News and Announcements

SThree - Recruitment Company of 2012

The winners of the 2012 APSCo Awards for Excellence - sponsored by RBS and Giant – were announced on the 17th October at a business lunch with guest speaker Baroness Kingsmill. These coveted annual awards recognise and celebrate achievement in the recruitment industry and are a major indicator of professional standards throughout this sector. SThree was voted "Recruitment Company of the Year 2012 over £50m turnover".

The judges said: "This is a successful self-made business model which has matured into a global organisation without losing sight of its original values. The judges felt that they have been a model of excellence in many respects over an extended period of time."

Global Recruiter Awards

SThree Singapore attended the inaugural Global Recruiter Asia Pacific awards where the recruitment industries finest were honoured. We are pleased to announce that SThree Asia Pacific won two awards (more than any other company) and were finalist in no less than 6 of the 12 categories on offer:-

• Best Permanent Consultant - Donna Lau from Progressive Singapore O&G (Overall Category Winner)
• Best Temporary Consultant - Dave Marshall from Progressive Sydney ICT (Overall Category Winner)

• Best Large Recruitment Business
• Best Overseas Operation
• Best Specialist Recruitment Business - Progressive O&G
• Best Innovation - Apollo Integrator

Many congratulations to Donna Lau and Dave Marshall on winning their individual awards for being the best Permanent and Contract consultants in the Asia Pacific region - awesome stuff!

It is always a great feeling to be recognized by your fellow peers and once again the night showed why SThree is a great place to work:-

• Donna and Dave were ambassadors for our organic growth model having both joined us as trainees and are now being recognized as the best in the business. Whilst these are fantastic individual achievements I am sure both would acknowledge the investment the company has made which has allowed them to flourish. If you want to be the BEST and have the most exciting careers in the industry then SThree is the place to be!
• As a company we are always trying to make our consultants lives as easy as possible and innovations such as Apollo Integrator allow us to get information quicker to the market place. Once again we were the envy of the market on the night and the technology that SThree has on offer is second to none.
• Many companies say they are specialists but very few are; our specialist brand strategy allows us to be true market specialists and therefore gives our consultants a unique sales offering that many other companies can only dream of.
• We are a large organization with strong financial backing and a global office network which allows us to offer the most exciting careers in the world.

SThree Investor Day - Technology

SThree believes in its technology so much so that on 20th June we had a whole Investor Day around it! We invited a selection of investors and analysts from leading institutions such as UBS, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Investec to see a series of presentations from our leaders showcasing our latest technology and innovations. It went so well that we were rated as best in class against our competition.

Some of the praise we received from the investors/analysts on the day:

“It was a great insight into the technology and shows SThree are ahead of the game at the moment.”

“It’s clear that SThree have a far better IT system than Hays or Michael Page, despite their competitors spending far more on it”

“The SThree system looks state of the art to me in comparison to their peers. I saw the Michael Page system last year and it is superior to that”

“Overall it was one of the best investor events I have attended for some time”

With innovations such as Apollo Integrator, demonstrated by Mike Frewin on the day, Group IT are enabling our consultants to automatically link records on social media to our own Apollo database. You can also get automated alerts when clients add jobs to their own websites so you need never miss out on a ‘heads-up’ again! Alongside this, GOOD technology and Citrix have revolutionised the way the business works, enabling everyone to work when they want and where they want, massively increasing productivity.

Lance Fisher, CIO, delivered a presentation specifically around these innovations, also highlighting some interesting stats for the business. For example, did you know the following?

So, with this in mind, it is more important than ever that we have the systems to support us and that we are best placed to grow ahead of our competition. The Investor Day proved that we are!

Success at the UK Recruiter Awards

SThree were nominated for 4 awards at the prestigious UK Recruiter Awards ceremony in May 2012. We were nominated in the following categories;

• Best IT Recruitment Agency - Computer Futures
• Best Client Services - Huxley Associates, Oil & Gas
• Best Banking/Financial Recruitment Agency - Huxley Associates, Banking
• Recruiter of the Year - Mark Kelly

From the four nominations Mark Kelly won the Recruiter of the Year award. He won the award by making the most significant impact on the recruitment industry in the year October 2010 to October 2011.

Mark Kelly, Principal Consultant at Computer Futures Dublin made the move from Business Development Manager to Consultant two years ago. Since then, he's gone on to be one of the stars of the UK and Irish business, hitting lunch clubs, incentives and the 2010 SThree Super Trip to Las Vegas.

Best of Staffing Awards - Talent

Huxley Associates, Progressive Global Energy and Real Staffing Group in the USA have all been named in Inavero's 2012 Best of Staffing™ Talent list.

The Best of Staffing Talent list recognizes staffing firms that receive remarkable reviews from the people they find jobs (employed talent). Fewer than 1% of North American staffing firms have been named to the 2012 Best of Staffing Talent List.

It was also announced that Huxley Associates has been named in Inavero's 2012 Best of Staffing™ Client list. This list recognizes staffing firms that receive remarkable reviews from their clients.

Morgan Kavanagh, Director, said "These awards are a fantastic achievement because they are based on an independent survey of our candidates and clients.

In 2011, we set out to improve our customer service by spending more time with clients and candidates, and listening to them more. Everyone in the US had a part to play in this and we all feel extremely proud that we have achieved so much so quickly.

We are also confident that we can deliver an even better customer experience in 2012, because client and candidate relationship development are at the heart of our 2012 strategy."

To gain entry to these lists, our brands underwent a rigorous survey process followed by careful analysis of responses to determine satisfaction levels.

In the Best of Staffing Talent list, Huxley Associates, Progressive Global Energy and Real Staffing Group received satisfaction ratings of 9 or 10 out of 10 from 73% percent of their talent. This is significantly higher than the industry's average of 50%.

In the Best of Staffing Client list, Huxley secured a place on the list by earning an average Net Promoter Score of 74%. This is nearly double the national staffing industry benchmark.

Our CEO comments on SThree's year end performance.

January 30th saw the release of our annual financial results for 2011. You can find the full details on the SThree corporate site.

Although 2011 was a year of two halves, market conditions remained significantly more robust than those we experienced during the 2008/09 downturn. This provided the Group with a platform that allowed us to deliver a substantial improvement in profitability whilst continuing to invest in the future of the business. In addition to increasing sales headcount significantly, we also opened a further nine offices, bringing the overall total to 60, of which 39 are outside the UK. Notwithstanding this ongoing investment, we were also in a position to reward our shareholders with both a significant improvement in the ordinary dividend as well as through the payment of a substantial special dividend. Overall then, we can regard our results for 2011 with some satisfaction.

Looking forward, whatever 2012 has in store for us, we remain confident that we will make the best of it. We will manage the business prudently but we will not lose sight of the great medium term prospects for our business and, where appropriate, we will invest to ensure that the Group's future lives up to its potential. We never lose sight of the fundamentals - we are a great business which operates in a very attractive space and so have no question that when sentiment inevitably improves, we will see a rapid bounce back in trading conditions. In the meantime we are an agile, cash rich business with a twenty five year track record of profitability. Our seasoned management team has seen all market scenarios and has become increasingly adept in recent years in driving the best available result from uncertain circumstances.

You can find more information on our strategy and expansion plans here. Or you can follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Russell_SThree

Russell Clements, CEO

SThree voted most admired recruitment company

This week, SThree were recognised as the “Most admired recruitment company” at the Recruitment International awards in London.

The award was based upon 400 leaders of the recruitment industry answering one simple question: “Which recruitment company do you most admire”, with SThree taking most of the votes.

Recruitment International is an online magazine in the UK providing specialist industry research and reports, conferences and forums for owners, directors and employees within the recruitment industry.

SThree entered the awards across several categories and were shortlisted for the “Best recruitment company in the above £100 million revenue” award.

However, the award voted for by our peers goes a huge way to fulfilling our ambition “to be the most respected and highly valued international, specialist staffing group”.

Victoria Maloney, UK Director at SThree said “In our 25th year as a company, it feels fitting that we are being recognised internationally as leaders and drivers of the recruitment industry. Dave and I felt really proud to accept this award on behalf of the company.”

David Head, Leader of Vision, Values and Ethics at Recruitment International, said: "The Most admired recruitment company award was the one to win because it was voted for by the owners and directors of top FTSE 250 recruitment companies.

It recognises SThree’s long-term successes within the industry and demonstrates that your peers believe that you are doing an excellent job."

Huxley in the Windy City

Huxley Associates opened their doors on 26th September 2011 to SThree's newest office in the USA, Chicago.

Expansion to Chicago was the obvious next step for Huxley Associates' successful banking business. As home to the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, the city is one of the world's top ten Global Financial Centers. Chicago is also rated as an "alpha world city” and has been ranked by The Atlantic as the world's 4th most economically powerful city.

The Huxley Associates office will be run by Ginnette Harvey, who has relocated from Huxley’s New York office. Ginnette said "The team and I are extremely excited to be the pioneers of the Chicago office. We cannot wait to see the wins from a personal perspective and also the fantastic opportunity we have to take our careers to the next level off the back of such a big opportunity.

The first step of our journey will be to really get stuck into the development of a solid candidate and client base that we can be proud of, and we look forward to seeing our office grow from strength to strength off the back of that. Watch this space!"

Huxley exhibit at Offshore Europe

Europe's largest Oil & Gas Exhibition, Offshore Europe, took place between the 6-8th of September 2011 in Aberdeen, Scotland.

For the first time, Huxley Associates was an exhibitor at the event that has seen all the major companies within the Oil & Gas Industry worldwide exhibit their products and services to over 300,000 visitors.

During the event, all of Huxley's Manchester based Oil & Gas Consultants were present. Visitors to the stand were many both in terms of candidates and clients and the feedback was incredibly positive:

Great to see an agency focusing on assisting candidates with finding and applying for work

I can clearly tell Huxley are a serious player and doing well as only a handful of agencies have taken on the expense of having a stand at Offshore Europe

The results from the exhibition have so far been excellent. This certainly marked the rise of Huxley Associates in the Oil & Gas and Energy Industries.

Progressive expands in the Netherlands

On August 1st 2011, Progressive Netherlands opened its second Dutch office in Rotterdam. Progressive Rotterdam will take advantage of Europe's biggest port to focus on the Global Energy and Engineering markets.

Also known as the gateway to Europe, Rotterdam sits at a strategic location and is a major oil & gas, engineering and logistics hub. Major industries include energy, marine/offshore, logistics/transport, petrochemical and the many organisations providing services to these industries.

The new office will be headed up by Lisa Ciesielski with Arjan van der Schoor joining to build the contracts presence.

Lisa said - The Rotterdam port area is an incredibly interesting business area for Progressive. We are extremely excited at the scale of this opportunity as we are currently merely scratching the surface of potential business in the local area. Being here enables us to capitalise on this strategic location in Europe's biggest port. Our focus will be on high-level recruitment with a strong business strategy geared at developing and servicing core clients in the port.”

Huxley win HR recruitment award

Congratulations to Huxley Associates, who finished in first place in Here Is The City's 2011 'Best HR Recruitment Firm' poll. This is the second year in a row that Huxley has won this prestigious award, voted for by clients and candidates.

As London's fastest growing financial website, Here Is The City has established itself as a unique provider of global financial news. Easily accessible, it is written in a unique style and appeals to City professionals at all levels.

Ciara Clarke, HR Team Manager for Huxley Associates said “We are truly delighted to be voted Best HR Recruiter for the second year running. This is a great achievement and really validates the hard work and effort made by the team to understand the needs of our clients, candidates and market.

Our approach has always been to focus on delivering great service and we are proud that this has been recognised. We would like to thank our clients and candidates for taking the time to vote.”

Awards for Huxley and Real Staffing Group USA

Hot on the heels of Huxley's “Best Companies to Work For” award in New York State, Huxley and Real Staffing Group are delighted to be listed as two of the Best of Staffing Talent recruitment consultancies in the USA.

Best of Staffing, presented in partnership with CareerBuilder, is the USA's only satisfaction award that recognizes those firms that provide exceptional talent service. This prestigious award distinguishes staffing firms who outperformed the industry's benchmark.

Huxley Associates and Real Staffing Group went through a rigorous talent survey process to be considered for the award. The average Best of Staffing winner received a score of 9 or 10 out of 10 from 73% of their talent. Fewer than 1% of North American staffing firms were named as winners on the final list.