Craig has over 5 years of experience in recruitment, working from both Manchester and London and covering the UK and EMEA.
Craig has predominately focused on sales and client facing roles across a number of different verticals and industries and has joined Gibson Hollyhomes to help grow the Finance and Accountancy desk. Outside of work Craig is an avid music and football fan and supports his home team Burnley FC, the darlings of the Premier League.
From your experience what factors/challenges do you think are affecting the recruitment market?
Recruitment as a whole in the UK is a £32 billion industry as of 2017 and with this brings more competition for the same candidate, especially if you’re dealing in some niche areas. I think the market has also shifted slightly to favour the candidate and good candidate relations as always are essential, but seem to be more vital than ever before.
How has Accountancy & Finance recruitment changed since you’ve worked within the sector?
I’ve worked in Accounts and Finance recruitment now for 20 months, so consider myself to still be relatively new to the sector. I’ve noticed that there has been an upturn in part-qualified roles of recent, more companies are hiring for assistant management accountants / management accountants and from this offer study support across CIMA and ACCA to attract and support the best candidates in the market.
What do you consider to be the issues facing this sector?
I think the biggest issue we have in recruitment at the moment, not just in this sector, but as a whole. Is that the perception that every agency and recruitment consultant are the same and are only in it for the quick win. There seems to be a lot of negative press around recruitment on social media platforms including LinkedIn. But as with anything each agency and consultant have their own values and different ways of working. The biggest issue I feel, especially when speaking to new candidates/clients is trying to persuade said candidate/client that you work in a different way to other agencies and that you have to distinguish yourself from this stigma
What values can you bring to clients and candidates alike?
I have worked 7 years+ in recruitment, across multiple sectors and with four different companies. For each of the companies I have worked at I have picked up and developed different values, but I think the biggest thing for me is that you should always be upfront and honest. This approach has always served me well and across my career I have built up key relationships with core clients and candidates alike.
This sounds like a very obvious statement, but there are plenty of companies out there that are happy to encourage consultants, to fabricate the truth in order to hit KPI’s or to get the quick win. I’ve experienced this first hand and I feel it’s one of the reasons the Industry as a whole has received negative press.
If you didn’t work in recruitment, what would you be doing?
If I didn’t work in recruitment I’d spend more time focussing on writing and performing music. Either that or working for the world famous Burnley FC in any capacity.