We were delighted that Celina was approached by a journalist at the Express and Echo to talk about her success within the recruitment industry, as a part of their piece on 'Women in Business' - please find the article which is due to be published.
I'm one of the Director's of Sarah West Recruitment, Exeter. My recruitment career started in 1992 working as a recruitment consultant before joining a successful independent agency winning top performer awards for several consecutive years. Later I became Branch Manager, Regional Manager then moved to a Regional Director position with a large national agency.
Sarah West Recruitment is an amalgamation of the energy, friendship and recruitment experience between Sarah Knight and myself. We are both highly experienced recruiters from the Exeter area, and believe our career histories compliment each other to the advantage of the people we work with. Our expertise is commercial office and sales based recruitment, at any level, on a temporary, contract or permanent basis.
Although everyone's talking about the credit crunch, we've found the local market buoyant and our business has been unaffected by the crunch. The last six months have been very exciting and we are incredibly busy, not only are existing clients continuing to recruit but we have developed new profitable business. It's become increasingly important to have an internet profile and we are very excited that our new website www.sarahwestrecruit.co.uk goes live this week (10/11/09).
Working closely with clients to understand their needs is essential to our success. We are different to other agencies, we look beyond the job description and the cv and find the right person with the right skills that will be the perfect fit to the clients short term and long term requirements. Quite often this is someone who may not have ticked all the boxes with their CV, but they are the right person for the company and the job.
Woman's intuition and years of experience have given us an edge in local recruitment. Everything's done with a click of a switch, but we haven't forgotten the personal touch. Providing excellent customer service produces results. .
Laughter. Perhaps an odd recommendation, but I know many successful women and they all have the ability to find humor in stressful situations. Once you laugh, it no longer has the power to debilitate you and a solution is easier to find.
People buy people, so be yourself and know it's OK. We treat clients in the way we would want to be treated. We're efficient, but direct and honest. We avoid the hard-nosed sales approach used by some agencies.
For women, successful working relationships are about being with people who understand you and having a strong network of friends or family. Having someone to absolutely rely on is invaluable. Recently my daughter required an emergency operation, we love our business, but our children must also take a priority. Sarah was brilliant, she understood and covered my work to ensure our clients continued to receive their usual service
Our future plans are to expand. As the economy continues to grow we'll take on more staff. I'm always happy to help other businesses and if anyone would like recruitment advice please email me Celina@sarahwestgroup.co.uk, call 01392 873813 or visit the new website: www.sarahwestrecruit.co.uk.
