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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

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2 July 2019
Creative/Digital/Media, Engineering, Construction & property, Commercial & office support, Executive search, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms, HR, Healthcare/Medical, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 1-5 JULY 2019

• Paris-based recruitment platform AssessFirst is expanding its services into the UK, with the launch of its first office in London.

• US healthcare recruiter Cross Country Healthcare has merged its permanent search brands – Cejka Physician Search, AP Healthcare, StarMed and Cross Country Staffing’s RPO division – under its new Cross Country Search brand. The brand will be led by newly appointed president David Pantano.

• Engaging Works has launched jobs features for both individuals and organisations on its platform. The new job features allow employers to post and target jobs, and to promote great places to work to a range of people, including experienced individuals looking for new jobs, as well as students and graduates seeking positions within organisations focused on the happiness and engagement of their employees.

Part of a wider roll out of tools to help people find the right job, build skills, knowledge and connections to help them be happier and more successful at work, the new job services include a range of tools to help individuals decide which job, industry and company is the right fit, including the Happiest Companies to Work for Index and Career Tests. The site also has a CV Generator and interview advice on its Global Hub – a place for online discussion about working life.

• Worcester-based duo, Gareth Matts and Mike Pincott, have partnered with The Jarell Group of companies to launch GMP Recruitment. The new recruitment agency will provide both temporary and permanent recruitment services across Worcester to companies in the industrial, technical, commercial and healthcare sectors.

Michael Duffy Partnership and Emms Gilmore Liberson supported the process through retained financial and legal advice respectively.

• Scotland-based recruiter Meraki Talent is launching an accountancy & finance division serving clients across commerce and industry in the central belt of Scotland.

To support this, the group has appointed Neil Woodley as director in its Edinburgh office and Greg McDermott as senior manager in Glasgow. In a separate move, the group has also hired Craig Rumball as an associate director in its London office.

• Employment background screening company Sterling is opening an office in Amsterdam. The firm adds it also has expansion and improvement plans across locations such as Switzerland, Germany, Poland and Romania.

• The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is running a number of roadshows for unemployed people and those wanting to get a better job. The events in Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall will feature staff from colleges, training providers and job advisers, providing information to help people access training, find work or plot a path to a better career and explain what training courses are on offer in the West Midlands as the WMCA takes control of the region’s £126m adult education budget (AEB).

The roadshows will focus on the region’s fastest-growing economies, including digital, construction, advanced manufacturing and engineering, and business and professional services, offering advice on what qualifications are needed to get jobs in these sectors, and how to access the training required.

28 June 2019
Transport & logistics, HR

Proactive managing partner Rubin hopes book will disrupt HR

“Some people in HR will love it, but some won’t like it – but that’s okay,” Ruth Rubin (above) told Recruiter.

Speaking at the public launch of the company’s new branding at the House of St Barnabas, a homeless charity and members’ club in London’s Soho Square last night, Rubin articulated the company’s new mission and spoke about the book. She said the book, entitled Unticked, will be about the ‘Who revolution’, something in which she is a great believer, and which informs Proactive’s philosophy and culture.  

Rubin explained that this approach looks at who the candidate is and at their values, such as altruism, rather than what they have done. She said the reason for the title of the book, which is due to be published next year, is because “I hate tick boxes” [the tick-box approach and the associated red tape prevalent in many HR departments]. 

Rubin said there was a strong link between altruism and those who performed well in the sort of customer-facing jobs in which the company specialises. Many of the company’s clients are rail to whom it supplies staff to work in customer-facing roles at stations. It also recently won a contract to provide Thames Clippers, the company that operates ferries on the Thames, with customer-facing staff. 

Rubin said that unlike the usual approach taken by many HR departments, “we look at the gaps in people’s CVs. Someone who has a three-year gap in their CV to look after their mother could be showing that altruism”.

Unticked will also highlight other practices that Rubin believes stop companies missing out on talent. She said one such practice was requiring candidates applying for a role that requires great customer-facing skills “to pass a maths test”. “Both employers and companies could be missing a trick,” said Rubin.

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24 June 2019
Engineering, Construction & property

Hudson Freelance launches ahead of private sector off-payroll rules

Legislation around IR35 reforms states that construction firms with more than 50 employees, a turnover of £10.2m or assets of £5.2m must comply with the new rules, which serve to define off-payroll working in a bid to crack down on so-called ‘disguised employment’ by April 2020.

Ian Anfield, managing director of Hudson Contract, says: “If HMRC decides highly paid consultants are actually employees, the potential liabilities could be disastrous. 

“Many businesses have already taken the decision to cull their off-payroll staff, thinking it’s better to be safe than sorry, even though it could harm their growth prospects. We have launched Hudson Freelance to eliminate the risk of continuing to use consultants once the rules change.”

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24 June 2019
Marketing, IT/Telecoms, HR

NEW TO THE MARKET: 24-28 JUNE 2019

• Edinburgh-headquartered IT recruiter Cathcart Associates has expanded its operations in Thailand’s thriving tech hub of Bangkok, doubling its headcount, moving into a new office and offering new career opportunities for staff. The expansion sees the firm move to the city’s Mercury Tower, a space four times bigger than their previous location.

Nick Macdougall, managing consultant for Cathcart Associates in Thailand, said: “Looking to the future, we expect Bangkok to become our headquarters for the whole of South-East Asia as we ramp up our activity into neighbouring countries.”

• Pioneer Search, a specialist technology recruiter in London, has opened two new divisions. Jonathan Magee will be heading up the new data & analytics team, while Pratap Vara and Gavin O’Reilly will head up the new cyber security & cloud team.

The development is part of a move by Pioneer Search to refocus its brand on the core areas of specialism. Technology has always been a main focus, but with the proliferation of AI and cloud, it was important to recognise this and the growing demand for these skills.

• Talent marketing solutions provider Symphony Talent has launched an analytics tool in its Experience Cloud (XCLOUD) platform, which provides a holistic view of all touchpoints in the candidate journey.

• External talent intelligence provider Talent Intuition has launched Stratigens, a new online platform for HR directors that uses big data to help companies make informed strategic decisions.

Talent Intuition partnered with technology developers and consultants OJO Solutions on the project. The platform pulls together data points from the global talent market so it can inform location decisions, expansion plans or highlight where consolidation would be most commercially effective, based on the available skills base in a location.

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