Recent Case Studies Beyond The Book

This is a summary of some of our recent recruitment projects, which provide real world examples of how we work, as well as the typical candidates we’ve been placing. We also recently published some FAQ’s about us, which can be viewed here. There are various ways you can choose to get value from us:

Consultation on your recruitment strategy going forward
Consultation on an impending brief to ensure it is realistic and compelling
Industry and market insight and advice
Salary advice
….and of course, we can undertake a job search across Marketing, Creative, PR and Digital (Permanent and Freelance)

Multi-Media Lead – Warwickshire

New business in recruitment isn’t for the faint-hearted. After all, aren’t all recruitment agencies saying the same thing? We believe that it is candidate and client experience, and a strong brand, that wins hearts and helps our business grow. This piece of recruitment is an excellent example of that. A candidate who we met a few years ago and kept in touch with over the last few years, joined a local company as Head of Marketing. She came to us as a client after a long and disappointing process; trying to recruit for a critical Multi-Media Lead role through an established PSL of non-specialist recruitment agencies. With a belief in our ability to help, she went through the somewhat challenging process of getting us on their PSL. It took a while, but we got the green light, and within a week Sam had attracted the perfect person.

It wasn’t an easy brief - someone who had experience in client/stakeholder management, finding stories, interviewing, hands-on multi-media/content creation and editing. Plus, someone who would fit in a corporate environment. Our candidate was interviewed quickly and offered immediately. Our client couldn’t be happier that we totally proved ourselves and only wished she could have avoided the time and effort searching, prior to our engagement. Our candidate was over the moon too, given he had a similar long list of criteria for his search – so, a fantastic match.

Marketing Manager (tech) – West Midlands

This experience and process couldn’t have been more perfect, to enable this new client to get the results they needed and to achieve their growth targets. First, a thank you to a past candidate who highly recommended us - it always makes for a great start when new clients already believe that we can help and are willing to work with us, straight away, on a sole partnership basis.

This Birmingham based Tech consultancy was looking for their first Marketing Manager, to help them reach their growth targets over the next few years. They wanted a consultative approach, to help define the role and therefore we met, defined and agreed on a realistic and compelling brief. A candidate, whom we had met proactively anyway, immediately sprang to mind and we were convinced of her perfect fit.

Of course, clients like to have some comparisons and potential choices, so we provided a shortlist of 3 very strong candidates, who all met the layers of criteria; including cultural fit, background, ambitions, sector and channel experience.

After meeting the first candidate, no other interviews were booked and, after a 2nd stage, she was taken on. It was a fantastic process, where consultation, collaboration and proactive candidate generation all aligned to provide an efficient and enjoyable journey.

Digital Marketing Manager – West Midlands

This new client came to us after their own efforts to recruit came to nothing. Once we had met, and understood the immediate requirements, as well as the wider business needs (current and future), we were able to refine and work with a realistic and more flexible brief.

We were instructed on a sole agency basis, which meant we could quickly invest in all our available channels and strategies, to fully scour the talent market. This included exploring our database of active candidates, using our subscription to the top job portals, to search for candidates online, advertising on LinkedIn, searching our 26,000 1st line contacts across all social media platforms, a 'candidate get candidate' incentive campaign, as well as setting up watchdogs on the job portals and LinkedIn to ensure we were notified immediately when new candidates entered the market. Helen provided 3 candidates, of which two were perfect and gave our client a tough choice. Once the client had decided, our candidate was offered and both parties were delighted.

Lead UX Designer – Gloucestershire

It’s always very rewarding to help our clients identify senior level talent, who are brought on to make a big impact in their business and instrumental for growth. Emma was briefed to find a Lead UX Designer for a scale up software consultancy. They had a large budget and a loose brief. We needed to undertake a search to find someone with very strong e-commerce experience, luxury brand experience, leadership experience and a commercial focus. Given Emma’s vast network in Creative recruitment (built over 20 years in the industry), she was able to leave no stone unturned and attract two strong candidates - both were proactively sourced from LinkedIn. The candidate they took on, has gone on to grow a small, motivated and talented team over the past year, all of whom, we also placed. The new team has developed new products and helped win more client business, so the owners of the business couldn’t be happier, and we have become a true partner. We are very much looking forward to continuing to play a part in their success.

Junior Insight Executive – Leicestershire

This case study is an example of how we help our clients on a speculative basis.

We do what we call ‘intelligent speculative introductions’ at Beyond The Book, which means we only introduce candidates to clients if we meet anyone who seems very aligned with their business, both culturally and in terms of experience. We don’t clog inboxes with CVs, and if a BTB candidate is introduced, it will be after permission to send and an initial phone conversation. I had a call from a graduate (yes, a call! Very rare, sadly), who asked for our help: she was immediately impressive in terms of how she articulated herself and her energy. She had a sandwich year placement under her belt at a research & insights agency. I asked her what her dream job would be, even if unrealistic. It was a job close to home, in Leicestershire, working on sports brands, agency side, and even bigger dream would be using her research & insights experience, rather than account management.

I agreed to see how close I could get to the dream and explored our client contacts. I contacted an agency in Leicester that I knew worked with retail brands and housed a small insights team. I asked if I could introduce our candidate and permission was granted. Within a couple of weeks, I received a call to say they’d won a big project on one of their sports brands, to undertake field research across retail outlets across Europe and America, and they wanted to meet my candidate to add to the team of Research & Insights Execs. After meeting her, they immediately took her on a 6-month contract working abroad and doing her dream job. After that they took her on permanently. I was so happy for her that I actually cried. Our client fulfilled their requirement quickly and efficiently, based on our well-considered and fortuitous intro.

Creative roles – London & South West

This isn’t just one story; it’s about how we’ve come to work in new geographic regions recently. Whilst historically we have been very West Midlands and Central England focussed, we have clients with multiple offices across the UK, who have started to want to work with us to help recruit in areas such as London, Home Counties and the South West.

With our investment this past year in leading-edge sourcing technology and our vast network of contacts, born from 10 years in business and over 20 years in the creative and marketing industry, we now trust we can deliver in any location. We have recently placed Senior Designers and Retouchers in London and a Senior Designer in Bristol. We are also in process with a Marketing Manager role in Bristol, which is going very well.