As chief executive of a recruitment business that spans 19 countries, Ciaran McCooey saw the downturn coming before most people.
As early as April 2008, the jobs market was showing signs of stress and McCooey moved to cut costs at Saongroup. com, the Dublin-based online recruiter. It runs more than 350websites, including Irish jobs.ie, and has 910employees around the world.
More than two years on, McCooey is again reading the signs in the jobs market - and, this time, the news is good.
His firm’s research showed that the recruitment market has stabilised, with 8 per cent growth over the past year. Better still, 80p er cent of the jobs listed on Irishjobs.ie since February are new positions, rather than companies replacing staff.
‘‘That’s fantastic news. It’s a sign of real growth, said McCooey, who is also seeing an increase in jobs advertised in Britain and other markets.
‘‘We have seen it come back.
There are more companies hiring, the multinationals are back hiring, and there is more visibility into the future. The US [economy] is growing again and China is flying.
Saongroup.com - which is owned by businessmen Leslie Buckley and Denis O’Brien - has bet on an upturn, with its own plans to hire more than 60 people.
Reflecting the international spread of the business, just eight of the positions are in Ireland - in sales and technical areas - while 30are in Mandarinspeaking roles in China and 24 are in other countries.
The expansion of the firm, which has predicted revenues of €30 million this year, makes it ‘‘one of the fastest-growing in its sector in the world’’, said McCooey. ‘‘This business can grow at a very good rate.
We expect significant double-digit growth in 2011 and 2012 - and I’m not talking about 10p er cent [growth], he said.
Those figures are based on organic growth, but McCooey was not ruling out acquisitions that would accelerate the expansion.
The group has already taken over businesses in China, South Africa and Central America, and talks are under way with other possible targets. ‘‘We are looking at acquisitions; we always are.
At any one time, we are talking to potential partners, said McCooey. ‘‘We would like to strengthen our position in some markets, and we are always looking at new ways of doing business, and new markets.
Overall, the recession hasn’t been too hard on Saongroup.com, whose sites have more than 350,000 jobs listed and are attracting about 20 million visits a month.
While turnover has slipped from a high of €33 million in 2008, the group is trading profitably and has reduced its bank borrowings considerably, according to McCooey.
‘‘We were helped by the international spread of the business, but 2009 was tough for everybody, he said. ‘‘We saw it coming early and we did have to take some cost out of the business.
We cut back on marketing and focused online, rather than offline.
And with more people chasing fewer jobs, ‘‘the sites never worked better’’, he said. ‘‘We make sure the product worked for job-seekers. It’s free for jobseekers, so they keep coming back.
And the recruiters keep coming back because that’s where the job-seekers are. The group can lay claim to being one of Ireland’s first dotcom ventures, as Irishjobs.ie was launched in 1995 by entrepreneur John Feeley.
It was still focused on the Irish market when O’Brien and Buckley acquired it in 1999 for about €1 million.
McCooey joined the firm the following year and was part of the management team that focused on expanding it internationally.
A commerce graduate from University College Dublin, he trained as an accountant with Coopers & Lybrand before going to the US to work as financial controller at a US subsidiary of the Irish Dairy Board.
He had a brief spell as financial controller with Marlborough Recruitment before joining the online recruiter. At the time, the Irishjobs.ie website advertised a few hundred vacancies and attracted about 40,000 visits a month, but the new owners recognised its potential.
As McCooey likes to put it, the firm’s two ingredients are ‘‘a good idea and the right people’’.
To prove the first part, he points to research from a Londonbased firm, Enders Analysis, which shows how recruitment advertising has been steadily migrating online. In 2007, 79 per cent of its recruitment ads in Britain were in print media and 21 per cent were online, according to Enders.
This year, just 64 per cent is forecast to be in print media, and 36 per cent online. The research predicts an almost even split by 2014.
That is good news for Saongroup. com, which has recruitment websites covering all of Britain, the ‘‘most advanced online recruitment market in the world’’. Better still, it demonstrates a trend that McCooey is confident will be replicated around the world. ‘‘There is a huge trend online.
It works better and it’s more cost-effective. We know it’s a good idea. We can look at the research for Britain and say that this is what’s ahead of us in China, in South Africa, in Central America, he said.
Capitalising on that potential falls to the second part of McCooey’s equation, having ‘‘the right people’’ in each market.
The firm has a managing director in each country or region, with Irish people managing the day-to-day operations in most cases.
‘‘Irish people are very good travellers.
We have proven ourselves all over the world, we have gone out to other countries and adapted well. Irish people are good at that, said McCooey, whose belief in his staff is not surprising, given its focus on recruitment.
‘‘We can identify great people through our sites.
We bring in well-rounded individuals and train them very well.
We have really strong management and we empower them to make decisions. I am onto them every day - I start east to west and work though our operations.
‘‘They are always coming to me with ideas that have come up locally. From Dublin, I won’t know about a potential acquisition in El Salvador, but they bring those things tome.
The group also has a hand son chairman in Leslie Buckley, whose Haven charity has office space in the same building as Saongroup.com. Denis O’Brien is not on the board and does not have direct involvement in the business, but is happy with its progress, McCooey said.
‘‘Our shareholders are very supportive of the business. We’ve taken risks and they have backed us on those risks.
We manage it like a plc, with monthly board meetings. They take place over a full day, with each part of the business reporting in, he said.
McCooey also has a hectic travel schedule, visiting China and India every couple of months and Central America three or four times a year. In recent weeks, he visited the company’s operations in South Africa.
‘‘That was daft, I missed the World Cup, he said ruefully.
While online recruitment makes up more than 90p er cent of its business, Saongroup. com also has a software business, Candidate Manager, and owns Maybefriends.com, the online dating site.
Candidate Manager came into being around 2002 after recruiters approached Saongroup. com and said it had become increasingly difficult to manage a hiring process.
‘‘If they had ten jobs advertised and got 20 applicants for each, they suddenly had 200 CVs to manage and track. We developed the software to help them manage that process. It is sold for a licence fee and hosted and run over the internet, McCooey said.
The software business operates independently from the recruitment business and has deals in the US and Canada - markets where Saongroup.com doesn’t even operate websites. It is used by companies including Merrill Lynch, Hibernian Insurance, Siemens and Vodafone.
‘‘It made money last year and is growing this year, said McCooey. Maybefriends.com and Singleinthecity.ie joined the group through an ‘‘opportunistic’’ deal in 2008. While they are outside of its traditional operations, McCooey sees potential to expand.
‘‘We know how to get traffic to websites. We have tripled that business. It’s very interesting, but it’s a small element of a €30 million business.
For now, his focus is on the growing business of online recruitment, and he’s proud of what the firm has achieved.
‘‘When I stand back and look at what we’ve done, I say ‘Wow’. We’re in China, India, South Africa, the Middle East, Mauritius, Jamaica. We’re number one in Central America, in El Salvador, Guatemala and El Salvador.
‘‘We’re hiring all over the globe. The fun of business is doing it in other markets. And the margins in the business are very good. It is a very profitable business, he said, pointing again to his mantra: ‘‘Good idea.
The right people.
