Chorley based family-owned business Lyndhurst Precision Engineering has found success with T Level placements, helping the company to bring in new and more diverse young talent.
The company produces bespoke components for the aerospace, medical and energy sectors. Experiencing an influx of work, the company was keen to bring some fresh talent on board to help. Recruiting the right people, however, has typically proven a challenge for technical manager Andy Wilding.
“You get the CVs through, but you don’t always get the right person matching the CV,” he comments. “Working with T Level students gives us a much better chance to find out whether they’re the right fit.”
Connecting with its’ local College led the company to host a group of T Level students at an open day, which included a tour of its facilities and an opportunity to chat.
Mr Wilding was pleasantly surprised by the number of students interested in joining the company for a work placement and how engaged and interested they were about a career in the sector.
“First and foremost, we want to encourage more young people into engineering,” he says. “Working with T Level students gives you a really good insight into whether they’re right for the job, and what direction they want to go in – whether that’s an apprenticeship or something else.”
Lyndhurst Precision Engineering is also keen to encourage more gender diversity in a typically male-dominated industry. “I’ve been really heartened by how many young women have been applying for a placement here, I’d say it’s been an even split,” Mr Wilding continues. “Two out of our three current students are female, and they’ve been working closely with our apprentice, Katie – she’s a brilliant inspiration and we’d love to encourage more women into engineering, and support them to thrive.”
The company says it has worked with several T Level students over the last few years, and they have made a significant impact on the business.
“Once they’ve been given a bit of induction and training, they’re able to do jobs that really need doing. We don’t make up tasks just to keep them busy; they get stuck in and add real value.”
The students have applied technical knowledge learned from their course, and are particularly skilled at using CAD systems. They’ve also been helping with maintenance work, fixing electrical components, milling, turning, fabrication and fitting.
“You get a feel for what the students are good at. Our current student, Lucy, was great on the semi conversational programming for our long bed CNC machines with Heidenhain controls. Dan, one of our experienced machinists showed her how to use it and she picked it up straight away, we were really impressed.” Mr Wilding affirms.