi-million pound industry so the recruitment agency need to protect their interests.

The employer will then make a decision if they would like to progress you to the next stage of their recruitment process; most likely a job interview, aptitude test and/or assessment (almost identical to the Military Process). Once you’ve completed this process hopefully you’ll be offered the position or something else close to it.

A few helpful hints/tips…

I’ve found a lot of the time websites aren’t kept up to date so it may look on the surface as if there aren’t any jobs that fit your requirements at the moment…however, scratch the surface (by picking up the phone and speaking to someone) and you’ll be surprised at what they actually have on offer.

Train companies have agreements in-place with their preferred recruitment agencies so all their recruitment will be outsourced to this agency. To ensure you cast your net as far and as wide as possible its best speaking with as many recruitment agencies as is reasonable (I'd suggest 3-4 that specialise in the industry you are interested in).

If by this stage you’re still unsure of the point I’m trying to make, put simply it’s this…

Pick up the phone and start dialling!

Recruitment agencies are a bit of an anomaly; it is true that their customer is the employer and not you. So, it’s easy to build a narrative around this along the lines of “they’re all scumbags that just want to put you in a job you don’t want so that they generate revenue”. But that’s a very simplistic and idiotic view; sadly one I hear a lot!

The way I like to look at this is that you are their asset. If they repeatedly provide unsuitable candidates to their customer (i.e. the employer), it’s likely their customer will use an alternative recruitment agency. They’d be wasting their customer’s time and resources. So it’s best you build a good relationship with the recruitment agencies; it’s important they understand your abilities and not just your qualifications. Yes, qualifications are important but your work ethic and experiences are just as important when trying to understand what time of person you are.

In the main, my experience of recruitment agencies is very good. They’ll help you tailor your CV to the job description (which you should always, ALWAYS do!) and prepare you for the interview process. If you speak with a specialist rail recruitment agency (which I would highly recommend) it’s likely they’ll be able to tell you a lot about the job and the employing company. They’ll know the industry well and be more helpful that a generic recruitment agency, that cover a lot of different industries.

If you’re leaving the forces and thinking about a job in the railway please get in touch with me, I’m more than happy to answer any of your questions. Just send me a direct message via LinkedIn.

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