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Frank Recruitment Group is a global leader in staffing for IT professionals. It specializes in recruitment for niche and emerging technology markets like Microsoft Azure, Salesforce, and AWS.

The company launched in 2006 with three people working out of a small office in Newcastle Upon Tyne. The company now has eight brands operating from 17 offices in eight countries and employs more than 2,000 people.

Meet the Trailblazer

James Lloyd-Townshend is the Chairman and CEO of Frank Recruitment Group. After graduating from the University of Newcastle with a degree in economics and accounting, James returned home to Northern Ireland and did pretty well for himself selling tractor finance to farmers. He then decided to try his hand at a new challenge, moved back to the North of England, and found a job in recruitment. He put the graft in and began climbing up the ranks.

Two decades later, James became a Managing Director with one of the largest listed recruiters in the world. In 2015, he took on the role of CEO at Frank Recruitment Group, and since then he has overseen two private equity deals, the opening of 11 new locations across America and Europe, and the launch of five brands.

Delivering Industry-Focused Services

Recruitment is a crowded and competitive industry and Frank Recruitment Group is one of 25,000 staffing firms in the UK, so differentiating itself is a key part of its strategy. James says, "We always knew we didn’t want to join the ranks of generalist recruiters fighting over the same roles. We decided to dedicate ourselves to a niche where we had the opportunity to become leaders.”

Each of Frank Recruitment Group’s brands targets a specific technology and focuses exclusively on recruiting for professionals who work with that product, language, or service. The company picks one thing and does it exceptionally well.

That laser focus on niche markets means the company can build in-depth knowledge of the products it works with and the skill sets that its clients want. That expertise massively increases the value Frank Recruitment Group can deliver to the clients and what it can contribute to the wider sector.

Primarily, the company works to connect skilled tech professionals with businesses all over the world, but it’s much more than a recruiter – it helps businesses to develop hiring and retention strategies, support the ecosystems, and even create new talent.

An Eye on Tomorrow

In tech, things are always moving. James learned very early on that people have to be committed to keeping pace with how things change.

“Technological innovations are coming thick and fast, the skill sets that businesses want are changing all the time, the products we work with are being updated constantly. The most valuable thing I’ve learned from my professional experience is to always be thinking about the future. We’ve created seven new brands in the past five years alone to target new and emerging markets: as a business leader, you have to think not only about delivering what your customers need today but planning for what they might want tomorrow,” James shares.

An Award-Winning Organization

According to James, the company has been lucky enough to be acknowledged for the work it has done both for their customers and employees. “The success and wellbeing of the employees is something I’m extremely focused on, so I’m really proud that we’ve been named among the best companies to work for in San Francisco, New York City, and Dallas,” he mentioned.

Inclusion is one of Frank Recruitment Group’s core values, so the company was honored to receive Capgemini’s Recruitment Supplier of the Year award for its work in support of their Active Inclusion Charter—in 2017, where it delivered the highest number of experienced females hires to Capgemini thanks to its targeted Diversity and Inclusion strategies.

Paving the Way for Innovation 

There simply aren’t enough tech professionals to fill the roles being created by digital transformation, and no tech professionals to do the work means no progress for businesses.

Frank Recruitment Group saw this as an opportunity to help actively address this issue, developing innovative solutions to create more talent and solve its clients’ problems. The company looks at where the greatest need is and works out the most effective way to deliver candidates with the skills that its clients want.

So far, the company has created three programs to generate talent in the ecosystems it works in. Frank Recruitment Group’s Diversity in Dynamics initiative was set up to retrain IT professionals that had previously left the workforce, and help them build new careers in Microsoft Dynamics through a structured returnship work program.

Frank Recruitment Group has also created two schemes – the Mason Frank Tech Academy and the Nelson Frank Tech Academy – that imbue budding tech professionals with in-demand skillsets and place them with employers so they can earn as they learn.

Overcoming Business Challenges

“Our business has undergone massive growth recently; 40% year-on-year,” James says. “That’s a great problem to have, but it did mean having to scale our operations quickly to keep up with demand.”

Frank Recruitment Group has opened a lot of global offices in a short space of time, increased the headcount significantly, and expanded into new markets. That’s no small feat. “As we grew, we realized we needed better tools to help us continue to deliver the high levels of service we’re known for on a grander scale,” he added.

Frank Recruitment Group needed a platform that was going to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its consultants and continue to grow with it. To help achieve that, the company implemented a custom CRM solution built on the Salesforce.com platform. The implementation has been a huge success; so far, the company has seen dramatic data integrity improvements and a colossal increase in some of its KPIs.

The Future of Recruitment

Technology like AI and machine learning is having an increasingly big impact on the recruitment sector. It’s easier than ever for recruiters, candidates, and employers to connect, and there are tools available to ease the administrative load on staffing consultants and that’s really exciting.

But relationship building is the foundation of great recruitment, and that can’t be done by computers or apps. For recruitment businesses to survive, they need to be offering value to their clients and candidates and providing personalized, human service. Any recruiter that can be replaced by tech deserves to be.

For Frank Recruitment Group, the future will be a continuation of its global expansion strategy, moving into regions where the market needs it most, creating jobs, and supporting the tech sector to ensure that both its business and clients’ businesses will thrive for years to come.

A Word of Wisdom to Emerging Leaders

Offering advice to emerging business leaders, James says: “You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; you just need to be the best wheel-maker in the business. Your organization should try to be the best in the world in one thing. Find your niche, develop a deep understanding of your market, and become a genuine authority in your sector. It doesn’t matter if someone else is already doing it, as long as you can do it better.”