By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
For Kineticom, talent acquisition doesn’t end when someone is placed in a job. If anything, it is the beginning of a relationship that follows the worker as they advance through their career.
“We’re very passionate about career progression,” Jennifer Hawk, Kineticom Chief Financial Officer, told Inside Towers. “A lot of these individuals that we place are at junior levels, we follow them throughout their careers as they advance to the senior levels, even if they change companies or move to a different agency. We stay in touch.”
For example, Kineticom has staff that focuses solely on the firm’s talent that have been hired for projects, checking in with them consistently to see how the project is going and to ensure that all of the employee’s benefits and compensation is in place. “We develop relationships with the talent,” Hawk said. “We really think of them as our employees and a part of our culture.”
To get placed, job candidates go through a detailed vetting process at Kineticom to ensure they are the right person for the job, and that they are taking the job for the right reasons.
“If a tower climber wants to switch companies, we ask a lot of questions about why they’re leaving their current position,” Hawk said. “Kineticom is not interested in submitting just ‘anybody’ to a client, we care about the career progression of our candidates and the longevity of their position with a client.”
Kineticom was founded by Paul Roebuck, out of a passion for consultative services in niche markets. In 1999, he saw an opportunity in the nascent U.S. wireless industry to provide specialized services to support the rapid growth. The resulting firm, Kineticom, is based in San Diego, but it has personnel spread throughout the nation. Roebuck, who serves as a director for Kineticom, also has talent acquisition firms in the United Kingdom and the United States, specializing in environmental, health and safety.
Initially, Kineticom supported the network deployment side of the telecom industry, but it kept on the lookout for new opportunities. In 2013, it saw the need for more people in the tower space, which was growing rapidly. As it diversified over the years, Kineticom expanded into staffing for towers and then renewable energy. Today, it provides staffing for major carriers, OEMs, tower companies and tower services companies.
The Kineticom Team
Kineticom finds many of the people it recruits for network deployment roles from its database, which includes professionals that its staff have met and connected with over the years. “On the telecom and renewable energy side of our business, our team is utilizing the synergies of positions in both industries to match candidates with our clients in real estate, construction management, project management, engineering and design. All those skill sets are very relatable,” Hawk said.
But identifying potential applicants for tower climbing jobs, according to Hawk, is another animal altogether. Someone willing to do technician work 200+ feet in the air, is usually not found on traditional job sites. Therefore, Kineticom has certain staff that specialize in tower recruiting.
Kineticom is committed to the challenging task of identifying a large portion of the 20,000 tower support needs that are reportedly required to deploy 5G equipment on the industry’s infrastructure. Recruiting has taken the company to schools that provide tower technician training and to local job fairs. Recently, it has started looking at people that are coming out of the military. “We need new talent entering into our industry,” Hawk said. “We need to build the workforce and grow the individual climbers from the ground up.”
With the growth of government funding for broadband, the need for technicians to pull fiber is increasing, too. Once again, Kineticom is diversifying to provide staffing for a rapidly growing niche market.
“We’re in the final stages of executing an agreement with a current client to provide additional services that involve recruiting technicians in the fiber optics and the fiber splicing area,” Hawk said. “We’re going to enable our client to diversify and provide turnkey services.”
Diversification across multiple verticals has helped Kineticom build an extensive database of qualified candidates. Over the past 20 plus years, and today, the company’s established relationships and market knowledge allow Kineticom’s recruiters to take a hands-on approach, getting the right talent in the door for the right job.
For more information, visit https://kineticom.com/.
Reader Interactions