BEST INTERNATIONAL RECRUITMENT AGENCY 2019

Winner: VHR

VHR’s dedication to the international aviation industry is impressive and made it a worthy winner in the judges’ opinion.

International engineering recruitment organisation VHR employs 80 staff across five global offices, more than 20 different languages are spoken between them – essential as 72% of its £35m turnover derives from outside the UK.

• In 2016, with no clients or presence in the Czech Republic, VHR consulted aerospace businesses on candidate attraction problems. With the lowest unemployment rate in the EU at 2.4%, the country suffers significant labour shortages. VHR established a base there and now leads 100+ Czech employees working for Czech clients.
• The judges were impressed with VHR’s focus on ethical recruitment in the UAE, where instances of modern slavery are rapidly being reported across many industries. By seconding VHR employees onsite in UAE worksites the recruiter has been able to raise the standards of Middle East and global recruitment, client by client.
• As aerospace organisations recruit thousands to meet the demand for aircraft orders, language training for contractors is becoming vital. As well as its VHR Academy, it is embarking on large-scale language programmes for workers of Czech, Romanian and Bulgarian nationalities to seamlessly integrate into German and French facilities for Airbus, for example.
• VHR has also launched Online Aviation Training courses in partnership with Civil Aviation Technical Training Solutions, a leading training provider for major airlines and aviation workers. This was in response to the results of VHR’s annual candidate survey where 250,000 from its global candidate base wanted to develop their skillsets.
• The judges felt there were impressive companies and a diverse range included in the submissions. The case studies provided evidence the great work and innovation that international recruitment agencies have achieved in the last year.

Judges’ comments: “The business focuses on its future talent with the creation of an in-house Academy running successfully for three years. The recruiter realises the importance of multilingual knowledge and capability to be able to provide a great service to candidates and clients.”

Highly commended:

• Amoria Bond
• Talent International

SHORTLIST:

• Fircroft
• Hamlyn Williams
• Leap29
• NES Global Talent
• Opus Talent Solutions
• Robert Walters
• The Green Recruitment Company