Business booming at new recruitment firm in city
A recruitment consultancy launched during the pandemic has ambitious plans to boost its own headcount after less than a year in business.
Laura Gillespie set up her firm – Gillespie Recruitment – in May and it now has a team of five and plans to take on four more over the next few months.
It has also relocated to a new office at the city’s North East BIC which are three times the size of its original space.
Laura, who has more than 30 years’ experience in recruitment, media sales, marketing and fundraising, launched the business while working from home.
She said: “Recruitment has traditionally been seen as a very stressful industry and I wanted to change that, so I set out to focus more on our company culture than company profit.
“By fully embracing flexible working, we’ve ensured our employees have the best possible work-life balance and created a workplace culture that champions personal and professional development, be it training and upskilling or opportunities to grow within the business.”
She added: “The past nine months have been a real whirlwind.
"What started as just me, working from a small office, quickly grew into a team of four employees and the business smashing our 12-month growth targets within just six months.”
Looking for office space, Laura chose the BIC as she had previously been based there with two former employers and it provided the flexibility for her businesses to grow at a sustainable rate.
She said: “We are now a team of five, with plans to create a further four jobs over the coming months.
“I can’t thank the team at the BIC enough for making it possible to move to a new office without changing our business address.
“I really think we would have struggled to grow at this pace had we been based anywhere else.”
Donna Surtees, centre manager at the BIC, said: “Seeing Laura turn an idea during the pandemic into a fast-growing business in such a short time has been absolutely incredible.
“We’re delighted to have supported her journey so far.”