The pipeline, the roles and your pathway, in one app

Most of this industry doesn't sit at a desk.

It's in a site cabin at 7am, in the back of a van between two jobs, or on a train to a client meeting with twenty minutes to kill. That's when people actually think about their careers. What's coming up, who's hiring, whether they're being paid what they're worth.

For twenty-odd years I've watched good people make career decisions on whatever happened to reach them in those twenty minutes. A rumour from a subcontractor. A recruiter's cold call. A LinkedIn post that was really an advert.

So this week we launched something to put in those twenty minutes instead: the Lechley app, free on iPhone and Android.

What it is

The app brings together the things we've been building on the community site and puts them where you'll use them. Five tabs along the bottom, each doing one job.

This week. The news, movers and insights from the week, the Friday round-up, and the posts worth reading. You can comment, save a post for later, or share it.

Roles. The roles we're working on, with the detail you'd want before a first conversation. If one fits, you can apply from your phone, there and then.

Learn. All twelve pathways, from Early Careers through Commercial, Planning, Estimating, MEP, Health and Safety and the rest, right up to the Mentoring Pathway. Read the lessons, take the exams, and claim your certificate in your own name. One tap adds it to your LinkedIn profile.

Pipeline. This is the part I'm proudest of, and I'll come back to it.

You. Your profile, your saved posts, your alerts, and Get matched, where you can find a mentor or join the Exchange.

The pipeline is the point

Every January someone tells you the work is coming. Rarely does anyone tell you where, when, or who'll need to be hired to deliver it.

The government publishes it. NISTA's infrastructure pipeline lists the projects, the clients, the stage they're at, the spend by year and the route to approval. It even models the workforce each sector will need. It's a remarkable piece of work. It's also a spreadsheet that almost nobody in the industry has opened.

We've put it in the app. There are 616 projects in it today. Open any one and you'll see what it is, where it is, who the client is, how much is being spent and when, and what stage it has reached. Where we know of roles on that project, ours or an employer's, they're on the same screen.

That changes the question you can ask. Instead of "who's hiring?", it's "which projects will be hiring in eighteen months, and what will they need?" That's the question that gets you into the right seat before the advert goes out.

Follow the work, not the job ads

On any project, client, sector or region you can tap Follow. From then on the app tells you when something changes: a new role on a project you follow, a project moving stage when the next NISTA release lands, a new project that matches what you're watching.

You choose how you hear. A notification on your phone, or one email on a Monday morning. If you'd rather not hear at all, it's one switch in the You tab.

If you're interested in a project but nothing is open yet, there's a button to say so. We'll tell you when roles do open.

What it's worth, by region

The salary guide is in the app too: 32 roles, from assistant QS to commercial director, site engineer to project director, with base salary ranges and day rates. Pick your region and every figure moves with it.

I've sat across from too many people who found out they were underpaid only when they finally went for a new job. That information shouldn't be held back until you're already in front of a recruiter.

How to start

It takes about a minute.

1. Download it at lechley.com/get. The link takes you to the right store for your phone.
2. Sign in with your email. We send you a code; there's no password to remember.
3. If you're already a member of the community, use the same email. Your progress comes with you. A lesson you read on the website is marked as read in the app, and the other way round. It's one account.
4. Fill in your role, discipline and region. It's how the app knows which roles to put in front of you on a Monday.
5. Follow two or three projects or clients you care about. That's when the app starts working for you rather than waiting to be opened.

If you're not yet a member, signing in on the app makes you one. Same community, same pathways, same mentoring.

If you're hiring

If you're an employer recruiting directly for a role on one of these projects, you can list it on that project in the app. The people following the project will see it. Applications, with CVs, come straight to you, not through us. Post it at community.lechley.com/hire. It's free while it launches. Every listing is checked by hand, and it's for employers only, not agencies.

Why a recruiter built this

It's a fair question. Why give all of this away?

Because the industry's real problem isn't a shortage of job adverts. It's that people make the biggest decisions of their careers without the information the people hiring them already have. Where the money is going. Which projects are about to need people. What a role pays two regions over. Who'd mentor them if they asked.

I'd rather the people I might one day place arrive knowing all of that. They make better decisions, they stay longer, and the conversations are better for everyone.

It's free, with no advertising. Download it, have a look, and tell me what's missing. Which project do you wish you'd known about a year earlier?

Download the Lechley app