Recruitment Awards

recruitment AWARDS 2016 www.corp-vis.com

MOST INNOVATIVE RECRUITMENT SOFTWARE COMPANY

Corporate Vision l Recruitment Awards 2016

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Award Winners 4. Zoho Corporation - Most Innovative Recruitment Software Company 6. 247 Professional Health - Best Franchise Recruitment Business of the Year - UK & Award for Excellence in Health and Social Care 7. Adaptive Globalization - Best for Staff Development & Training 2016 8. AMG Search Ltd - Best for Financial Services Recruitment 2016 - UK & Sustained Excellence in Quality of Service 9. Austin James Recruitment - Best Gaming Recruiter 2016 - UK 10. CGS Business Solutions - Best IT Recruitment Firm 2016 - California 11. Edouard Franklin - Best Banking Recruitment Firm of the Year - Europe 12. Elk Recruitment - Best Niche Recruitment Firm 2016 - Global 13. Fusion Appointments - Commercial Recruiter of the Year - Surrey 14. Finite IT Recruitment Solutions - Best IT Recruitment Firm 2016 - Australia 15. Green Park Interim - Best Interim & Executive Search Firm 2016 - Europe & Award for Innovation in Recruitment Solutions - Europe 16. Service 1st Recruitment Ltd - Award for Excellence in Digital Marketing Recruitment - UK 17. The Media Directory Ltd - Best Media Job Search Platform 2016 18. The Orcid Partnership - Best Senior Executive Search Consultants - UK 19. Scala Associates, London NW - Best Behaviour-Based Talent Management Consultants - UK & Most Innovative Talent Assessment Solutions 20. Astute Recruitment Ltd - Best Small Business Recruitment Company - East Midlands 20. Athena Recruiting Services Ltd - Best for Hospitality Recruitment 2016 - UK & Sustained Excellence in Healthcare Recruitment - UK 21. Career Birds - Best for learning & Development Solutions 2016 - Australia 22. Citirecruit - Best Hospitality Recruitment Specialists 2016 - UK 22. Domestic Bliss Appointments Limited - Best for Private Domestic Recruitment 2016 – UK & Award for Excellence in Luxuary Recruitment - UK 23. Exact Sourcing - Best for Personalised Recruitment Services - Suffolk 23. Expion Ltd - Best in Manufacturing Sector Management Recruitment - UK 24. The Finegreen Group - Best for Upper Level Recruitment 2016 - UK 24. Forbes HR Ltd. - Best Defence Professional Recruitment Practice - UK 25. Heat Recruitment - Best Professional Services Recruitment Consultants – UK & Award for Excellence in Accountancy & Finance Recruitment - UK 25. Hofmann Recruitment - Best European Specialist Recruiter 2016 & Award for Excellence in Industrial Recruitment - Europe 26. JT Recruit Limited - Best Driving Recruitment Agency - East Midlands 26. Larbey Evans - Overall Recruitment Agency of the Year - UK & Recognised Leader in Admin/Clerical Recruitment - UK 27. London Teaching Pool Ltd. (TLTP) - Best Education Recruitment Consultants - UK & Award for Excellence in Candidate Security Checks - UK 27. NJF Global Holdings Ltd - International Executive Search Firm of the Year 28. NonStop Recruitment - Best for Pharmaceutical Recruitment Solutions 2016 - London 28. Oakwood Staff Solutions - Best for Temporary Driving Staff 2016 - UK & Sustained Excellence in Affordable Recruitment Solutions - UK 29. OneStaff Medical, LLC - Most Trusted Medical Recruitment Firm 2016 -Nebraska 29. Opilio Recruitment - Digital Recruiters of the Year - UK & Award for Excellence in SaaS Recruitment - UK 30. Prospectus IT Recruitment - Most Successful Specialist IT Recruitment Agency - UK 30. Rhino Site Services Limited - Award for Excellence in Construction Recruitment 2016 - UK 31. Specialized Group - Best for Professional Recruitment 2016 - Japan 31. TechNET IT Recruitment Ltd - Best Multi-Sector Recruitment Specialists - UK 32. Utility People - Best Energy, Water & Utilities Recruitment Consultants 2016 - UK 32. WCN - Client Choice Award: Most Innovative e-Recruitment Provider 33. Yoh Solutions Limited - Cyber Security Recruitment Firm of the Year 2016 - UK

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Most Innovative Recruitment Software Company

Zoho Recruit is an easy-to-use, cohesive and collaborative Applicant Tracking System, with a focus on making recruitment an easier task. We invited Shravan, Rina and Kothandaraman to tell us more.

By creating a single interface for all recruitment activities, from sourcing, tracking, hiring to analysing, Zoho Recruit has established itself as one of the pioneers in creating efficient resume parsing and candidate tracking features. Regular updates and seamless integrations have made Zoho Recruit popular among the staffing agencies and in-house HRs. Shravan explains how the firm spreads the word on this innovative solution and the benefits it can provide to recruiters.

“As marketers,we are always on the move, analysing market trends, attending trade shows, and recruitment fairs representing Zoho Recruit.

My team and I work continuously to spread the word that Zoho Recruit is the only product provides a solution for both staffing agencies and in-house recruiters with excellent features at an affordable price.

“Our target clients are small and medium-sized businesses—staffing agencies and in-house recruiters/corporate HRs. “From sourcing and screening candidates and getting the client’s approval, to eventually hiring people, Zoho Recruit manages the entire recruitment process. Zoho Recruit is also highly customisable, giving the users the freedom to fine-tune the software to suit their unique business requirements.”

The solution offers an array of candidate sourcing mechanisms, making it easy for recruiters to reach the best talent within a short time span. Zoho Recruit provides an exclusive custom careers website, integration with many popular job boards to post jobs, and a social tab where recruiters can reach candidates on the popular social media websites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. It also enables clients to parse resumes in multiple ways, from a Chrome extension that downloads resumes directly from the internet, to the simple copy and paste option, to a collaborative platform with advanced analytics for generating insights.

There are other recruitment softwares on the market currently that target small and medium businesses, with the inclusion of good features comparable to those in Zoho Recruit. The main criteria that sets Zoho Recruit apart is the magnitude of automation of the product that saves time for the users, along with its price, as Rina explains.

“Even before purchase, we let the customers try a fully-featured version of the product at no cost. A customer who has bought the product is free to upgrade or downgrade among editions anytime. We do not charge a penny in fees to change your plan. Zoho Recruit can boast of being the most customisable recruiting software and the most affordable Applicant Tracking System in the titanic recruitment industry.”

Price is not the only factor that sets the firm apart, however. Rina provides us with an overview of the firm’s approach and how this aims to ensure that clients receive the very best possible overall outcome.

“Zoho Recruit takes the utmost care when matching potential candidates to an employer.

We have identified important aspects that hinder an employer’s ability to hire the best candidates.

One such issue is the redundancy of filling out the same data for multiple job posting by the candidate. This problem has been fixed using the Candidate Login feature that enables the candidate to create an account, so that they don’t have to re-enter their personal information multiple times.

“Delay in communication between a potential candidate and the employer have always been a headache in recruiting. Zoho Recruit has made it easy for recruiters to automatically send out custom emails to candidates at every stage of the hiring process - from receiving the initial application, to hiring or rejecting the candidate”.

“At the end of the day, Zoho Recruit aims to provide a diverse range of features that cater to even the most macro functions of a recruiter, because finding the best talent demands the largest part of any recruiter’s attention. Zoho Recruit’s integrations with several popular job boards widen a recruiter’s network to find and source candidates who are an ideal fit for their clients.”, says Kothandaraman.

It also enables clients to parse resumes in multiple ways - a Google Chrome extension that downloads resumes directly from the internet, a simple resume copy and paste option, a collaborative platform with advanced analytics for generating insights.

Within the wider market, there is definitely a need for greater support for clients, as recruiters today do much more than recruiting. They

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have to continuously re-invent themselves and evolve into being more effective multi-taskers.

They have to be smart and aggressive, while also being composed when it comes to finding candidates. The modern recruiter must possess all the qualities of a good marketer, an excellent communicator, an efficient coordinator, a consummate time manager, a people person, and also have an innate ability to always follow up. Rina discusses how Zoho Recruit aims to support clients through this tough process and ensure that they receive the overall outcome that they need.

“Recruitment is the most underrated process in any industry. Data from within suggests that we spend hours of time picking the right talent, and that talent roughly translates to results. Picking the right talent involves countless hours of tests that involve both critical and analytical methods.

This is a major reason why at Zoho Recruit, we have deployed a huge chunk of our HR resources towards talent acquisition.”

As a concluding comment, Rina talks us through the developments she believes will occur in the wider recruitment market and how her firm intends to adapt around these.

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Zoho Corporation Email: support@zohorecruit.com Web Address: https://www.zoho.com/ recruit/ Address: Zoho Corporation 4141 Hacienda Drive Pleasanton, California 94588, USA Telephone: +1 877 834 4428

“With both small and medium enterprises expanding at a rapid pace, it has become mandatory for companies to look for the right talent: one organisation’s loss, is another organisation’s gain. Companies have to update and adapt to the newest technologies and strategies. At Recruit, the focus has always been on getting the right candidate for a particular job, in a minimal amount of time. Zoho Recruit is working on increasing its subscriber base by building state-of-the-art features. The next five years will revolutionize businesses altogether, and most importantly, revolutionize Zoho Recruit into a worthier product.”

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“Fundamentally Zoho Recruit allows companies to spot personnel with good critical and analytical skill sets. With globalisation becoming the new reality, companies are always on the lookout for high skilled talent. So with employers slowly moving on from traditional recruitment processes to skill-based processes, Zoho Recruit has aided them in picking underlying talent which quite often tends to slip away from the recruiter’s traditional hiring methods.”

Best Franchise Recruitment Business of the Year - UK & Award for Excellence in Health and Social Care

CONTACT DETAILS Company: 247 Professional Health Name: Ryan Armitage Web Address: www.247professionalhealth.com

247 Professional Health is a leading North West based recruitment agency specialising in health and social care. Located in Hoghton Street in Southport town centre, the family run agency employs 15 members of staff. We speak to Ryan Armitage to find out more about the business. that the staff that we provide are of the highest standard.

“Our dedication to recruiting top quality agency workers means that we source our candidates through a variety of innovative methods. Our fantastic recruitment team can be found attending recruitment fairs at local universities and interview days at various job centres across the North West.

“We also utilise a selection of national job boards such as Reed and CV Library, and source a large percentage of our staff from referrals.

“We have noticed that online recruitment is becoming increasingly popular and in response to this trend, we have unveiled a new website with an integrated job board and the option to apply directly online”.

“As a Tier 1 supplier of flexible nursing staff for a large number of NHS Foundation Trusts in the North West, we specialise in the recruitment of all types of nursing staff, support workers and healthcare assistants. We also supply to many private care homes, nursing homes, learning disability services and private mental health hospitals and services.

“We have a large bank of agency workers across the North West. Our team of recruitment consultants are busy advertising and interviewing candidates in the Sefton and Merseyside areas to attract experienced care assistants, support workers and nurses of all disciplines in order to fulfil the requirements of NHS hospitals and their other private clients.

“We are currently operating more than 20 franchises across the UK, meaning 247 Professional Health has gained an excellent reputation for providing nursing and care staffing solutions nationwide. In order to deliver a personable and professional service, each office is headed by an individual director to provide personal commitment and unrivalled local knowledge”.

We asked Ryan about the overall aims of 247 Professional Health, and he replied that their most important aim is to offer a quality of service that goes above and beyond the norm in the recruitment industry.

“We achieve this by offering a consistently high quality bank of agency staff to our extensive client list, as we want to provide our clients with the assurance

Asked about the process involved in recruiting for their business. Ryan responded that their main focus is finding out exactly what an employer requires from a candidate.

“This involves asking an employer whether they require a specific skill set, level of training, amount of experience and so on.

“We have also adopted a number of standards across 247 Professional Health, such as ensuring that each of our candidates has a minimum of six months working within the healthcare sector in the last five years and the requirement of references from previous employers.

“By using these standards as a requirement across the board, both new and existing clients can be sure that when using our services, they can expect a high calibre candidate.

“Each of our offices is also run and managed by its own Director, which not only provides staff members with unrivalled local knowledge, but means that each office Director has a personal interest and investment in each franchise.

“In our industry, a ‘get up and go’ attitude is also valuable. It’s all about finding new and innovative ways to source the best in healthcare professionals, and our recruitment team are skilled in doing so.

“People skills are of primary importance in the recruitment industry for a number of reasons. Being

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able to comfortably talk with a wide variety of people allows our team to put potential candidates at ease in an interview situation and is important for creating long-lasting relationships with both candidates and clients.

Ryan says that 247 Professional Health sits nicely within the recruitment sector as it is involved in such a niche industry – they not only specialise in healthcare, but they only supply a small number of roles; carers, support workers, nurses and AHPs. “One of the main challenges we face is the lack of suitable candidates. Often, we find that there aren’t enough job seekers, especially in nursing roles, and it can be a struggle to find appropriate candidates.

“To resolve this, we are using a number of traditional and non-traditional methods to access our target market and are always exploring different avenues and job boards. We are also regularly evaluating all of our processes to see what’s working and not working to ensure we’re placing ourselves in front of the right audience.

“We’re also in the process of creating an exciting incentives package for our staff members to offer a range of employee benefits. In terms of client problems, we are always keeping regular and strong communication with clients, so we don’t face problems often”.

We asked Ryan about the future for the company, and how they would like to continue with their work.

“Our aspirations for the future are to continue to establish ourselves as a franchised business and to continue to open more offices across the UK. We also hope to explore more avenues within the NHS and the healthcare industry”.

Best for Staff Development & Training 2016

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Adaptive Globalization Name: David James Email: david.james@adaptiveglobalization.co.uk Address: Calverley House, Calverley Road, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 2TU Telephone: 0208 123 0148

Adaptive Globalization provides recruitment and M&A solutions focussing on interconnecting high growth technology and service industries. Adaptive celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, and during this time has created successful offices in Tunbridge Wells, Berlin, New York and San Diego, running the business with nine home grown board members. We spoke with David James to find out more.

Adaptive has an exceptional reputation for delivering staffing solutions in specialist markets, and owes a large part of its success to the training and the development of its personnel. Adaptive’s consultants are trained for six months, specifically about a particular niche in one of its three markets - Content & Analytics, Digital Marketing and Language Services.

David explains that the training provided by the company is what they pride themselves on – and even senior consultants take part in monthly training and are regularly sent out to conferences to sharpen up their knowledge.

“Our training covers a range of best practices from Business Development, Candidate Management, Account Management, LinkedIn, Job boards, Client Development, Writing Adverts, Using Analytics, Time Management, Building Value, Negotiation, Recruitment 101, Recruitment via Marketing, Candidate Sourcing and Recruitment via Social Media; to name but a few. All of these are part of the Adaptive Academy programme which employees have 24/7 access to, and which is made up of hundreds of ideas and technics”.

“We invest in our staff and push them to progress through their career as aggressively, but also as securely, as possible. We have a clear path to management and directorship, and we work with every individual in the business - mentoring and working with them as business partners, so as to achieve their own, our clients and Adaptive’s business goals. Our CEO still conducts one on one reviews with every employee, every quarter, and creates business plans for each individual to hit their career goals for that quarter”.

Finally, we asked David how the company plans on continuing to deliver such a high standard of staff development.

“Recruitment is a challenging but hugely rewarding industry and Adaptive understands that to get the most out of its team, a healthy work-life balance is important. The company encourages travel between the offices and runs a successful air miles program – generally we have a couple of consultants a month working in another offices. The company provides up to twelve additional holidays a year, flexible working conditions which includes remote working, sabbaticals (not for 10 years of

When asked about the selection process for Adaptive, David says that it is unlike most other firms.

“Adaptive has a clear view about the people it wants in the business. Unlike many other recruitment firms, Adaptive doesn’t just look for pure sales professionals, experienced recruiters or graduates, but instead looks for people who are fascinated by business. People who dream of not just becoming great recruiters, but great business professionals, performing at the highest level and being able to advise their clients on how to create market leading teams and businesses.

“Adaptive has employed people from an array of backgrounds; from Oxford and Cambridge graduates and experienced recruiters, to librarians, pianists, charity workers and teachers. They were employed because they are passionate about business. They are intelligent and driven individuals who are great at finding solutions for our clients – this is what we believe makes a great Recruiter; not someone who can make one hundred mindless calls a day.

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service, but 3 years and 5 years of service), quarterly charity days and social events, company cars and global meetings which take place in various locations. We support our employees in achieving their personal goals. For example, the company is currently sponsoring and supporting an employee to run a marathon.

“Adaptive is a hugely ambitious company and know it can only achieve its goals by working as a team.

Everyone has an opinion, everyone gets involved in marketing, hiring, budgets, client development, database maintenance and all angles of the business. We have global and board meetings once a month and all our employees interact with the different divisions, departments and offices constantly to see where they can improve the service we give our clients.

“We’re growing Adaptive together and are achieving exceptional things. We put this down to the training and developing of staff to ensure they are working at the highest possible level and using their full skill set – they are, after all, the next generation of business professionals to help evolve one of the most exciting industries on the planet”.

Best for Financial Services Recruitment 2016 - UK & Sustained Excellence in Quality of Service

CONTACT DETAILS Company: AMG Search Ltd Name: Stephanie McGarvey Email: Stephanie@amgsearch.com Web Address: www.amgsearch.com Address: Suites 438/439, 4th Floor, Baltic Chambers, 50 Wellington Street, Glasgow, G2 6HJ and 109 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JA

AMG Search Ltd is a specialist search organisation for the Financial Services industry with an enviable track record of placing high performing professionals with our client companies throughout the UK. Stephanie McGarvey, Director, talks us through the success of the company and their plans for continued expansion.

“Since 2000, AMG Search has been providing innovative management and executive-level recruiting services to meet the hiring goals, and solve the hiring problems, of leading companies throughout the UK. We provide customised solutions designed to achieve specific business needs for our clients.

“It takes a strong commitment and intensive effort to place the right people in the right positions. As a specialist recruiter, we know a thing or two about pinpointing those key individuals for the most critical positions; our approach is a combination of our streamlined recruitment methodology and the knowledge of our industry experts, customised to help our clients find their next impact player at the pace demanded.

“We work hard every day to ensure that we place the right candidate, in the right position, with the right company. More than that, we seek out the impact players, the 20% of candidates that make a real impact on business, and introduce them to the companies that will value their abilities, energy and passion. There are so many ways to find new candidates, with largely used internet resources and LinkedIn being only part of the process.

Referrals are still a big focus and are a very valuable source of information.”

The success of AMG Search has partly been down to their exceptional customer service and impressive referral rate, but Stephanie believes there are plenty of other reasons behind this.

“One of the key reasons for our success is the depth of our expertise; our search consultants have in depth knowledge of their industries and the people working in them, and seek out the highest quality of talent available. This, combined with their recruiting experience, gives them the advantage of knowing who you need to hire and where you can find them.

We focus on identifying, evaluating and presenting only the very best candidates for your recruitment needs. Our ability to identify, contact and engage with the key talent in our clients’ sector is second to none!

“In order to be successful in this industry, you must be able to assure your candidates of complete confidentiality to attract the best talent. You must also be flexible and understand that the clients’

hiring needs and priorities can change overnight.

We understand that we may be only one of a number of resources that they are working with.

“There are obvious challenges to essentially having ‘people’ as our commodity, and we need to deal effectively with these to remain successful. These can be varied when relating to the job-seeker and employer.

“In terms of candidates and job-seekers, one of the most frustrating things that can happen is for someone to go ‘off the radar’ and stop answering calls, or for them to pull out of a meeting, assessment, or offer at the last minute. We fully understand that ‘life happens’ and there will always be unexpected events, but it is best for everyone involved to be kept up to date with the situation and whether there are other offers on the table.

“As for employers, it can be frustrating to have done a specific search for an opportunity for it then to be put on hold, or for the remit to be changed last minute or filled by an unexpected internal candidate.

Again, we fully understand that needs can change and we are very supportive of this; as mentioned above, we are flexible and work to fulfil our clients’ needs as best as possible, but we appreciate being kept informed of developments.”

Stephanie McGarvey – Director

Stephanie believes the future is bright for AMG Search Ltd, and the company has big plans for the coming year.

“We have made a commitment to growing organically and expanding the business in the future. As of April this year, we are delighted to now have a base in London and will look to grow our presence there. Our main office is still in Glasgow, and we also have a Researcher based in the West Midlands; it is greatly beneficial for us now to have staff in various locations across the UK, as it gives us a huge amount in terms of availability for client and candidate meetings.

“Also, until now we have focused largely on the ‘permanent’ sector of recruitment, but we are considering expansion into the ‘contracting and staffing’ sector. This is an exciting time and we are in the process of exploring the best avenues for doing so.”

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Andrew McGarvey – Managing Director

Best Gaming Recruiter 2016 - UK

COMPANY DETAILS Company: Austin James Recruitment Name: Craig McHugh Email: craig@austinjamesrecruitment.com Web Address: www.austinjamesrecruitment.com Address: 80-83 Long Lane, London EC1A 9ET Telephone: 0207 193 1331

Since 2009, Austin James Recruitment have been the exclusive resourcing partner for a number of key gaming studios around the world. Senior Consultant at Austin James, Craig McHugh gives us an insight into this niche market.

Focusing entirely on the Games and Interactive Entertainment industry, Austin James Recruitment currently fill positions within mobile, social and console gaming. Rather than being viewed as a ‘traditional’ consultancy, Austin James has a truly integrated and fresh approach to talent management which bridges the gap between in-house and agency recruitment.

Craig chats to us about what the initial client approach at Austin James contains, saying “Ticking the boxes in terms of previous experience is only a small part of our selection process. Our number one priority is to gain a deep understanding of the people, culture and strategy in each studio and thereby ensure all candidates share a similar mindset and career aspirations to that of the teams they are joining. From the initial approach to starting their new role, the communication to candidates is clear and consistent from both ourselves and the studio.”

To help clients find a suitable career choice, Craig explains how Austin James sources the right talent from prospective job-seekers. Their process involves “Through open and consistent communication with each candidate our team of experienced recruiters provide support though every phase of the recruitment process, providing honest guidance on every stage of the process including interview preparation, work trials and relocations. Underpinning every part of the process is the knowledgeable, friendly and efficient approach from each member of our team in order to deliver the best possible service and help our candidates make the right career move.”

and motivations. Depending on the individual preferences of our clients, we provide the option for the studio to approach the candidate directly or approach agreed candidates on their behalf.”

Having a sincere interest in the sector you are working in is important in any job. According to Craig, the most important quality in the gaming industry is enjoyment. “If you enjoy what you are doing you will continue to do it and in time, skill and success will follow. An authentic way of working coupled with a genuine interest and deep understanding of the current environment impacting the studio/company in which you are recruiting for needs to be the forefront of everything you do.

“We have spoken to many different people from a diverse range of backgrounds and skills in the games industry. From having observed close up a large number of career paths over the years, ‘Enjoyment + Time = Skill’ is the formula we follow. This applies to both the candidates we work with as well as our staff. When gaining an understanding of our candidates we keep enjoyment in mind throughout our approach.

“By working directly with our clients’ internal teams to gain a complete understanding of their specific requirements for each role, we have an in-depth understanding of both the skills needed and type of person to fit best with each studios unique strategy and culture.

“Through a combination of headhunting, networking and/or reviewing direct applicants to the studio, we seek out the best talent to match the specific role requirements and provide our clients with a shortlist of suitable candidates that have been thoroughly assessed in terms of experience, skills, individual aspirations

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“Our main challenge in the industry we work in is finding candidates who are the right cultural fit for the employers we work with. Matching skills and experience to available vacancies is the easy part. In gaining an understanding of our candidates’ personality and aspirations, we are able to know which companies are right for them.”

Craig explains how Austin James fits in with the wider picture of recruitment, and what the company’s main goal is. “Austin James aims to bridge the gap between in-house and agency recruitment in order to get the right people in right place so that they can make a valuable contribution to the future of Games industry.”

The future is a bright one for Austin James Recruitment and they are striving for continued success. “Moving forward we aim to continue to make a positive contribution to an exciting industry that is changing all the time. We want to help the companies we work with grow in the right way, with the right people and in turn, we will continue to grow as a business.”

Best IT Recruitment Firm 2016 - California

COMPANY DETAILS Company: CGS Business Solutions Name: Nick Chavis Email: info@cgs-it.net Web Address: www.cgs-it.net Address: 22951 Los Alisos Blvd, #4 Mission Viejo, California, 92691, USA Telephone: 001 949 385 2069

We invited Nick Chavis, the founder and CEO of CGS Business Solutions, to tell us what the company has been doing to become the successful recruitment firm it is today.

CGS Business Solutions is honored to be selected as one of the Best IT Recruitment Firms in California. After four consecutive fastest growing company titles, CGS continues to break into new markets across the USA. CGS is a Native American, certified minority owned company, with their roots tied to the North Carolina Lumbee Indian Tribe.

CGS specializes in IT business solutions, staffing and consulting services. With a strong focus in IT applications, network infrastructure, information security, and engineering. The demand for experienced IT and engineering professionals is highly competitive. Partnering with a firm who has 25 years of success in recruiting this niche talent is key. Companies are counting on CGS to attract and help retain these resource pools in order to gain a competitive advantage in these rapidly changing business environments.

The people are a corporation’s intellectual property, the heart and soul and the driving force behind the success or failure of an organization.

As the war for talent gets more aggressive, companies call upon CGS to help deliver the invaluable talent to stay competitive and win in today’s employment market.

have a confidential and sometimes a high level executive need, CGS offers them a retained search option for those high level roles.

“Our delivery process to our customers is what gives us that additional edge in identifying, vetting and ultimately producing great solutions for our customers. Our seasoned team takes the time to gain invaluable customer knowledge which allows us to select the right sourcing strategy and screening program for delivered results.”

Customers and consulting staff both benefit from QuikTime, our time and expense cloud-based tracking tool. This is just one way CGS continues to make doing business easier and smarter.

Clients are able to approve timecards and also conduct reporting of their project spend from a computer or mobile device.

Chavis explains, “Many recruiting firms have it backwards. Since their clients pay the bills, their sole focus remains on delivering for the client.

We have a saying at CGS, with each engagement there are two customers - the company and the candidate. Both have individual interests and needs. The magic is finding the ones where those attributes align. That is what we do.”

Most corporations have different talent acquisition procedures. CGS offers each customer their own customized experience that best matches their on boarding process. “Doing business doesn’t need to be hard. The easier you are to work with, the quicker you can earn the right to be called a partner,” according to CGS’ founder and CEO Nick Chavis.

CGS Business Solutions has four delivery models that offer customers a flexible alternative to how they augment and build their workforce. For customers looking to add some more muscle to their existing team during peak workloads, CGS offers IT contract services. Many corporations utilize high level consultants but also have to increase internal head count with fulltime employees. For those customers, CGS offers IT direct placement services that help leaders find top talent to execute key business decisions.

Often customers love our consultants so much they just have to have them for themselves.

Those customers enjoy the flexibility of a contract to hire model. Lastly, when companies

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CGS Business Solutions has built out a Quality Engagement Process that outlines key areas in the hiring and on boarding process. Based upon six sigma principals of defining, measuring, analyzing, improving and controlling; CGS has architected their CRM and ATS systems to encourage and support a successful engagement for both candidates and customers.

“The experience a candidate or future employee of one of our customers has, is paramount to our success and representing our customers.

We are in a lot of ways the first impression of our customer, so it has to be an excellent experience.

We pride ourselves on being an extension of our customers and take ownership throughout the whole hiring process.”

The future is bright at CGS. As they have moved from primarily a Southern California based solutions firm, they now are doing business in 30 different states. Chavis ends by saying, “As our client base has expanded and we have taken on more nationwide customers, business has us in many different markets. These are exciting times and the senior team we are building has high energy and focus on delivering for our amazing customers.”

Best Banking Recruitment Firm of the Year - Europe

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Edouard Franklin Name: Pascal Meier, CEO Email:pascal.meier@edouardfranklin.com Web Address: www.edouardfranklin.com Address: 24, rue jean l’aveugle L-1148 Luxembourg Telephone: +352 24 61 62

Edouard Franklin is a recruitment agency specialising in financial services, with offices in Luxembourg, Brussels, Geneva, Paris and London. CEO Pascal Meier talks us through the firm and its dedication to supporting the financial services market.

Edouard Franklin services the executive recruitment needs for both private clients and institutional clients. The private client practice services private & retail banking, wealth management companies, life insurance companies, family offices and trusts/ fiduciaries.

The firm’s institutional practice services asset managers, investment funds, corporate banking, investment banking, law firms, trading, broking & commodity firms, insurance companies and all back-office banking roles. Pascal outlines the firm’s approach and how this best serves its clients.

“Our strategy is to work with the most reputable wealth management players; our candidates are aware of the quality of our clients and the quality of our assignments.

“Through our many years of personal contact, Edouard Franklin has developed a large, bespoke database of high quality wealth management professionals all over Europe, focusing on candidates with solid, consistent and successful track records.”

One recent trend in the financial services recruitment industry has been for companies to look to the

internet to try and automate the recruitment process as part of a cost saving exercise. However, they have in many instances found out the hard way that this does not work for recruiting the right senior executives. Pascal explains how his firm’s expertise helps it to offer a superior service to both clients and candidates.

“We have learned that it is crucial to have respect for clients and candidates; respect in terms of timing, quality and feedback. We have always focused on delivering quality and not quantity. We are also well known for ensuring a tailor-made follow-up to our candidates.”

One of Edouard Franklin’s strengths is that it is able to act internationally whilst keeping a good understanding of the local culture and characteristics of the work place and how those can be matched, as Pascal discusses.

“The key to our success is quality over numbers.

For many, recruitment is a pure numbers game, just matching technical skills, irrespective of the candidate’s cultural suitability. For Edouard Franklin, much time is taken to understand the client’s culture and values as well as their business needs.

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However, it is equally as important to understand the candidate’s cultural affinity and career goals as well as their technical competence for the role in question.”

Moving forward, Pascal makes it clear that his firm is ambitious and keen to build its international presence.

“Looking to the future, our firm aims to expand internationally into the major global financial centres through a local presence and local expertise. The goal is to become the benchmark in terms of quality international recruitment. We aim for to be present in 10 countries by 2020.

“Overall, In the current market there is a growing need for local specialists and this is where Edouard Franklin can continue to play a vital role. Despite the internet reducing face to face interaction, we have seen that success comes from keeping up the human aspect of the business relationship.

Global recruitment tools (eg LinkedIn) have made the process of international recruitment somewhat easier, but they still require the local touch.”

Best Niche Recruitment Firm 2016 - Global CONTACT DETAILS Company: Elk Recruitment Name: Clive Dunne Email: clive@elkrecruitment.com Website: www.elkrecruitment.com Ireland Address: Unit 17, Enterprise House, Obrien Road, Carlow Telephone: Office +353 (0)59 9176301 Cell +353 (0)86 1806055 UK Address: Kemp House, 152 City Road, London EC1V 2NX Telephone: +44 (0) 203 815 7970

Elk Recruitment is a privately owned niche recruitment firm founded in 2015, with offices currently in Co Carlow and London. Clive Dunne provides us with an absorbing overview of the firm that has been awarded Best Nice Recruitment Firm 2016 – Global. of today’s changing construction industry. So if you are thinking of a career in the industry get the practical experience under your belt but ensure you compliment it with an academic qualification in your chosen discipline. Remember the industry is closely related to contracting so you will also need to develop a tough outer skin.

Our core competency here at Elk Recruitment is the placement of permanent and contract mid to senior level professionals within the Fenestration, Façade & Window and Door industry throughout Europe – Asia – North & South America. At present our client list includes a partnership with both privately owned and multinational clients in the domestic and commercial markets. Elk’s aim is to become the global centre of excellence within our chosen field by consistently bringing together the industry’s top talent with the industry’s best companies across the globe.

Our in-depth knowledge particularly of the fenestration industry comes from having worked at a senior level for aluminium, glass & steel façade manufacturing/installation companies for over 16 years domestically and internationally. During this time gaining invaluable experience and insight into the workings of each element of the façade business such as Estimation, Design, Engineering, Procurement, Manufacturing, Quality, Health & Safety and Project Management.

This practical in industry experience & global market knowledge coupled with a strong academic background is invaluable to Elk’s recruitment process, differentiates us from our competitors and forms our competitive advantage.

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We meet our clients, listen to their needs and find the perfect recruitment solution based on a sound understanding of their industry. We don’t need job specs as we fully understand how each position operates, we just need to know the salary level, start date and management style and structure of the organisation to ensure a strategic long term

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match of candidate to client.

We process all candidates rigorously through multiple interview processes. We evaluate their skillset, ability to execute the position they have applied for and very importantly assess their potential for further career progression.

With all placements we ensure that candidates career aspirations are met.

Elk as a rule do not poach staff from our client list. This is a corner stone of how we operate and is explained to all of our new consultants when they join the Elk Recruitment team.

We are also a proud member of the National Recruitment Federation and as such execute our recruitment process to the highest of standards and in conjunction with the N.R.F. code of conduct.

We enjoy what we do and having come from senior management positions we have the ability and resources available to administer sound career guidance, a process we have been complimented on many times. When we get it right we know our recruitment process can have a huge positive impact on both the candidate and the candidate’s family.

The Façade or fenestration industry is an excellent and exciting fast moving industry to be involved in and there are always opportunities for individuals that have excelled in a specific area of that Industry such as sales, design, quantity surveying, production management, project management etc. Right now, there is an urgent demand in many geographical locations for façade professionals across all departments, unfortunately there is also a lack of candidates with a well-rounded skill set consisting of both practical and academic, a combination that is required to meet the demands

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Fundamentally, clients and candidates want to feel that the recruitment firm or consultant they are dealing with understands their industry in detail and this is usually not the case at all. Inexperienced consultants result in unprofessional practices such as not screening candidates to save time. Blitzing the market with a candidate’s CV without the consent of the candidate, sending a candidate’s CV to the employer they currently work for, sending CV’s to clients that are in no way a match, moving candidates from client to client, all of which happens regularly and is absolutely unacceptable which is also further compounded by the sometimes considerable placement fee involved.

We have taken all this on board at Elk Recruitment and we endeavour to deliver a quality professional service every time. This approach has resulted in most of our work being repeat business or referrals from our clients to other companies.

Elk Recruitment although a new small business has spent the last 16 months pouring a solid foundation to build on going forward comprised of knowledge, integrity, trust, systems and processes. As a result, Elk Recruitment have grown from strength to strength in a short period of time and are competing at a high level with other well established recruitment firms that have been around a long time. We believe in what we do at Elk Recruitment and are excited at the prospects of what we know we can bring to the recruitment and facade industry as a whole. At our core we offer a recruitment service but we also offer industry and career insight, we communicate this through weekly blogs which are published on our website, in a newspaper in Carlow, shortly in a newspaper in Dublin and they are also published online in a human resource website called HRHQ. We are present on most social media platforms and over the past couple of months have invested heavily in the areas of marketing and ITC within the business. We are looking forward to our integration across multiple industries in the future to ensure Elk Recruitments continued success.

Commercial Recruiter of the Year - Surrey

Fusion Appointments are an independently-owned recruitment company which opened in September 2005.

They work extensively across London and the South East, Surrey & Sussex, supplying high calibre professionals to a growing number of clients. We spoke to Gina van der Westhuizen, Director, about how they differentiate themselves from their competition.

“Our clients include small local businesses and multinational organisations. Our strength is that we deliver the same commitment of service to every client that we work with, whether they are a small or large organisation. The service that we offer our clients is like that of an exclusive boutique.

“We recognise that we are only as good as our most recent Temporary Booking filled or Permanent Placement made. Our motto is ‘with us it is personal’, and our service is built on this. We recognise that not all of our clients and candidates are the same, and that they all require a very personal service.

Our business model is built on our commitment to understanding the individual needs of each client and candidate.

“All of our consultants are experts in their sectors. Our Commercial clients state that the Fusion approach adds tremendous value to them as the team each has the ability to do both temporary, contract and permanent recruitment. Not only does it keep the recruitment costs down for the client, but both clients and potential candidates are secure in the knowledge that they are in good, capable hands.

This ensures both client and candidate do not have to ‘shop around’.

“With our long standing client relationships and candidate referrals, we are best placed to provide a first-class service because we understand the motivations behind hiring for a job, and seeking one out. We know that no recruitment campaign is ever the same, and we aim to make sure that we make our candidate’s dream career path become a reality. Candidates who find the right opportunity will perform to their best ability and a happy and successful candidate makes a happy client; this is the basis of our astonishing success.”

We are proud that Fusion Appointments can boast about having recruitment experts in a number of sectors. The experts they have understand their industries, and take pride in equipping professional candidates with an understanding of what they need in order to achieve excellence in their chosen field.

“At Fusion we take the time to get to know our individual candidates, as well as our business clients. We use our industry expertise to secure the best opportunities within our clients’ organisations

for each individual candidate who comes to Fusion.

“The face of recruitment has changed to the digital, online world. This has led to a large proportion of clients and candidates feeling that they are not getting the attention they deserve for the important task of finding a new career opportunity or employing the right person for their organisation. Fusion has adapted to be part of the online recruitment world over the years, whilst staying true to its core values.

“Initially, there is a challenge to prove to clients and candidates that Fusion has a very personal and bespoke approach. Our dedicated recruitment team help to prove this, and work to assure throughout that everyone who uses our services will be receiving the highest standard of service from us, and will want to use our company again in the future.

“Proving this, our Commercial division has a 100% client retention rate. Once our clients have experienced our level of service and our ability to deliver what they need, when they need it, they come back to us time and time again. Since we began in 2005, all of our clients have chosen to stay with us.

We are proud to be able to say that an unsuccessful placement is a rare event at Fusion, and we are delighted to offer our clients a free replacement or full rebate subject to Terms and Conditions.

“Recruitment is a valuable and vital part of the UK economy. The industry for all the good work it does, has not always maintained the best reputation. At Fusion, we find that the value of a quality recruiter that knows their industry and marketplace is fully appreciated. The skills and knowledge of an experienced recruiter goes far beyond the boundaries of a CV Service.”

Fusion provides its clients and candidates with an honest and personal service that leads the way in accurate, long term recruitment and relationships with all parties.

“As an independent company we have the ability to adapt swiftly to the marketplace and the changing requirements of our clients and candidates without sacrificing any of the high standard of service we provide. In the future, we hope to be a beacon in the Golden Triangle in which we operate, to continue to be seen as the boutique company which always delivers and to continue striving for excellence.”

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CONTACT DETAILS Company: Fusion Appointments Name: Gina Van Der Westhuizen Email: gina@fusionpersonnel.com Name: Tanya Etheridge Email: tanya@fusionpersonnel.com Name: Leila Meherzi (Industrial/Logistics) Email: leila@fusionpersonnel.com Name: Becky Field (Catering/Hospitality) Email: beckyf@fusionpersonnel.com Web Address: www.fusionpersonnel.com Address: 1st Floor, 94-98 High Street, Dorking, Surrey, RH4 1AY Telephone: 01306 745 050

Best IT Recruitment Firm 2016 - Australia

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Finite IT Recruitment Solutions Name: Tracy Thomson, Founder and Managing Director Email: tracyt@finite.com.au Web Address: www.finite.com.au Address: Lvl 23, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, AUSTRALIA Telephone: +61 2 8243 6868

Finite IT Recruitment Solutions was established in 1998 and has been growing rapidly ever since, through a mixture of acquisition and organic growth, to its current Group status as one of ANZ’s largest and most successful Technology, Digital and Business Transformation recruitment specialists. We asked Tracy Thomson, Founder and Managing Director, more about their aims and processes.

“Finite is very proud to be 100% Australian owned, and an independent family business. We now have 9 offices across ANZ, and are continuing to expand with our loyal and fast growing client base, serviced by our high performing, loyal, motivated and highly valued staff. Our Group workforce now totals more than 2400.

“Our services cover permanent, contract and executive placements, plus pay rolling, and all of these are performing well, accumulating double digit growth. Our very successful ICT subsidiary is called FinXL, and this is also performing impressively.

“Overall, we are aiming to be Asia Pacific’s Technology, Digital and Business Transformation recruiter of choice. We plan to do this by continuing to develop and grow our long term relationships with clients, identifying and meeting their needs effectively, and providing quality contractor and candidate care throughout. We will also continue to ensure that we look after our employees and continue their professional development, ensuring we maintain a strong emphasis on innovation, professionalism and sustainability, meaning continued investment in our systems, processes and offices”.

Finite have always been good at filling mainstream roles, as well as those which are hard to source, or which require niche or specialist skill sets.

“Upon receipt of a job brief, we utilise a number of proven and diverse recruitment tools to penetrate the candidate market, ensuring that we maximise the pool of potential candidates available. Our search techniques are structured around the role we are trying to fill, with each being considered on its own merit, and our sourcing methodology is chosen to obtain the optimum talent pool for our clients’ consideration. Our tools include an exceptionally large and up-to-date in-house candidate database, coupled with excellent hot-lists of skill verticals, our extensive candidate referral networks and expert social media mining.

“Our recruitment consultants all receive in-house and industry based training, ensuring that they are competent at taking in-depth job briefs, and gaining a solid understanding of the opportunity, the responsibilities, the skills and experience required of a potential candidate for the role. This also includes sourcing current information on the client, their

structure, their values and their team culture. All candidates are screened in a professional, thorough, competent and friendly manner, allowing effective matches to be made between client and candidate.

“The main advantage we find from this in-depth process is our ability to fill all mainstream roles quickly, and our ability to fill niche roles that our competitors often struggle with. Our technology, the depth of our candidate database, and our broad sourcing channels are all excellent. We have also managed to attract and retain a team of highly talented and successful recruiters over the years, that achieve very high candidate placement success.

Strong results and satisfied repeat business clients are the bedrock of Finite’s success.

“Our trademark is a ‘first, fast and friendly approach’, and is as valid today as it was when we first introduced it twelve years ago. The Account Manager will be the first off the mark in accurately recording the job brief, and will then provide fast consideration of our optimum recruitment strategy and commence a market search, and delivery, of the best quality, close-fit candidates. Our team fully embrace this approach, and the qualities they embody include agility, passion, personality, tenacity, optimism, competitiveness and professionalism”.

As Managing Director, Tracy continues to provide daily inspiration and motivation to her highly valued management team and employees, all of whom are enabling Finite’s reputation and professional standing to grow each year.

“Finite is very proud that 6 of its employees have nearly 15 years’ tenure within our business, that its oldest employee is 77 and its youngest is 20, and that the business has been built on gender diversity.

I continue to personally interview every Consultant and Manager that joins Finite today, and remain its key ambassador.

“We are continuing to grow quickly and are now a top three specialist Technology recruiter within New Zealand, following our purchase of Ninetwenty in February this year. Our 18 years’ tenure means we are a proven and trusted brand for clients and candidates alike, and an independent market leader within ANZ. We are also valued by clients who wish to support locally owned brands, as so many ANZ recruiters today are internationally owned, unlike ourselves.

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“As an agency, we have always been at the forefront of innovation in terms of expanding our range of services and focussing on technology hotspots in the market, and we continue to invest heavily each year in our team, our offices, our technology, and our business strategy. For these reasons, we believe we are well placed to retain our leadership within the specialist technology recruitment sector.

“Looking towards the future, Finite wish to retain and strengthen our specialist recruitment leadership position across ANZ, and we will be looking at further development opportunities across the wider Asia Pacific region as they arise”.

Interested in joining the Finite team in sunny Australia? We will be interviewing in London in early October. Send your resume through to Justin Pettie, Group Talent Manager, justinp@finite.com.au or call +61 2 8243 6880.

Best Interim & Executive Search Firm 2016 - Europe & Award for Innovation in Recruitment Solutions - Europe

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Green Park Interim and Executive Search Web Address: www.green-park.co.uk Address: 15 Portland Place, London W1B 1PT Telephone: 0207 399 4306

Green Park Ltd are one of Europe’s fastest growing suppliers of interim management, executive search and leadership advisory solutions across the private and public sectors. They have been enjoying ten years of continuous growth since their inception in 2006, and aim to continue this going forward.

The company have grown from being a challenger to being one of the UK’s most highly regarded executive resourcing businesses. It has not been without its challenges, but they have managed to build a company that is renowned for exemplary customer service and dedication to delivering sustainable results. They have become global experts at analysing, verifying, improving and imparting value through diversity; they enable companies to think differently about the candidates they consider, thus delivering a dividend on diversity.

Their overall aim is to become synonymous with providing expert advice to their clients, and help in appointing exceptional and diverse candidates. Their overriding strategy is to partner with organisations who see equality and inclusion as a core part of their own organisational DNA, or influence those who don’t. Their corporate vision is to help improve organisations by getting them to think differently about talent, and helping them to accelerate their own objectives by working with a level of innovative talent that only Green Park has access to. They also aim to create disruptor ecosystems with organisations they work with, so that they can attract, retain and develop the best talent, irrespective of their background or social grouping.

Green Park Ltd are set apart by three key actions; linking their compensation with customer feedback, the candidate journey, their values, diverse proportionality and engrained values; their unique technology algorithms which allow them to map their market and customer base by race and gender, to ensure they are always reaching as deep as they can for diverse talent; and their search, interim and advisory offerings, which are integrated, making them much more agile in their effectiveness. They have worked with many boards and senior management teams in over 55 countries, so they know that there is a significant need to get the mandate appointment, as well as the cultural fit right.

They have come to understand that a complete and accurate description of the role’s responsibilities is not enough; it is also vital to understand what the stakeholders require and what’s important for the environment and culture they hope to maintain. In light of this, Green Park Ltd have developed unique tools to ascertain the best possible fit between candidate and employer.

GPScope is their wide-reaching culture and stakeholder briefing tool, enabling them to be ‘Right First Time’. Via an online platform, it helps them align relevant stakeholders and accurately reflect their requirements. Once they understand the stakeholder environment, culture, and role, they focus on the accurate assessment of candidates. Their GPAssess system then combines their own range of psychometric tools, providing an in-depth view of each candidate’s capabilities. They also know that they have to be strategic business partners to their clients to deliver the highest level of value, and that means continuing to add value even after they have identified and attracted the best candidate to the role.

The final step in this process is to use GPEnhance, which then enables them to create the structure their placed candidates need to receive and act on feedback, ensuring they continuously improve and deliver sustainable value for their clients.

Using a variety of sources to find the best talent is a linchpin of Green Park Ltd. They predominantly use specialist referral networks that they have been developing for decades, which have been built upon a basis of trust and respect. They pair this with specialist publications, advertising, social networking groups, the Greek Park website and social media outreach including LinkedIn and Twitter.

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On the whole, the recruitment industry is very broad, and billions are spent each year through staffing to professional services. The most successful people tend to develop three important traits; communication skills, consultative advocacy and an ability to quickly assimilate information, thus building trust, a mutual respect and understanding. From a Green Park perspective, they want their people to embody their values of quality, innovation, sustainability and passion, and to be honest and to build strong relationships with their clients and candidates.

Green Park also works very hard to be an exception in the industry where the environment and social policy is concerned. They believe in environmental and economical sustainability and do a lot for charity and the wider society, via initiatives like DRIVE and their cohesive CSR policy.

Clients and candidates often come to recruitment companies with pre-conceived ideas; they know they want something, and often need assistance in fully articulating what they actually require from the recruitment process. Green Park have fully realised this in their procedures. They find that an in-depth consultative approach is best to explore their clients’ needs, and as it is a key part of their job, they apply more resources to clients that require this, always enabling them to be ‘Right First Time’.

Award for Excellence in Digital Marketing Recruitment - UK

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Service 1st Recruitment Ltd Name: Jim Clarke Position: Managing Director Email: jim.clarke@service1st.co.uk Web address: www.service1st.co.uk Address: Service 1st Recruitment Ltd, Afon House, Worthing Road, Horsham, RH12 1TL.

Jim Clarke tells us how his forward-thinking specialist recruitment agency Service 1st Recruitment succeeds by providing a first-class service.

Set up in 2009 by Jim Clarke who has been in the industry for around 15 years, Service 1st Recruitment is an agency which specialises in IT and Digital Marketing recruitment by securing permanent and contract solutions for their clients.

The agency works with a range of digital marketing agencies, end clients and ESPs who rely on Service 1st to fulfil their recruitment needs.

Service 1st Recruitment’s understanding of both digital marketing and technology enables clients to take advantage of the rigorous screening process adopted within the business to ensure they receive only the most suitable job seekers for their positions.

Jim says, “It is a matching service ultimately, but it is one that takes an awful lot of time, diligence and dedication to get right”.

The agency provides a service like no other, whether to an employer or a job seeker. They have a large and varied selection of roles in both the IT and Digital Marketing sectors such as development, business intelligence, project management, email marketing and campaign management amongst others.

For candidates, it is about getting the right person for the right job, for the best salary. For the clients it is about getting the suitable candidate within the right timescale and price. The agency also provides an in-depth screening service, to ensure the best possible candidates get matched up the clients. The agency wants to make the recruitment process as simple as possible for both sides.

However, Jim has learned, “Through building these relationships, there is a lot of technology that goes into digital marketing. We do a lot of campaign work but ultimately with digital marketing we often find it is about data science and connecting that data back to campaigns. So usually we find that the work tends to be technical and data-heavy”.

The overall aim of the Horsham-based agency is to provide the best service possible. Jim says, “When you have been in the industry for a long time, what you find is that both candidates and clients are likely to have received a terrible service in the past. For us it is a case of taking the time to understand what clients want, and also what the candidates want.

“It is important to understand the needs from both sides. It really does come down to providing an in depth service and as a result of that, a lot of work comes through referrals”.

When sourcing talent for job seekers, the agency uses traditional methods such as placing a range of advertisements and utilising search tools. This isn’t mentioning the social network channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Although Jim says, “Often it does come down to referrals because people have been happy with the level of service that they have received”.

When sourcing the candidates for positions, it comes down to taking time and understanding the skills the candidates have. Both present and past skills that they can utilise for their new position. There could not be enough emphasis on the importance of being able to understand the candidates and knowing what they want to do.

Jim adds, “It’s about understanding what the candidates want. It is important to give them a very clear and accurate insight of the position offered, including the day-to-day responsibilities and what the company is like to work for.

“It is the candidate’s choice as to whether they want to apply the position. We offer a very honest explanation of the job. We let the candidates make that decision. We find that if the candidates are genuinely interested in taking that position, they tend to make it a long-term commitment”.

A substantial amount of work goes into sourcing candidates. Jim explains, “You could spend all day sourcing for a position and come up with one suitable person for the job. However, this all comes down to the level of service we provide.

We are much more focussed on putting the right people into the right jobs, as opposed to sending a hundred people for one job”.

It is also key to monitor candidates’ performance, which of course their clients approve of. For instance, they monitor how many CV’s they have sent out and how many interviews they have managed to secure, and in turn how many successful placements are made. The agency also maintains contact with each successful candidate throughout their probation period, ensuring they settle into their new role comfortably.

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The agency offers testing for candidates, in conjunction with Provelt Testing. These tests include basic office and numeracy skills, and also much more technical tests such as C# and .NET Programming. The results gained from these tests display what level the candidates are (basic, intermediate or advanced) to the clients.

Furthermore, Service 1st Recruitment also offer a managed agency service, enabling long standing clients to completely outsource their recruitment needs to a trusted business partner.

In terms of future prospects, Jim states, “It is ultimately to continue delivering a first class service, to both new and existing clients, and to grow the business further.” The agency has a rigorous training programme for new starters within the organisation. By continuing their serviceled way of recruitment and understanding what both clients and candidates want and need will continue to set Service 1st Recruitment apart from their competitors.

Best Media Job Search Platform 2016

CONTACT DETAILS Company: The Media Directory Ltd Name: Rob Hirst Email: rob@themediadirectory.com Web Address: www.themediadirectory.com Address: (Home address) 192 Lydgate Lane, Sheffield, S10 5FS Telephone: 07539796087

The Media Directory recently relaunched, and the new site is a professional network, including a job board, directory and a new ‘Find a Freelancer’ section. They cover numerous industries, including art, design, digital, film, TV, theatre, media, journalism, publishing, music, photography, PR, marketing and radio. Rob Hirst tells us about the last year for the company, and their plans for the future.

“Last year, we unfortunately faced financial struggle when one of our main recruitment partners closed down. This means that the last year has been fairly difficult, but we have managed to regroup and regain our position within the market. Currently, our main aim for The Media Directory is to become financially independent and to not rely on one source of revenue. However, this does not negate from the original and principal aim of the company, which is to always offer more to our users, and to ensure that they return to our site should they ever be searching for job again.

“All jobs are advertised on our job board, which reaches over 200,000 followers, and there are also features in our paid job listings. We may also advertise on external sites as well, to reach a wider audience, ensuring that the optimum candidates are sourced. There simply isn’t a website that offers users as much as we do, the others are simple job boards. However, we cover eight industries, have introduced a ‘Find a Freelancer’ section and a professional social network, alongside the more standard inclusions of a job board, directory and a news board.

“We are perfect for recruiters that are looking to employ in a specialist field; not only can they post unlimited standards listings, they can search our database of existing candidates and contact them.”

Rob sees a bright future ahead for The Media Directory, and believes that after the struggles they have faced, they are well poised to continue going from strength to strength.

“I am very excited for the future of The Media Directory. The website relaunch on the 15th August 2016 feels like a rebirth for the company, and gives us the chance to offer more and reach of target of becoming a must visit website for anyone seeking a job within the Arts and Media industries. Ideally, we would like to have a bigger marketing budget to enable us to expand our reach beyond social media, and we hope one day to become the biggest player in our field.”

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Best Senior Executive Search Consultants - UK

CONTACT DETAILS Company: The Orcid Partnership Name: Louise Gatenby Email: louise.gatenby@orcid.co.uk Web Address: www.orcid.co.uk Telephone: 0845 8055958

The Orcid Partnership is a leading executive and non-executive search and leadership consultancy based in the UK - working on a global, national and local basis. We got in touch with co-founder Louise Gatenby to find out more about her business how it fits into the wider industry.

“Established in 2003, we are passionately client focussed, partner-led and relentlessly committed to adding value and insight and to delivering successful outcomes to our clients. We work on a retained basis, in partnership with our clients to identify, engage, assess, appoint and develop, outstanding business leaders who fit in culturally and deliver commercially.

We advise our clients in the consumer, retail, B2B and service sectors, on a broad range of leadership positions.

“Within executive search we support leading global multi-nationals, private SME’s, family owned and third sector organisations across a range of functions, sectors and geographies. Typical assignments include c-suite general management, functional directors & VP’s particularly in sales, marketing, finance and HR. Our non-executive practice supports private, public and third sector clients to develop balanced, diverse Boards through the appointment of Chairman and NED’s.

Asked about her aims for The Orcid Partnership, Louise states that, simply, they would like to deliver the best executive search experience. Whilst this is not always simple to achieve, this is fundamental to everything that happens at Orcid.

Louise believes that one of the key differences between Orcid and the rest of the industry is that all aspects of each assignment are personally handled by the Orcid Partners.

Louise tells us that the whole recruitment and executive search sector has been through a huge period of change recently, and she only sees this continuing and intensifying in some areas.

“Each member of our team is a senior, experienced, trusted and credible sector specialist. Orcid Partners tend to work on far fewer assignments than would be the case in a typical search firm, and this means that we can invest more time delivering successful outcomes for each and every client we partner with.

“The individuals and firms who succeed in this environment will be those who invest in, and embrace, the opportunities this change creates to add value in new and different ways.

“Whilst our industry is called ‘search’, we believe that where we really make a difference and add value is when we help our clients to ‘land’ the right individual to support their strategic challenges. We are hugely focussed on delivering the right outcomes for the clients and candidates we support, up to the final appointment and beyond.

“The most important quality for those working at Orcid is being passionate about what we do; building trusted partnerships based on insight, judgement and expertise. It is about absolute client focus and it is about making personal commitments and taking responsibility for delivering successful outcomes. We are really clear about what it takes to be a successful Partner within Orcid, and believe these traits are becoming increasingly fundamental to success in search in the future.

“To be able to provide a depth of understanding, insight and advice to our clients at a senior level, we believe there is no substitute for personal experience, judgement and expertise. That is why all of the Orcid Partners have direct experience of working in their fields of expertise, and are senior and proven, with at least 10,000 hours of executive search and industry expertise. They are trusted and credible sector specialists who are relationship driven, collaborative and values led, and are successful and ambitious executive search specialists, who back themselves and have a strong focus on delivering successful outcomes.

“We have an absolute focus on delivering excellent outcomes for our clients, and to being open, honest and professional way in the way we support every candidate we work with, through to the collaborative and values led team ethos within Orcid. We adopt a proactive and responsive approach to retained executive search which is based on a deep understanding of the sectors we work in and the specific requirements of each client and project”.

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“Technology is a huge enabler in our sector at all levels and is something we believe will continue to enhance the experience for clients and candidates, as they engage with each other through a variety of mediums. At Orcid, we are investing in a number of innovative areas. Within social media we already have one of the strongest and most engaged Twitter communities of any comparable firm, and from a data perspective we have invested in the latest Filefinder system enabling mobile data access, and have been an early adopter and strong supporter of Not Actively Looking.

“We have adopted an innovative business model, reward structure and award winning financial platform, which frees Partners from the usual bureaucratic/target constraints of search, and support them to be totally focussed on delivering great work. We are also developing our own platform for client collaboration and investigating how to integrate additional new technology in a way which streamlines process and adds value.

“Our aspiration for the future is that Orcid is recognised as the place where the best client-driven, ambitious and experienced executive search specialists want to be, so they can deliver outstanding work as part of a vibrant, collaborative team. We are moving towards this by creating best practice processes, tools and services, and an environment and reward structure which gives outstanding search Partners the support, inspiration and freedom to succeed.

Best Behaviour-Based Talent Management Consultants - UK & Most Innovative Talent Assessment Solutions

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Scala Associates, London NW Name: Janice Caplan/Carolyn Ponder Email: janice@thescalagroup.co.uk carolyn@thescalagroup.co.uk Web Address: www.thescalagroup.co.uk

The PinsightTM suite is our flagship tool, enabling us to design solutions for today’s fastpaced, unpredictable organisational reality, where innovation is paramount, expectations are changing, and structures complex.

PinsightTM immerses participants in a realistic, challenging and interactive virtual simulation.

Each simulation is set around a manager’s inbox and participants must plan, take decisions, initiate actions and perform other tasks, typical of junior, mid or senior leaders. Webcams are used for role-playing.

At Scala, we take a partnership approach to add value to your business. Understanding your needs is the starting point for us. The flexibility, cost-effectiveness and ease of use that Pinsight offers adapts to so many needs; but Pinsight is one part of a process that must be relevant and business-focussed. To design the process, we follow these four key criteria: Firstly, The Scala Group believes passionately that self-awareness of how you perform, and your impact on others is key to developing your potential. We use coaching combined with PinsightTM to focus on maximising strengths, and to developing areas of potential. We encourage understanding and compensating for weaknesses.

Lee Braham, Sales Director explains how PinsightTM raised his self-awareness, “I met Scala/PinsightTM as part of the selection process for the position at Europa Components.

The live interaction during the simulation provided a real life scenario that tested and engaged me, and revealed aspects of my performance. The in-depth follow up review was enlightening, and given the quality of the opportunities for development it proposed, I found it truly inspirational.”

The Scala Group is proud to be a member of the Pinsight Global network, which brings together assessors and consultants from across the world. PinsightTM is an immersive suite of online simulations that enhance leadership assessment and development. Janice Caplan and Carolyn Ponder explain how they use PinsightTM to provide clients with an outstanding experience.

delegates ‘test-drive’ a new role, and focus on the leadership capabilities to achieve success.

Thirdly, as organisations are flatter, and more matrixed, with technology enabling virtual working, few managers have direct sight over people’s performance. Moreover, we can no longer rely on past performance to give an indication of job match. Roles are changing too fast for that and we must make decisions based on potential to learn a new competency.

Evidence-based HR is required.

Pinsight generates corporate reports and data about people so you can rapidly answer key questions: - Who can work on this new business stream? Who can replace this person? Do we have the right people to move into this new market? Do we have successors for this role?

Who will benefit from our training budget?

Supporting opinion with evidence enables better and faster business decisions.

This case study shows how PKC Group used objective assessments from PinsightTM to build mid-level leadership bench strength.

PKC Group is a $1.2 billion player in the commercial vehicle industry who strives to be the ‘Preferred Supplier in Electrical Distribution Systems for Transportation Industry globally.’

As the organisation has grown quickly through mergers and acquisitions, understanding and developing its leadership bench strength has been its key talent initiative.

Secondly, we are mindful that new leadership models for a changing business world are required everywhere. In helping our clients develop the right model for them, we take account of the changing organisational reality that is making different demands of leaders. We incorporate clients’ leadership models within PinsightTM, or we use Pinsight’s extensive library. The PinsightTM experience helps

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PKC’s first step was to measure the current level of leadership skills. Following nomination by their supervisors, participants completed PinsightTM in either English or Spanish. The simulation put them at the helm of a virtual company, where they faced multiple leadership challenges.

These included coaching a high-performing direct report, drawing up an implementation plan for a new strategy, appeasing an angry business partner, or addressing a conflict between co-workers.

PinsightTM enabled PKC to clearly and quickly understand their mid-level leadership bench strength, make promotion and succession planning decisions, and launch training initiatives to develop key people.

A PinsightTM certified coach led a debriefing workshop and coaching session for participants.

Participants also received individual performance reports, which fed directly into their development plans.

Scala’s fourth design criteria is to create experiences that are impactful and fun so people learn instantly. Using a combination of gaming techniques, technology and proven assessment methodology, PinsightTM is a mirror for people to see how they appear to others. This instant self-awareness combined with insightful feedback and guidance accelerates development. This is how people and businesses keep ahead of change, and at the competitive edge in our fast-moving world.

Best Small Business Recruitment Company - East Midlands

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Astute Recruitment Ltd Website: www.astuterecruitment.com

From redundancy in 2009 Sarah Stevenson and Mary Maguire set up and established Astute Recruitment Ltd as a unique, multi-award winning accountancy recruitment business and brand.

Regionally acknowledged as the expert in their sector, their core business is the recruitment of all levels of accountancy and finance professionals from ledger staff to Financial Directors.

Astute works across the East Midlands from their head office in Derby. Astute’s second office in Nottingham 2015 reflected a mounting demand from business owners and hiring managers for skilled accountancy professionals.

18 months ago after a period of record growth, Sarah & Mary appointed a Non-Executive Director to focus the business and establish firm strategic plans. This included a total re-brand with a new website, corporate logo, state of the art IT system, accounting software and transformational messaging. All of this has enabled the brand to reach a wider audience.

Astute were then able to promote and educate the wider business community about their story

Astute Recruitment is a Midlands based recruitment firm specialising in supporting small businesses. We profile the firm and explore the secrets behind it’s success. and the great services they offer. Astute and Sarah and Mary have been shortlisted for a number of awards, including Sarah being awarded SME Small Business Director of the Year at the 2015 Institute of Directors East Midlands Business Awards. Sarah was also awarded the coveted Entrepreneur of the Year award 2015, by the Derbyshire Times. 2016 followed this success with Astute being recognised at the ICAEW’s awards in March winning East Midlands Business of the Year and announced as finalists this year for the second year running for the national Women In Business Awards.

period, Astute will actually pay its client £500.

Astute firmly believe that for your business to grow, you need not just any people, but the right people.

Astute also believe that everyone has the right to a fulfilling career – not just any job, but the right job.

One of the hardest things to overcome for businesses is a lack of trust generally in the recruitment sector. Often Astute’s clients have never used a recruitment agency before or had a bad experience with an existing supplier that’s soured their view of what a recruiter can do.

To give those who have not worked with Astute before, they have created their “Triple Point Guarantee”. This gives new customers the confidence to try their services risk free, safe in the knowledge that in the unlikely event that the firm doesn’t manage to fill a position within an agreed

Best for Hospitality Recruitment 2016 - UK & Sustained Excellence in Healthcare Recruitment - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Athena Recruiting Services Ltd Name: Denise Gillmore Email: denisegillmore@athena-recruitingservices. co.uk Web Address: www.athena-recruitingservices.co.uk/ Address: Weston Business Centre, Hawkins Road, Colchester, Essex, CO2 8JX Telephone: 01206 266 847

“We offer a professional and secure service for all of our clients’ recruitment needs. Regardless of whether a client is looking to grow their team permanently, or whether they are only searching for temporary staffing solutions, our team will be able to help.

“Our speciality recruitment sectors include; hospitality and catering, office and commercial, sales and management, financial services, engineering and healthcare. We always find a way to give our clients more than they would expect, and focus all of our efforts into sourcing the perfect candidates. We utilise a unique combination of searching, advertising and head hunting to deliver the highest standard of candidate to our clients.

“Always proud to go the extra mile in our searches, we pride ourselves on our understanding, loyalty and commitment; these are the most enviable qualities of Athena Recruiting Services Ltd.”

Athena Recruiting Services Ltd is an award winning specialist Recruitment Agency based in Colchester, Essex. They cover the surrounding areas of Essex and Suffolk, but have successfully recruited further afield, meaning that they can provide national recruitment solutions for their clients. We spoke to Denise Gillmore, Director, to find out more about her experience and the company ethos.

We asked Denise to speak to us more about her personal experience in the recruitment industry.

“I have over 20 years’ experience within sales, business development and management, and opened Athena Recruiting Services Ltd in 2014. The name ‘Athena’ and the logo are related to my Greek heritage, and I hope this demonstrates how deeply personal my work is to me. Candidate and client retention is one of the most important aspects of my work for me, and I am proud to say that 100% of the candidates I have placed into roles since starting Athena have been retained.

“Dedication is one of the most crucial attributes to making a successful recruitment company. I cover the on-call phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, meaning that my clients know they will always have a solution to cover their last minute.

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I also encourage my candidates to call me for interview tips, or even if they just need a confidence boost, so as to ensure they are fully prepared for their interviews or first days. I love my job, and hope to continue to make Athena a name that has positive connections throughout the recruitment industry.

Best for learning & Development Solutions 2016 - Australia

COMPANY DETAILS Company: Career Birds Web Address: www.careerbirds.

CareerBirds is the collaboration between two companies Mastering Leadership Agility LLC in the UK and Sabistar Pty Ltd in Australia. The firm’s main goal is to grow and nurture future leaders through training and mentoring. Paul Cohen, director at Sabistar talks us through the partnership and what services Career Birds offers.

CareerBirds’ mission is to guide future leaders. We do this by developing leaders through personal training, coaching and mentoring in agility, diligence and performance. Our purpose is to grow and serve future leaders infused with entrepreneurial spirit, so they become skilful contributors to and mindful guardians of the enterprises and fragile world they impact on.

Firstly - innovate to accumulate; second - tread lightly and do no harm; third - leave your enterprise and world in a better state than how you found it; fourth - make your legacy venerated by those who will follow.

We support leadership learners coming together to fulfil their own lives, alongside improving conditions for those less fortunate than themselves.

Our focus on developing agility practices enables talent to resolve the tensions between competing personal, enterprise and societal demands, as the world continues to encounter disruptive change. By building their

own capability in this particular way, our future leaders create sustainable enterprises and communities, bringing longer-lasting profitability, continued shared prosperity, and worldly benefits for humanity and nature in unison.

When clients register for CareerBirds, they undertake a quiz to discover which career bird type they represent, with each bird representing a different leadership personality. This leads to services which we provide to help clients with their leadership skills. There are a range of services which we offer clients including development opportunities by discovering how your selected bird type can go from Hatched to High Flyer in record time, allow our psychometric data to show you how to set your goals and guide you through your agility journey and our Pigeon service which helps clients discover how to be agile in presentations and get your message home.

A fresh perspective A better answer For the world of IT and business

Digital should be transformational for your business. At OCSL, we’re behind the technology that’s right for you.

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www.ocsl.co.uk

Best Hospitality Recruitment Specialists 2016 - UK

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Citirecruit Name: Geraldine Roche Email:London@citirecruit.co.uk Web Address: www.citirecruit.co.uk Address: Garden Studios, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ Telephone: 020 7 866 5463

Citirecruit are innovative Hospitality specialists supplying temporary and permanent staff to the Hospitality industry. We spoke to Geraldine Roche, a hospitality and recruitment specialist, and head of UK operations for Citirecruit, about the hospitality sector and about what sets Citirecruit apart.

“Citirecruit specialises in supplying both temporary and permanent staff right across the hospitality sector, from small bistros, restaurants, bars, clubs, up to Michelin starred restaurants and hotels.

Geraldine knows exactly the kind of staff required in the industry, and knows that having a poorly suited member of staff is worse than having poor or limited staff numbers.

“Our aim is always to provide an honest, flexible and personal service, which seeks to fully understand the individual and specific requirements of both our clients and candidates. Due to this, a lot of our clients and candidates are recommended to us by our existing and extensive network, this occurs from our searches, also by word of mouth from pleased clients and candidates.

“Having worked in the industry, I understand that hospitality is not a normal nine-to-five job and that it requires 24-hour attention. I make myself available as much as I can and my team work the same way. This is because requests in this sector can occur at any time, so therefore, we aim to be available at any time in order to avoid disappointing our clients or candidates.

“We highly value our clients and candidates, and ensure that we conduct full research before providing any recommendations. Citirecruit looks at references and utilises social media platforms to collect as much information about the candidate as possible”.

“Citirecruit understands that this industry is all about getting to know people, truly understanding what they want from the process and making sure that both our clients and candidates are happy at all times. We recognise that it is crucial to have a very personal relationship with our clients and to really get to know them, this is why we meet everyone that we work with (from candidates to clients). We believe this is what truly differentiates us from our competitors, as we would never take

Geraldine is very well placed as the head of UK operations; Geraldine is a hospitality specialist with over 20 years’ experience in the industry.

a chance during any stage of our recruitment processes.

“With regard to the future, we are looking to maintain the respectable work we pride ourselves on, and to ensure sure that both our clients and candidates are kept happy. We are always aiming to improve our service to the highest standard possible”.

Geraldine Roche

Best for Private Domestic Recruitment 2016 – UK & Award for Excellence in Luxuary Recruitment - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Domestic Bliss Appointments Limited Name: Clare Driver Web Address: www.domesticblissappointments. co.uk

Domestic Bliss founded 7 years ago to specialise in the recruitment of experienced domestic staff such as household couples, cooks, estate management, live in and daily housekeepers, villa, yacht crew, dinner party help, home and family office, private personal assistants, house managers, governesses, tutors and high level childcare.

Clare gives us more detail on the firm’s clients and how the firm aims to serve them as best they can.

“Our clients are typically owners of large estates and houses based throughout the whole of the UK – they can range from the nobility, Billionaire business entrepreneurs, State leaders and Royal families, all the way to regular families needing an extra pair of hands.

“We cover all areas of London, the UK countryside especially the Home Counties of Kent, Essex, Surrey Sussex, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk as well as The Midlands, Northamptonshire, Scotland and throughout East Anglia.

Domestic Bliss is the Elite Recruitment Agency in the UK and Overseas for Domestic Appointments. We spoke to Clare Driver to learn more.

“In addition, sister company Domestic Bliss (International) Appointments Limited takes care of our clients throughout Europe, France, (Paris and the South of France), Italy, Spain, Mallorca, The Mediterranean, The Gulf States, Middle East, The Caribbean and all West Indian Islands including The Bahamas, as well as recruiting internationally more global yacht staff looking to settle on land”.

When asked what sets them apart from others in their industry, Clare replied: “We constantly offer expert advice and support founded on genuine commitment and knowledge. We consistently demonstrate understanding and appreciation of all the benefits of recruiting the “right” staff and potential pitfalls of recruiting the “wrong” staff!

“With 25 years of practical, hands- on experience in many areas of private household and yacht service, Domestic Bliss is the industry leader.

“We aim to nurture longevity and stability in our placements. This can only be achieved through suitable matches and respectful partnerships. A

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happy household is dependent on efficiency, capability, trust and morale”.

As a final comment, Clare talks about how they aim to continue to meet their clients’ needs in the future.

“The applicants who come to us trust that we will be looking after their best interests, placing them with authentic employers whose intention is to offer legal and fair working conditions. Our reputation means we continue to attract the best staff currently seeking employment.

“We deliver a unique recruitment service to all our candidates and clients. The service is bespoke, thoughtful and personal. We help our clients create clear and comprehensive job descriptions. We provide a careful review and selection of resumés for consideration, perform reference and security checks, and schedule one-on-one interviews. We arrange for DBS checks if needed. Post placement we continue to offer support and advice throughout the whole employment period”.

Best for Personalised Recruitment Services - Suffolk

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Exact Sourcing Name: Millie Muncey Email: millie@exactsourcing.com Web Address: www.exactsourcing.com Address: St. John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 OWS Telephone: 01223 421 446

Exact Sourcing is a boutique agency that focuses on working with clients in the East Anglia region, helping them to identify great people for their business. They offer a bespoke service to companies that they work with, making sure that they meet and interview all of their candidates prior to them meeting with any of the clients. Rosa Dos Santos tells us more.

Our aim is to provide a personal client service, making sure that we get to understand our client’s business and the kind of people that they are looking to bring into their teams. We do this by ensuring that we meet with all of our clients and by seeing their working environment, which along with information about the business,helpsusgainabetterunderstandingoftheir short and long term goals.

Having recruited in the area for a number of years, we are really fortunate to receive a large number of referrals from clients and candidates, to their friends, family or colleagues. This means that we often have people that come highly recommended, enabling us totapintoanuntappedresource.Wehaveadatabase of about 20 0000 applicants, along with the usual

methodsofadvertising,helpingustoconstantlyreach out to more job seekers in the areas surrounding Cambridge and Suffolk.

business. In this line of work, for what we do, there is nothing that could replace human interaction. For many of our clients, we are an extension to their team.

At Exact Sourcing, we really care about the end result!

It’s all about finding a good fit for our client and if we have done that well, then both the client and the job seeker are very happy. For us, that is the perfect win/ win situation.

One of the biggest challenges in the recruitment industry is that sometimes the best cv does not always mean the best candidate; this is why with clients that know how we work trust us to come back to them with the top candidates, hand selected by us. This is what I think gives us the edge over our competitors.

People are concerned about online recruitment and how that will affect them. Our experience with clients hasdemonstratedthattheyreallyvaluetheinformation that we are able to share with them, making sure that we are doing more than just ‘filling a seat’ in the

In a competitive market where businesses have drastically varying reputations, we are trying to make sure that we give the industry a good name.

Best in Manufacturing Sector Management Recruitment - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Expion Ltd Name: James Didgiunaitis & Richard Clegg Email: james@expion.co.uk Web Address: www.expion.co.uk Address: Expion Ltd, Heritage Exchange, Plover Road, Lindley, Huddersfield, HD3 3HR Telephone: 0800 612 5655

Expion was launched based on the knowledge that great recruitment is a double-edged sword; in order to deliver a cutting edge recruitment service to clients, it is vital to provide a truly outstanding candidate experience. James explains how the firm works to achieve this aim.

“Expion is dedicated to delivering market leading service levels, enabling us to meet and surpass both our clients and candidate’s expectations every time we undertake a recruitment project.

“To achieve this, we ensure that each client and each candidate is treated as an individual, being mindful of their own needs and wants. This ensures that we are able to effectively match the correct candidates to the right employer for each piece of work commissioned.”

Clients and candidates are fundamental to a successful recruitment business. A major challenge in the current market, where there is

Expion Ltd offers an extensive range of search and selection services to a variety of manufacturing sectors. James Didgiunaitis tells us more. a shortage of high calibre talent available to fill each client role, means that counter offers from existing employers are a lot more prevalent, as employers tend to react to candidate resignations via a counter offer. James outlines how the firm utilises its experience to overcome this challenge.

“Our team at Expion Ltd is highly trained. The personal approach they take to candidates, interviewing them in great detail and understanding their motivations and reasons for leaving a current employer ensures that the likelihood of counter-offer is considerably reduced, ensuring that the client successfully appoints the right candidate.”

Looking ahead, James outlines the firm’s plans for growth in order to continue building upon its current success.

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“Expion Ltd has a well-defined 5-year plan for future growth that should enable us to replicate what we have successfully achieved already over the last 6 years. We will expand within key niche areas and other identified locations, growing the business way beyond its existing footprint. As we enter year 3 of that 5-year plan, all metrics are on track and we will hopefully meet and surpass those objectives over the coming 3 years. Exciting times lay ahead for all at Expion Ltd.”

Best for Upper Level Recruitment 2016 - UK CONTACT DETAILS

Company: The Finegreen Group Name: Neil Fineberg Email: neil.fineberg@finegreen.co.uk Web Address: www.finegreen.co.uk Address: Suite 3, First Floor Building 3, Universal Square Devonshire Street North, Manchester, M12 6JH Telephone: 0345 130 4006 Twitter: Finegreen_

For over a decade, The Finegreen Group has been supporting clients in the health sector, notably the NHS, to recruit the best possible talent to meet their ever-changing needs in a challenging economic and political climate. Chief Executive Neil Fineberg tells us more...

Finegreen’s recent restructuring focussed on three key areas of activity – permanent appointments, interim appointments and board capability support.

The third focus is a response to recent demands from organisations across the NHS to develop robust leadership models to meet the challenges of a 21st century NHS. This work includes offering mentoring and executive courses, spearheaded by associates with unrivalled experience at the highest levels in the NHS. Neil outlines how this helps the firm to achieve its overall aims.

specialist Finegreen team who can devise a shortlist within minutes.

them meet their recruitment and leadership needs and to supporting candidates.

“Because we work closely with our candidates – and have done for many years in a number of cases – our specialist teams have spoken to them at various points about where they want to go, updating their CVs and coaching for interviews. In some cases - for even senior positions – this has led to clients recruiting candidates not seen as obvious appointments – based on insights offered

by Finegreen.”

“Our Board Capability division is indicative of the current trend towards not simply meeting the health sector’s recruitment needs – but also boosting crucial executive and leadership capabilities. We shall continue to keep ahead of the curve when it comes to meeting other key challenges as they arise for clients and candidates alike.”

“Our aims are simple; to listen carefully to the needs of our clients and work closely with them to see how best these can be achieved. This has led to Finegreen developing an unrivalled pool of candidates over many years, covering the whole range of skills and talents required by today’s healthcare organisations. Put simply, whether clients are seeking able people to run their finances, their property portfolios – or a whole range in between, from clinical to communications personnel and senior executives – we have a

As a final comment Neil outlines the specific challenges the firm faces and its plans to overcome these and build upon its current success in the future.

“The NHS presents its own set of specific challenges because Trusts and other employers have to satisfy a range of disparate stakeholders and are often under intense public scrutiny.

Understanding this context is crucial to helping

Best Defence Professional Recruitment Practice - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Forbes HR Ltd. Name: Jason Seed – Director Email: consultant@forbeshr.com Web Address: www.forbeshr.com Address: Forbes HR Ltd, The Granary, Greatworth Hall, Greatworth, Northamptonshire, OX17 2DH Telephone: 01295 768360

Jason Seed, Director of Forbes HR based in Greatworth, near Banbury, tells Corporate Vision how using a friendly and honest manner with the acquisition of talent are key for a succeeding recruitment practice.

individuals, as human beings who deserve respect and whose aspirations and motivations need to be met accordingly.

The way we source talent is achieved via executive search process where appropriate, through networking events, word of mouth and recommendations to us. We also use traditional advertising methods, using on-line job boards or industry-related publications.

Forbes HR Ltd was initially established in 1994 and we provide full recruitment services in every aspect to the Defence, Automotive, Motor Sport and Supply Chain sectors, with varied roles.

Of course, people prefer to deal with other people they like, know and trust. Due to this, we pride ourselves on offering a personal, diligent and professionally tailored service for candidates and clients. For clients, we act as an extension of their HR department. For candidates, we treat them as

At Forbes HR, there is in excess of 70 years of combined experience by recruiting and employing only seasoned Directors and Consultants. We always continuously make sure that we offer candidates a comprehensive service. This usually involves conducting a face-to-face interview at a location convenient for both parties where we listen, comprehend and act as a friendly advisor to our candidates. We always provide honest feedback at the end of the interviews so candidates can sharpen their job search. Only when we fully

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understand our candidates, we then match them to their potential new employer.

I definitely feel this is what sets us apart from the competition. We take the time to listen to our candidates and clients, only bringing them together when there is a mutual fit from both sides. We have clients that have been with our company for many years. Because they know we understand their company culture, their people personally, their technology and future plans, it enables us to fully brief any candidate before the big interview.

Fundamentally, Forbes HR are specialists in their field, due to investing in new technologies and keeping on top of industry developments. We are prepared to go the extra mile for candidates and clients. Our expertise in gaining exclusive job assignments, having repeat business and longterm candidate association year after year puts us at the top of our game.

Best Professional Services Recruitment Consultants – UK & Award for Excellence in Accountancy & Finance Recruitment - UK

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Heat Recruitment Name: Steve Preston Email: Steve@heatrecruitment.co.uk Web Address: www.heatrecruitment.co.uk Telephone: 0345 375 1747

“Our company vision is to provide Specialist Recruitment Solutions to every business, and every person, everywhere. We want to be seen as the go-to place for Professional Services Recruitment.

We have our own unique approach to recruitment, which we call The Art Of Recruitment”.

Asked what the company does to try and achieve this aim, Steve states that it is the investment into their brand values of exploration, nurturing talent and excellence that are key. Heat Recruitment make sure that all key stakeholders in the business are heavily invested into the brand, and invest heavily into their own training and development program, which means they have been able to nurture large numbers of relatively inexperienced people.

“We explore to find high calibre candidates, and

Heat Recruitment is a refreshing specialist recruitment consultancy operating within the Accountancy, Finance, Information Technology, Financial Services, Legal and General Insurance Sectors. We speak to Steve Preston to find out more about their approach. through our extensive search efforts, we have an unrivalled network of exceptional candidates. We use traditional methods in a modern world. For us it’s about hard graft, mining, digging and scouting to find the best candidates available. Our consultants work hard to develop strong networks of both passive and active candidates, which they are able to turn to as and when suitable opportunities arise.

“It’s the way we manage the process that sets us apart. We understand our candidates and clients, and what’s important to them. Great emphasis is put on getting to grips with the actual needs of the person or business, and making sure our consultants are working towards meeting them”.

When we asked Steve about what he believes the biggest challenge facing Heat Recruitment is, he replied that candidates being counter-offered jobs

upon handing in their notice was a key challenge.

This presents a problem to the company because of the time they have spent, and consequently wasted, on getting a candidate to that stage of the process.

“To counteract this, we start discussions with candidates very early and challenge them on their motivations. Once a candidate receives an offer, we really council them on the next phase of handing in their resignation, educating them on why clients counter-offer and the pitfalls associated with accepting one.

“We aspire to continue growing Heat Recruitment so that the headcount increases from circa 60 people to 80 and then on to 100, as we get the business on to the Recruitment Hot 100 List”.

Best European Specialist Recruiter 2016 & Award for Excellence in Industrial Recruitment - Europe CONTACT DETAILS Company: Hofmann Recruitment Name: Van Kotedia Email: Van.Kotedia@hofmann-uk.co.uk Web Address: www.hofmann-uk.co.uk Address: 192 High Street, Uxbridge, Middx, UB8 1LB Telephone: 0 1895 543 615

Hofmann Recruitment is a private company owned

by Ingrid Hofmann, who prides herself on her company’s ability to build up their client database and maintain good working relationships.

Van says that the most important aim of the UK branch of Hofmann is to grow up the business as they have managed to elsewhere.

“Our main aim currently is to grow into a renowned business, like the Hofmann offices in other countries. We want to be able to provide the same service that we have had so much success in delivering elsewhere. Right now, we aren’t aiming to be the biggest recruitment company in the country, we just want to continue to work closely with our client and understand their needs so that we can deliver the best possible service.

Hofmann Recruitment is a national agency which started off in Germany, but which has now grown and works across 131 sites, based in the USA, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland. It has recently branched into the UK to start up, so we spoke to Van Kotedia to find out more about the UK branch.

“Our process differs slightly depending on which sector we are working in, as we work in a number of different sectors. However, every candidate we have will go through 2 interviews – one with a consultant, and then one with a manager. Following from this, we ask candidates to undertake verbal and written tasks, and then for our warehouse and industrial candidates, additional manual handling tests. If, following this process a candidate is deemed suitable, they are sent to a client with our recommendation”.

We asked Van what sets Hofmann Recruitment apart from other recruitment companies.

“I believe that the staff that we employ here are what really set up apart from others. We have people who understand their clients, and are

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adaptable to their needs. We are not an agency of people who just recommend candidates for fees, we genuinely want to build relationships and put the right calibre of people into the right job”.

“Currently we aren’t one of the biggest players in the UK market, but we do intend to grow. We work across the whole of the UK from our head office, and are aiming to open up additional branches.

We are working on building slowly – reputation is key for us, and building up slowly means that we can concentrate on building up the right kind of connections along the way”.

Best Driving Recruitment Agency - East Midlands

CONTACT DETAILS Company: JT Recruit Limited Name: Jon Thompson Email: jon@jtrecruit.co.uk Web Address: www.jtrecruit.co.uk Address: 34 Charnwood Street, Derby, DE1 2GU Telephone: 01332 743438

“We provide an overall recruitment service which involves the processing, sourcing and attracting of candidates. We conduct pre-screening and selection of candidates for interviews, and reference checking for both temporary and permanent positions within the distribution, commercial, engineering, technical and construction sectors.

In addition to this, we have the capability to conduct additional checks, conduct validated skills assessments and tailor make a recruitment campaign specific to our client’s needs.

“Our dedicated recruitment teams are trained to deliver effective recruitment practices in consistently being able to attract a diverse workforce and closely monitor this to expand its local talent pool to ensure that the requirements of our clients are met.

“The management team takes an active involvement with Hiring Managers and decision makers to keep up-to-date with current demands,

JT Recruit is independently owned by its MD, Jon Thompson, who has over 20 years recruitment experience and is a Fellow member of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). Here we speak to Jon and find out more about the business. forecast plans, upcoming projects and the requirements. They ensure that a prompt response is given”.

We asked Jon about the processes involved in successfully matching a candidate with an employer.

When asked about the overall aims for JT Recruit, Jon responded that what they most want to provide is a comprehensive, stream lined recruitment solution that will improve the performance of their clients’ operations.

“Through all of branches we operate a CRM system, Bond Adapt, which is a leading provider of recruitment software, that manages the entire placement cycle and is the central hub of all recruitment activity. It also records and stores all of our management reporting with graphical displays.

“To achieve this, we clearly communicate at all levels in an understandable manner, we win the trust of our clients and candidates, we take ownership and we treat everyone with respect, thus developing strong working relationships.

“Our focus is to deliver exceptional cost effective recruitment practices, focusing on our goals, monitoring our performances, always thinking ahead and look for ways to improve and grow. We hope that this will in time enable us to achieve our financial aims; to achieve the £6M turnover goal!”

“Our vision is to be one of the leading recruitment agencies in the East Midlands and the agency of choice. We would like to keep building on our unquestionable reputation of providing excellent service to both clients and candidates.

“We genuinely care about doing a good job, there’s no cutting corners in our company!”.

Overall Recruitment Agency of the Year - UK & Recognised Leader in Admin/Clerical Recruitment - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Larbey Evans Name: Adele Evans (Director) Email: aevans@larbeyevans.com Web Address: www.larbeyevans.com Address: 6th Floor, 125 Old Broad Street, London EC2N 1AR Telephone: 020 7073 7812

Larbey Evans is a niche legal recruitment agency, sourcing support and management staff for UK, US and International law firms whilst providing consultative advice/guidance to clients and candidates alike. We spoke to Adele Evans, Director, to find out more.

“Our aim is to provide an unrivalled experience, ensuring that our approach is uniquely transparent within ever-changing market demands.

“A wealth of recruitment talent exists at Larbey Evans, with both of our Directors working as hands-on recruiters. We have the luxury of having Consultants with legal HR and recruitment backgrounds, which definitely sets us apart from our competitors. We tirelessly search and select for clients and candidates, ensuring that we are readily available to assist in, and out, of office hours. The benefits of us being a ‘boutique’ consultancy and having an incredibly relaxed and modern demeanour is that we truly work ‘with’ clients and candidates to achieve the results that they demand.

“The key to our success is getting to know our clients and candidates as well as we possibly can

and by genuinely going the ‘extra mile’. Continual engagement and communication is key. From the moment of instruction, to the point of a jubilant acceptance - we are here to support and guide throughout.

“Larbey Evans has always approached all recruitment directives with enthusiasm, intent and integrity and we think that these qualities in themselves have proved, in time, to be the formula for our year on year growth and reputation. We have a 100% consultant retention record since inception, which demonstrates our happy, harmonious and inclusive working environment.

Developing a unique rapport with our clients and candidates has always been a priority focus people can come back to us every few years and they are able to ‘pick-up’ with us where they left off; unsurprisingly, a lot of our referrals come through word of mouth”.

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Asked about what sets Larbey Evans apart from other recruitment firms, Adele replied that their lack of targets, and refusal to set KPIs or to cold-call prospective clients, makes them highly unusual.

“Recruitment is full of challenges and we find that’s part of the joy! The old adage ‘there are no problems, only solutions’ definitely exists within our company and as we are dealing with human beings, there will always be times of complexity.

We are empathetic consultants and can overcome anything by managing expectations with the right attitude and foresight.

“The future is incredibly bright for Larbey Evans. We aim to continue to grow organically and build our team with the very best people to further enhance our brand and vision”.

Best Education Recruitment Consultants - UK & Award for Excellence in Candidate Security Checks - UK

CONTACT DETAILS Company: London Teaching Pool Ltd. (TLTP) Managing Director: Darryl Mydat Email: info@tltp.co.uk Web Address: www.tltp.co.uk Address: 320 New North Road, Hainault, Essex, IG6 3BZ Telephone: 020 8709 6540

TLTP have dedicated consultants who personally manage roles for daily supply, short and long term and permanent positions. Darryl outlines how this personal approach sets the firm apart and helps it to achieve its overall aims.

“Our aim is to ensure we offer our clients and candidates an exceptional level of service. As such, compliance and safeguarding is at the heart of all we do, TLTP are holder of the REC Audited Award, the gold standard in safeguarding. We ensure all our candidates are fully vetted and have a clear DBS, we continually invest in our security measures; recently installing a passport and ID scanning machine and several staff attended a Safer Recruitment course held by the REC. This not only provides peace of mind for the school but also ensures all pupils are safe.

“Fundamentally we are a hands on company and always go the extra mile to ensure both the needs of

London Teaching Pool Ltd (TLTP) are a specialist Education consultancy who provide teachers, support staff and non-teaching staff to schools.

We caught up with Darryl Mydat to learn more.

the client and candidate are met. We are very active in sourcing talented candidates and understanding our client’s needs.”

with staff members, what the school’s ambitions/ plans are etc. and really get to know the school so they can find the right candidate that would fit.”

The process of sourcing new talent is a rigorous one, as Darryl explains.

Looking to the future, Darryl outlines the firm’s plans for the coming months and how these are affected by developments in the wider industry.

“Our Recruitment Consultants are very active and use many different methods to source the right candidate for the job. We have a database of 30,000 teachers that is constantly evolving. We advertise on several job boards and social media sites, carry out mail shots, hold recruitment open days, exhibit at fairs and education shows. We source candidates via social media sites including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

“Our Recruitment Consultants are proactive, and actively go out and visit schools they are recruiting for. This helps them understand the school environment, what skills/attitudes are required, meet

“Our plan is to expand by doubling the Education team and opening more offices across London. As the recruitment industry continues to evolve digitally we also want to continue tapping into the latest technology so that we are at the forefront of both candidates and client’s minds.

“Currently, our biggest challenge is the recruitment of teachers from both the UK and overseas. We are in talks with partners overseas to try and improve the flow however government restrictions on visas are a major issue.

International Executive Search Firm of the Year

CONTACT DETAILS NJF Global Holdings Ltd www.njfsearch.com London-New York-Chicago At NJF, our reputation among many of the world’s leading institutions has resulted in a prolific demand for our recruitment services and the continued expansion of our international network.

Overall, the firm’s focus is within the Trading and Technology markets. Our interrelated teams employ rigorous research methodologies to ensure that we are at the forefront of the latest trends in both spheres. Our consultants are devoted to unearthing world-class talent and guiding the right people into the right jobs.

To achieve this goal we make the individual our priority. This, in turn, strengthens our comprehensive knowledge of the market and drives our continuous research effort.

Along with taking the time to gain a deep understanding of each candidate’s technical skills and market experience, we also get to know them as people. This ensures that our efforts result in a long-term, lasting relationship for both client and candidate.

NJF is a tech-focussed company whose by-product is recruitment.

We invited Nathan Francis to tell us more.

Our Trading Practice coordinates the careers of high-performing traders, quants and data scientists across the upper echelons of quantitative managers: hedge funds, proprietary trading organizations and tech firms.

Alongside this, our Technology Practice has a track record of finding the very best developers and infrastructure experts to build world-class systems and frameworks for high frequency proprietary trading firms, hedge funds and technology start-ups.

Fundamentally, we recognize that organizations want their staff to reflect the world’s diverse population. As such, we are committed to identifying, attracting and cultivating promising talent from the broadest possible spectrum of professionals. Our continued success has enabled us to build long-standing relationships and to expand our list of contacts in a wide range of communities; this further enhances our ability to deliver and we are committed to further developing this going forward.

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Best for Pharmaceutical Recruitment Solutions 2016 - London CONTACT DETAILS Company: NonStop Recruitment Web Address: www.nonstop-recruitment.com Address: 25 Canada Square Canary Wharf, London E145LQ Telephone: 0207 986 7788

They are a fast growing firm, with a 97% NFI increase last year, and currently take on between 10 and 20 people per month for their training academy.

NonStop Recruitment’s motto is ‘Develop, Grow, Succeed’. They take people on, train and develop them to become excellent recruiters, teach them how to grow teams around them, thereby also growing the business and leading to personal, professional and business success. This is equally true for both their clients and candidates, as the consultants are true experts in their specific niches; they all work niche markets in order to gain and develop deep sector knowledge, in order to be able to best match people and opportunities.

They employ a 12-person in-house Quality Assurance team, to make sure that their aims are being recognised. Recruitment isn’t subject to statutory quality control or assurance like other industries, so this is quite rare, but NonStop Recruitment think that it is very important to have a team dedicated to

NonStop Recruitment is a Europe-wide specialist pharmaceutical, medical devices, chemical, care, digital, education and technical recruiter, with an equal passion for expertly matching top talent with great employers and training great recruiters for itself. making sure that everything they deliver is up to their high personal standards.

QA input is designed to ‘zoom out’ and ‘zoom in’, considering the bigger picture, examining the minutiae of the consultants’ activities. They have found that this approach creates stronger buy-in from consultants to the training and development process, and stops them from feeling as if they are in a KPI driven environment.

The data their QA team is able to provide means that they can know how all levels of the business are performing, ensuring nothing but the very best service.

are successful. They are a highly ethical company, and always make sure they really listen to their clients and candidates, and do not just blindly send in CVs – they make sure that opportunities proposed are truly suitable for each party.

After doubling in size last year (purely organically, with no venture capital or other cash injection), NonStop has a very clear path to grow to a 5000 headcount by 2019, through training and development of their own people, and continued success in matching top talent with great job opportunities.

One of the biggest challenges NonStop Recruitment faces is meeting expectations on both sides of the employee-employer relationship. Their consultants work incredibly hard to get the right fit for both sides.

They utilise their truly consultative approach and deep industry knowledge to make sure that appointments

Best for Temporary Driving Staff 2016 - UK & Sustained Excellence in Affordable Recruitment Solutions - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Oakwood Staff Solutions Name: Kerry Hooper Email: kerry.hooper@oakwood-solutions.co.uk Web Address: http://www.oakwoodstaff.co.uk/ Address: Charlton Fields Farm, Charlton Road, Bristol, BS31 2TW Telephone: 01275 891 764

Established over 12 years ago OAKWOOD Staff Solutions set out as a specialist driving agency in 2004. We speak with owner, Kerry Hooper, about the firm’s complete focus on delivering to both their clients and temporary drivers a unique quality service.

“I am deeply honoured to receive recognition for “Best for Temporary Driving Staff 2016 - UK & Sustained Excellence in Affordable Recruitment Solutions”. In an industry all too often focused on price rather than value for money, it is a great achievement to demonstrate a costeffective model that benefits our clients without being tempted to be cheapest. The two are very far apart.

“I believe we have achieved this award through a constant, unrelenting drive to deliver quality over quantity, with every action and decision we make being based on our clients’ and temps’ best interests.

“Fortunately, our company has a culture of fairness, equality and honesty which has been reinforced by the introduction of the Agency

Worker Regulations. Following our core values, we have fully embraced the AWR, using it as a tool to demonstrate further fairness and equality measures for our temporary drivers.

transactions. We believe this distracts from our culture of decisions only made in the best interest of all parties, as opposed to focusing on our own short term profit or gain.

“When it comes to recruitment, our strong local reputation has assisted us no end. A very high percentage of our recruited drivers are recommended by other trusted drivers, ex-drivers and even our clients. To further strengthen this, our recruitment process includes a lengthy interview/induction in person. With this, we not only explore the needs and expectations of the individual, we also look at the character of the applicant as well as the necessary skills or qualifications.

“Over the last year we have seen a sharp rise in both the opportunities we have with new clients, as well as strong organic growth from clients we have served for many years. This in turn has also increased the challenge of availability of suitable or relevantly skilled workers. To help overcome this challenge as a group OAKWOOD created a training company specialising in transport & logistics development to compliment the employment agency by attracting and assisting newly qualified workers to our industry.

“None of our staff are employed or set periodic targets based on the number of shifts or

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Most Trusted Medical Recruitment Firm 2016 -Nebraska

CONTACT DETAILS Company: OneStaff Medical, LLC Name: Todd Livingston Email: todd.livingston@1staffmedical.com Web Address: www.onestaffmedical.com Address: 11819 Miracle Hills Drive, Suite 101 Omaha, NE 68154 Telephone: 877-783-1483 OneStaff Medical has two divisions: the Client Service Division, which builds relationships directly with the medical facilities; and the Recruitment Division, which seeks out talent and builds relationships with the healthcare professionals.

Todd explains the firm’s mission and how both departments are dedicated to achieving it.

“Our overall goal is to have continued growth year over year, while maintaining our family based environment and providing industry leading customer service.

“To achieve this our highly experienced recruiters qualify each candidate to assure that each candidate is a match on all levels with the potential employer. OneStaff Medical also uses a proprietary system that creates both a candidate strength rating along with facility strength rating to assist in determining matching potentials.”

Through this approach OneStaff Medical is able

OneStaff Medical, LLC is a leading nationwide healthcare staffing company, with emphasis on the placement of nursing professionals along with allied, therapy and rehab professionals. Todd Livingston talks us through the firm and how it came to achieve the success it enjoys today.

to qualify candidates quicker and more thorough than many of its competitors, allowing for a shorter interview to start window. Despite this, the firm faces a number of challenges, particularly, as Todd explains, client’s expectations.

“Reasonable expectations being set is one challenge that continues to challenge us. It is our duty to assure the conversations needed to provide clarity and reasonable expectations happen, so both parties understand the totality of the services we are providing.”

Looking to the future, Todd emphasises the firm’s focus on growth, both for clients and the business itself.

“Moving forward we are aiming for continued growth in employment, both for our internal employees and our external employees, and are striving to become one of the largest staffing companies in the healthcare sector.”

Digital Recruiters of the Year - UK & Award for Excellence in SaaS Recruitment - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Opilio Recruitment Name: Philip Shepherd Email: philip.shepherd@opilio.co.uk Web Address: www.opiliorecruitment.co.uk Address: 48 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 2NS Telephone: 0207 183 7145

“Over the years we have consistently grown our business and we have an incredible team of passionate and intelligent people that share our love of the Digital space.

Opilio Recruitment are a digital recruitment agency with offices in London, Birmingham and Manchester. Established in London in 2010, they thought that by bringing their experiences and passions together, they could really offer clients and candidates something a little different.

We spoke to Philip Shepherd to find out more about the firm. take the time to talk to the candidates and meet them, before recommending them to employers.

We asked Philip what the biggest aim is for the company.

“When undertaking any new recruitment project, the first task we undertake is to gain a deep understanding of the clients’ business, what the key elements are of this business and how they actually make money. We then try to understand what each party in the hiring process is looking for and what success looks like for them. We then take the brief and understand the role in detail; only then do we go to market and look for profiles that fit the brief.

“Our biggest aim is to be the first point of call for clients and candidates. To achieve this, we must strive to earn lifetime loyalty from both sides, candidate and client.

Philip believes that the biggest challenge currently facing Opilio Recruitment is trying to find exceptional talent when so many opportunities exist.

“We do consider every application that is sent to us, as much as we consider the candidates that we find from our own researches. The key to finding digital talent is having trained consultants that will

“However, we are able to find this exceptional talent via our extensive network and the comprehensive talent pool we have across the UK and EMEA.

“We are working in three main sectors: Commercial (Sales – Business Development – Account Management), Technical (IT - UX/ UI – Engineering) and Marketing (SEO – PPC – Campaign Management).

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“Moving forward, the firm has an exciting future ahead. Over 90% of our clients have re-used our services over the past five years, and as such, we have a strong platform for expansion. We want to strengthen the brand of Opilio Recruitment. We have started to invest more into our marketing strategy and are building a strong online following”.

Most Successful Specialist IT Recruitment Agency - UK

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Prospectus IT Recruitment Name: Elkie Holland Email: elkie@prospectus.co.uk Web Address: www.prospectus.co.uk Address: Terminal House, Shepperton, TW17 8AP Telephone: 01932 269 563

Established in 1988, Prospectus was set up to support a niche sector of the IT market, primarily MultiValue databases or “Pick” as it was originally known. Prospectus has since sourced all sorts of other IT staff when requested.

Elkie states that “our aim is to be the “go to” place in our niche market for all contract and permanent recruitment. To achieve this aim, we work closely with our clients and candidates and try to ensure we understand their current position and their future direction and needs.”

“In order to find the best talent for our clients, we have been tracking people’s careers and progress for over 25 years now. We stay in contact with our market via traditional means and using newer methods.

“We vary our recruitment processes to the needs of the role. Sometimes we do silent database searches and hunts, and other times we incorporate

Prospectus IT Recruitment has built its reputation on professional, honest, ethical and efficient recruitment within the IT sector. We speak to Elkie Holland to find out more. advertising, marketing, networking and using social media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, even YouTube”.

Elkie believes that Prospectus is set apart by their history of working in a niche market, which was a very radical concept back when the company began.

These days, she says, it is widely recommended to specialise in a niche market and be experts, as opposed to being stretched too thin across a number of sectors.

“We are the best in our niche offering our clients the very widest range of relevant, qualified candidates available. When it comes to recruiting outside of our niche, we are still excellent as we have client knowledge and conduct focused hunts with access to most markets using modern research techniques and technology.”

“In the future, we look forward to maintaining our existing high standards and ensuring we keep up with clients’ needs.

“I firmly believe that to work a niche market successfully, you have to give back into the market wherever possible. We run an active Blog with niche industry news and articles along with some great interviews with the niche technology leaders. We also try to act as a news hub for market news by aggregating all of this news into one place under the name MV News. I think to give into the community from which we earn our income is only fair”.

Finally, we asked Elkie about the aspirations of the company going forward.

Award for Excellence in Construction Recruitment 2016 - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Rhinorecruitment.com Name: Andrew Roberts Email: andrew@rhinorecruitment.com Web Address: www.rhinorecruitment.com Address: One Caspian Point, Pierhead Street, Cardiff CF10 4DQ

Our approach is straight forward and innovative, but highly effective. We engage our clients and candidates through cutting edge technology, which is effective and easy to use, and means that we can lead the way in providing a service that is second to none.

The service we provide is built upon honesty and integrity. At Rhino, we are constantly looking at innovative ways to stand apart from our competitors and provide a seamless service that retains customers and develops long lasting relationships.

We are set apart by the service that we provide and the technology that we use to deliver it. From experience the majority of the industry still follows principles which are outdated; we are currently developing a large amount of pre-products for both employers and candidates which will allow them to buy into the Rhino brand and keep coming back.

We are engaging a number of high street retailers, and are deeply involved in a number of affiliate programs that will see us having the ability to deliver

Rhino has over 45 years’ experience in the recruitment industry, specialising in temporary and permanent, blue and white collar construction staff. Their core sectors are Build, Civil, Refurb/Shop-fitting, M&E, White Collar and Utilities. Rhino offer all of these services both on a national and international scale, and we spoke to Andrew Roberts, Director, to find out more. a suite of products and services to candidates.

As a construction agency, we are faced with two main difficulties; availability and reliability. In terms of availability, we are poised to initiate a very large national campaign to seek out and attract further construction tradesman. With regard to reliability, we have a number of schemes that will launch side by side, offering incentives and rewards to the talent pool we have and a move towards stabilising the flow of candidates in and out.

We have aspirations of being the go-to construction recruiter, and this all hinges on planting the brand into the marketplace in the right way, with the right message. It is also key that we retain our internal staff and attract top talent from our competitors. We are also in the market to grow through acquisition, and to identify partner agencies to purchase and add to our portfolio. Our continued energy and belief in what we are trying to achieve will see us move to knocking down barriers and driving a position impact on the market place.

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Best for Professional Recruitment 2016 - Japan

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Specialized Group Website: www.specialized-group.com

Specialized Group work with the internationally minded community in Tokyo and Singapore to place people in positions they will succeed in. We invited Managing Director George Leaning to tell us more.

Specialized Group are committed to developing bespoke training courses for consultants in multi-cultural environments and have invested significant time into developing a career ladder and commission system. George explains the firm’s mission and how it aims to achieve this.

Candidates in Japan are very reserved in making job moves in comparison to the rest of Asia.

Money is not the motivator it is in Hong Kong or Singapore. George showcases how the firm’s approach ensures it meets the needs of this versatile market.

“Our vision is to be the recruiter of choice for consultants, clients and candidates in our chosen markets.

“In Japan, candidates seek to understand far more about the new employer and opportunity before committing to interview or join. We reduce the uncertainty by focusing on providing the best information available to each candidate that works with us so they can make their informed decisions about what is best for them.”

“To achieve this we start with understanding people. By listening to each candidate and client carefully, we match people with the right skillsets, attitudes and expectations.

“When your Consultants are the best trained and most motivated in the market, you consistently outperform our competitors in for our clients.”

“Looking to the future, we are keen to hone our skills and slowly perfect the relationships we have, one by one. We like to be part of the Tokyo Community and to be well thought of, we hope to continue building here and in Asia.”

Moving forward, George outlines how the firm is slowly crafting its niche and enjoying perfecting its skills.

Best Multi-Sector Recruitment Specialists - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: TechNET IT Recruitment Ltd Name: Shayne Simpson Email: ssimpson@technet-it.co.uk Web Address: www.technet-it.co.uk

TechNET IT Recruitment Ltd TechNET IT is an established IT recruitment provider working across all vertical IT markets for both contract and Permanent requirements. We caught up with Shayne Simpson to learn more.

Established in 2001, TechNET IT have a deep understanding of their industry which, combined with a forward thinking approach means that the firm are able to offer bespoke recruitment services to their clients. Shayne explains how this aligns with the company’s client focused mission.

“Our aim is to provide the most dedicated and professional specialist recruitment solutions to the IT industry. We take great pride in our work and your reputation.

“As such we put significant time, effort and financial investment into finding the best talent for our clients, this ranges from job boards, advertisements, headhunting and extensive networking from our own database and consultant network. Working in vertical markets our consultants do not deviate into other areas to dilute their own talent pool.

Fundamentally we know what we are talking about.”

Recruitment is a fast paced and challenging industry,

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but as Shayne explains, it is the firm’s approach which ensures that they are successful.

“The biggest challenge is finding candidates for the most specific and niche roles, where there would appear to be no one on the active market for a new role. This is where our proactive nature comes in to play. We network and investigate to find the best talent and give them the opportunity to explore the role further. We find with our exciting client list the candidates are always keen to hear what we have to say “Moving forward Shayne states that the firm is pushing boundaries to improve its current level of service.

“Looking ahead, we are keen to develop as a business and adapt to new industry developments in order to continue to offer a market leading service to our clients.”

Best Energy, Water & Utilities Recruitment Consultants 2016 - UK CONTACT DETAILS Company: Utility People Name: Angela Peart Email: emmae@utilitypeopleuk.com Web Address: www.Utilitypeopleuk.com Address: Utility People Ltd, Breakspear Park, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP2 4TZ Telephone: 0207 317 2880

Utility People are the leading recruiter in the Utilities Industry, providing staff to electricity, gas, and water utilities, working with all leading companies, including Npower, Eon and British Gas. They also work with Regulators and Compliance companies such as Elexon as well as brokers who help larger commercial organisations to save money on their energy bills. We asked Angela Peart to tell us more about the business.

“Over the last 10 years we have gained a catalogue of detailed and in depth knowledge necessary to really understand technical roles within the industry, so we have the ability to fill these roles where other recruiters struggle. We are in a great position to really grasp our client’s needs, enabling us not only to be a great recruiter, but to also work as a trusted advisor and source of industry knowledge to our clients.

The recruitment industry has faced a lot of changes in recent years, but Angela thinks that the foundation that Utility People is built on is strong.

“Anybody can use LinkedIn and jobs boards to source candidates, but we have been building our industry network for over 10 years, and that network has become so vast that we can go above and beyond our client’s expectations when sourcing candidates to suit their needs.

“Our overall aim is simply to maintain our position as the leading recruiter in the industry by ensuring we provide the very best for our clients. Placing the right candidate with the correct skills, into the perfect place with our clients is good for their business, and means that they return to us in the future as they expand”.

“We’re a niche player and we have no plans to step outside of Utilities. Our USP is based upon our expertise and deep understanding of the industry, so when we are asked to fill non- industry roles, we usually work with, or recommend, a trusted partner.

“Over the last year we have set up the ‘rising stars’ programme, which looks at new talent and helps them develop their career within the industry.

We look at people ready to take that next step in their career, but who have not yet been given an opportunity to do so. When employers need new talent that can grow rapidly with them, we put forward the rising stars.

“A higher number of skilled people means more successful utility companies, meaning wider opportunities for Utility People. It’s a win-win situation for everyone”.

Client Choice Award: Most Innovative e-Recruitment Provider CONTACT DETAILS Company: WCN Name: Lesley Edwards Email: sales@wcn.co.uk Web Address: www.wcn.co.uk and www.wcncampus.com Address: 5-7 Bridgeworks The Crescent London SW19 8DR Telephone: +44 (0)20 8296 5908

World Careers Network plc (WCN) is a leading pioneer in the field of innovative recruitment technology. CEO and Founder, Charles Hipps, talks us through the firm and the secrets behind its success.

With over 20 years’ experience, WCN provide solutions that help organisations rapidly find the best talent by managing their entire hiring process; creating a more engaging and transparent relationship between brands and applicants and considered ‘best-in-class’ by many.

WCN to assess and hire talent.

The firm delivers specialist configurable tools spanning a broad range of client needs including volume recruitment for large corporations and household names that require a high intake of employees for similar roles, emerging talent hiring and comprehensive e-recruitment offerings for the public sector and police marketplace.

We are considered a cutting-edge provider able to respond to any changes – be they changing societal or behavioural trends from applicants or legislative changes affecting data security or information governance. WCN was hailed by the Financial Times in 1999 as “possibly the first ever paperless application system”. Since then, we have continued to build on this acclaim and help recruiters to advance their talent strategies to meet the ever demands of 21st century applicants covering both those seeking their first jobs and those involved in more experienced positions.

By providing clear insights into the requirements for great hiring velocity and results, WCN has become a proven strategic partner to some of the world’s most respected organisations – including Marks & Spencer, HM Revenue & Customs, John Lewis, JPMorgan and Credit Suisse – who trust

Headquartered in London with offices in New York, WCN trades on the London Stock Exchange under WOR and has been accredited to the high standards set by the Risk Management and Accreditation Documentation Set (RMADS) and International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).

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The WCN offering includes extensive large scale project experience, outstanding customer service, commitment to innovation and a proven track-record in creating significant savings and transformational difference for its customers. WCN’s vision is to help its customers to be able to recruit the best by utilising government-endorsed best practice processes and solutions to guide you through an implementation and eventually help with reducing recruitment time, cost and burden on resources.

With over 50,000 applications received per week, WCN ensures a focus on ensuring applications using our systems are best in class when it comes to user friendliness.

Ultimately, our dedicated assistance networks mean WCN provides extensive support 24/7 to ensure candidates and recruiters receive the help they need from our dedicated support helpdesk.

Cyber Security Recruitment Firm of the Year 2016 - UK

Yoh Solutions, a part of Day & Zimmermann, has been providing employers with the talent they need for over 70 years. Sales Director James Parkin talks us through the recruitment solutions the firm provides.

Yoh have been providing staffing solutions to employers worldwide since the 1940s specialising in the Information Technology, Cyber Security, Engineering, Healthcare and Oil & Gas markets. Today Yoh is one of the world’s largest independently owned recruitment businesses with over 350 staff and over 32 offices supporting hundreds of clients in many countries. Yoh Security has been a real success story as one of the most valued parts of the UK business. James explains the firm’s aims and how it goes about achieving them.

“Yoh aim to be the trusted recruitment partner for cyber security employers across Europe and we are already working with a long list of companies in this space. The growing specialist team in the UK are supporting clients on an increasing range of roles which in turn helps those employers secure their businesses against an evolving range of security threats.

“In addition, the team here work hard to focus on sourcing the very best talent in the industry using the latest recruitment tools. Networking face to face is a particular focus and the team travel far and wide to meet people who are making a difference in the industry and are looking for their next opportunity.

All Yoh applicants go through a rigorous screening process which is held in partnership between us and the employer; this ensures that the final matchup is always a perfect one.”

The process of sourcing talent starts with the experience the Yoh team have in the cyber security marketplace and the understanding of an employer’s business. Yoh Security is led by Nathan Powell, who is one of the most respected cyber security recruiters in the UK today with over 14 years professional experience. Nathan believes in working in partnership with the employer to truly understand their product offering, plans for growth and EVP before starting the search for the right person to join the team.

Discussing the future, James expressed his excitement at the developments which the firm was set to undertake as it works to expand and grow.

“Moving forward, we are expanding our cyber security team to better support new and existing clients within Europe and further afield, from this Yoh Security aims to become the recognised dominant player in the UK cyber security recruitment market within the next couple of years.”

CONTACT DETAILS Company: Yoh Solutions Limited Name: James Parkin Web Address: www.yoh.com Address: Building 1000, Eskdale Road, Winnersh Triangle, RG41 5TS Telephone: 01189 897 619

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With over 30 years experience in the discipline of Digital, HEXFORENSICS are listed/certified specialist providers of Cyber/Digital Forensic and Expert Witness services to the legal profession, who to date have represented clients, and Barristers in high profile international court cases.

As an extension to the provision of Expert Witness services, HEXFORENSICS provide Digital Investigation, specialist Cyber Threat, and Open Source Intelligence investigation services, as well as delivering Cyber Security and Digital Forensics Training in the UK, and the UAE [Dubai and Abu Dhabi].

For more information contact: +44 7881 625140 / +44 207 8626335 E-mail: john.walker@hexforensics.com 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London. WC2H 9JQ

Corporate Vision Recruitment Awards 2016 l 33