Itís Recruitment Jim but not as we know it...

I was first drawn to Cactus when searching the internet for a recruitment consultancy specialising in sourcing Senior Management candidates with experienced Contact Centre backgrounds to assist us in the recruitment of a Customer Services Director.

I contacted Cactus to discuss our brief, which was to recruit a Customer Service Director for our call centre and customer services operation. Our business, which is a direct sell tour operating business, is a highly successful company operating in an extremely competitive and volatile market and as such, required a Senior Service Delivery specialist who could improve our operational efficiency and move us to a position whereby our service delivery would set apart from our competitors.

As a result of my initial discussion with Francesca, we arranged for a site visit and she and Guy came in to meet with myself and the Group Operations Director. We had a very interesting meeting and were both immediately impressed with their professionalism and in-depth understanding of the Contact Centre recruitment market. Francesca seemed to instinctively understand the issues we were facing and made a number of very pragmatic suggestions which made it much easier for us to determine precisely the type of background and experience we were looking for in potential candidates.

Without hesitation we felt very confident that we would be able to work with Cactus and that they would source a suitable Customer Services Director for Travelsphere. Consequently we agreed on a set of very reasonable terms and Francesca began the search almost immediately. Within just over a week the campaign was well underway and Cactus were conducting in depth interviews with the initial candidates which theyíd sourced against our spec.

Throughout the campaign we were presented with a significant number of excellent candidates, all of whom matched the Job Spec, both in terms of their ability and in terms of their genuine interest in the post. All had strong commercial backgrounds with extensive hands on experience of change management in a B2C environment.

Francesca and her team were highly responsive at all times throughout the campaign. We were always made to feel that we were a priority and were never left in any doubt about where we were in relation to each of the candidates. I was also amazed at their patience, as on the reverseÖI was almost impossible to get hold of at times, in fact ñ most of the timeÖÖ

As it transpired, Cactus have since gone on to recruit our new Head of Operational Administration and are also looking at two new roles supporting the Customer Services Director. I have had really positive feedback from the Group Head of Operations about the way in which Cactus handled the Head of Ops Admin post, and again, the person has already joined Travelsphere and is proving to be a popular choice with her new team.

I would have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever in recommending Cactus as a preferred recruitment partner for any business. Having been previously based in central London and in a corporate environment for many years, I have worked with several city based search consultancies on a number of key assignments and have often been left disappointed and disillusioned by the way in which the campaigns have been handled. Iíve experienced recruiters under terrific pressure to meet their financial targets and no one person in control. Candidates unprepared (and often completely unsuitable because no-one has interviewed them since they were first placed on their database!!) and exorbitant retainers, irrespective of a placement being made!

That is not the case with Cactus ñ they are a world apart from the norm. Undoubtedly their core expertise is in resourcing high calibre candidates for B2B and B2C environments. However, in our experience they have proven to be extremely versatile and with their unique and very much personalised approach to understanding and supporting client needs, they are an exceptional team, a pleasure to work with and worth every penny weíve spent with them so far.

Debbie Newton, HR Director ñ Travelsphere