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.