Spotlight on the SLR Team

When you work in a people business like marine recruitment, your people need to be particularly strong at communicating and able to manage their own boundaries and mental health. When our founder Sarah Roads decided to set up on her own, she wanted to provide a people-centred service that balances the needs of clients and candidates alike. Sarah is passionate about supplying contractors to the marine and shipbuilding sector and to deliver this she needed a strong team around her. Enter Samantha Burr.

Spotlight on Sammie

To support Sarah and the fast-paced world of marine recruitment, it was important that Sammie was both resilient and expert in her role. In marine recruitment, the projects and role requirements can change rapidly. In addition to that, you are constantly dealing with the needs of your clients balanced against the needs of your candidates. Sammie has the perfect experience in dealing with people through her time as a dancer, barmaid, cruise sales assistant and promotional model. There’s not much Sammie hasn’t seen or dealt with, and it makes her the perfect fit with SLR. She manages to juggle multiple plates and keep herself healthy and happy through her personal training.

So, what are the key skills you need in recruitment:

• Strong communication
• Empathy
• Patience
• Relatability
• Networking and relationship building
• Confidence
• The ability to listen
• Multitasking and time management
• Negotiating skills
• The ability to manage expectations

Sammie has all those attributes and more. To a certain extent, some of these skills can be trained and developed. The recruitment industry and particularly the shipbuilding sector can be very changeable and therefore underpinning all these attributes is mental strength and resilience. A good leader can arguably suggest strategies to manage and develop that resilience. One of the reasons Sarah and Sammie make such a cohesive team is that Sammie already possesses this resilience and manages this herself.

Personal training

Not only is she an incredible recruitment administrator, but Sammie is also a qualified personal trainer and fitness instructor. Her own focus on remaining healthy, confident, and strong is something she aims to impart to everyone who participates in her classes. Sammie knows the importance of keeping your body and mind fit so that she can be in exceptional shape to support everyone she deals with at SLR marine recruitment. Exercise not only improves your health, but it relieves stress, supports mental health, and builds resilience.

Staying mentally strong helps the business

You need all those attributes to remain mentally agile and cope with the demands of marine recruitment. The power of a team is their ability to read one another and know when to take the initiative. Sarah knows that when push comes to shove Sammie can react in a thoughtful and effective way without waiting for instruction. This independence and resilience contribute massively to the success of SLR and Sarah, the clients and candidates are incredibly grateful for all that Sammie does in her day-to-day work.