Genius Required

Oh I wish that I had one of those right now!! Lab49 doesn’t use agencies in the UK at all – we do all of our recruitment directly – calling candidates, networking, using job boards, scouring the web for great candidates etc.

We get at least 10 agency calls a day and to everyone, it is made very clear that we don’t use agencies. However, we still get the same old suspects calling up wanting me to go through our recruitment methodologies bit by bit despite being told that we do not use agencies. To this end, we have a “recruitment line” in the office that I put persistent agents through to and they then hear a message stating that we don’t use agencies and that they should not call through again. Despite this, we get some very very annoying agencies that still call and send letters to us all with the details of “their” great candidates.

We had an absolute gem today with a particular agency (that I won’t name) who had called up numerous times and having been told again and again that we don’t use agencies, decided to send letters with CV’s in to us all instead. Feeling a bit peeved, I called up and told the person on the other end of the line that I realised that it wasn’t his fault but that some of his colleagues couldn’t understand simple instructions and that if we weren’t removed from his database immediately, we would report his company to the REC. He then proved the true value and understanding of his agency by trying to shout at me, making no sense and ultimately annoying me further!

We want to work with candidates directly – we don’t want your achievements to be taken off your CV so that we can’t work out who you are (most agencies don’t do this at all but some most certainly do – say for example you have been a high profile speaker at a recent conference, they remove that data in case I can work out who you are and contact you directly), we don’t want your CV to be sanitised and put into the agency format. We want to work with you, to get to know who you are and to have no communication barrier between us.

If not, why not? You’ve clearly got an interest in our company and are most likely to be a techie. If you’re not working with us after reading all of our fabulous blogs, are we missing something?

Let me make it really clear – if you are looking for a company where you get challenging work, work with great people, work in a chilled and friendly environment and get to work with me we are IT!

I love working for a small company – you get to make an impact and there isn’t that wealth of red tape to fight through everytime you want to speak with someone or to understand something. We are open, honest, friendly and techie centric – it really is a cool place to be. Let me give you a scenario:

1st Thursday of every month, we all meet at the office at say 5pm, scoff pizza whilst having general discussions regarding what the company is doing and get to ask any questions we wish. Then, one of our fab staff members gives us a half hour presentation on a techie/commercial subject of their choice (they get to impart their knowledge and we get to learn from our colleagues) and we then all go out drinks (and Vivake pays!).

I’ve worked for a number of companies, both large and small and can honestly say that this is the best place that I have ever worked. I commute for 3 hours a day and actually don’t mind doing so because I actually like being here (please note that I am writing this post on a Monday morning with dark grey skies above me, it’s raining and I’ve had only one coffee…). We’ve got some funky music going on in the background, people are talking about what they did at the weekend, techies are talking technology and it’s application – it’s simply great.

We do some work too of course…..! Call me on 0207 959 3338 (no agencies!) or mail me at marie.griffiths@lab49.com to find out more about what we do and what it’s like here.