A Franchising Life Eileen Pacey
that personal touch today, but is vitally important. Even with all the changes I have seen, you still need to be able to provide a quality service to two sets of clients – your candidates and your client companies.
So what led you to consider making the leap from successful branch manager to business-owning franchisee – why not go out on your own?
Selected S
elect Appointments is a national recruitment agency franchise specialising in providing both temporary and permanent placements within the white-
collar business sector. The company was founded in 1980 and opened its first franchised office in 1992. Eileen is the proud owner of Select Appointments, Northampton. She kick-started her recruitment career entirely by chance, after calling into the Select Appointments Luton office on 29 September 1986 to apply for a sales administration role and emerged (four interviews later) as a recruitment consultant. Her starting salary at the branch was £6,000.
So did you grow up dreaming of becoming a recruitment consultant? Not exactly! If I’m honest I fell into recruitment, rather than choosing it as a career. I thought to myself if it doesn’t work out then I would be in the best place to find another role! I’ve always been the archetypical ‘people person’ with a healthy mix of competitiveness and compassion. When I look back at the past 30 years, I am really proud to think about just how many people I have helped find a job. It is by far the most rewarding aspect for me and it’s that
Eileen Pacey, who has worked with Select Appointments for 30 years, 10 of those as a franchisee, talks about her life in franchising
feel-good factor that has kept me in the industry for so long. Not everyone can make a good living doing something that they both love and are good at, let alone have their own business doing. I’m very lucky to be in this position, but equally, I’ve worked very hard to get here. I’ve worked in pretty much every role in recruitment and looked out for promotions and opportunities along the way. Managing a busy office takes a lot of different skills and the industry has changed so much over the years
In what ways has it changed? There have been massive changes throughout my time in recruitment. Although the most important factor remains the same – people. Technology has changed the industry, whether it’s how you communicate with clients and candidates, how people look for a job, how people apply for a job, everything is now done electronically and virtually nothing is sent by post! The explosion of technology means there has been a loss of personal contact with candidates which, in my view, is a shame. They used to come into the office every week to collect payslips and you built up a great relationship with them all. It’s a big challenge for all recruiters to try and keep
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I suppose I was at a distinct advantage having spent all those years surrounded by franchising. I knew that it worked, but I also knew how it worked. The biggest difference is that you are no longer simply the leader, you’re the owner, which means a whole lot of brand-new responsibilities! To do that completely on my own would have been so daunting – knowing recruitment inside out doesn’t mean you know how to run it as a business. That’s the beauty of franchising for me, you get to have your own business, be the boss, make the decisions, choose your team, operate under a strong, recognised brand, but with a national support team behind you. For me that means support in HR, marketing, IT, payroll, compliance – that’s the backbone of any recruitment business and it would be hugely difficult, not to mention time-consuming and expensive, to replicate those functions to that standard as a truly independent local operator.
“Having support behind you is a real luxury in any business”
How has operating as a franchise contributed to your success? No-one knows everything and having support behind you is a real luxury in any business. I believe in the system at Select and my staff are all trained the exact same way – the Select way. It might sound quite prescriptive but it is my own business in every way. I run it with ‘old-fashioned’ standards ensuring customer service is placed above all else, while also keeping up-to-date with technology and social media advancements. There are four of us in the office including my husband. He is the finance director; we’ve been married 33 years and have survived nearly 10 years working together.
franchiseteam@select.co.uk
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