An evolving relationship

Like all businesses, MarketMakers evolved over the years and different methods of recruitment have been trialled. Luke Groves, who was Commercial Director for MarketMakers was placed in the business by Peter Hunt, Director at Workshop Recruitment in 2005.

Talking about changes to recruitment within the business over that time and the role Workshop Recruitment has always played, he says:

‘Initially we always used Workshop for all our staffing requirements but then in 2012 a decision was made to bring recruitment in house. We trialled a contractor who acted as in house recruitment but it didn’t really work; she just sub-contracted to other agencies, so we were still actually using Workshop despite having an internal team member. Subsequently we decided to build our own internal recruitment team, and Workshop supplied us with our first internal recruiter.’

Despite having their own internal recruitment team, MarketMakers continued to work closely with Workshop Recruitment, including for all its temporary recruitment needs.

‘Because we work on a project-by-project basis, and some of those projects are wrapped up within a few weeks, there’s no point upping our permanent staff levels for such a short period of time’.

By maintaining a close working relationship with MarketMakers and building a solid understanding of the business, Workshop Recruitment was able to source a new set of staff quickly and efficiently for every new short-term project.

Acting with honesty and integrity

Due to the nature of MarketMakers’ business, some of the staffing requirements come with necessary but niche criteria. When MarketMakers were working on a major project with AMEX, the scope of the project was expanded to include five different countries. This caused an urgent requirement for native speakers in the five target languages, who had the necessary telemarketing skills and were looking for very short-term contracts.

‘We thought it would be a nightmare to find candidates but Workshop managed to find us the five people we needed, with the right skills. When we needed more, Workshop were honest with us and told us to speak to other agencies too as they knew we really needed to fill the roles and I really appreciated their honesty and integrity – if they can’t fulfil a role, they say.’

Luke also went on to note that they don’t play games like other agencies.

They are more interested in developing long term relationships than trying to make quick, short term financial gains’.  He claims this is one of the biggest differentiators between Workshop and other local agencies.

Going above and beyond

Workshop Recruitment enjoys long relationships with many of its clients, and is always happy to go above and beyond to ensure that everything goes smoothly, and its clients stay happy, as Luke confirms.

‘We once had about 20 temps turning up on a Saturday morning to work on a project, and Pete and one of the Workshop team came down to the site early in the morning to check them in, making sure everything was in order. I really appreciated this level of service.  They went above and beyond because they knew it was really important for us to deliver the campaign we were working on. They have always been available and visible. It’s this and their integrity that make them different to other agencies – Workshop work with us, they help us and always act with real integrity.’