Established in 1977, Georgiou Group is a leading building and civil construction company, delivering a wide range of engineering services professionally and capably. With more than 40 years’ experience and located in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, their vision is to be ‘the best people to work with’.

The Apprenticeship Community has been supporting Georgiou Western Australia with their apprenticeship needs for many years, and we recently sat down with Georgiou’s Learning & Indigenous Engagement Manager, Jason Stern, to talk about how partnering with The Apprenticeship Community is an efficient and cost effective way of sourcing the right apprentices and trainees for their business.

What is your personal experience of working with The Apprenticeship Community?

There are a few different ways to work with The Apprenticeship Community. At Georgiou, we engage with them to manage, recruit and onboard successful candidates. They’re experts in behavioural testing, which gives us a better understanding of what motivates potential apprentices, and the result is a more suitable alignment with our company’s goals.

The type of recruitment we need is very different from your typical hire and requires the support of a team experienced in this area and able to give the whole process more time and more care to find the right placement.

This is The Apprenticeship Community’s bread and butter; they have processes in place for in-depth screening and they’re prepared to invest the time to find the right candidate, especially when recruiting multiple roles.

How does The Apprenticeship Community provide further recruitment support?

The prescreening is key for us. They facilitate extra testing with literacy and numeracy assessments to ensure candidates’ aptitude and willingness to work in our industry. It’s a sophisticated approach that The Apprenticeship Community applies and the result is better, more targeted shortlisting.

What are the benefits of working with The Apprenticeship Community, beyond recruitment?

As an Australian Apprenticeship Support Network (AASN) provider The Apprenticeship Community educates, supports and guides apprentices through their journey with us. It’s what I would call a 360-degree service, which separates them from other providers who essentially disappear after apprentices are signed up.

The Apprenticeship Community provides a holistic, collaborative service for the full life-cycle of the apprenticeship, making sure that the apprentice is progressing and tracking well.

What is the impact of this support on the business?

Ultimately, it takes the pressure off this area of the business. We are 14 years into this relationship with more than 300 apprentices and counting coming through our doors. We have our own internal team as well as The Apprenticeship Community’s team and they work very closely together. It’s a great partnership that helps us to guide the behaviours and outcomes we want for the business.

The outcome is far better than if we did this solo, which is why we all play a role in this collaborative dynamic. We’re regarded as one of the best in the industry and that reputation is a direct result of aligning ourselves with high calibre partners like The Apprenticeship Community.

How can The Apprenticeship Community help fill vacancies made more challenging by labour and skills shortages?

Instead of focusing on a quick fix, The Apprenticeship Community looks at how we can make a more authentic, long-term shift to engaging a more gender and culturally-diverse workforce to open up the recruitment pool. This is integral to our growth strategy as a company so it’s important to us that they prioritise similar values. We have intentionally engaged The Apprenticeship Community as we’re on the same page when it comes to bucking that trend.

“Engaging, employing and retaining the right people is a priority undertaking for Georgiou. We need to partner with specialists and we’re more efficient when we work with select key organisations who are experts in their field.

The Apprenticeship Community is the best in the industry, their people make the brand and I’ve worked with Jo and the team for over 10 years now. Together we’re a formidable team and the proof is in the results.”

Jason Stern, Learning & Indigenous Engagement Manager, Georgiou

Georgiou, and other partners, were involved in videos we created to promote the power of diversity in apprenticeships and traineeships, and shine the light on women working in non-traditional trades. Learn More.