The challenge
This contractor hires constantly: commissioning engineers, HV technicians, controls specialists and project leads, across contract and permanent, on sites all over the country. The volume wasn't the problem. The arrangement was.
Hiring sat across fourteen agencies, each with its own rate card, payment terms and margin, each emailing CVs to whichever hiring manager they happened to know. There was no single view of what was open, who was working it, or what it was costing. Compliance was checked late, by hand, and occasionally not at all until the morning someone was due on site. Finance reconciled a dozen different invoice formats every cycle and still couldn't say with confidence what the business was committed to.
We weren't short of agencies or candidates. We were short of a single version of the truth. Nobody could tell me what was actually happening across our open roles without three phone calls.
The approach
The business moved its contingent and permanent hiring onto Source Centre over a single quarter. Three things changed at once:
- The supplier list was tiered. Fourteen agencies became a managed list of six, scored on quality and speed, with clear rules on who sees what and when.
- Every vacancy, submission and decision moved into one place. CVs stopped arriving by inbox and started landing against the specific role, with compliance checked at the point of submission.
- Commercials were standardised. One rate card and margin across every supplier, with per-supplier terms where needed, rolling up to a single self-bill invoice each cycle.
The results
Within the first quarter, the operational picture changed sharply:
- Time-to-shortlist fell from around nine working days to under 48 hours, because submissions were visible and compliance-checked the moment they arrived.
- Ownership disputes effectively disappeared: the system records who submitted whom and when, so there's nothing to argue about.
- Compliance moved from a last-minute scramble to a gate: nothing without valid right-to-work, certifications and clearances reaches a hiring manager.
- Finance went from reconciling twelve invoice formats to approving one consolidated self-bill, with live spend visible by supplier, department and vacancy throughout the month.
For the first time I can open one screen and see every live role, where each candidate is, and exactly what we're spending. The agencies we kept are better off too: they get faster decisions and they get paid on time.
The business didn't hire fewer engineers or work with worse agencies. It put the whole thing on one process, and in doing so turned hiring from something it reacted to into something it could actually run.
Illustrative scenario. This case study is a composite built from typical Source Centre engagements to show how the platform is used; it does not depict a single named client.