Taipan – Hydraulic hoses and fittings

Who Is Taipan?

The Taipan story goes back 30 years to a time when brothers Tim and Allan Sandilands ran a mobile hydraulic hose repair service in Queensland called Mobile Hose Fixers. Over the years, the Caboolture based company has evolved into a wholesale provider of world-class hoses and fittings thanks to an impressive international supply chain that includes over 50 hand-picked, world-class component manufacturers in 17 countries across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. 

What was the business challenge?

Taipan approached Cemoh to assist with filling two full-time roles. The challenge for Cemoh was finding two individuals who were able to commute and work in Taipan’s Caboolture office (Northern Brisbane) five days a week. 

Taipan had already reached out to an agency in Sydney to help recruit for the two positions. The problem however was that this particular agency wasn’t familiar with the size of Brisbane and the location of Taipan’s head office. Subsequently this resulted in the sourcing of potential candidates that resided on the Southside and inner suburbs of Brisbane who would struggle with the daily commute.

The other challenge facing Taipan was that they were unsure of how to classify their marketing role. This presented several issues such as understanding the salary requirements and what responsibilities Taipan was expecting of the position.

Who did the client need to recruit?

The first full-time position was a marketing role that was yet to be properly defined with the second being a graphic design role.

After running job ads on Seek for several weeks, with very little success, Taipan came to us to help with the recruiting process and gave Cemoh a six-week exclusive window to source talent for these two positions.

Cemoh actions taken

The first action Cemoh took was to understand the marketing role that Taipan was needing to fill. After a brief strategy meeting with their CEO, we collectively determined the role’s function and classed it as a ‘marketing coordinator’ position. This was based on three factors;

1. Execution and Implementation: Taipan needed someone to focus on executing and implementing marketing strategies as well as to handle day-to-day tasks, such as coordinating events, managing social media accounts, and organising promotional activities.
2.  Detail-Oriented: Taipan wanted a marketer who was going to be more involved in the details of marketing campaigns and ensuring that plans were carried out effectively.
3.  Support and Leadership Role: Taipan wanted an individual that would provide support and leadership to the marketing team and assist in various tasks to ensure a smooth operation of the department.

With our talent pool now at over 200 individuals, not to mention our extensive industry network, our next task was to advertise both positions. We first approached our Cemoh candidates and business community, as well as posted targeted geolocation adverts on LinkedIn and Facebook for Caboolture and its surrounds. 

The outcome

Our multi-pronged approach of advertising for the graphic design role resulted in an impressive list of applicants that we narrowed down to two individuals. After presenting these two candidates to Taipan, one was offered the role and onboarded the following week. 

As anticipated, the marketing role’s biggest challenge was finding the right individual who was either happy to commute to Caboolture or resided in the Northern suburbs of Brisbane. Our advertising and sourcing strategies were very effective. We implemented a localised Facebook campaign which received 100s of clicks, resulting in interest from three great candidates. They unfortunately were all in geographical areas that didn’t suit a daily commute to Taipan’s head office. One of the most promising candidates who was a local of the area was unable to be interviewed as they were offered a different role before a meeting with Taipan could take place. 

Currently the role still remains open.