PR
“Oh What a Year”
2009 might have seen worldwide recession, banking crises and swine flu pandemics but for Julia Doherty, Director of Ethos Recruitment, and her team, it’s been in the main a year of success, growth and positivity.
The year started with Ethos becoming the first recruitment agency in the UK to embrace podcasting as a way to communicate with its candidates. Every month a new edition of ‘You’re Hired’ has been produced for download from the Ethos website and through iTunes.
Says Julia “We wanted to find new ways of communicating with our hundreds of candidates in a way that was in keeping with the way they like to communicate. The objective of our podcasts is to offer help and advice to people looking for jobs, in a way that is accessible and relevant.”
So successful has “You’re Hired” been that by April, it was keeping company with productions from the likes of the BBC and Bloomberg in the iTunes Business Category, where it was highlighted as a ‘new and notable’ podcast under the careers’ section.
However, the year’s not been all plain sailing. Julia says “We have had to make some tough decisions this year as we were unsure how the future would unfold in this economic climate. We decided to close our office in Towcester, to "preserve the pot". It seemed silly to double the overheads when we could give all our customers an excellent service from the Daventry office. Unfortunately this resulted in the company making redundancies - which has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”
The economic climate also saw some of Julia’s large clients reducing their need for temporary labour. This has been addressed by actively targeting new customers with the result that the company has increased its overall client base by 10%.
Ethos has built up a strong base of local Northamptonshire & Warks customers over the last 6 years. However the company has recently found out that they have secured their first national contract, which is extremely exciting news. The new contract will secure the future of Ethos during 2010 and open doors for a new type of recruitment (all will be revealed).
Thinking back to the start of the year, Julia says ‘all the talk was of gloom and depression. Despite ups and downs, Ethos has had a good year. My advice is not to listen to the doom mongers – have a positive attitude, set yourself some goals, take hard decisions when you need to and go for it. It’s what I’ll be doing in 2010!”
Says Julia “We wanted to find new ways of communicating with our hundreds of candidates in a way that was in keeping with the way they like to communicate. The objective of our podcasts is to offer help and advice to people looking for jobs, in a way that is accessible and relevant.”
So successful has “You’re Hired” been that by April, it was keeping company with productions from the likes of the BBC and Bloomberg in the iTunes Business Category, where it was highlighted as a ‘new and notable’ podcast under the careers’ section.
However, the year’s not been all plain sailing. Julia says “We have had to make some tough decisions this year as we were unsure how the future would unfold in this economic climate. We decided to close our office in Towcester, to "preserve the pot". It seemed silly to double the overheads when we could give all our customers an excellent service from the Daventry office. Unfortunately this resulted in the company making redundancies - which has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”
The economic climate also saw some of Julia’s large clients reducing their need for temporary labour. This has been addressed by actively targeting new customers with the result that the company has increased its overall client base by 10%.
Ethos has built up a strong base of local Northamptonshire & Warks customers over the last 6 years. However the company has recently found out that they have secured their first national contract, which is extremely exciting news. The new contract will secure the future of Ethos during 2010 and open doors for a new type of recruitment (all will be revealed).
Thinking back to the start of the year, Julia says ‘all the talk was of gloom and depression. Despite ups and downs, Ethos has had a good year. My advice is not to listen to the doom mongers – have a positive attitude, set yourself some goals, take hard decisions when you need to and go for it. It’s what I’ll be doing in 2010!”