Why did you set up Project Start in 2016?
I wanted to bring a new technically and commercially driven agency to the North Bristol area. I am based in Yate and although the local area had 3 other agencies operating, they were not offering our full range of capabilities which we felt that local businesses were missing out on – a gap in the market.
From research, the businesses in Yate, Chipping Sodbury and surrounding areas were using central Bristol and nationally based agencies and some of them were the biggest corporate recruitment companies in the UK and this came with corporate fees, Project Start can offer more competitive rates and help keep the costs down when recruiting.
We have a real innovative way of finding talent that other agencies are not always choosing. This gives us the edge over other recruiters by offering a different pool of candidates by our own strategic methods – and I am not telling you how and what that is!
Why should clients use Project Start when hiring for their own companies?
Project Start have 20 years recruitment experience, so our networking reach is vast, whether this is understanding the major players in a given market and how to attract the most relevant candidates up and down the country, or by the easy step by step recruitment process we adopt with our clients, recruitment is fluid and our clients find us very easy to engage with, with all parties getting a successful end result – The Ideal candidate.
As we can recruit for any level candidate within a construction, engineering, industrial or technology environment, you can use Project Start for all your hiring plans and at 1 fixed price. Our clients like the idea that we are so close and can pop in for a coffee and a chat at very short notice – sometimes these things can be urgent!
Why should candidates use Project Start when hiring for their own companies?
I think candidates have a mixed reaction to using agencies and have had mixed experiences. Just as clients may have also encountered, you are not sure if the person at the end of the phone really understands your employment situation and if they know what your next ideal role is.
You could be dealing with a consultant that may have only been in recruitment for 6 months and I am afraid the experience would be very different to using a recruitment consultant with 20 years’ experience – you can hear the confidence in the telephone call – it speaks volumes.
What do you enjoy most about being the boss of Project Start?
For me, it was always about offering a more flexible way of working with my clients and candidates.
Spending most of my recruitment career working for some of the largest corporate companies in the industry, meant that processes and margins were tight and that didn’t always fall in line with what the client wanted. I prefer to be have a more flexible competitive agreement in place with my clients and be their agency of choice than to be rigid and the same as everyone else in terms of way of working.
You need to offer something different, a lot of agencies are very samey these days, and don’t leave a mark with the people that they meet and work with.
When working for a large player, you can be influenced to working vacancies’ that you don’t have a passion for as its all about what their businesses wants, where as I prefer to go with the client’s needs; 1 day I can be working a CEO role, the next day a CAD Technician, I love the variety I have now and the freedom to work on whatever our clients and candidates need.
Offering the level of technical recruitment we do now. We hope that we have brought something different to our local area, the proof is in the pudding and after nearly 12 months of trading, we can whole heartedly say its working!
We are very excited to be opening new offices in Yate at the end of 2017 and hiring new staff to work for Project Start – watch this space.
Project Start are keen to talk about your vacancy or job hunting plans, so please call Clare on 01454 529009 for a more and detailed conversation.