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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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17 June 2019
Public sector, Creative/Digital/Media, Education, Engineering, Construction & property, Banking/Financial services, Charity & not-for-profit, Legal, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms

NEW TO THE MARKET: 17-21 JUNE 2019

• Education and training providers from across the UK will soon be able to access tutorials and visual resources on spotting the signs of modern slavery and how to report suspicions to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority.

The resources have been designed by staff and students at Boston College, Lincolnshire, who were involved in a pilot project where the GLAA has teamed up with the college to embed the subject of labour abuse across its range of academic and vocational courses.

The resources will soon be available on the GLAA's website.

• Job search engine Jobrapido is opening a UK office in London headed up by sales director for UK and Ireland Ryan Bridgman.

The firm is also opening its first office in Boston in the US next month, which will be headed up by Matthew Ferdenzi and will be specialise in artificial intelligence and machine learning roles. 

• Specialist provider of tech and cyber-security staffing solutions La Fosse Associates has launched a pro bono recruitment and advisory practice to help charities combat the threat of a cyber-attack on their organisations.

La Fosse Pro Bono will operate with charities throughout the UK.

• Public sector and charity staffing specialist Morgan Hunt has opened a second Scottish office, located in central Glasgow.

• Technology and software staffing specialist Understanding Recruitment is opening an office in St Albans, Hertfordshire, this week.

The new office is headed by founding directors Chris Jackson and Dale Swords.

• The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is running a series of roadshows, aimed at unemployed people and those wanting to get a better job and to explain what training courses are on offer in the West Midlands, as the WMCA takes control of the region’s £126m adult education budget.

The events, featuring staff from colleges, training providers and job advisors, will focus on the region’s fastest-growing economies, including digital, construction, advanced manufacturing and engineering, and on business and professional services. Roadshows are scheduled for June and July in Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

• Colchester-based SAP, Oracle and IT specialist recruiter Whitehall Resources has opened an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The group says there is increased demand for its services in the region.

13 June 2019

Antal looks to establish bases in Uzbekistan and Ukraine

Goodwin, who spoke to Recruiter following a business trip to Uzbekistan and Ukraine last week, revealed the international recruiter is already operational in Tashkent, Uzbekistan through an ongoing recruitment project, and is exploring either opening offices there or at least making placements in the major Uzbek cities of Samarkand and Bukhara.

But the firm also plans on leveraging its existing branch network to give it a competitive advantage in expanding in the region.

“We have two people currently engaged full time on developing Uzbekistan, with the support and help of 160+ staff and resources in our offices in Moscow, St Petersburg and Almaty in Kazakhstan. We see a lot of synergistic advantages with our clients and candidates from already being present for 25 years in the region. We believe this will give us tremendous leverage into both countries from the client, candidates, brand and infrastructure point of view.”

Goodwin added the whole region is opening up and the group is encouraged by the firm’s success in Kazakhstan led by Anna Kovinskaya, who has established Antal in the region. 

“We believe that we can replicate this success in both Uzbekistan and Ukraine from Almaty… We will open our office for Ukraine in Kiev; this will receive a lot of support from Almaty.”

With populations of 32m in Uzbekistan and 50m in Ukraine, Goodwin contends both countries’ economies are ready and willing to open up to Western products and services.

“There is competition in both markets, particularly in Ukraine, with already at least 400 recruitment companies registered there. So, we are not expecting an easy exercise to take marketshare. We are going to have to be specialists and good at what we do rather than simply relying on our 25-year presence and branding.”

And while there are political challenges in the region that the firm needs to be alive to, such as the ongoing border conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Goodwin added: “That is where our knowledge, experience and brand will give us a distinct advantage from other potential Western entrants into the region.”

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11 June 2019
Retail, Engineering, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms, HR

NEW TO THE MARKET: 10-14 JUNE 2019

• Cordant Group division Cordant People has opened a new branch in Aberdeen based in the new Marischal Square Development on Broad Street. The branch will be managed by Claire Buchan, who joins Cordant People from independent HR and employment law firm LAW Empire where she was business development and recruitment manager.

• Bristol-based start-up SaveTrees has launched an updated version of its online service, which enables contractors, recruitment agencies and their clients to submit and approve timesheets. The web-based service is also available to companies with permanent employees who are looking for a simple way to log their hours. It can be white-labelled to the client’s own brand.

6 June 2019
Banking/Financial services, IT/Telecoms, Accounting/Finance

Metro Bank supports ex-prisoners into safe jobs

In a statement released this morning, the challenger bank revealed the initiative – StrongTomorrow – has been independently founded by Metro Bank’s chief commercial officer Paul Riseborough (pictured below) in partnership with UK charity Code 4000, which teaches prisoners to code.

Metro Bank further revealed it supporting the scheme by hiring at least one colleague trained via Code 4000 later this year.

Commenting on the bank’s involvement, chief people officer Danny Harmer said: “Metro Bank has a long track record of supporting social mobility initiatives – from the launch of our apprenticeship scheme in 2012 and signing up to the government’s social mobility pledge, to Metro Bank’s approach to ‘hiring for attitude and training for skill’ in customer facing roles. Our support for the Code 4000 and StrongTomorrow initiatives is another great example of this.”

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