A DARLINGTON recruitment agency has strengthened its team by appointing a consultant to deal exclusively with permanent staff.
Whurk Recruitment, in Post House Wynd, saw a need for an experienced consultant to be the dedicated contact for both employers looking for permanent, skilled, office-based staff – including executive appointments – and for employees looking for positions in these areas.
Lyndsey Rodgers, 38, joined the business in September, increasing the Whurk team to seven full-time staff, and will be covering all of the North East region.
She has a successful background of working in training, sales, performance management, and development, and nearly three years ago she decided she would like to be involved in recruitment.
“I dealt with coaching and training new staff but I was keen to get into the recruitment side,” she says. “With Whurk, I’m at the very start of the employment process. I have to match employees with the employers, which is quite a skilled job. My areas of responsibility include finance, sales, marketing, IT, admin, and also executive appointments.
“At the moment, I’m involved in getting to know our current and previous clients, while also networking and meeting potential new clients. It’s important to understand exactly what the client is looking for, which can mean spending time in the company, meeting the teams, and shadowing someone, to fully understand their needs, as well as working with them on job and person specs to target the perfect employee.
“It’s an investment in our time and a cost to us, but we have to know the company inside-out, which means that, ultimately, we will be able to place the right people in the right jobs – and they’ll stay there.”
Retention is a large part of what makes Whurk unique. Their attention to detail when recruiting for their clients means that the person is more likely to remain with the company because they are the right fit.
The Whurk team aims to make the recruitment process as easy as possible for the client. They will actively headhunt, as well as liaise with the company to create job and person specs. They will then screen every application and draw up a shortlist of candidates to interview. Once the candidates have been seen, the best ones will be forwarded to the company for final interview.
Founder and proprietor of Whurk, Laura Claughan, knows that they are getting it right.
“We are representing the client, so we have to have a good understanding of their requirements. We are very person-focused – we don’t just match up CVs with job specs,” she says. “We might interview someone who doesn’t necessarily tick all the boxes on the spec, but we will know that they are the right person, and the client trusts us when we send someone to them that might not seem perfect on paper, but we have seen something in them which tells us that they are the right person for that job.
“We are giving added value to our clients, and we are giving candidates better opportunities. The time and cost savings to the client in using us to pre-screen is massive. They will only have to see and choose from the few that we have whittled out of the initial response to an advert.
“And because we know what they are looking for, they will only be seeing the best candidates.”
Lyndsey’s next task is to represent Whurk at EMCON, the annual showcase event for Engineering and Manufacturing excellence in the North East, being held at the Xcel Centre in Newton Aycliffe on October 18. It will be her chance to raise her own profile in her new role, and to show other companies how Whurk can help them to recruit, and retain, the best employees.
To contact Lyndsey, phone: 01325 778535 or email: lyndsey@whurk.co.uk
www.whurk.co.uk