Evolution Recruitment Solutions, which is based in Warrington with offices in Germany, Singapore and Sydney, says its new IT system could represent the ‘future of recruitment’. Not only does it offer the ability to rapidly match skilled candidates with employers at any location, but it also builds a detailed picture of the IT market to identify hotspots, trends and skills shortages.
Working with R&D tax credit specialists Jumpstart, Evolution has also succeeded in reclaiming a significant amount of its investment in recognition of the research and development work.
Evolution Jobs was established in 2000 by Gareth Morris, Nick Elliott and Mike Latham in the basement of Gareth’s home in Sale and now has over 140 staff. The multi-award winning company, which employs a team of 10 software developers and three trainers, is a Microsoft Gold software partner and was also the first business worldwide to be accredited to the platinum Investors in People standard.
Evolution’s new system houses millions of candidate records. It uses techniques such as data mining and semantic matching to ‘read’, interpret and make sense of CVs and profiles, build a complex map of technology employers and candidates and automatically track employees’ career progression.
The data is not only of use to local employers and candidates, but also provides powerful industry insights to inform strategic decisions such as company relocations, or to help overseas technology firmslooking to set up offices in the UK.
Andy Brack of Evolution Recruitment Solutions said he believed the new system was ‘the future of recruitment’. “As a specialist in IT recruitment, we practise what we preach by investing in technology. With the current skills shortages, there is a war for talent and the winners will be the companies with access to best selection of candidates.
“Evolution’s systems allow our consultants to find skilled professionals more rapidly, and communicate with them more effectively. It offers an outstanding recruitment experience for both candidates and clients, while providing valuable insights to help us and our clients to understand the fast-changing nature of the IT market.”
Andy said that the company had been unaware its development work would qualify for tax relief, however it successfully reclaimed £16,800 from its first claim. “We had been led to believe that because we are not a software company, and the investment was in internal IT systems, we were not eligible for R&D tax credits. It is a complex area but as Jumpstart understand both the tax rules and the technologies, they were able to give us very specific advice and we were confident in making a claim.”
Wendy Smith and Adrian Williamson of Jumpstart advised Evolution. Adrian, an IT specialist and former software development manager, said: “Evolution are ahead of the game. They are a great example of a company in an established sector which is using technology in a creative way to improve their business and get ahead of the competition.
“However, like many businesses for which R&D is not a core activity, they were unaware that they were able to claim tax relief. In fact the challenge involved in extracting meaningful data from differentsources and formats, validating it and using different programs at the sametime, involved a great deal of experimentation and uncertainty and was verymuch research and development work.”
Wendy Smith, from Jumpstart’s North West team, added: “With companies across almost every sector now looking at clever ways to use technology and automate processes, it is important that they are aware of R&D tax relief. Tax credits are designed to encourage firms to adopt new ideas and technologies and are a great way to fund your innovations.”