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New to Market

25 April 2025
Construction & property, Graduates/Apprentices/School leavers

National student lettings agency launches apprenticeship scheme

In a bid to support young people and grow skilled and knowledgeable individuals for the student lettings sector, loc8me recently launched its 18-month programme, which is open to anyone aged 16-18. The scheme will offer hands-on experience, mentorship and the opportunity to engage in paid work.

Raffaele Russo, founder of loc8me, said: “We’re thrilled to launch this apprenticeship programme, giving young professionals a real chance to learn, grow and begin building a career in an exciting industry.

“Now more than ever, young people are seeking opportunities, guidance and goals to pursue. With this programme, we’re investing in their future – and in the future of the lettings sector.”

Apprentices will have the chance to study the theoretical and practical elements of the lettings industry, and on starting, they will be given a mentor from the loc8me team to support their development via regular meetings throughout the course.

loc8me now operates in 13 major university cities across the UK, including Loughborough, Durham, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leicester, Hull, Bath and Bristol.

Freya Watson-Russo, academy co-ordinator, said: "At loc8me, we’re committed to nurturing the next generation of letting agents. … We’re giving young people the chance to build a future, gain confidence and carve their own path.”

Founded in 2008 by Russo, loc8me manages more than 2,500 properties and employs more than 75 staff members.

(L-r) Apprentice Ollie Coe, loc8me's marketing assistant and academy co-ordinator Freya Watson-Russo and apprentice Isabel Tebbutt ©loc8me

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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.

17 July 2017
Hospitality/Leisure

Ex-Kellan Group directors launch Hesketh James

Hesketh James, founded by Toby Holt, previously operations director at Kellan Group recruiter Berkeley Scott, and Amanda Hesketh, a former head of HR and recruitment at Kellan, has set up office in Manchester.

The firm plans to grow quickly before moving into other sectors but will initially focus on permanent, temporary and consultancy assignments within hospitality – first in Manchester, but also focusing on other geographies, such as the South-West.

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10 July 2017
Engineering, Executive search, Industrial/Manufacturing, HR

NEW TO THE MARKET: 10-14 JULY 2017

• Careers network Bright Network has launched Ignite, a platform aimed at linking entrepreneurial businesses with entry-level talent.

Founded by James Uffindell, the platform enables graduate jobseekers to create profiles, listing skills and interests, while hiring manager can create job searches and interact with chosen candidates. Hiring managers can create job searches and interact with their chosen candidates directly, as well as using data and tagging to search through a shortlisted selection of suitable graduates.

• Engineering and manufacturing recruiter Jonathan Lee Recruitment has launched a search & selection division focusing on senior technical and management appointments.

The firm says the launch is in response to a rise in demand for its headhunt and retained search solutions.

• Watford-based recruiter McGinley Human Resources has rebranded as the McGinley Group.

The company has also restructured from a single company to six individual companies, which includes McGinley Aviation, McGinley CEP, McGinley Education, McGinley Healthcare and McGinley Systems International, McGinley Logistics & Construction Solutions.

Earlier this year, McGinley Group announced that it was investing in Unite People – a white-collar, start-up recruitment company based in Central London, which will now act as an investment arm.

The group now consists of seven separate companies, supported by back office support services provider McGinley Central Services, which also falls under the McGinley Group brand.

• Scottish-based tech start-up Odro has launched a video shortlist feature. The feature enables recruiters to combine video interviews they have recorded with their candidates, their expert opinion and the candidates’ CVs in a co-branded location.

3 July 2017
Marketing, Transport & logistics, Creative/Digital/Media, Commercial & office support, Industrial/Manufacturing, HR

NEW TO THE MARKET: 3-7 JULY 2017

• Cloud computing company Bullhorn has launched the Novo Experience aimed at improving recruiter and candidate interactions. The system enables users to configure their workspace to adapt to their needs – regardless of role, geography, language or device.

Users will benefit from:

  • Being able to view CVs in full screen mode, while also being able to enter in notes.
  • The Bullhorn platform now being fully globalised, supporting a localised user interface as well as the ability to parse and store content in multiple languages.
  • The ability to configure the menu system as they see fit, with users able to drag and drop their icons around to make it faster to get the information they use most.
  • A re-designed submission workflow increasing efficiency by enabling users to move candidates through the recruitment process faster than before and being able to toggle between seeing candidates actively in a stage or how many have historically been in that stage.

• Andrew Stoves and Mark Robins, previously of marketing PR and advertising staffing specialist Major Players, have joined forces to launch digital talent specialist Native Gravity.

The recruitment agency will focus on marketing, creative and technology hires as well as contingent, retained and bespoke project-based solutions.

Native Gravity is based on the Southbank in London.

• Specialist recruiter Resourcing Group, part of nGAGE Specialist Recruitment, has opened a Glasgow office.

The new office will serve the built environment sector, including social housing, facilities management, construction, surveying & property, and architecture & design.

• International secretarial staffing specialist Secretary Affairs has launched. The firm says it is dedicated to connecting “experienced, glamorous” candidates with businesses seeking to fill vacancies across the world.

Isabella Garcia, HR manager of Secretary Affairs, said: “My own personal experiences and research indicates that attractiveness and success are linked. For roles that are often client facing, such as personal assistants and secretaries, it can have an impact on how the company is viewed and, in turn, its success. 

“Of course, looks are no substitute for experience and qualifications. That’s why Secretary Affairs takes both aspects into consideration, placing only exceptional candidates in front of companies looking for new talent.”

Secretary Affairs is based in Pargue, in the Czech Republic, and Zurich in Switzerland.

Secretary Affairs has launched in Prague and Zurich

• Kent tech-start-up SupplyNow has launched. SupplyNow’s founder Simon Taylor says the firm plans to disrupt the traditional supply teacher agency market by aiming to charge less than a third of what some agencies charge of up to £70 per day fees on teacher pay rates of £130 or £140.

The platform is self-funded at the moment, but an investment round is being planned this summer, with the proceeds invested in adding features to the app, and attracting schools and teachers to start using the app.

• Recruitment and HR specialist The Curve Group has launched a new package of services for employers who use self-employed workers.

This includes an information website page, a series of case studies and thought leadership articles, a LinkedIn group for employers of self-employed workers and a national series of breakfast seminars to provide advice and information for employers.

• Multi-sector recruiter Workforce Recruitment has opened an office in Birmingham. The branch, which will operate manufacturing, logistics and professional driving, follows the firm’s recent office opening in nearby Solihull.

26 June 2017
Retail, Transport & logistics, Banking/Financial services, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms

NEW TO THE MARKET: 26-30 JUNE 2017

• Global workforce solutions provider for the energy, process and infrastructure sectors Airswift is to launch three new strategic delivery centres.

The sites, located in Baku in Azerbaijan, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Brazil’s Rio de Janerio, will employ more than 30 new staff dedicated to 24/7 global client recruitment support for large-scale and expat hiring.

The centres will focus solely on building candidate databases and recruiting for global positions across all sectors – in particular energy where hiring is ramping up as well as proactively developing contractor candidate pools within emerging client sectors such as power, rail and telecommunications.

• International multifunctional specialist recruiter Argyll Scott is delighted to announce has completed its move from its offices at 71 Kingsway to the Hydrogen Group’s London office at 30 Eastcheap, London, EC3M 1HD, following the completion of the merger between the two agencies.

In a statement released today, the firms said the move, part of a 100-day integration plan, will strengthen the group’s position in the London market and facilitate greater collaboration between the Argyll Scott and Hydrogen operations, as well as benefitting from economies of scale and combined purchasing power.

• Business standards company BSI has launched a new standard for employers to provide guidance for good practice on valuing their employees through diversity & inclusion.

The standard, BS 76005 ‘Valuing people through diversity and inclusion – code of practice for organisations’, is relevant to all organisations, whatever their size, sector and level of maturity. It provides recommendations for undertaking, reviewing, assessing and undertaking a competent and principled approach to diversity & inclusion in the workplace.

The recommendations cover people management and development, and the evolution of more inclusive policies, procedures, practices and behaviours within organisations supporting diversity, along with the building of productive relationships with others – whether they are customers, clients or people within communities.

• Global provider of relocation services Cartus Corporation has moved to larger premises in São Paolo, Brazil.

The firm, which opened its first office in São Paolo in October 2014, is located one block from Paulista Avenue, São Paolo’s largest financial and corporate district.

• The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) and ITN Productions have launched Driving the Future, highlighting the range of career paths available to work within the transport and logistics sector.

The news and current-affairs style programme is fronted by national newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky, who speaks to CILT CEO Kevin Richardson about the range of highly skilled and rewarding jobs in the sector, and how people are unaware of the career paths and transferable skills available to those working within and supporting the supply chain.

The programme also features interviews with industry figures and news-style reports, along with sponsored editorial profiles of organisations helping to drive change within the industry including BT, Close Brothers Asset Finance, GT Nexus, Key Fuels, Sealed Air and SSI Schaefer.

The programme premiered on 8t June at the CILT Annual Conference and Dinner at Chesford Grange, Kenilworth and can be viewed on the CILT’s website or on the CILT YouTube channel.

• Medical recruitment agency National Locums has expanded its mental health division.

While the division has traditionally recruited psychiatrists and mental health nurses, the expanded division will now supply psychologists – clinical, forensic and counselling – as well as psychotherapists, and other professionals working in the mental health arena, including psychological wellbeing practitioners, occupational therapists, social workers and family therapists.

• NonStop Recruitment, a Europe-wide specialist in the pharma, medical devices, chemical, care, digital, education and technical markets, has launched new division – NonStop Finance.

Adrian Dickinson heads up the new division, joining as NonStop Finance divisional lead. His move follows nearly 20 years building teams in the banking & financial services, IT, change and social care markets, with large recruitment firms. He was managing director of Capita’s Social Care businesses, and director at Hays within its financial markets division.

Dickinson will initially work with existing UK contacts and look to tackle the Swiss market, with the long-term view to offer NonStop Finance services across all major European financial centres.

The appointment coincides with NonStop setting its sights on going global in 2019 with 99% organically grown talent via its own in-house recruitment training academy.

• A former senior talent acquisition manager at software giant Symantec is launching a recruitment platform known as Talentpuddle.

Founded by talent acquisition expert Martin Dangerfield, the platform aims to provide clients with a quick and competitive method of recruitment through machine learning. This method analyses existing applicant tracking systems or HR data with current job specifications to bring up all possible candidate matches using competencies, skills and experience not just keywords or job titles.

The system works in real time and makes, what Dangerfield calls, “blind” matches in the aim of eliminating unconscious bias.

Dangerfield revealed the platform is currently receiving a “soft” launch with a demo site being prepared in the next few weeks. He added he is currently talking to companies willing to be early adopters of the platform.

• Sunderland-based recruitment platform Technically Compatible has expanded its services to the Philippines.

North-East paper The Chronicle reports the international expansion follows the Wearside tech company being enlisted by global software firm Cloud Employee to help it source talent.

Cloud Employee has offices in the UK, Australia and the Philippines, and Technically Compatible will help the company find IT talent for roles it recruits for in the Philippines.

• Flexible workforce solutions provider The Best Connection has opened an office in Woodbridge, Canada.

Located in the suburban centre of the City of Vaughan, Toronto, the branch will serve people looking for temporary work assignments in the fabrication, metal forming, plastics, food, automotive, packaging, warehousing & distribution and recycling sectors.

 

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