1. News
  2. New to Market

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.

• 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.

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.

19 June 2017
Rec-to-rec, Transport & logistics, Construction & property, Interim recruitment, HR, Healthcare/Medical

NEW TO THE MARKET: 19-23 JUNE 2017

• 2B Interface, specialist recruiter for trades people and professional staff, is expanding into South-East Asia, with the opening of a new office in Singapore. The launch closely follows its new Polish branch in May.

As well as building on its experience of providing permanent staffing to interior design and trades sectors, 2B Interface also aims to fulfill senior roles in the customer services and financial sectors in Singapore.

Beatrice Bartlay, managing director and founder of 2B Interface, says: “We pride ourselves on the high level of service we provide to our customers and given the economic growth in Singapore – it grew by 2% in 2016 and is due to grow another 2.3% this year – it made sense to expand here.”

The Singapore office will be run by Peck Howe, who has over 25 years’ experience in human resources.

• The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) has launched Recruitment Needs Talent – a campaign aimed at attracting, development and retaining talent within professional recruitment.

The campaign, which will run over the summer, will be supported by integrated communications, PR and social media activity.

• Global recruiter g2 Recruitment has opened an office in Birmingham. Team leader Liam Neal, currently with the firm in Manchester, will relocate to run the office, set to open in September.

• Built environment staffing specialist Peace Recruitment Group has just launched a new website.

The site features a ‘Trip Advisor-like service for the recruitment industry’. The JobCast service has been specifically designed to ensure that all clients receive gold standard customer service.

Peace worked with strategic digital partner Bold Identities to design and develop these new features.

• Driving, industrial and healthcare staffing specialist Swanstaff Recruitment has launched a staff enterprise management incentive share scheme that sees 25% of the company value awarded to full-time employees over the next five years.

Staff that have been employed by the company for a minimum of 12 months as of 1 April 2017 will be offered the opportunity to purchase shares at a set price at a future time when certain conditions, set out in the option agreement, are met.

The exit plan on these options will be the floatation of Swanstaff on the stock market in 2023 when staff can choose to purchase their shares at the price specified. When the shares are sold employees will benefit from any growth in value.

• A former director of executive search and interim management provider Penna has set up Tile Hill, a new provider of interim management and independent consultants for the public sector.

The firm is founded by David Weir, who previously spent 10 years growing and leading a public sector interim team at Penna before launching Tile Hill.

• Global diversity and inclusion recruitment website VERCIDA.com has launched.

The tech platform, aimed at jobseekers seeking to work for employers that place inclusion and staff wellbeing high on the agenda, seeks to enable employers to attract diverse talent in a pro-active way by demonstrating the benefits and initiatives they offer to candidates.

16 June 2017
Marketing

Start-up of the Month: Monday at Nine

Currently working on his own, with advice from a former colleague who now owns his own marketing business, Boneham aims to get under the skin of the industry he’s serving.

“We are looking to offer a service where we immerse ourselves in the market in Leeds. We want to understand what marketing agencies are looking for when working with their clients,” he says.

“You are governed by corporate guidelines at companies like Michael Page and I’m looking forward to being more flexible, more bespoke. 

“We will take a different approach, trying to be more marketing, to market our business in a way that reflects the people we want to work with. 

“We will have cards in the style of Guess Who? We have plans for reverse graffiti where you use a stencil and a pressure washer to clean your logo into the pavement. We are thinking outside the box, trying to change the way people think about recruiters. The plan is to grow and bring in specialists in other sub-sectors. We would consider taking on marketing people; if someone comes from recruitment they have a preconception of how it’s done.

“An ex-colleague of mine who went into marketing is a silent partner and he has been great. Without him I could not have done it.”

12 June 2017
Transport & logistics, Commercial & office support, Industrial/Manufacturing, Healthcare/Medical

NEW TO THE MARKET: 12-16 JUNE 2017

• Job board GenieJobs.com will launch at the beginning of next week (Sunday, 18 June).

The site features video interviewing technology enabling companies to upload their own company introduction video. It will also allow employers to send a list of questions to potential candidates, as well as a recruitment networking platform.

• In-house recruitment specialist JVP Group has launched a new job site, www.jobsinnorthwales.co.uk, which is dedicated entirely to the North Wales region.

Based in Bodelwyddan, North Wales, JVP is to double its workforce by bringing on board four new recruits. The company also runs JVP Jobs Online – www.jvpjobs.co.uk.

• Driving, industrial and commercial staffing specialist Lyons Personnel has launched.

The Taunton-based firm is led by experienced recruiter Vicky Lyons, who has received funding from recruitment finance back-office support provider Recruit Venture Group.

• NHS Employers has launched a new briefing document for NHS leaders, aimed at encouraging more investment in the skills of the home-grown population.

Entitled ‘Workforce supply – attracting and retaining local talent’, the briefing highlights the context and policies designed to achieve this, covering the various elements that contribute to a sustainable workforce supply strategy.

The workforce supply guide was launched at the NHS Employers Workforce Summit, held earlier this week, on 13 June.

• Business management consultants Redstone Group has launched Redstone Talent Consulting, a specialist management consultancy dedicated to the recruitment industry.

The division aims to provide specialist process and business improvement services to recruiters and in-house recruitment teams within non-recruitment businesses.

• Rotherham-headquartered recruiter Stafforce has moved its office in Bradford to larger premises on North Parade. The firm attributes the move to increased growth and investment prospects around the region.

• Specialist recruitment agency Woodrow Mercer has moved into larger offices in the heart of Birmingham’s business district in Newhall Street. The new office is about a minute walk away from the IT & healthcare recruiter’s previous premises.

The firm has also appointed eight new hires for its offices in Birmingham, Leeds and London.

7 June 2017
Retail, Transport & logistics, Industrial/Manufacturing

Ex-Randstad manager launches Jigsaw Staffing with Bluestones

Jigsaw Staffing officially launched this week, based in Manchester city centre, and covering a range of sectors including manufacturing, retail and logistics.

Bluestones offers investment and back-office resources to help start-up recruitment ventures.

Barclay – who worked at Randstad for most of 2016, after stints at Impellam Group and Pertemps, according to his LinkedIn profile – said: “I’m thrilled to be working with the Bluestones Group and launching my own recruitment business. I’ve worked for other recruitment companies for many years and always thought this was something I wanted to do.”

Trish Stratford, CEO of the professional division of the Bluestones Group, added: “There are a number of complementary professional recruitment companies in our division, including Blake Chambers and Nixon Caunce, that Jigsaw Staffing can work alongside. 

“We’re continuing to build our portfolio of brands and covering a growing number of sectors and regions.”

• Want to comment on this story? Email us at [email protected] or tweet us below to tell us your thoughts. We will run comments online in a round-up at the end of the week.

Recruiter Magazine

SUBSCRIBE TO PRINT
VIEW PAST ISSUES
Top