How did we get here?
The BlackCat Talent Co. is a new venture for me. I joined forces with Ian in September this year but our paths have crossed many, many times over the past 15 years. Our working relationship started when I was a customer of Ian’s. He was the best consultant around when searching for Auto Mechanics and Electricians and I was working as a service provider to the Automotive sector and would call him in a panic to help me find great people when I needed them.
Our careers have taken us on different paths but with the common goal of working with great companies to secure wonderful talent for their organisation.
We’ve had so many conversations over the years, about how we can make the services that we offer, individually, the best that they can be. We always discussed working together but until this year, the opportunity hadn’t arisen.
So much has happened in 2020 that we decided it was time for me to bite the bullet, leave the world of contracting and join Ian as Co-Owner and director of his already thriving business, The Black Cat Recruitment Co. I was studying for a post grad CIPD qualification in HR and had committed myself to understanding all of the theory behind what makes a great company, how incredible organisations attract the best talent and what sets aside the leaders in these businesses to make them thrive. Ian was already accredited by the REC and we felt that this was a great opportunity to offer something new to wonderful companies looking to attract amazing people.
So, back to the original question. Resource, Recruit, Retain. It has never been enough for Ian and I to post a job advert and hope that the right person applies, gets the job and stays at the company we’re recruiting for. We both realised that our greatest successes had come from close working relationships with our clients and that we felt most confident in new hires when we had looked beyond the recruitment process. When we worked with our clients to utilise our expertise in ensuring that they were resourcing in the best way for their organisation, the outcome was always significantly better.
Ensuring that new hires were on-boarded in a manner that was in keeping with predicting long term hiring success was also very important to us.
‘Talent management seeks to attract, identify, develop, engage, retain and deploy individuals who are considered particularly valuable to an organisation. It should align with business goals and strategic objectives.’ – CIPD
Pushing this one step further, our candidates have been happiest in organisations that have a great people strategy and company culture. When working with our clients to encourage this, not only does this help to attract great candidates, assist in securing candidates when they are offered positions but has a wealth of other benefits to the existing work force.
‘Few organisations currently collect and use good-quality data to forecast hiring demands, or assess the availability/ supply of talent in the market. Furthermore, fewer than two in ten currently measure the return on investment of their recruitment processes.’ – CIPD Resourcing & Talent Planning survey 2020.
From our very first meeting with our clients, we endeavour to understand the data that has led them to adopting their current recruitment processes and that may be leaving gaps in a truly successful hiring strategy. Data is key in informing a strong plan for moving forward with talent management and from day 1 of working with BlackCat, the information that we gather helps us to underpin a great strategy.
The Black Cat Recruitment Co. is now The BlackCat Talent Co. The name change brings a change in us as individuals, a change in the services that we offer and the change that we would like to see in the world of recruitment. Looking beyond a CV and job description and supporting a healthy company culture, as the key to long term hiring success
