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 September 2019
Accounting/Finance

Start-up of the Month: Walters People

The brand, which launched in France 15 years ago and is also in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, will initially focus on contract and permanent recruitment in the accounting & finance and business support fields.

Walters People director Phill Westcott told Recruiter the brand aims to stand out in the market by making transactional recruitment more personal, combining technology with a human-led approach to deliver a more seamless recruitment experience.

The brand aims to do this by operating across four pillars of commitment:

Speed – through guaranteeing shortlists within 24 hours for contract roles and within 48 hours for permanent roles

Testing – through a partnership with a testing platform, candidates receive aptitude and personality profiling so they can be assessed on how successful they will be in the role

Video CV – digitising the CV by including videos of candidates describing their experience and skills

Quality assurance – digitalising the candidate registration process so there are no gaps in candidates’ work history or rights to work.

Looking ahead, the brand is seeking to expand across its parent company’s UK office network.

“At the moment, I’ve got 30 people who make up our Walters People business in London, but [Robert Walters Group] has a network across the UK with seven other offices. Our plan is to expand the brand into our regional businesses and expand on many of the disciplines that we can offer within Walters People, which will leverage the four pillars as the brand expands,” he said.

16 September 2019
Retail, Sales, Creative/Digital/Media, Executive search, IT/Telecoms, Hospitality/Leisure, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 16-20 SEPTEMBER 2019

• Recruitment marketing specialist ContentApp, founded by Kelly Robinson and Darren Westall, previously the CEO and CTO of recruitment software firm Broadbean, is rebranding and changing its name to Paiger. Paiger automatically advertises a recruiter’s roles onto LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook in a way that increases applications.

Alongside its rebranding, Paiger is also introducing three new features to its platform: passive candidate attraction; automatic spellchecking and gender bias; and website monitoring.

• Temp recruiter RedWigWam is holding a recruitment drive on Tuesday, 24 September 11am-6pm at the Slug & Lettuce in Queen Street, Blackpool. RedWigWam is hoping to fill short-term, flexible roles for Blackpool Football Club. New jobs include bar, waiting-on staff, kiosk staff, hospitality, and meet-and-greet staff at the club.

• Professional services and tech recruiter Stanton House is launching a new office in the US. The Chicago office will focus on cyber security recruitment solutions.

• Gurvinder Singh has launched TechRank – a recruitment company that sources, tests and ranks tech talent in a bid to help companies hire the best and most capable person for the job. By testing candidates for the level of skill the position requires, the firm says businesses will be able make an objective decision about the person they hire to fill a vacant tech role.

• Finance, learning and technology recruiter Woodrow Mercer has bolstered its Birmingham team by welcoming senior technology recruiters Nathan Upton and Samuel O’Leary as associate directors for a new division. Woodrow Mercer Embedded is aimed at the embedded software contract market.

9 September 2019
Public sector, Education, IT/Telecoms, HR, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 9-13 SEPTEMBER 2019

• Enterprise talent CRM Beamery has launched a talent operating system (TOS), a platform that allows enterprises to manage the entire talent journey with one system. Beamery’s TOS centralises a company’s candidate data, applications and talent operations, allowing recruiters to attract, engage and retain top candidates on one unified platform. Alongside the launch of the TOS, Beamery has released also a new iteration of its data enrichment engine Sherlock.

• The Hela Job app, an Uber-like locally focused, on-demand job hiring app, has launched. The app, launched by CEO & founder Ioannis Antypas, features real-time tracking, built-in messaging, one-click job requests, response times of 30 seconds or up to eight minutes and advanced scheduling.

• Enterprise career site and recruitment CRM technology provider SmashFly Technologies has launched an ‘apply overlay’ solution. The solution aims to reduce the barriers of the standard applicant tracking systems (ATS) process, and increases apply conversion. This is done by rebranding the experience to match the career site, eliminating registration steps and using data collected during apply to automatically create a talent network profile.

• James Brown, previously group managing director at micro-specialist staffing group Phaidon International, has launched fintech recruiter Storm2. The launch has been enabled by seed funding of £1m from investment service Puffin Point. The Storm2 leadership team includes Jamie Robinson, formerly at Phaidon International and Harris Hill, and George Trewhella, formerly at Phaidon International and BSM Group. David Hunter joins as a strategic adviser.

• Legal recruiter Taylor Root has opened new offices in Dublin and Birmingham, headed up by Hamish Richmond and Darryn Hale respectively.

• Kent-based national recruitment and business services group HR GO has launched supply agency Teachright. The joint venture between HR GO and directors Sarah Mitchell, Luke Patsalou and Paul Cater also offers free educational solutions to schools, such as football coaching. Patsalou is a qualified football coach, Cater is a qualified teacher, while Mitchell is a director with RHL, the technical and engineering division of HR GO.

5 September 2019
Healthcare/Medical

NEW TO THE MARKET: 2-6 SEPTEMBER 2019

• Medical staffing specialist the Cook Investment Group has moved to new offices at Clarendon House, Wymbush, Milton Keynes, relocating from its former home at Manor Court Farm, Old Wolverton, in the same area.

Recruiter Magazine

SUBSCRIBE TO PRINT
VIEW PAST ISSUES
Top