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New to Market

14 April 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, Engineering

NEW TO THE MARKET: 14-18 APRIL 2025

• Manufacturing and engineering specialist Busy Bee Recruitment has relaunched its website. The refreshed online platform has a modern design and enhanced user functionality, offering an intuitive browsing experience that makes it easier than ever to explore current vacancies, submit CVs quickly and securely, access expert recruitment advice via a blog and submit vacancies directly online.

• Deel, a global payroll and HR provider, has launched a suite of AI-driven products to help companies hire, manage, and pay international teams. Deel will offer an all-in-one global workforce platform integrating payroll, HR, and IT, designed to support compliant operations across borders. Key updates include: Real-Time Payroll in over 53 markets (expanding to 130+ by 2027), offering instant calculations and faster processing; Deel PEO for offering top-tier benefits without enterprise-level costs; Benefits Admin for simplified, compliant benefits management across countries; Deel Talent for streamlined recruitment via trusted agency networks; Workforce Planning, Compensation, and Engage tools – powered by AI – for smarter headcount strategy, global pay management, and employee development; IT Lifecycle Management features like MDM, IAM, and EPP, supporting global device and security control.

11 April 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, IT/Telecoms

Spotted Zebra merges Interview Intelligence and Assessment in one platform

This is technology that transcribes, analyses and evaluates conversations through an AI-powered lens. The merger connects assessment results with interview data, addressing the growing challenge enterprise talent leaders face: making confident, objective hiring decisions when candidate information can be fragmented across multiple tools.

In a statement, Spotted Zebra says that enterprise talent acquisition teams are facing twin pressures from AI-generated candidate applications and deepening skills shortages. 

The launch responds to a critical market challenge, the statement continues; while more than three in four businesses report widening skills gaps, employers are inundated with applications with around half of all jobseekers using AI tools to apply for roles. Current solutions force companies to choose between expensive, disconnected systems or compromise on either assessment breadth and depth, or a scalable interview process and structure.

“We’ve integrated Interview Intelligence with Assessment because our enterprise customers are facing unprecedented challenges in talent acquisition,” said Ian Monk, co-founder and CEO of Spotted Zebra. “By unifying these previously siloed technologies, we’re enabling talent teams to make data-informed decisions based on a complete picture of each candidate’s capabilities.”

Unlike standard Interview Intelligence tools that primarily transcribe conversations, Spotted Zebra’s implementation establishes a data framework that truly connects skill measurements across different evaluation methods:

  • Real-time skill evidence mapping: Comprehensive role skills profiles are automatically created thanks to AI-powered intake meetings between recruiters and hiring managers. 
  • AI-assisted interview questioning technology: The AI-powered Interview Guides automatically generate targeted question paths for specific role skills profiles and each candidate.
  • Consolidated hiring evidence dashboard: The Decision Kit combines summarised skill data from both assessment scores and interview evidence, weighting each source appropriately based on predictive validity for specific skill types. 

According to the company statement, AI in Spotted Zebra enhances human decision-making, ensuring the final call on a candidate’s suitability for a role is objective, data-backed and always in the hands of the hiring team.

Headquartered in the UK, Spotted Zebra was launched in 2020 by Monk and co-founder and chief commercial officer Nick Shaw.

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10 April 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, Executive search

NEW TO THE MARKET: 7-11 APRIL 2025

• UK recruitment firm HRGO has launched ‘Betty’, an AI agent tackling recruitment ghosting by ensuring all job applicants receive feedback. Since its December 2024 launch, Betty has provided personalised insights to over 40,000 candidates. A survey of 1,000 users found 90% valued the feedback, addressing a major frustration in the hiring process at scale. Betty was named after Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Parkinson, the founder of HRGO back in 1957.

• Recruitment firm Sowena Group has moved into new headquarters in Manchester city centre. Perran Cooke launched Sowena Group last summer after more than a decade in the recruitment industry, including roles as regional MD for the North at executive search company PSD Group and as a director at Axon Moore. Sowena now has a team of five and has taken office space at The Tootal Buildings on Oxford Street. The company statement says Sowena Group is expected to deliver more than £650k in revenue this year.

Senior recruitment consultants Dave Kreitz and Mackenzie Harrop have joined Sowena in recent weeks, along with Leah Allen as head of marketing and Megan Buckley as marketing executive. Cooke said he expects the team to grow to 10 by the end of this year, creating roles for recruitment consultants, back office and support staff, market research specialists and a non-executive director. Sowena Group focuses on senior finance posts in high-growth and private equity and venture capital-backed businesses across the North-West and beyond.

3 April 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, Executive search

Dragon-backed Chapter 2 boosts talent offering with transformation service

Backed by Steven Bartlett (from BBC Dragons’ Den and his Diary of a CEO), this strategic expansion aims to solidify “Chapter 2’s 360-degree talent solutions offering, delivering comprehensive, data-driven solutions to the most pressing talent challenges facing businesses today”, according to a company statement. 

Spearheading the new service is talent strategy director David Brammer. The Transformation & Advisory practice will tackle every area of talent acquisition, from capability and capacity to hiring process optimisation and workforce planning. The practice will also provide talent strategies to prepare businesses for AI-focused roles for the future of work.

As part of this offering, Chapter 2 will conduct in-depth talent and hiring audits, identifying opportunities and reducing hiring-related challenges, through structured hiring diagnostics and benchmarking. 

The service also includes recruitment efficiency assessments, policy and risk evaluations (including IR35 compliance) and contingent workforce strategy development.

Leo Harrison, founder and CEO of Chapter 2, says: “Establishing the Transformation Advisory completes our 360 offering, making sure that we’re able to provide solutions to both common and uncommon challenges that companies face in not only today’s workplace, but the one of the future.”

With 26 years’ experience leading global talent acquisition strategy for brands such as Boots, Kingfisher and Ocado, Brammer will be supported by experienced hire Marta Wasowicz, as the director of advisory and transformation.

L-r: Steven Bartlett, Marta Wasowicz, David Brammer, Leo Harrison ©Chapter 2

• Comment below on this story. Or let us know what you think by emailing us at [email protected] or tweet us to tell us your thoughts or share this story with a friend.

23 July 2019
Retail, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms, HR, Apprentices/Grads/School leavers

NEW TO THE MARKET: 22-26 JULY 2019

• Background check and drug screening solutions provider First Advantage has launched RightID, an identity verification solution that allows property managers and employers to mitigate the risk of fraud with real-time artificial intelligence-based identity corroboration. The AI-based ID verification product will launch this August.

• Multi-sector recruiter Meridian Business Support has launched a new division called MBS Response, which will focus solely on high volume recruitment accounts in the food and distribution sectors.

• US cloud-based software company Salesforce has announced new capabilities to its Salesforce Essentials product. The changes will enable small and medium-sized businesses to communicate with customers on their preferred conversation channels, from Facebook Messenger, Instagram, YouTube and web chat to one-click inbound and outbound phone capabilities, without leaving the Salesforce platform.

• Pre-hire assessment specialist ThriveMap has developed a new cost of bad hires calculator. Based on data from Office for National Statistics, global forecasting and quantitative analysis Oxford Economics, leadership training and research firm Leadership IQ and HR trade body the CIPD, the calculator provides an indication of how much bad hires could be costing businesses.

• The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has launched a summer campaign offering opportunities and activities to school leavers and young people most at risk of falling into crime and anti-social behaviour.

Supported by partners including South and City College, youth engagement specialists from First Class Legacy and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, the #wmstrong campaign will provide teenagers with advice and information on a wide range of activities from employment training to sports and arts clubs.

They can also play football with coaches from Aston Villa and Birmingham City or gain batting and bowling tips from Warwickshire County Cricket Club’s experts.

Launched on social media as #wmstrong, the campaign is timed to coincide with the beginning of school summer holidays across the region. Already, campaign staff have been to Dale End in Birmingham city centre, an area where there have been incidents of anti-social behaviour and disorder involving large groups of young people.

As well as a variety of activities, young people were also handed information cards or pointed towards courses or opportunities, while campaign staff gathered information on young people about their current status and attitudes to training.

15 July 2019
Legal, IT/Telecoms, HR, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 15-19 JULY 2019

• Cheltenham-based employment law and HR specialist Eight Legal has launched HR Mate, an app that aims to enable HR freelancers to secure new business at the touch of a button. The app is free to download and is available from the App Store for iOS devices and Google play for Android.

• Global IT recruiter Frank Recruitment Group has opened a new US office in Park Tower, on the border of Irvine and Costa Mesa in Orange County. The office is headed up by business manager Taylor Jones.

• Business and financial adviser Grant Thornton UK has launched a new ‘Off-Payroll Workers’ (OPW) client solution aimed at helping firms prepare for the extension of off-payroll rules into the private sector. The assessment solution uses artificial intelligence, enabled by the firm’s technical knowledge and experience, to carry out IR35 status assessments of workers.

• Personality assessment solutions specialist Hogan Assessments has launched General Employability in Europe. This is a new streamlined assessment tool that aims to help companies recruit the right people by identifying the personality characteristics that predict employability across a range of jobs.

15 July 2019
Executive search

Start-up of the Month: Elite Talent Resourcing

De-Lara, who has worked as an internal recruiter, talent acquisition executive and headhunter, told Recruiter the decision to set up her own business followed on from her realisation that in previous roles she built up a loyal client following which had bought into her personally.

“The companies I worked for have given me a safety net that I felt I needed, with a guaranteed income each month, but I know that I can make this work alone and, hopefully, reap the rewards too,” she said.

In terms of standing out in the market, the headhunter revealed 90% of her roles are filled by passive candidates, who are not actively looking for a role. She added she prides herself on being a consultative and honest recruiter, who is straight with clients if they have unrealistic expectations of candidates or if they are paying below market rate, and equally straight with candidates who are asking for remuneration that is not in line with their skills.

De-Lara, who has two children, added that while most of her recent roles have offered some flexibility to do school runs, she wants to be able to be at home in the holidays or when her children are poorly. She added that as the business grows and expands, she wants to offer that flexibility to new staff.

“We have got off to a great start so far, making our first placement in our first month of trading. I need to keep up the momentum.”

10 July 2019
Retail, Oil & gas/Energy, Transport & logistics, Creative/Digital/Media, Engineering, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms, HR, Hospitality/Leisure, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 8-12 JULY 2019

• Applied, a recruitment platform that centres around the prospect of blind hiring, has launched. The platform, launched by founders Kate Glazebrook and Rich Marr, can be linked with applicant tracking systems and HR systems for hiring management and enables recruiters and companies to draw on its questions library. 

The platform also employs a job description analyser, which encourages the use of gender-neutral language to attract a representative pool of candidates and an analytics platform, which aims to help recruiters and companies assess the diversity of their candidate pool. 

• Global engineering services, workforce management solutions and consulting services provider Fircroft Group has launched Fircroft Oilfield Services.

Located in Houma, Los Angeles in the US, the new division will provide a range of marine services, including rigging crews, transport, lifting, loading and cargo handling services for offshore E&P projects, throughout the Gulf of Mexico and North America. Planned service expansions in the pipeline include HSSE, training and inspection services.

Judd Bamford has been appointed as managing director of the business.

• Data and analytics recruiter Harnham has opened an office in Berlin, led by senior manager Peter Schroeter, under the guidance of Harnham’s director of Europe, Alex Hutchings.

• Holiday Staff, an online jobs board for seasonal staff and holiday job vacancies, has been launched. Devon-based Lucy Baker-Kind designed the online platform, which lists seasonal vacancies across the UK and Europe through which advertisers receive applications direct from interested jobseekers. Users of the platform can also upload their own vacancy details, along with company profile and branding.

• Technology, software and digital staffing consultancy Understanding Recruitment, has opened its first US office in Boston, Massachusetts, led by consultant Matthew Ferdenzi.

• Wren Kitchens is launching an IT academy to attract 50 new employees to support the expansion of its in-house IT function. The 12-week initiative is aimed at graduates with IT degrees or motivated individuals looking to diversify into the industry. 

The first-phase of the quarterly programme will see 12 graduates (six PHP developers and six JavaScript developers) start on 5 August based at The Nest, Wren’s contemporary headquarters. However, Wren is also looking to recruit 10 new senior PHP and JavaScript developers with at least three years’ experience in either field.

Recruiter Magazine

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