New to Market

14 April 2025

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

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

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

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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3 April 2017

New to the Market: 3-7 April 2017

Airswift has launched a new London office. The global workforce solutions provider for the energy, process and infrastructure sectors says the new 1,700-sq ft office on New Broad Street will accommodate the company’s IT, operations and treasury departments. 

In addition, it will also act as the new London office of Airswift-backed executive search firm Ducatus Partners.

Youth job board Ambytal.com has launched. Launched by James Horner, the site is aimed at helping young people get a foot in the door and landing their first job following school, college or university.

Jobs placed on the site by employers are required to specify how much experience is needed for the job up to a maximum of six months to ensure that young people are able to find roles they know they’ll meet the criteria for.

• Global resourcing specialist BPS World has opened an office in Belgrade, Serbia. The office, based in the business district in Old Town, Belgrade, will be managed by a team of local and international recruitment professionals.

The firm already has offices in the US, Poland and Czech Republic, as well as UK offices in Warrington and its Maidenhead head office.

Contractor accountancy firm Churchill Knight & Associates has launched its own umbrella company - Churchill Knight Umbrella. 

The firm says the new service will allow Churchill Knight to continue to offer its contractor accountancy service, in addition to providing a compliant solution for those contractors now caught by this month’s IR35 changes in the public sector.

International assessment specialist cut-e and video interview provider ZeroLime have launched a mobile-enabled selection tool. It combines assessments and a competency-based video interview aimed at making it quicker and easier for organisations to recruit new staff. 

Known as VIPA (Video Interview and Psychometric Assessment), the tool creates a short application form, with questions and eligibility checks, that candidates complete on an Apple or Android device. 

Any of cut-e’s personality, ability or situational judgement tests can be included or customised assessments can be created. Candidates record themselves answering competency-based questions, and recruiters can then create a shortlist of those with the right communication skills and motivation. 

International engineering recruiter ewi, part of nGAGE Specialist Recruitment, has launched a new life sciences division. 

In a statement, the company confirmed the move was intended to meet increasing demand from within the medical technology industry. The new division will supply senior professionals across two principal markets – medical devices and pharmaceutical – led by an experienced team to drive growth across Europe. 

Multi-sector recruiter Fuel Recruitment has launched a new division and realigned operations along three business units under the banner of The Fuel Group.

The units include:

•    Fuel Recruitment providing traditional recruitment services with particular focus on IT, consulting, telecoms, marketing and engineering.

•    Pivot RPO, offering tailor-made services to clients who require external support across recruitment, compliance, payroll and brand reputation. 

•    Fuel Professional Services providing digital consultancy and delivery for IT-enabled projects, predominantly in the public service sector through authorised public sector frameworks such as G-Cloud and digital outcomes. 

Government has launched a new Business Leaders Group that will work with the government to challenge issues affecting disability unemployment.

The leaders from a range of sectors, from communications to construction, will use their influential status in their industries to tackle misconceptions around employing disabled people and promote the benefits of having an inclusive workforce.
 
The group includes: 

•    Tim Fallowfield (chair): Sainsbury’s – company secretary and corporate services director and board sponsor for disability and carers
•    Dan Brooke: Channel 4 - chief marketing and communications officer and head of diversity
•    Mark McLane: Barclays - global head of diversity and inclusion
•    Melanie Richards: KPMG – vice chair and board member for diversity and inclusion
•    Mick Jeavons: Royal Mail - chief of staff and head of diversity
•    Michele Oliver: Mars - UK marketing director

•    Adam Raeburn-James: GlaxoSmithKline - peer member of GSK Global Disability Council
•    Emma Mercer: Carillion – finance director
•    Karen Ann Allchurch: Arsenal FC - people director
•    Chris Vaughan: Whitbread - general counsel
•    Dr. Stephen Duckworth: independent disability consultant and former director – Capita
•    Dr. Hari Sundaresan : BT Group - chief procurement officer & disability sponsor


Talent solutions specialists Nicholas Associates Group has launched new websites for eight of its companies.

They include Nicholas Associates Group, Stafforce, Stafforce Managed Services, Nicholas Associates Professionals, Graduate Talent Solutions, Apprentice Employment Agency, Nicholas Associates Software and Nicholas Associates Consulting.

The new sites, compatible across multiple platforms and devices, features long-form webpages, full width images and parallex scrolling, providing a tool for sharing content.

Newcastle-based Solutions Recruitment Group is opening a new office in Warrington.

The new branch will create up to 15 new jobs and opens on the back of the firm securing a number of new clients in the North West.

CRM software supplier TriSys Business Software has launched TriSys TV, an IPTV channel dedicated solely to recruitment agencies.

Built using TriSys’ customisable API and hosted on its core technology platform, TriSys TV will be viewable from 10 April 2017 at tv.trisys.co.uk. The broadcast will feature an overview of company products, services and technological capabilities, interspersed with content demonstrating how streaming video can help recruiters increase placement quotas.

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27 March 2017

New to the Market: 27-31 March 2017

• Recruitment assessment solution ALC Discovery is to launch at the end of next month.

The solution aims to help agency recruiters and their clients hire staff by providing a robust and accurate profile of a person’s behaviours, values and emotional intelligence, using a science with 94.8 validity, according to the company. 

This profile can then be used to help in the recruitment process for selection, shortlisting and onboarding, increasing retention and reducing cost per hire. It can also help with team dynamics and cultural fit, as well as assisting diversity and inclusion studies.

ALC Discovery was launched through sister company ALC Executive Search, and will be lead by ALC partners Tim Connolly and Alison Hughes. The product received a soft launch earlier this month ahead of an official launch on Thursday 27 April.

• Assessment solutions provider cut-e has launched an instant messaging solution game to engage candidates. The game provides a situational judgement assessment of a candidate’s strengths, personality and abilities, in the style of WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

• Online tech career site Dice has launched a search platform for tech recruiters in the UK. The Talent Search product combines Dice’s CV database of profiles from social recruiting tool Open Web, enabling customers to view profiles in one place.

Open Web aggregates publicly available data from over 180 social and professional sites, enabling recruiters to gain a picture of a candidate and understand their suitability for a role. It also provides the ability to craft a tailored message and connect via multiple channels including email and social.

Talent Search also has filters that can be used to improve relevancy on skills, location, contact method available, likely to switch, professional background and more, while profiles can filtered that have a Dice CV attached, enabling recruiters to target active candidates only. The candidate’s range of skills is presented in a ‘doughnut’ visual, providing a view of the candidates experience and capabilities.

• Executive search firm Forsyth Barnes Executive Appointments has moved to larger offices in Old Street, London.

The firm says its new Bevenden Street location is double the size of its previous office in Wharfdale Road in the Kings Cross area of London.

• Bournemouth-based hospitality recruiter Platinum Recruitment is opening a second office in Southampton. The expansion adds four additional roles in Southampton. The recruiter already employs 44 staff in Bournemouth.

• Talent management solutions provider SumTotal has launched new features and additions to its SumTotal talent expansion suite.

The new suite brings talent, learning, recruitment and workforce management into one platform. This includes expanded access to available learning content, enhancements to its user interface, improved browsing and search capabilities, and the ability to use the suite in the cloud and in the office.

13 March 2017

New to the Market: 13-17 March 2017

• Driving, industrial, commercial, and healthcare staffing specialist 24-7 Staffing has opened an office in Bristol.

The branch, on the outskirts of Bristol in Bristol Business Park, Filton, opposite the University of the West of England, will initially be managed by associate director Paul Squires.

• Indian online recruitment marketplace AassanJobs has launched a Quote feature for its associates partners. The function enables consultancies registered with AasaanJobs to submit quotes and bid on selected jobs.

The Quote feature also helps potential employers decide which consultancy to choose based on their performance in the past as well on a recruitment score displayed on the platform.

• Global talent acquisition and management firm Alexander Mann Solutions has launched consulting group brand Talent Collective.

The firm says the launch of its new dedicated consulting brand will formally enable it to provide greater end-to-end talent solutions for clients globally.

Commenting further on the group's move an AMS spokesperson said: “Talent Collective was acquired by Alexander Mann Solutions in 2014 for its specialist capabilities in talent strategy and talent technology consulting, and much of the work of this nature has continued to operate under the Talent Collective banner, while our other consulting practices, assessment, employer branding and creative, diversity and inclusion, strategic workforce planning and our executive search business all used the Alexander Mann Solutions brand.

"While Alexander Mann Solutions is well recognised for its expertise in recruitment process outsourcing, the other consulting capabilities were less understood by the marketplace. 

"As such, we’ve chosen to leverage the Talent Collective brand for all of our consulting capabilities, both for the benefit of our RPO customers but also for the wider market who would benefit from consulting with us even if they have no desire to outsource recruitment.”

• Head hunting professionals Ian Macleod and Paul Atkinson have come together to launch specialist company Atkinson Macleod Executive Search, as a division of Scottish privately owned recruiter Head Resourcing.

The division will place executive and non-executive appointments into private and public sector and government organisations.

Atkinson founded agency Direct Resources, with Gordon Adam, which was bought by consultancy Mastech Systems Corporation in 1999, and job board Recruitment Scotland.com, sold to recruitment advertising firm TMP Monster, before going on to launch Head Resourcing.

Macleod spent 16 years as managing partner with search firm Odgers Berndtson, overseeing their launch into Scotland.

• International executive search firm Carmichael Fisher has opened new offices in both Los Angeles and Zurich.

The Los Angeles office, led by managing director Justin Hobday and supported by regional directors Kimberly Rice and Ciara Kelleher, is on Santa Monica Boulevard and has been launched due to the city’s exposure to the Carmichael Fisher sector disciplines of aerospace, entertainment, and fashion to biomedical services, consumer products, finance and technology.

The Zurich office is the firm’s seventh EMEA location and strengthens Carmichael Fisher’s existing offering. It is located at Herostrasse 9, 8048 Zurich, Switzerland and will focus on pan-European cross-border appointments.

CNA Age Positive, an executive search firm for the over 50s, has launched. The agency, a master franchise with CNA Executive Search, is the brainchild of Duncan Keil, and will also be interacting with its candidate base via online forum The Age Positive Community.

• Technology provider Datek Infrastructure Solutions is expanding into three specific services: infrastructure, and the two new services - consultancy and resource. These services will sit under the new The Datek Group name.

• Midlands-based recruiter Encore Personnel has appointed a team of specialists aimed at ensuring companies do not suffer from employee shortages during their peak trading times.

The firm says the four-strong External Recruitment Team (ERT) has been created in response to a recent decline in the number of people applying for roles, particularly those from other EU countries.

The team comprises Silviu Dolt and Charlotte Harland, led by Nikki Gallier and supported by senior manager Maddy O’Donnell, is now proactively looking to attract candidates who can offer their skills to fill temporary and full-time roles at companies across the country.

• Public sector executive recruitment and people development specialist GatenbySanderson has launched a mentoring scheme aimed at helping people from diverse backgrounds become non-executive directors (NEDs) on NHS boards.

Working under an existing NED at an NHS Trust, aspiring NEDs, including female candidates and those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds will experience ‘life as a NED’, receiving additional mentorship from the Trust’s chair person.

Participants will attend – and possibly participate in – board and sub-committee meetings, and gain access to the NHS Trust under local arrangements. To aid the learning process, programme participants have no specific legal status or fiduciary liability.

• London-based creative and digital staffing specialist Gemini People has opened an office in Birmingham. The firm described the office opening in England’s second city as a “natural step” with it currently benefitting from a £1bn HS3-fuelled investment and thousands of businesses setting up in the city in 2016.

The office will be led by Claire Summerfield, former managing director of Stratford-upon Avon-based marketing staffing specialist Blue Skies.

• Headhunting firm Goodson Thomas has moved to new premises in Morganstown, North Cardiff. The firm also welcomes new hires consultant Sam Smith and associate consultant Cerys Jones.

Smith joins from executive search business Beresford, Wilson & Partners, and Jones comes from a financial business, having spent five years with search firm The Winchester Partnership.

• Lawspeed, legal and compliance consultants, has launched a fixed price agency fee recovery (AFR) service aimed at helping agencies recover introduction and transfer fees.

The service includes advice and initial contact with the client, through to full court action via recommended litigation solicitors in the event the client doesn’t pay.

• Restaurant chain Nando's is to use company review site Glassdoor's employee critiques as part of a major London recruitment advertising drive.

From today (13 March) and for the next two weeks, Nando's will place over 1,000 adverts across London Underground tube lines, featuring reviews left by employees in the last year.

Commenting on the reasoning behind using the reviews, Nando's head of talent Vicky Quin said: “This is important because we need to hear first-hand from the people that have purchased, worn or worked for a company we're looking to apply to. So, it simply made sense to use reviews from people that actually worked for us.”

• Cambridge-based ThisWay Global has launched its Artificial Intelligence (AI) software platform, GPS, at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.

The platform aims to streamline recruitment by matching high-quality candidates to the most relevant job opportunities using machine learning algorithms across a number of sectors, particularly in scientific, professional and technical sectors.

• Job board totaljobs has launched a £3.6m outdoor advertising campaign combined with a multi-million pound online strategy known as #TheElevatorPitch tackling common obstacles around the interview process.

The elevator pitch is commonly used by people in job interviews and sales pitches as a short description to sell themselves or a product to someone they’re speaking to.

The campaign sees outdoor advertising run across London, Manchester and Birmingham, while totaljobs has also reached out to more than 6,000 jobseekers and 150 employers to find out what candidates believe are the biggest interview pressures, which will be revealed in April. In addition, totaljobs will also partner with a number of industry experts to offer advice to candidates on how interview obstacles can be overcome, as well as how employers can get the best out of interviewees.

• Personalised video platform vCreate has launched a new service aimed at the recruitment industry.

Rather than recruiters sending over a CV, the service enables recruiters to send a link to candidates for them to record a brief introduction about themselves, their skills and key achievements in a video, which can then be edited by the recruiter ahead of being sent on to the client.

6 March 2017

New to the Market: 6-10 March 2017

• Job board 1moreJob has added video functionality to its offering. The job board now enables businesses in London to post their jobs and advertise their services using video.

The service is aimed at London high-street shops, bars, restaurants, cafes and other independent shops to get high-quality candidates for their vacancies. Videos will also be posted to 1moreJob social media accounts including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. 

• The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) has launched new guidance to help employers and their staff understand the different types of employment arrangements that exist in the modern workplace and their legal entitlements.

The revised guidance follows Matthew Taylor’s review on modern workplaces and reflects changes to the way in which people work, are expected to work in the future as well as recent legal cases about employment status.

• Multi-sector recruiter Berry Recruitment Group has opened an office in Darlington.

The branch, the group’s first in the North-East of England, is managed by consultant Dani Gallone and will initially focus on the industrial sector.

It is located on Woodland Road, near the centre of Darlington.

• Multi-sector recruiter ESA Group has completed its office relocation to Edgbaston, adjacent to the Five Ways area of Birmingham city centre. The firm has now moved from its former head office at One Victoria Square, opposite Birmingham’s town hall, to larger offices in Calthorpe Road, Edgbaston.


• Global IT, sales & digital recruitment company Finlay James is to open a US office in San Francisco next spring (2018). The firm says the move is due to a 72% increase in US placements over the past year and follows a recent trade delegation to New York and San Francisco.

• Professional flexible staffing specialist Flexology is to open its doors tomorrow (9 March).

The Bristol-based agency has been set up by founders Kristal McNamara and Shelley Snelson (below, left-right) to offer more flexible roles to candidates in the South-West.

The new business will provide recruitment, training, events and research services.

Flexology founders (l-r): Kristal McNamara and Shelley Snelson

• Global recruiter G2V Group is to open its third office in the US in Miami. The group, which already has offices in Houston and Los Angeles, will be run by Alfie Long. The group adds plans are underway for a fourth office in an unnamed US location next year.

• Global technology and financial services recruiter GCS has launched a Women in Recruitment forum aimed at helping women in the workplace further their career and achieve a work/life balance.

Launched to coincide with International Women’s Day, the Women in Recruitment forum will offer practical support including:

  • A mentoring programme
  • Confidence in the workplace training
  • Personal development programmes
  • Email group for members of forum

The wider aims of the forum are to increase GCS’ headcount of women, and help tackle how the agency can help to encourage women into the predominantly male sectors they work in, namely tech, finance and engineering.

Later in the year, GCS also plans to host its first Women in Recruitment event coinciding with its annual May Ball.

• Job site Indeed has announced the UK launch of mobile app Job Spotter. The app aims to bring offline local job postings online and help employers increase visibility of local roles.

By downloading app, users can snap pictures of local job ads and upload them to Indeed, while jobseekers can then gain access to roles they may only have stumbled across had they been walking past a shop.

The app launched in the US and Australia last summer, where users have uploaded over 800,000 jobs.

• Talent acquisition software provider Optimize has launched. Optimize’s SaaS software offers applicant tracking, PSL management, electronic timesheet management, video screening, custom data analytics, one-click job posting in a bid to streamline and simplify hiring processes.

• PepsiCo has launched the PepsiCo Go Trendsetter Challenge. The Challenge offers graduates who can turn their ideas into a business plan detailing how they would market their idea and engage customers stand a chance of winning a place on PepsiCo’s graduate programme and a range of digital prizes for those finishing in second and third place.

The competition is split into three stages: an initial stage where graduates register and submit their ideas; a second stage where the most promising ideas are selected and entrants given the chance to join an online mentoring portal and work with a PepsiCo mentor who will help finesse the idea; and a final stage in which the best ideas are presented before a PepsiCo panel.

While the competition is open to graduates from across the European Union, roles on the graduate programme are only available in the UK, France and Spain, and entrants should be eligible to work in at least in one of these countries. 

• Energy and telecoms firm Prysmian Group has launched ‘Sell It’, an international recruitment programme aimed at recruiting 50 sales and marketing professionals.

The new recruits receive a three-year professional development programme in sales & marketing, while candidates need a degree in engineering, chemistry or economics, and three to five years’ work experience in sales within the industrial manufacturing or consumer goods sectors. Successful recruits will work across front-end sales, technical sales, key account, customer care and trade marketing.

• Australian Brisbane-based recruitment industry platform recFinder has launched. The platform creates an area where jobseekers and hiring managers can find and contact a recruiter based on their location and industry. They can then decide on whether to contact a more relevant recruiter for their requirements.

recFinder also uses dashboards to show recruiters feedback from jobseekers and hiring managers while delivering targeted information, courses and products to recruiters.

• IT job board Technojobs has launched Change Manager, a dedicated change management job site. The Change Manager jobs platform focuses on change management roles from popular brands, as well as offering specialist career advice and relevant client advertising and promotion.

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