Making a difference through talent acquisition and talent development
We were founded by our Managing Director, Fiona Wilson, in 2009 as a specialist talent agency, providing services to organisations for professionals. Previously Fiona (pictured) had acquired vast experience of the recruitment industry, working for Adecco, Kelly Services, and Hobsons.
We are proudly independent. Since those early days, we’ve grown organically: we have financed our growth from investment of our trading surpluses, rather than through debt or external investment.
We now comprise three teams, dedicated respectively to:
Account management
Maria McNiven & Andrea Montgomery
Search
Lina Beynar & Olga Lupu
Administration and communication
Anthony Haynes, Karen Haynes, & Josh Turner
Case studies and testimonials
In exit surveys, our clients report that they find us:
‘insightful’‘refreshing’
‘responsive’
‘trusted advisers’
‘straightforward to deal with’
For accounts of our impact, please see our Case Studies page.
Our values
Many of our clients have published formal statements of their values, and we notice that they frequently refer to them - both publicly, notably in annual reports, and in their dealings with us, for example in briefing meetings.
Our team suggested therefore that we should reciprocate with our own statement, so we invited their thoughts on what to include. The only stipulations were that we should avoid:
- Corporate ‘blah’, based on good intentions rather than evidence
- Generalised claims that most organisations make
Here is our resulting statement of values:
- We like not only to make a difference, but to make a worthwhile difference. The clients and the roles we deal with tend to have a discernible social purpose - and this in turn motivates our team. In short, we like to see the point!
- We subscribe to a cluster of values best expressed by such terms as ‘credibility’, ‘candour’, and ‘realism’. For example: (a) when we can see potential difficulties with a brief, we like to alert clients; (b) we don’t believe in putting forward candidates for the sake of it (and we hate the false hope that can create); and (c) we seek strenuously to avoid over-promising.
- All this requires us to be readily communicative. In particular, we (a) seek to work in partnership, with a good deal of back and forth between ourselves and our clients, (b) recognise that keeping in touch, regularly, is better than keeping our stakeholders guessing; and (c) recognise the need to provide informed feedback.
And, despite our desire to eschew generalised statements, we can’t resist including our number one value, which is that we habitually do business with a personal touch. In the talent industry, that should go without saying - but there’s a danger that can get lost amidst a focus on technology and numbers. We don’t let that happen: as our Case Studies page illustrates, we don’t lose sight of the ‘human’ in human resource management.