The 'Epitome' of elegance @ The Irish News Awards

Lindsey and Victoria got their glad rags on to attend the annual Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards, held this year at Titanic Belfast on June 19^th. As I’m sure you’ll agree both ladies looked the ‘Epitome’ of elegance as they arrived to take their seats and wait for the evening to begin. For the first time Epitome had been short listed as a finalist in the prestigious section of Recruitment Innovator of the Year, up against some well established national companies we went in with heads held high and full of anticipation.

The glittering ball room with the famous stair case (the one from the movie with Leo and Kate) was a buzz with excitement, many of Northern Ireland’s leading organisations gathered to celebrate their successful people and a successful year of business. The Workplace awards really highlight the importance of getting it right when recruiting, hiring people who will fit with your team, fit with your corporate culture and fit with your management style. The variety of personalities in the room supports the evidence that not all companies hire the same people, they don't want clones.We all need to ensure we are hiring not just people who have the right skills but also the right personality.

At Epitome we put this high on our selection scoring when recruiting for our team and also for our clients. People need to fit in with the existing team and feel like they are valued by their employer. This was evident in the room on the 19^th June, those companies who fully supported and developed their people where the winners on the night and even those short listed as finalists had fantastic teams around them, including several of our key clients one of whom, Henderson Retail, received a Highly Commended award, well done Team Henderson's we like to think we played a role in your success.

Unfortunately Epitome came away empty handed on the night, but being our first time at the event and first time short listed we still came away with heads held high and confident that we are innovators in recruitment. With the developments we have in the pipeline for the rest of the year including online assessments and video interviews are a quietly confident that we will be back to challenge the winners in 2015.

Congratulations to all the winners and runner's up, see you next year.

TIP OF THE MONTH – Keep recruiting when the sun shines.

Over the summer it seems everyone goes on holiday and recruitment is pushed back to the start o the autumn. But just because everyone is jetting off to sunnier climates or heading to the local seaside resorts it doesn’t mean your recruitment strategy needs to be put on hold. In these high tech days candidates can look for a new job whilst sunning themselves on a beach in Turkey. 

When people are on holiday they relax and maybe start to question their current work life balance or job satisfaction, they have the time to browse job boards and if interested apply for that all important new job. So why wait till autumn, launch a campaign, go away yourself for two weeks and return to a nice full in box of applications and possibly your next superstar. Worried you might miss out on someone who is away for two weeks? Don’t just run a slightly longer campaign and then when you get back to work all tanned and relax you can screen and short list and have your next new hire in place before the start of the new quarter, when everyone else including your competitors are just thinking of hiring. 

What a year so far !!

What a year so far !

Here at Epitome we have had a fantastic year so far, Quarter 1 was our best quarter to date and May is looking like being our best month. So imagine our delight today when we received a letter to let us know we have been shortlisted as finalists for the Recruitment Innovator of the year at The Irish News Workplace and Employment Awards!!

We are so pleased to be shortlisted as this award acknowledges the fresh and new initiative which we are championing here in Northern Ireland.

Having worked within traditional recruitment agencies for a combined 25 years the consultants in Epitome are passionate about our new and modern approach. We are moving away from the traditional and becoming a trend setter, introducing a new model of managing recruitment campaigns.

But differentiating yourself in an overcrowded market can be a hard task, just think of the CVs you receive when advertising a vacancy, we see it every day with the applications we screen. Candidates can be very inventive to make themselves stand out from the crowd, they might use coloured banners, different fonts, larger fonts, pictures of themselves, and logos of the companies they have worked in,  I even had someone put their job title as “Time Traveller” this week and his name did not start with The Doctor!

So understanding how hard it can be to ‘stand out’ we are thrilled to get this recognition and be short listed in such a coveted competition. The best feedback however is that from our customers, we receive calls each week from new companies who have been referred by existing  clients, companies who are bored with their traditional methods and need to try something new.

We hope that the year continues as it has began, we will keep on preaching about our ‘different’ approach to recruiting and hope that all our followers keep their fingers crossed that we move from nominees to winners at the Awards in June!

Now on that note.....what will I wear....

Victoria Adams, Epitome Recruitment

Green shoots! Has spring sprung?

Maybe we’re being optimistic but the treacherous rain of the last few months seems to be slowly subsiding. The fields around us have new lambs and the trees have new buds. I saw snowdrops in my garden and there are cream eggs on the shop shelves...so has spring sprung?

Technically as I write this the answer is no, did you know spring doesn’t actually start until 20^th March but with less than three weeks to go before we spring to the end of another financial year have you already planned what your company will be doing for the new financial year that is nearly here. Whether you are blossoming like the daffodils or recovering like our battered sandy coastline, you really need to get those plans together now and within that you really should be planning about what key personnel you need to bring into your team to ensure you achieve all your goals for the coming financial year.

Our own winter was pretty full on, new staff joined the team and then we moved to our new bigger office (with a sea view), it has been the busiest January and February to date so it would be easy for us to forget about the next quarter and revel in the success we have had so far this year, but we all know that’s where the danger lies. Forward planning is the key to all business success regardless of your sector, even those sectors that are reactionary need to forward plan to a degree. So if you are thinking of taking on staff in April don’t leave it until the last week in March before you advertise thinking you’ll get someone quickly, recruiting staff is just like planting flowers , you need to sow the seeds early to ensure you get the best blossom! 

We believe the green shoots in our industry are certainly showing and this is brilliant news for everyone because if recruiters are busier then it means companies are hiring and the economy is certainly showing signs of, dare we say recovery.

Roll on spring and use it well to prepare for what we hope will be a blazing summer.

Victoria Adams, Business Development Manager, Epitome Recruitment

Google Me...!!

Here at Epitome HQ we are celebrating our busiest January to date and thought this picture summed up our last couple of weeks nicely! Do you find yourself getting frustrated when looking through CVs/applications from potential new employees only to find next to no information about what they did on said documents. With the birth of social media many candidates are attaching links to their profiles expecting you the employer to do your homework on them, it’s like they are saying ‘look me up I’m so good my profile says it all’. And whilst LinkedIN profiles are great (and we use them everyday) you want to feel that the person you are looking to hire has put some effort into their application and can demonstrate they want to work for you.

A well written application, CV says a lot about a candidate, it is so frustrating when you find yourself drowning in CVs only to go through the first 50 and feel like you know nothing about those applicants or despair because you don’t think you will ever find one that matches your criteria. It’s the applications from candidates who don’t come close to meeting your criteria that is so frustrating, and I mean they don’t even match ONE of your essential criteria? Maybe ‘googling’ someone would help but who has the time for that? It is very easy to be tempted and just give up and pull out a few random ones and hope for the best.  Tempting? Yes....Wise? Absolutely not. 

Every month we are awash with applications but instead of drowning we simply sail along sifting and telephone screening candidates for our clients.  We don’t go as far as ‘googling’ people to find out their experience but we will happily go through all the applications and speak to people on your behalf to clarify how they meet the requirements of your role, it’s what we specialise in so you don’t have to.

So, if you feel like your drowning in the sea of applications, being smothered by CV’s or deflated by responses....give us a call...we are always here to help.