Martin Pollard, Managing Director of Larson Group
Larson Group’s MD Martin Pollard recently featured in the business pages of the Harrogate Advertiser, Ripon Gazette, Knaresborough Post, Wetherby News and Nidderdale Herald. Read the interview here:
Name: Martin Pollard
Job title: Managing Director
Company: The Larson Group
In a nutshell, what does your company do?
We are a senior executive and interim recruitment firm with specialist teams working in the oil and gas, finance, IT, marketing, medical and manufacturing sectors.
How did the company begin?
I have been working in the engineering and energy recruitment market for more than 20 years and joined forces with our CEO Pete Robinson to launch Larson. Pete has more than 15 years’ experience in IT recruitment and was founder and MD of 4IT, which he sold to its management in 2008. He was also part of the board that sold Conos to Diagonal Plc in 1997. Between us we have a huge amount of expertise across a range of industries and we wanted to create a new business that set itself apart from others in the market in the way it ran its team and its portfolio of clients.
What attracts customers/clients to your company?
We work hard to promote excellence within the recruitment industry and have a series of quality assurance procedures in place and thorough processes for recording each step of the recruitment journey. This emphasis on integrity has enabled us to build an excellent reputation with clients and with the industries we work with as a whole, particularly oil and gas, health and finance where we are well known as a leading senior executive and interim recruiter. As a result, 90% of our business comes from existing clients and referrals. We know the industries we work with in depth and we understand their needs which means we can source the right people for their strategic business needs. That doesn’t always mean recruiting from within their industry. It’s often the case that the relevant skills required by the oil and gas industry, for example, could have been built up in an engineering role in a completely different sector. The recruitment process always begins with a thorough assessment of the client’s requirements and close questioning by our recruiters to understand the wider needs of the business. Our recruiters are trained to ask where the candidate will fit into the business, how the appointment will affect the structure of the organisation and whether the role is part of a wider business plan.
Tell us about your role.
Pete and I are both hands on members of the team and are deeply involved in client work ourselves as well as the day to day running of the company and management of staff. In recruiting our own team we have looked for dynamic individuals, most of whom don’t need micro managing but who appreciate strong leadership to provide them with the tools and focus they need to do their job well. Most of our staff are seasoned recruiters and are experienced in their roles. For them, our training focus is on recruiting the Larson way. We team up long serving staff and newcomers to work together to ensure the Larson ethos is instilled from the start and carry out regular appraisals with all staff to promote good internal communication.
What makes you good at what you do?
I am a very good judge of character and can quickly evaluate not only who will be right for a particular client role but also who will be good for our own business. The other key quality for any recruiter is an ability to negotiate, particularly as an appointment reaches its critical latter stages. This is where two decades of experience and knowledge of the demands of the sectors I specialise in comes into its own.
What are the future goals for your company?
We have grown rapidly since we launched and now have a team of 20 people based in our offices in Harrogate. Our plans for the future are ambitious and we hope to move to larger premises within the next 12 months and concentrate on growing our team in Yorkshire between now and 2015 before setting up additional offices in other parts of the country where there is a particular need for senior executive and interim recruitment in our areas of specialism.
What is the most difficult challenge your company has faced? And what challenges are you experiencing at the moment?
It may seem strange for a recruitment firm to say this but finding the right people for our own team to support our rapid growth has been one of our biggest challenges. As an innovative and fast growing business we wanted to attract entrepreneurial individuals to join our team but understood that many of the highest achievers would rather set up their own businesses than work for a recruitment agency. We therefore launched our associate model which offers one of the highest percentage commission rates currently available in the recruitment market. Associates receive 70 per cent of the fees they bill and benefit from Larson’s existing network of contacts and strong reputation in the recruitment industry. The scheme has helped us attract people with the right level of experience to help us establish contacts in new markets and cement our reputation in the ones we have been traditionally strong in. Candidates applying for jobs with Larson can opt to be employed on our usual terms or work for us as an associate. We now have a strong group of people working for us and we have a number of others set to join us over the coming months. We have also recently launched a trainee scheme for those who would like to embark on a career in recruitment. It’s something we piloted a year ago and thanks to the success of that trial scheme we are now rolling it out more widely across the business.
What is the biggest lesson you have learnt in business?
The importance of flexibility. That applies to working with clients and managing staff. We were finalists in 2012’s Ackrill Media Group Employer of the Year award and one of the things that made us stand out was our flexibility as an employer. We believe this makes it easier for people to balance home and work life and by putting people in control of their own working hours they are generally happier and more productive. Some prefer to come into the office every day whereas other like to spend some of the week working from home. However, flexibility only works if there are plenty of opportunities for the team to do things together. We have regular social events and fundraisers and nine of us recently tackled the 72 mile Great Yorkshire Bike Ride for charity.
What moments of your career so far stand out?
Launching Larson has definitely been the highlight. It was extremely hard work in the early days but Pete and I have built it up to become a significant sized business that already has a strong reputation as a recruiter in the main sectors we work in. Originally it was our own expertise and contacts that helped us succeed but now Larson is well known in its own right and that is a huge benefit to our recruiters when they are approaching both clients and candidates.
Why is it good to do business in the district?
Harrogate is a beautiful place to live and work and strategically it is well placed for doing business up and down the UK. Much of our work in the oil and gas industry is in Scotland and the main financial institutions are based in London so we can travel in either direction fairly easily. The quality of the local job market and our proximity to Leeds, York and Manchester has helped us recruit the people we need to grow our business successfully.
