Summer Months

Mid July and August are traditionally a little quieter for recruiters as everyone is on holiday! (Alas not me this year with a young baby!)
This year, however, we haven't really stopped as fewer requirements provides us with time to concentrate on other activities.

Fusion Investments, the recruitment investment business that I run is in negotiations with a number of existing agencies that are looking for an investment of either, money, infrastructure or expertise to build, grow and exit in the future. There are a couple of likely prospects that I am hopeful of completeing some time during Q4 2010 so watch this space.
The summer is a good time for reflection about business direction and if you are looking for an ivestment or exit, please do give me a call. We regularly receive a number of enquiries, purely making contact for some time in the future or for information and we welcome all contact. We try and offer sage advice to recruitment owners and start ups, which includes encouragement as well as discouragement where necessary. We have been approached by lots of job boards in the past months which is a sign that there is still plenty of ideas of how to improve on the current formats which will be great for the industry. We do own a job board and again continue to welcome fresh ideas.
A success story for us is from a business of ours called SNS. SNS were a new start up business that have been trading for 4 months. The MD, had been an undervalued recruiter working in a niche IT market for a number of years. SNS specialise in EPOS and Networking recruitment.
We set them up with an office, salary, car and IT infrstructure as well as a job board access etc and delivery support from the main group. The MD has unlmited access to us for delivery, business processing, support and advice if he wants to use it!
They now have regular permanent placements and contractors working and an extra sales staff member to push business further. Its a great model and I will ask the MD to write something about his experiences of Fusion Recruitment Investment in the coming weeks.

We are looking for businesses particularly in the North West, Midlands, Scotland and the South East. Call me on 0117 370 3076 for an informal discussion.

The other activity occupying a significant amoungt of my time is recruitment compliance. I have done a number of assignments over the past couple of years reviewing pre-engagement and pre-employment checks for agencies and corporates and it's a complex subject. The recruitment industry is still getting to grips with it as legislative, regulatory and client-led demands are made on the recruiter to gather pre-engagement information. Some are reasonable, others are impractical and some clients are in danger of making it impossible to do business with them! The current project is well underway and was scheduled by the organisation to run over the summer to minimise impact on the business in quieter times.

Outside of work, family life is great - We are still getting to Topsham most weekends, although as Theo is becoming more active, its becoming harder to keep him entertained on the boat. We have had a couple of long weekends and are off for a week in early September.

Call me if you would like to discuss the above on 0117 370 3076 or email jonny.hiles@fusioninvestments.co.uk

www.fusioninvestments.co.uk

May

Well, what do you know, the summer has arrived! (I am aware that I speak to soon but this is the 4th straight day or cloudless skies!)
We have all spent a few days basking in the sun over the weekend and already, the office air conditioning has broken down and our office manager is spending considerable time trying to negotiate the definition of room temperature. Is it 20 degrees or 25? Wikipedia explains more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_temperature

The second of the may bank holidays is nearly upon us and we again have had a record month. This year has been terrific for IT and Finance recruitment and as our main specialisms, we have made the most of the opportunities. I have been mapping where we place most of our business and watching the map evolve over the past 12 months, some of the biggest customers of last year have now cut back whilst others have come through in even greater numbers. Financial services is the primary industry for us and we have seen an overall increase in contractor numbers over the year, despite some the cutbacks with individual accounts. Contractor rates have increased as well as demand has increased.

Outside of Financial Services, we have recently launched a new brand, specialising in the retail market. We have supplied a number of large retailers over the years and have some well established relationships. We were approached via Fusion Investments for funding and support to launch a specialist brand and we were so impressed with the MD, his energy, passion and business plan, that we were delighted to welcome him onboard. The business is now up and running and has already made contractor placements.

If you are looking to make the most of the upturn, Fusion is a specialist recruitment investment business. We invest in start ups and existing recruitment businesses and again, looking for further opportunities so call if you would like to discuss a new venture / Joint Venture or an exit plan. My number with Fusion in 0117 370 3076.

The Hub
The Hub - The Hub is a network of recruitment specialists utilising a centralised delivery, back office and support function – or hub – hence the name.

Through partnership, The Hub provides the delivery capability, infrastructure & support of a recruitment plc to independent recruiters utilising our significant resources.

The Hub is part of a recruitment plc – one of the largest independent recruitment organisations in the UK with a multi-discipline delivery capability. Browse these pages to learn more about The Hub how we can help you to open up new channels and maximise revenue from your existing business.

Outside of work, we have spent the past few weekends in Topsham now that the boat is back on the water. Topsham is just gorgeous and we really enjoy our days out on the River Exe. Theodore has had his first couple of gentle sailing trips down the river and seems to have taken to it. We are taking it easy as we don't want to scare him - we are working up to a Dartmouth trip soon. I have my first boys weekend away planned with some of my old crew-mates from the round the world race f, although Domino is very different from the 60' Ocean racing yacht that we were on, but I am sure will be equally enjoyable.


If you would like to discuss any of the above, please contact me on 0845 117 0115 or email - jonny@recruitment-hub.com.

Website for The Hub - www.recruitment-hub.com
Website for Fusion - www.fusioninvestments.co.uk

Hope all are well?

Jonny Hiles

t'was the week before Christmas............

.........and the recruitment industry was winding down, except we aren't! It's mid December and we are having a good month taking new vacancies and enquiries from prospective Recruitment Partners.


Infact we have a couple of interesting initiatives running over the Christmas and New year period, which we are looking forward to as a direct result of http://www.recruitment-wave.com, Twitter and the UK Recruitment Directors Group - proof again that professional / social media works. More about these in future posts if all works out in the way that we anticipate.

So what will you and your business be doing over Christmas? We will still have plenty of staff in to help with any vacancies between now and January 4th, therefore if you need extra resources over this period, contact me in the usual way and we have plenty of resources available, especially with contract vacancies which tend to be the urgent requests. We have seen a big rise in perm vacncies and have received fewer contract roles recently and I would love to re-address the balance!

I will be taking a few days out over Christmas, but as I live near the office, can and will be around if needed. I will access email etc regularly and so either I or a colleague will respond to all requests.

I hope that the baby doesn't arrive over Christmas! We wouldn't want him or her to arrive to early, although we can barely contain our excitement as January approaches. The due date is mid / late January so not far now and if he or she arrives over Christmas, they may always feel unrewarded in the way that people with birthdays over the Christmas period often do.
My present is of course a healthy son / daughter and Jojo and I have cut back on present buying this year. We have also entered into a secret Santa deal with family this year as we know that everyone will want to buy lots of gifts for the baby when we find out whether beanie is a little boy or girl. At the moment, everything is neutral in colour and we are looking forward to adding some colour to the nursery and outfits.
I have to say that the recent pinkstinks campaign to disuade parents from dressing little girls in pink seems ridiculous and there is no way that Jojo or our mothers / aunts, sisters etc will not be buying pink outfits if beanie is a little girl! Surely, aaspirations are inspired and encouraged by parents, family and surroundings and we intend to provide the very best we can.

We had a great day in Topsham again at the weekend and will be spending the odd day down there over Christmas as we have some jobs to do on Domino while she is on the hard. I will have finished the nursery over the coming weekend so will have a bit of time to relax and have my last drink somewhere between Christmas and New Years so I intend to make the most of the time I have left!

For further information, please visit www.recruitment-hub.com or http://jonnyhub.blogspot.com/

If you would like to discuss further, please give me a call on 0845 117 0 115 or send your details to info@recruitment-hub.com

1) The Hub is a split fee recruitment business.
2) Send vacancies that you are unable or struggling to fill to us.
3) We will source candidates and present a short list to you.
4) You brand the candidates and send the shortlist to the client.
5) When the placement is made, we split the fee.

The Hub is part of a £100m + recruitment group and uses their combined delivery capability and infrastructure to deliver applications for our recruitment partners. Our recruitment partners generate the vacancy, we find the candidates, the partner maintains contact with the client, we speak to the candidate and split the fee when the placement is madeIf that could be of use, for any vacancies that you struggle with, then please let me know.


I am also the owner of a Linkedin Group, specifically for Directors of UK Recruitment businesses. To join, you must be a Director of a UK based recruitment company - Simple!

It provides a great opportunity to network and share views.

Link can be found here - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?homeNewMember=&gid=1962486&trk=

Info about me can be found at http://www.recruitment-hub.com or http://jonnyhub.blogspot.com

UK Recruitment Directors

Hello! I hope that you enjoyed the guest blog from Mike Wedge of Sticky Media last week. If anyone else would be interested in guest blogging, please let me know!

The Hub continues and despite the blip a couple of weeks a go, November has been a busy month. A number of new partners have joined the network and we are very active with live roles which we hope will resolve before Christmas. We have this morning, taken another 7+ IT vacancies from a new recruitment partner and December is looking good. Just as well that we are expanding our team! One of our partners has even informed us that from January, he will begin to use The Hub for all candidate delivery to his agency, allowing his employees to concentrate purely on business development!

Recruitment Partners typically find out about The Hub via referral or via our now establised social media channels and I am a big believer in the value to be gained from social / professional media, once you get your head around using them. The vast majority of our business has come from a free source - i.e. we havent paid to advertise! I am by no means an expert in social / professional networking tools and because we didn't want to spend loads on advertising at the outset, we had to find alternatives. There are a host of mediums that a business can use nowadays to advertise their wares and some are industry specific whilst others work for general cross market services.

My preferred network tool is Linkedin which is widely used by the recruitment industry. Linkedin allows you to build a network of colleagues, clients and associates and once established with a decent sized web of 1st degree contacts, search for other users that are linked to your contact (within a couple of degrees).
Once connected you are notified of status updates and able to search for contacts by job title or by company or organisation. - Its easy to see how why this is of use to recruiters!

One of the things that I set up a few months back was the UK Recruitment Directors Group. The UKRDG is a space for Directors of UK based recruitment businesses to network and discuss news, experiences and issues. We have a diverse membership and some interesting debates. Members include IT, Finance, HR etc agencies but also plenty of niche companies including a lift (Elevator) specialist recruitment business and, a helicopter pilot recruiter. We now have over 300 member companies and new membership applications every day. The group has been a success and we are currently considering replicating the group out of linkedin, onto a dedicated forum.
If you are not a member yet and would be interested in joining, please let me know.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?homeNewMember=&gid=1962486&trk=

Christmas will soon be upon us and things will be slowing down over the festive period. It is always difficult to predict what Christmas will be like for a recruitment business and some years i have sat around twiddling my thumbs whilst I also remember placing 7 SAP contractors between Christmas and New Year! I hope that we will be busy but also get the time to relax with family.

It's going to be a bit of a funny christmas this year for the Hiles household. Jo will be 8 months pregnant and have finished work, whilst I will be reactive to Hub requests and slightly unsure of whether I will be at home or in the office. Jo is of course not drinking and our focus is really January and the arrival of the baby rather than Christmas day. Christmas day, we are going to Browns for lunch so no washing up!

My weekends have gone from sailing Domino in Topsham and a few drinks to buying baby stuff and decorating. The past few weekends have been spent decorating the nursery and hall, whilst the next couple of weekends will be spent decorating our bedroom. We have even replaced the double glazing and spent goodness knows how much on goodness knows what! Thankfully, we have some very generous parents, greatly looking forward to the arrival of the 1st grandchild on both sides.

Yesterday, after fitting the new light in the nursery and attempting to hang a blind, Jo and I unwrapped the new Bugaboo Chameleon. I cannot believe how complex and expensive buggies are! - especially when you spend just under £1000 in John Lewis on the buggy and car seat and then have to assemble the buggy as its flat packed.

Bugaboo do very nicely out of John Lewis. It seems that you cant have something cheap, practical and lightweight when it comes to buggies. The staff at JL in Bristol appear to take every set of new parents through the same circuit when showing the buggies, starting at the cheaper but heavier / less practical ones and eventually arriving at the bugaboo. As a father, you of course do not want your wife / partner to struggle with a heavy buggy and so you end up by buying the expensive bugaboos or icandys.

The really strange thing though is that you dont mind and want your baby to have the best buggy they can and nicely decorated nursery. It must be that something is built into us all about wanting the best for our children, even before we meet them.
Beanie is due January 23rd and I can't wait!

More about me on this blog - http://jonnyhub.blogspot.com or about The Hub at http://www.recruitment-hub.com

1) The Hub is a split fee recruitment business.
2) Send vacancies that you are unable or struggling to fill to us.
3) We will source candidates and present a short list to you.
4) You brand the candidates and send the shortlist to the client.
5) When the placement is made, we split the fee.

The Hub is part of a £100m + recruitment group and uses their combined delivery capability and infrastructure to deliver applications for our recruitment partners. Our recruitment partners generate the vacancy, we find the candidates, the partner maintains contact with the client, we speak to the candidate and split the fee when the placement is madeIf that could be of use, for any vacancies that you struggle with, then please let me know.

Topsham Town Page: Personal & Blogs

Topsham Town Page: Personal & Blogs

Cyclical Recruitment

Has it really been two weeks since my last post? Where do the days go?
We have received positive feedback from our www.Recruitment-Wave.com ideas and thank you to all that sent us a message. Also welcome to all of the new members of the UK Recuitment Directors Group on linkedin. We added 50 new recruitment businesses in a week!

Professionally, I am pleased that August is out of the way. It's not that I dont like the sun, its that fact that everyone is on holiday. The week either side of the bank holiday was the quietest couple of weeks we have known all year. Our Recruitment Partners were working, but applicants were hard to find and client decision makers were all away!

We picked up a recruitment consultant role in birmingham from one of our partners which we had a look at as we thought that it would be very straightforward. We placed an advert on Reed on the Friday evening, anticipating a huge response, only to find that we had received one application by Tuesday morning. It really was just a consultants role with £18k basic, but we should have been inundated. We opened the role up to Monster and Total Jobs in the end and still very few responses.

Now that we are back in September, life returns to normality and the cyclical recruitment market starts up again. I think that I may have mentioned in a previous post that the year for a recruitment consultant tends to look like this -

January - 1st two weeks are quiet but then busy busy! +the long wait til payday
February -busy busy but short month so commission may not be great.
March - gets a little quieter as clients have run out of budget!
April - 2nd half is manic
May - manic and a lots of working days so good commission
June - busy and make the most of it as summer will soon be with us!
July - holiday season (need I say more!)
August - holiday season
September - typically a great month, contractors do lots of hours to recoup holiday costs
October - busy busy
November - busy busy
December - 2nd half quieter but activity switches to renewals of contractors

Of course, January and September are normally months where people look for new employment having had some time away from the office to think about life!

So, because of the way that the year works, agencies are able to anticipate what the month is likely to throw at them and allocate resources and budget and maximise the opportunity. This year has seen some spectacular lows and quiet months but the boom times will come again.

The Hub concept supports a recruitment agency business by providing a professional flexible resoucing team that you only use when all of your resources are tied up. We use the resources of the £120m recruitment plc to find the best available candidates for your role, which you then deliver to your client. When we place, we split the fee! It really is a very simple model.

Aside from delivery, we can offer recruitment business support and consultancy and this is an area that it growing for us. Once again, we just use the groups resources but becuase of our size, we know what we are doing and how to maximise revenue and opportunity. Call me if you would like further info.

We have been spending our weekends down in Topsham, enjoying the boat whilst we can. Pilotage on the Exe is interesting, and really not as complicated as you may initially think although we havent tried it after dark yet! We took Domino across the Bar at Exmouth this weekend. My ancestors would have known the run down the Exe, out across the bar into Lyme bay well, as well as the various pubs in Topsham that would have provided hospitality to them upon their return as they do for us now. It is nice to follow in footsteps sometimes. The entrance to Exmouth is notorious and lumpy and poor Jojo was ill, which oddly had the most wonderful side effect as she felt the baby or beanie as it is currently known, began to kick for the first time on Saturday evening and has been kicking ever since. We may have another sailor on our hands!

Watching Jo climb off of the tender, up the ladder onto the stern of the boat is becoming more and more nerve-racking so we know that we will not be able to do it for much longer. I thoroughly enjoy life on a boat and actually had forgotten how much I really do enjoy it. I am grateful that I did loads for a while and gained the experience and the skills I have. I am in a very fortunate place at the moment with a great and healthy family, a job that I enjoy and believe in and of course a baby on the way! I was reminded of how fortunate I am when I watched a disabled couple struggling to cross the road this morning. We are very fortunate not to have that constant struggle and sometimes not as grateful as we perhaps should be. I will make a donation to a local charity today.

If you would like to discuss anything contained in this blog, please call Jonny Hiles at The Hub on 0845 117 0 115 or email info@recruitment-hub.com

More detail on The Hub at www.recruitment-hub.com or via the pages on this blog - http://jonnyhub.blogspot.com

Jonny Hiles