Pam Anthony Recruitment wins National Business Award

Pam Anthony Wins Business Award

Pam Anthony Recruitment has won the Supplier of the Year Award at the UK Pride of Direct Selling Awards 2018.

The National Awards, which were launched this year at the De Vere Staverton Estate in Daventry, are hosted by the Direct Selling Association (DSA), the trade body for direct selling in the UK. The awards recognise the best individuals, teams and companies in the industry, which include many well-loved and long-established household names; brands such as Avon, Neal’s Yard Remedies Organic, Usborne Books at Home and The Body Shop at Home.

The Supplier Award is presented to a DSA Approved Supplier Member company or individual which has provided outstanding service to a DSA Member Company.

Pam Anthony Recruitment, which specialises in Recruitment and Training within the UK and European direct selling industry, this year celebrates its 18th year of operation. The company cites some of the UK’s best known direct selling brands amongst its clients, including Cambridge Weight Plan, doTERRA, Isagenix, Amway, Hammonds Furniture, Oriflame and SheerSense.

Direct selling is a £2.1billion industry in the UK and is currently seeing a renaissance having grown by 40% in the last five years (turnover has increased from £1.5 – £2.1 billion). Over 425,000 people work in the sector.

Lynda Mills, Director General of the Direct Selling Association, who led the judging, comments: “Pam Anthony Recruitment is one of the most experienced recruiters in the UK direct selling sector and I’m delighted to present the company with this award. The firm’s longstanding relationships with many of the UK’s best known direct selling brands is a testament to how well Pam and her team know and understand the industry and the skills and qualities needed to succeed.”

The award judges included Elias Jahshan, Editor of leading UK retail news site Retail Gazette, Kardi Somerfield, Senior Lecturer in Advertising & Digital Marketing at the University of Northampton and Lynda Mills, Director General of the DSA.

Membership to SELDIA approved

Seldia - Direct Selling Service Provider

We are delighted to announce that we have been unanimously accepted for membership into SELDIA – the European Direct Selling Association that represents and promotes the interests of national Direct Selling Associations and its members at European level.

We are now in our 18th year of trading and our business continues to grow across the UK and Europe. In 2017 we had 100% retention of candidates that we placed with our clients – proof that we really are Your Partner for Intuitive Recruitment Solutions!

To discuss any current or potential requirements, please call us on +44 (0)1706 231-354

Assignment vs Contingency – The Great Debate!

To assign, or not to assign that is the question!

We are often asked what the benefits are of working with us exclusively (i.e. on assignment), versus placing the same vacancy simultaneously with several agencies.

Whilst modesty precludes us from crowing too loudly about our excellent placement and retention rate – joking aside – there are many benefits to trusting us entirely with your vacancy:

  First and foremost, your bottom line! We reward our clients’ faith in our services and abilities by reducing our standard fees for all work given to us on assignment

  Secondly your confidentiality. We work in a relatively small industry, and the more agencies that work on your vacancy, the higher the chances are of word spreading

  Thirdly our respective professionalism – we are all sourcing from the same talent pool, so some candidates may be approached more than once, and sometimes they have been rejected by us for not meeting your criteria only to be re-approached by another!

  Lastly, your sanity! Wouldn’t you prefer to deal with just one tried, tested and trusted source?

 

Then there are your deadlines. Although we apply the same experience, knowledge and methodology to all our work, we have to prioritise fee-paying assignments. Therefore if you are looking to fill a vacancy quickly, we will make sure that we deliver on time.

Our regular clients all now work with us on an assignment basis, because they trust us to deliver on time, on budget and most importantly on point. It really is a win, win.

So if you are putting your plans in place for this year, our constantly refreshed database boasts fantastic, talented candidates with wide-ranging experience and skillsets across general management, sales, legal & compliance, marketing, finance and operations.

Contact us now to find out more!

Are you asking the right questions?

As we all know, interviewing can be a tricky business! The cost of making a bad recruitment decision in terms of wasted time, effort and money should also not be under-estimated.

Just getting to the interview stage can be a lengthy process, what with compiling a current Job Description and Person Specification, advertising the role via traditional advertising methods and Social Media, sifting the influx of CVs and whittling them down to suitable candidates with relevant experience, before arranging appointments and embarking on face to face interviews.

Read on for some tips on how to get the best result from those all-important interviews…

‘Tell me about a time you’ve had to answer a competency question…’

 

One of the most enlightening and informative ways to interview a candidate is to use Competency Based questions, namely questions that require candidates to provide real-life examples as the basis of their answers, and not simply speculate as to what they would do in a given situation.

At Pam Anthony Recruitment, Competency Based questions are an integral part of our own interview process and we always incorporate opening questions such as ‘tell me about a time’, or ‘give an example of how’, to gain an insight into a candidate’s personality, experience and ability to handle given situations that are likely to crop up in the role they are applying for.

Below are some great examples that you might like to try when next interviewing, and the sort of responses you should be looking for:

1. Tell me about a time you supported a member of your team who was struggling

This may seem pretty straightforward, but while you might quite rightly value teamwork and empathy in a manager, you also need to see the benefit to your bottom line. Therefore:

Good answer: ‘My job comes with a fair amount of analysis on a day-to-day basis, which means I’m pretty confident using software like Excel. One of my newer colleagues didn’t have much experience and was having a tough time with their reporting, so I offered to help out a few days after work to get him up to speed. Since then, he’s never had a problem with reporting, and I’ve never had a problem getting a drink if he’s at the bar.’

Bad answer: ‘Team? If I’m honest, I like to think of myself as more of a one man wolf pack…’


 

2. Give an example of a time you’ve had to improvise to achieve your goal

Translation: Can the candidate think on their feet?

Good answer: ‘My previous company often hosted client conferences, which were an important revenue driver for the business. For each event we booked an MC to introduce speakers and keep things entertaining. At a conference last year, to my horror, our scheduled MC came down with food poisoning the night before the event. We were too close to the event to find a replacement, so as the event manager, it fell to me to fill in. I was incredibly nervous, but after a lot of deep breaths and a little practice backstage, and I got through it. I had some great feedback, and my presenting skills even improved as a result, which was a bonus.

Bad answer: ‘I improvised a lot on my CV to get this interview…’


 

3. Why are you a good fit for the company?

The way a great candidate stands out when answering this question is by not just selling themselves for the role, but also stating exactly why they’d make a perfect match for your business.

If they’ve done their homework correctly, they’ll know what your company’s values are and will use their own skills, accomplishments and personality and tie them in with everything they’ve learned to come up with the perfect response.

Good answer: ‘Based on the research I’ve done about your company, you’re an organisation that really values staying on the cutting edge of technology. I was especially impressed with some of the technical details I read about the XYZ project. I think there’s a really good fit between my interest in evolving my own skills and technical knowledge, and the fact that your firm is known for continual technical improvements. That’s one reason I’m really excited to have the opportunity to work here’

Bad answer: ‘You have a job. I need a job. Put your hands together, and everyone’s a winner’


 

4. If you were offered the job, what’s the first thing you’d change?
Ah, the loaded question…

If you have given your candidate the sense that the role is focussed on making changes, allowing a candidate to highlight some specific areas for improvement can be a shrewd move, allowing you to see what impact their hiring could really have.

Here you are looking for people who tactfully try and get their point across without riding roughshod over the experience and opinions of their prospective team.

Good answer: ‘I can see from the job description that part of this role will involve helping to manage the company’s social media channels. I noticed in my research that you don’t post very often, and the tone seems a little inconsistent. I’d be looking to help develop a more reliable voice and personality for the brand, to help set us apart from the competition.’

Bad answer: ‘Where do I start?/I’m glad you asked. I’ve bought along a thirty-seven slide PowerPoint presentation detailing each change. Can someone dim the lights?’


 

Adapted from: “Why You? 101 Interview Questions You’ll Never Fear Again” – James Read

 

Don’t hesitate to call us on 44+(0)1706 231354 for further guidance on interview techniques, or let us take the recruitment strain and do the work for you!