1. Insights

Aerotek Helps Government Contractor Scale Hiring, Meet Milestones and Deliver

Two workers in high visibility vests are conducting maintenance on the underside of a large airplane, focusing on its engines and landing gear. Maintenance equipment is visible on the wet ground, indicating active work. The scene is dimly lit with some natural light.

Client Challenge

When our client was awarded a large project in support of the United States Air Force (USAF), they planned to leverage their internal recruiting team to hire the employees they needed directly. However, during the first three months of the engagement the government increased the scale of the project, forcing our client to hire additional personnel to complete the work on time. They needed a partner with both aviation experience and vast recruiting bandwidth to help them find and screen the volume of qualified talent needed for this remote project.

 

Aerotek's Solution

Knowing our client needed a large volume of qualified talent quickly to meet the USAF’s expectations, Aerotek’s aviation team dedicated a robust recruiting team - comprised of both local and regional recruiters - to source, screen and onboard talent. To keep make sure our client was able to meet their required project milestones, our recruiting team was held to strict hiring benchmarks, starting  approximately 20 new hires a week for 12 weeks to satisfy our client’s need for 225 mechanics.

In order to maintain a consistent contractor headcount of 225 for the duration of the project, Aerotek worked with the client to get approval for and implement a contingent pool of cleared candidates that could be ready to work immediately upon request. Anytime an employee left the project, the combination of the aviation industry’s rigorous compliance process and the remote nature of the project would leave the client with a lull in production as Aerotek worked to backfill the position. This solution helped Aerotek reduce the time to onboard a new employee from four to two weeks.

 

Results

Aerotek’s months of preparation and planning enabled us to meet our client’s stringent technical requirements in the timeframe necessary to meet the expectations of the USAF. The Director of Operations credited the implementation of the contingent pool with a direct positive impact to the on-time delivery of the end-product to the USAF.