Winner: Tara Ricks: Principal, Elite Leaders

Currently a principal at recruitment business consultancy Elite Leaders, Tara has been described as a shining example of what ‘great’ looks like in the recruitment industry.

With nearly 30 years of industry experience, her career has included the development of the highly prestigious and financially successful Joslin Rowe & Associates recruitment brand. At the time of its sale to global giant Randstad in 2008, it was the largest privately-owned recruiter in its field. Tara continued to lead the business, rebranded and reorganised as Randstad Financial & Professional and Interim Executives, for the next seven years.

Now as non-executive director, consultant and advocate, Tara is known for her recruitment business expertise, her integrity and determination to help those she works with succeed.

She is described as “genuine, funny, intelligent, articulate…and bloody great at her job”!

Congratulations, Tara!

Winner: Morgan McKinley

The Morgan McKinley Group is a global recruitment consultancy, established in 1988, which is synonymous with the banking and financial services sector. Having initially built its reputation in the Square Mile, the recruiter has since been able to recruit into international banking locations including Dublin, Toronto, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney.

• Over the course of 2017/18, Morgan McKinley achieved high levels of engagement in the City and beyond through its consistent monthly presence in the financial press, principally driven by the firm’s monthly London Employment Monitor (LEM), one of the key recognised barometers of the health of the sector.
• In 2018, Morgan McKinley showed excellent client service when working with Barclays to build out a risk function in Dublin as a result of Brexit. Also the judges were impressed with diligence of the team building out the risk function in Dublin overall and Nicola McGuane in particular. The result was high-quality candidates, a 93% CV-to-interview rate and placements made, with the client still hiring for open positions.
• A particularly challenging situation with a candidate at interview was extremely well handled, resulting in not only preventing possible negative comeback from the candidate but also an appointment made, and an even better relationship and continuing positive future with the client.
• The judges were impressed with the company’s Live Chat offering, which gave candidates and clients anonymity but with human interaction rather than an automated chatbot-type service. Customers get a much faster response than any other channel.
• This was a broad market, which has firms who have had a position within it for many years. The judges recognised that new technology is becoming the differentiator in a competitive market, so those shortlisted are the best of the best in what they do and how they do it.

Judges’ comments: “Delivered excellent results in tough and challenging market conditions with the finance industry and Brexit. Morgan McKinley provides a high quality of service at all levels of the business, driven by great leaders who demonstrate and drive great values and culture.”

SHORTLIST:

• Broadgate Search
• Grovelands
• Harrington Starr
• Investigo
• Paul Harper Search & Selection
• Robert Walters
• Sanderson

Winner: The Barton Partnership

The judges asked what would great client service look like, and The Barton Partnership fitted the bill, along with demonstrating strong financial performance and growth.

The Barton Partnership is a niche consultancy providing permanent recruitment and independent consulting support on an interim basis within the strategy, transformation & change and M&A arenas in London, New York, and across Europe and Asia.

• Examples of excellent value-add for clients include organising and hosting a strategy/transformation/M&A conference for the third year running, attended by 200 organisations from the strategy and transformation sector; hosting regular roundtables with senior strategy leaders; and launching Hourly Consulting, a portal connecting contractors with clients for when a subject matter expert is needed for a number of hours rather than days.
• An example of the outstanding client service was for a client who was using a multi-agency approach and experienced a lack of quality delivery before Barton stepped in. As a result of Barton’s service, the company substantially scaled back the number of agencies it engaged and dramatically improved its time-to-hire at senior level.
• The results have led to a 53% increase in year-on-year turnover, a 26% YOY increase in profit and a 67% increase in headcount. As a result of the ongoing financial growth, Barton was able to acquire The Shackleton Group in Singapore, as well as open physical offices in New York and Paris.
• Barton established a standalone division that takes on consultancy projects through an in-house team of consultants. Through this division, 85% of clients have returned within 12 months for help with another project.

Judges’ comments: “The Barton Partnership demonstrated more than any other some great examples of innovative practices designed to improve service. They showed plenty of signs of moving the image of the recruitment consultancy forward with its service offering.”

SHORTLIST:

• ASAP Pertemps
• BOWER Talent
• Bramwith Consulting
• Class People
• Darwin Recruitment
• fdu
• ISE Partners
• Kite Human Capital
• Net Talent
• Trust in Soda

Winner: Service Care Solutions

The winner, Service Care Solutions (SCS), provides temporary and permanent recruitment services to public and private sector organisations nationwide. Sectors include healthcare, social work, legal, construction, trades & labour, and offender rehabilitation.

• From supporting candidates with buying essential equipment through to providing a professional development fund, SCS provided a stand-out service to candidates.
• The winner demonstrated three excellent examples of the highest levels of candidate care going the extra mile for the people they help place. One example was the SCS consultant hand-delivering specialist protective equipment to a candidate who was due to start a job the next day – a 90-mile round trip – as a courier could not be found in time.
• SCS candidate care offering forms a core part of the training programme all trainee consultants undertake and is closely monitored by the senior management team at SCS. Consultants don’t simply identify a candidate’s need for a position but they discuss future goals and aspirations with them. Each candidate is also given an annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD) fund of £250.
• Obvious benefits to outstanding candidate care shows itself in reduced candidate turnover, a deeper understanding of SCS’s markets from knowing candidates personally, improved response times and a referral rate of 35%.
• The judges said it was good to see so many dedicated recruitment companies focused on providing excellent service to candidates across both the UK and internationally. The judges were impressed to see the extra advice and services they are offering to help support a wide range of candidates in their next career moves. There were some outstanding examples backed up by testimonials showing how they have gone above and beyond.

Judges’ comments: “The testimonials supporting Service Care Solutions highlighted the esteem that the candidates they work with hold them in.”

SHORTLIST:

• Bramwith Consulting
• CarmichaelUK
• Grovelands
• Intuitive Interim & Exec Search
• MLC Partners
• PeopleScout
• Social Personnel

WINNER: The AA Ready for ANYTHING? Challenge: The AA in partnership with PeopleScout

In a category where expectations are high, the shortlisted companies stood out ahead of others for their professionalism and depth. Although the judges were surprised by the gulf in quality between those making the shortlist and those not, there was no question that the winner’s commitment to innovation – delivered in a cohesive way – made it impossible to ignore as the leading entry.

• In conjunction with People Scout, the AA created a campaign to broaden its reach, inspire whole families and create brand advocates to encourage friends and family to join
• The AA’s ‘Ready for ANYTHING? Challenge’ was a high-impact and memorable campaign, designed to have a lasting effect and provide content for resharing on social media platforms
• Taking to Birmingham’s Bullring and Gateshead’s Metro Centre – which enjoy huge footfall within the catchment area of the AA’s large contact centres – the challenge saw six willing contestants take to the stage to see if they were ‘ready for anything’. As a screen flickered with the challenges, contestants pressed a huge AA-yellow button to stop on a particular task
• Hosted by Ashley Taylor Dawson from Hollyoaks, the challenges included eating cupcakes topped with wasabi, walking barefoot along an AA-yellow brick road, and dunking for stars in bowls of jelly and custard. Similar to I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, and with Strictly Come Dancing quarter-finalist Dawson hosting, the campaign captured the attention of 16-34 year-old possible hires and their wider families
• Using social media to promote the event before, during and after, the campaign forwarded all traffic on to theaacareers.co.uk resulting in 5,000 people visiting the site during the Newcastle event and 7,100 in Birmingham. In addition, applications increased by more than a third in both areas and the company secured 23 hires between the respective areas as a result

Judges’ comments: “There was a clear winner in this category with a stand-out campaign with innovative content that was joined up. The judges commented that they would have been proud to have come up with this creation and were highly impressed with the quality delivered.”

SHORTLIST:

• UK Recruitment/Brand Awareness Campaign: Bombardier Transportation in partnership with TMP Worldwide
• How far will Curo go for Microsoft contractors: Curo Talent
• Summer Campaign: Harrods in partnership with Pink Squid
• Make every journey better: Heathrow in partnership with Blackbridge Communications
• Beat the Game Changers: Vodafone in partnership with Pink Squid

WINNER: Saville Assessment

Working to provide its clients with the tools needed to recruit the right people into different roles, Saville Assessment continuously has improved its offerings to provide assessments that best predicted workplace performance. Achievements during the voting period include developing 70 bespoke assessments and reports, introducing ground-breaking assessment technology, combining delivery with tangible return on investment (ROI) metrics and going over and above for its 874 clients.

• Assessment tools introduced by Saville Assessment included Wave-powered video interviewing, a job analysis app called Role Fit and a Group Analytic Tool to allow recruiters to analyse recruitment data more effectively to understand the trends related to the types of people they attract for applications
• Among the companies utilising the assessment tools on offer were Heathrow Airport, Johnson & Johnson, and Fujitsu, with the later using a specially-designed graduate assessment process to improve the number of BAME and female candidates it attracted
• Saville Assessment helped Fujitsu increase the proportion of BAME candidates appointed to roles double in 12 months, as well as employ its highest ever number of female candidates
• As a thought-leading organisation in the professional community, Saville Assessment has held a number of Talent Transformation Days to share insights, published articles and white papers to help in the understanding of the assessment arena, and spoken regularly at events and conferences on its experience with the selection process
• Looking to the future, Saville Assessment also has key insights for what is ahead, noting issues such as automation, artificial intelligence, diversity & inclusion, and the power of the company brand as trends the sector should be keeping an eye on in the weeks and months to come

JUDGES’ COMMENTS: “The winners deserved their award due to a commitment to increasing diversity and inclusion opportunities throughout its client base, and displaying a masterful use of technology. They were consistently the highest-rated thought leaders in the category.”

SHORTLIST:

• Amberjack
• Azuki Accounts
• Candidate Source
• com
• CloudCall
• CV-Library
• Firefish Software

Winner: Hinterview

Hinterview is a full-service video platform that works through the full 360 recruitment cycle. The company is 20 strong, and through its passionate staff has maintained a 100% retention rate throughout 2018.

The platform is split into Hinterview and Hintro. Hintro allows the recruiter to quickly record and share a video introduction with clients or candidates using just a link through email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, text etc. Hinterview allows hiring managers to assess personality, team fit and ultimately have a more informed decision of who to spend time interviewing.

• The category overall reflected how technology is evolving in the recruitment sector. The judges liked the fact that Hinterview was built by recruiters for recruiters – selling the platform only to recruitment agencies. It significantly reduces the send-out-to-placement ratio and subsequently reduces the recruitment-to-hire ratio for clients by over 70%. The results are impressive, obtaining 100 customers in the Oct 17-Oct 18 period, 150% ahead of target.
• The judges liked the video testimonies from clients in the submission, sharing its effectiveness after adopting the video technology. For example, increasing candidate attraction by 20% within the first three months; a large, global recruiter adopted Hinterview in all of its 26 locations and billed £76k in just six weeks; and one SME recruiter eliminated all first-stage interview with four clients and made multiple placements from Hinterview’s candidates.
• Financially, after securing £600k in a second round of investment, turnover increased by 408%, financial targets were exceeded by 75% and the company has zero debt.
• Three new developers and a product director have been taken on to develop and ensure the highest priority features are delivered as soon as possible. The product team works very closely with its userbase to ensure that every new feature fits the workflow of recruiters.

Judges’ comments: “This is a great example of taking a technology – like video-interviewing – and evolving it for the sector. Built by recruiters, it represents true innovation that meets a need. Impressive growth and lots of personality shines through this entry. These people seem to really like what they do.”

SHORTLIST:

• 4MAT
• Amberjack
• Capp & Co
• Chris Curd Design
• CloudCall
• Morson International
• Syft

Winner: NES Global Talent

NES Global Talent has been delivering compliant workforce solutions for clients for more than 40 years, as of 2018. The company provides candidates across the oil & gas, power, infrastructure, life sciences, manufacturing, chemicals and mining sectors worldwide.

This category demonstrated the impact of market conditions, transformation and change on the recruitment industry and how outsourced recruiters have to respond to the climate of change, while delivering to customers’ needs.

• The judges were amazed that NES Global Talent achieved this for their clients within oilfield services & equipment, subsea engineering and manufacturing sectors across the 50+ countries it works in.
• Services offered include recruitment process outsourcing (on-site recruiters and off-site admin and support staff); externals, temps and contractors MSP solution, delivered by on-site recruiters, supported by NES office ops teams; and an Immigration Support team and Onboarding Support team, provided in partnership with AMS.
• An example of excellent outsourced recruitment occurred in July 2017, when one of NES’ clients merged with another oil & gas company. This meant that the RPO would now cover the hiring needs of an organisation that was almost 80,000 strong, double the size of the original company. NES was given less than six weeks’ notice of this increased scope, requiring the recruiter to double the size of its teams and ensure that team members were fully trained up not just on legacy products but also systems, processes and personnel to do with the newly-merged company. The vice president of talent acquisition for the client said: “NES enabled us to remain cost-efficient by keeping agency hires to below 1% across the Eastern Hemisphere, and have maintained over 95% hiring manager satisfaction, in a very challenging environment.”
• Throughout the submission, the judges were impressed with the levels of service demonstrated by NES teams across the globe, growing the team within a year (Oct ’17 – Oct ’18) from 23 to 73 recruiters, and recruiting 4,626 permanent hires and 1,312 contractors in that same time period. An outstanding entry, said the judges.

Judges’ comments: “Set against a backdrop of a highly competitive decline in the oil & gas industry, NES Global Talent demonstrated exceptional levels of agility, tenacity and resilience in relation to their approach to budgets, the commercials and attraction.”

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

• Omni RMS

SHORTLIST:

• Amberjack
• Biffa in partnership with GRI
• Green Park
• PeopleScout
• Hovis in partnership with Seven Search & Selection
• Volt Consulting Group

Winner: NES Global Talent

NES Global Talent provides candidates across the energy, infrastructure, life sciences, manufacturing, chemicals and mining sectors worldwide. The company has 20 dedicated compliance personnel forming part of the commercial and legal team.

• Compliance personnel are based in six locations across the globe: UK, USA, Australia, Malaysia, UAE and Norway. The company’s geographical spread ensures it fully understands the intricacies of regional legislation and is able to support clients to ensure compliance wherever in the world their project may be.
• Staff compliance training is comprehensive throughout the company. For example, Expected Business Conduct is delivered to all 850+ support and recruitment staff across the globe; commercial compliance is given to assignment support and recruitment teams (nearly 600 people in total); legal compliance for sanctions is mandatory for all staff, with various other legal requirements in different countries delivered where appropriate.
• NES ensures the company is up to date with the latest regulatory requirements through a group commercial & legal director with 30+ years’ experience, and supporting him are eight region-specific managers/officers, who keep the business on top of the latest governmental and legal requirements in their regions and ensure all contracts are risk assessed. They attend conferences, regular legal briefings from government and regulatory bodies, as well as law firms. Importantly, most are solicitors, undertaking continuing professional development to maintain their qualifications.
• NES also updates its clients, which are all assigned a dedicated account management team, including a compliance officer. A monthly compliance bulletin is circulated to all clients, highlighting the regulatory issues they need to be aware of. NES has also built an online Learning Management System, which contains specific regulatory training courses. Clients can take advantage of the training courses or even host their own on the system, and monitor staff completion and levels of understanding through NES’ reporting dashboard.
• The judges saw that compliance is an important factor for every team at NES, wherever they are based in the world, and not just the responsibility of one person. Compliance is a combination of the Commercial & Legal team, Assignment Support, Finance, Operations and the Executive management team who all work together to ensure the compliance standard in the industry is set as high as it can be.

Judges’ comments: “NES Global Talent operates in highly complex and high-risk markets. The firm demonstrated ongoing excellence and awareness. No stone has been left unturned here from a compliance perspective – a worthy winner.”

SHORTLIST:

• Coyle Personnel
• Day Webster
• Liquid Personnel
• Rullion