Blog
How do I become a security guard at Provincial?
Starting off, the most important thing for us is an up to date curriculum vitae and we want prospective candidates to include all of their working experience; not just the bits that you deem relevant. There is a reason for this and it’s to do with the type of people we want working on our teams at Provincial.
“We find that a lot of applications only include security experience or experience in Ireland,” says HR Manager, Anthea Lalor. “But we want to get the whole picture. So if you’re from Croatia or Spain, I want to be able to see what you did in your home country. If you worked in retail or in a bar, put it on the page. To us that experience is just as important because the skills you used there are probably the skills we want at Provincial.”
The skills that Anthea refers to are people skills. So if you have worked in hospitality, tourism or any trade that involves dealing with people we want to hear from you.
Include everything you’ve ever done and we will pick out what we need. Tailoring CVs to meet your expectations of the security industry is not the way to go. As we’ve said already, we are not massive fans of stereotypes, so please don’t try to fit one.
“We ask for a ten-year work history and that can include education so get everything in there,” says Anthea.
“We are looking for well-rounded individuals with experience in all walks of life from all sorts of backgrounds. We want young, old, middle-aged and, again, experience outside security is really valuable to us.”
Once you’ve got all that great experience together and put it down on paper, Provincial asks candidates to submit their CV through our portal where they will find some routine screening questions that are required - that’s just part of the business we are in.
Anthea advises having all of your relevant documents and references in place before the start of the process. This will speed things up greatly and also shows your level of dedication and organisation should we move on to the next steps with you.
Our HR team will then carefully look through your CV, giving it all the attention that your application deserves. If we feel there is potential to work together, we will call you to find out more about you, your availability, what you’re like on the phone and the reasons for your interest in the job.
“We find that initial phone call very useful,” says Anthea. “We like to get a basic feel for the person; see if they’re friendly, if they’re able to hold a conversation. We’re mindful that people might be out shopping or just out of bed but we take account of that.”
The next step is scheduling a first interview sometime in the future. This now happens virtually. Often, the interview will include a person from our HR team who will ask you for a few more details around the skills and experience that you’ve outlined on your CV.
The next stage involves a fifteen-minute psychometric test to find out how potential recruits learn and work. This really helps to place people within a team, at least at the beginning of their time with us.
We then hold a final interview which usually includes one of our team from head office and a site manager. The site manager is likely to be a person you will be working closely with in the near future and so having that familiarity before you step on to your new site is very helpful for everyone.
“The whole process can take anywhere from three days to three weeks,” says Anthea. “It really depends on the role and the candidate's availability. We try to make it as welcoming and pleasant a process as possible and I think we always achieve that.”
Provincial is always ready to hear from people who are all about people. So feel free to get in touch with us today.