Jack Watson

So my name is Jack Watson. I live in Peterborough in the East Midlands and I'm a motorsport recruiting consultant.

So my job is to basically speak to engineers within the motorsport industry, whether that's for an F1 team or supplier into an F1 team, to basically decide what job they want next in their career.

And also speaking directly with the teams to understand what people there are in the jobs in different companies that may relate to what they do.

So it's best to help others understand what jobs are out there and what companies, what people are out there that could do those jobs.

So a typical day in motor sport recruitment isn't probably very typical. It probably chops and changes quite a lot, but to kind of narrow it down of what's consistent every day would be speaking with the people who are actively looking for a new job.

So who you may have in interviews for those companies, it may be actually speaking with the engineering managers or the manufacturing managers or managers of a department for what they're looking for for the next person in their team. So to understand it in a bit more detail.

So, you know, if it's any specifics in terms of software types of engineers, types of components that they may be designing or building, actually understanding that finite little details so that then when we try and find that person, we can ask those questions of what they've dealt with so that we can speed up the process so that the people they speak to, they're right, they're going to fit, they can do the job.

So we work with, as I mentioned, a number of the F1 teams. So F1 teams now are... a thousand people in an F1 team. So it's a big organisation.

So normally within that you would speak to a select few. So each team, for example, has what's called a talent team, which is the recruitment team, basically. So we'd speak with them. They'd tell us what we need.

We'd then speak to the manager who may give a bit more technical detail, bit of specifics of what they need.

And then it's working sort of as a team, as a three, to basically understand when we need it, why we need it, how much the person would need, you know, all those sorts of things, all those little details so that you pick up the right puzzle piece and put it in the right place in the puzzle. That's the easiest way to describe it.

I am a self-obsessed motorsport nerd. You know, I would turn my camera around and you'd see all the motorsport bits I've got in this house. I compete in motorsport myself outside of work. I love it. I absolutely love it.

So to actually talk to people who build these cars and create these things from literally a drawing on a computer to actually make it go around a racetrack faster than anything ever has is bonkers, is absolutely mad and I get to speak to really clever people all the time.

So actually being able to talk to those people, understand what works, what doesn't work, why some things are better than others, you know, and learn the latest and greatest technologies of what they're doing.

I'm not an engineer, I couldn't tell you righty tighty lefty loosey, you know, I get that wrong sometimes, but actually, yeah, witnessing it and speaking to them all the time is the coolest part.

The hardest part I would actually say is motorsport's not easy, you know, it's a competition, it's a business but it's also competitive. Things move very fast, things change.

You know, you're watching the race on a Sunday evening and if the car crashes on a race day, that's going to impact the next few weeks, the next month maybe for that team in terms of what they need, why they need it.

It's very reactive at times. I could come into an email of, we need 10 of this, we need five of that, or, we don't need that anymore. And, you know, trying to plan can be tricky, but it comes with a bit of experience. I've learned doing this for four years now. But yeah, it can chop and change a lot.

It was quite unique, if I'm honest with you. So I was in the Royal Air Force for five years before I did this job. And I competed in motorsport for the military. So I represented the military in my time in the Royal Air Force.

And like I say, always had an absolute passion for it. I worked in HR in the military. So I had an HR background and interest in the sport.

And it was actually a friend of mine shared the job description with me and sort of said, Jack, if this was something that was going to describe you, it's pretty close. And so I sort of thought, it's worth asking the question, you know, just sort of see. I had no recruitment experience whatsoever.

And my now director, Jason, we met for a coffee and we were actually there about three hours just talking about racing, about what I did in the military, what he does, you know, all these things of like what transfers, what's different from my world to his world and we actually realised there's quite a lot of crossover actually.

I was reaching a bit of a natural crossroads in my career at the time and if I was going to take a chance that was the time and I did and it was the best decision I've made if I'm honest with you.

I would actually say that the biggest thing that I had an interest in from an education point of view that really carried over was I was always quite a numbers orientated person. I was quite numerically, that was my thing. Maths, science, business, those were the subjects which I excelled at.

I had a teacher for my A-Level Business Studies who was an ex businessman himself and then transferred into teaching. And what he kind of shared about his learnings of business and all those things of what what works and what doesn't is what I use day to day now.

Companies that recruit are companies that are busy, you know. Companies that aren't busy don't recruit. That's the most simple way to look at it.

And, you know, having to understand why certain companies are busy, why they're going to need what, you know, how they're going to plan financially and all those sorts of things, that takes into the numerical side that I learned during school to understand the cause and effect and those sorts of things.

So that's something which is not the most conscious, but the more I think about it, it does tie back to that because that was something that I had a real interest in at school and was a bit more of a thing that tapped into my interests and now I get to use it every day.

I would say the biggest thing I ever had was actually the first time I went to an F1 team.

And McLaren has this crazy, crazy sort of factory called the McLaren Technology Centre. And at the front, it's all on a lake, a floating lake, basically. It looks like something out of Star Wars. And there's this famous bit out the front that's all glass, like a showroom, basically, of all the cars of their history.

And when we came for the meeting you got an elevator from the sort of car park and it says go up to this elevator, hit the button and it'll take you to the reception. What I didn't realise was that brings us right out in the middle of this what they call the McLaren boulevard which is where they keep all these cars.

And you looked over the lake and I forgot how to speak English. And it's quite hard for me because I talk quite a lot. But yeah, I was absolutely starstruck by this of all the cars from Ayrton Senna in the 1980s and Lewis Hamilton's first world championship car and all these things.

And you're sort of thinking like, wow, like I'm actually now contributing to what I spent every Sunday as a kid watching. And it's like, that is pretty cool. That blew me away quite a lot.

Such a tricky question. I think there's a million and one things you could probably think of in this sort of scenario.

I think do your research is something which I wish I'd kind of done a bit more, if I'm honest with you, because I get a lot of messages from people trying to get into the motorsport industry who are at school and at college and university.

I say the number one thing to them of they will be amazed how much is around them that they have no idea. You know, you go past an industrial unit in your local town, like in Peterborough for me or Northampton for argument's sake.

And there will be people building engines or components for F1 cars or suspension or brakes. Like it's everywhere. And we're very lucky in the UK. There's a lot of very interesting companies, not very far away from you at all times.

And it was only when I started to research it when I got into this job and realised what's where, it blew my mind. And the amount of times I speak to people and say, yeah, there's something a 5 minute drive, a 10 minute bus journey, a walking distance from your house, and they have no idea.

So if you've got an interest in it, or you've got an interest in something, do your research into it and you'll be surprised how you can find your way into it.