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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.

25 July 2023
IT/Telecoms, HR

NEW TO THE MARKET: 24-28 JULY 2023

• Professional Passport has added a new online function to help recruiters to manage their preferred supplier lists. The new automated process will notify them of any changes to Professional Passport’s accredited provider list so that recruiters can stay up-to-date and be assured that they are working with compliant approved providers at all times. Recruiters can sign up for the service for free here.

17 July 2023
Executive search, IT/Telecoms

Fierstone launches Search Chain Partners with backing from Barton

The new firm will be focusing on commercially skilled roles within the AI, machine learning, ESG, data and analytics market segments. 

Fierstone previously spent more than 10 years with EC1 Partners, where he was partner and head of the executive search practice.

Nicholas Barton, founder and CEO of The Barton Partnership, will act as investor and non-executive director (NED) to the new company.

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17 July 2023
Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Oil & gas/Energy, Life sciences, Creative/Digital/Media, Engineering, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms, HR, Graduates/Apprentices/School leavers

NEW TO THE MARKET: 17-21 JULY 2023

• CV Wallet, an AI-powered career management app, has introduced a personal AI careers adviser designed to make searching, applying and interviewing for jobs easier. By harnessing AI technology, CV Wallet, also known as Resume Wallet in the US, is putting the power back into the hands of jobseekers, giving them the tools and guidance to take control of their careers. Integrated within the Careers Hub section of the app, the AI-powered adviser guides job seekers through three crucial aspects of their professional journeys: planning, applications and interviews.

• Global technology recruiter Harvey Nash has launched a new initiative to bring fresh, diverse talent into the tech sector through a “unique” cross-training programme. Harvey Nash NextGen will partner with customers to access scarce technology skills from identifying the people needed, to developing their skills through the Harvey Nash NextGen Academy, to employing and deploying the talent, which later can be employed by the customer. This new solution will allow Harvey Nash to take an active role in adding to the pipeline of future technology talent in the UK, while creating opportunities for under-represented groups to build successful careers in the sector.

• Indeed Flex, an online staffing platform for temporary work, has launched same day pay to give workers total flexibility over when they get paid. Indeed Flex now allows workers to get up to 50% of what they’ve earned each time they complete a shift. This new benefit for ‘flexers’ is being provided as a result of Indeed Flex’s partnership with third-party provider FlexEarn, a tool dedicated to help employers give their staff immediate access to the wages they’ve earned.

• Recruitment process outsourcing firm Instant Impact is officially a carbon neutral company, thanks to its ongoing partnership with Climate Impact Partners (CIP). The achievement follows from a successful strategy implemented in 2022 to reduce the carbon footprint. CIP helps businesses reach their climate goals through the purchase of high-quality carbon credits. This work delivers finance to projects that are reducing emissions now, supporting the transition to a low-carbon global economy.

• Global recruitment firm LHi Group has announced it is opening a new office in the US in Miami, Florida this October. The Miami office will be the hub for two of LHi’s major brands, Piper Maddox (clean energy) and Lawrence Harvey (technology), and aims to capitalise on the opportunities from the dynamic clean energy and tech sectors in the US.

• Specialist science and sustainable technology recruitment firm Populus Select has opened an office in Germany having secured work in the pharmaceutical industry in the country. Populus, which is headquartered in Tees Valley, is also working with a number of firms on the continent in the science, technology, engineering and specialist manufacturing sectors, providing recruitment, research and business development services.

• Sonovate, a provider of embedded finance and payment solutions for the contingent workforce, has expanded its offering with a new solution to automate back and middle office tasks for recruitment agencies of all sizes. The new capabilities will enhance efficiencies and streamline processes, giving smaller businesses added visibility and self-serve capabilities to allow them to have more predictability as they ramp up their business. This will also help mid-size and large recruitment agencies to work more efficiently with improved integration across their suite of tech tools, better visibility, enhanced reporting, and reconciliation. In offering a complete solution, Sonovate eliminates the need for agencies to use different vendors and disjointed systems.

• The City Recruiter, a Manchester-based recruitment firm, has announced plans to boost student job prospects by placing 600 graduates into work over the next six months. The recruitment firm will also be moving into a larger office at Manchester’s Cardinal House, transitioning from its previous HQ on Dale Street, allowing the firm to accommodate its planned expansion of quadrupling its staff by the end of the year.

• Employment charity Working Chance (which specialises in supporting women with convictions into employment) has published Hiring With Conviction – a comprehensive, accessible, up-to-date resource that helps employers with the practicalities of recruiting people with convictions. Research carried out last year by Working Chance found that almost half (45%) of employers would hire someone with a conviction, but discrimination was still pervasive. The guide maps the recruitment journey from policies to put in place from the beginning, through to supporting new recruits during their induction periods. It also contains template policies and procedures that employers can put into use straight away.

13 July 2023
Marketing & Sales

Lord Sugar’s Hernshead Group launches Harlow Recruitment

Based in Reading, Berkshire, and headed up by recruiter Jack Benham (above right), the new agency will receive support from the Hernshead Group, which is jointly owned by director of Hernshead Recruitment Tom Johnson (above left) and entrepreneur Lord Sugar.

Benham was previously sales director for another sales & marketing recruitment business in the Thames Valley area. Harlow Recruitment will focus on supporting business of all sizes, from start-ups to global household names, to recruit top sales & marketing talent.

On the launch of Harlow, Lord Sugar said: “Hernshead Recruitment has been a real success story and it’s great to add another recruitment company to our Hernshead Group. I’m sure Jack and Harlow Recruitment will also be a big success.”

Hernshead is looking to invest in and support the launch of more recruitment businesses following the success of Hernshead Recruitment, which has grown to a 12-person business from its launch in 2019, with a turnover of £2.5m.

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