Highly recommended! Josh and Sarah have been fantastic at Astute. They've found and placed me in 2 jobs now between them, both really responsive and excellent at keeping you up to speed with things. Very knowledgable about the roles and happy to talk to companies with any queries you have.
Great agency one of the best ones I've worked with! Liz has been a great help and support in helping me towards a new direction in my career life. She is very attentive and keeps me in the loop at all times! She makes the extra effort to work with my preferred requirements for work and even if it isn't completely attainable she meets me in the middle and does as much as she can to help! Also Liz is very funny might I add 😂 and I'm happy that I can now put a face to the name after all these years! Thank you again Liz for all your help and support! 😊
Josh and the Astute team was very swift to help me to find roles that matched my profile. They are really reliable and will help through every step of the recruitment process going out of their way to assist and follow up when needed. Could not find a better recruitment agency!
Fantastic recruitment agency.. Josh was extremely enthusiastic, encouraging and clearly knowledgeable about what was needed from both the employee and the employers point of view. Extremely supportive especially in regards to interview preparation and endeavoured to procure feedback promptly. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Astute in the future to both candidates and recruiting businesses particularly for the right fit for the role!!!
I have worked as a candidate for Astute and they have been excellent. Super friendly service and professional agents keen to fit the right person to the right job. It has been a pleasure dealing with them and I would happily work for them again in the future. Highly recommend this agency.
Contact us
Derby
Suite 1, Ground Floor West,Cardinal Square,10 Nottingham Road,Derby. DE1 3QT
Here at Astute everyone is looking forward to our next exclusive business breakfast on Mental Resilience with John Dabrowski in 3 weeks time.
There are only a few places left so watch John’s short video HERE describing the event! If you would like to come along – please contact [email protected] for an exclusive invitation and full details or alternatively please call us on 01332 346 100 to find out more and reserve your place!
Incidentally – our thanks go to John Dabrowski for putting together this short video and also to Archer Hampson in Derby – who have helped us with the finishing touches!
Watch our video to find out what you can learn in our latest Business Breakfast on Mental Resilience!
Exclusive Mental Resilience In The Workplace Business Breakfast Hosted By Astute Recruitment With John Dabrowski
Astute Recruitment are delighted to announce our next exclusive quarterly business breakfast event will take place on February 15th 2018. We have managed to secure a fantastic international guest speaker, published author and business coach – John Dabrowski!
· Have you ever felt that pressure of work is getting too much?
· Do you wish you could relax more and feel less stressed?
· Are there times when you get stuck in a negative mindset?
· Could you and your team benefit from techniques to maintain a positive mindset?
· Would you and your team like to be inspired and energised at work?
If the answer to any of the above is yes…then this event is for you! You will hear from John about the key strategies to improve your own mindset and that of your team in this powerful workshop.
John has spent over 30 years in the business world, putting him in a unique position to deal with contemporary business challenges. His vast mix of experience, accomplished ability to make personal growth simple, delivered with his infectious enthusiasm and energy, has inspired audiences, and made him a most highly regarded and sought after expert in all aspects of mental resilience.
Photo of John Dabrowski Mental Resilience Expert International Speaker Published Author
7:30 Registration, complimentary tea/ coffee and Complimentary breakfast
7:45 Introduction
7:50 John Dabrowski
8:45 Opportunity for Q & A / Networking
9:00 Close
Free car parking is available and if you have any special dietary requirements please contact Mary Maguire – [email protected]
Please let us know if the breakfast event could be of interest and one of our team can forward you a complimentary and exclusive invitation to attend with details to confirm your place. This event is strictly by invitation only and there are only a few places so ensure you don’t miss out and contact Mary Maguire, Managing Director on 01332 346 100 or by email [email protected] for more information.
Do let us know if you would be interested in hearing about other events… and if you would like to subscribe to our monthly newsletter where we will announce other events and topical career and business articles, videos and more!
Sarah Stevenson MD of Astute with her husband Robert and the rest of the team at Astute at EMCs Business Awards Evening
EMC’s 2017 Derbyshire Business awards were a huge success! We brought our team down for the awards dinner and had a great time!
Our very own Sarah Stevenson, MD, did not win but we are all really proud of her for making it to the final 5 in this tough category. We managed to capture a video snippet of her being announced as one of the finalists which you can watch HERE.
Everyone was delighted for Mo Suleyman of Derby Museums to receive the award for Entrepreneur of the Year. You can watch Mo receiving his award on a video we took by clicking HERE. His work for Derby Museums has been tireless and this accolade is well deserved.
Ashley Sowerby of Chevin Fleet Management was delighted with both of his company’s awards on the night. Firstly for Excellence in International Trade which was sponsored by Greenbank. Runners up included Global Brands and Picsolve International. Chevin’s second award was for Business of the Year sponsored by Mazars. Again we managed to capture a video clip of Ashley Sowerby and his team receiving their award and you can watch this HERE.
Chevin Fleet Management on stage with their award for Business of the Year at EMC’s Derbyshire Business Awards 2017
You can watch a video of Matt Wheatcroft, MD of Purpose Media and his team receiving their award for Marketing Campaign of the Year HERE. Commiserations to DrivenMedia, Koobr and Tidyco who came valiant runners up.
Thank you to all the Sponsors this year and of course to the EMC themselves for showcasing the top talent across Derbyshire once again!
A full list of all the finalists and winners is below: –
Business Improvement through Technology:
Sponsor: Greendog
Winner: Hardy Signs
Runners-up: Chevin Fleet Solutions, Picsolve International
Community Impact Award:
Sponsor: Futures Housing Group
Winner: Cosy Direct
Runners-up: Derby Museums, Hodgkinson Builders, Sarah Gatford
Outstanding Growth Award:
Sponsor: East Midlands Airport
Winner: Fifteen Design
Runners-up: ChargedEV, Chevin Fleet Solutions, DG Light Haulage, Purpose Media
Marketing Campaign of the Year Award:
Sponsor: Kemps Publishing
Winner: Purpose Media
Runners-up: DrivenMedia, Koobr, Tidyco
Commitment to People development Award:
Sponsor: PKF Cooper Parry
Winner: Talk Staff Group
Runners-up: Fujichem Sonneborn, Sky Recruitment Solutions
Apprentice of the Year:
Sponsor: Babington Group
Winner: Zachary Beer – Hodgkinson Bricklaying Contractors
Runners-up: Bria Kiely – Buxton and Leek College, Tom Lacey – Mercia Image Print, George Faulkner – Peak Sensors, Ollie Henderson – Purpose Media
Entrepreneur of the Year:
Sponsor: Shredall SDS Group
Winner: Mohammed Suleman – Derby Museums
Highly commended: Caroline Hopkinson – Emerald Accountancy
Runners-up: Sarah Stevenson – Astute Recruitment, Mark Pymm – ChargedEV, Matt Wheatcroft – Purpose Media
Education and Business Partnership Award:
Sponsor: Blueprint Interiors
Winner: R.E.A.L Education
Highly commended: Derby College
Runner-up: Skills for Careers
Excellence in Customer Service:
Sponsor: The Money Shop
Winner: Bright Side Vets
Runners-up: Banner Jones Solicitors, Fujichem Sonneborn, Geldards’ Family Team, trentbarton
Excellence in International Trade:
Sponsor: Greenbank
Winner: Chevin Fleet Solutions
Runners-up: Global Brands, Picsolve International
Small Business of the Year:
Sponsor: Geldards
Winner: Bright Side Vets
Runners-up: Bowers Electricals, DG Light Haulage, Frame Fast UK, Tidyco
Manufacturer of the Year:
Sponsor: Rolls-Royce
Winner: Frame Fast UK
Runners-up: Bowers Electricals, Mercia Image Print
Business of the Year:
Sponsor: Mazars
Winner: Chevin Fleet Solutions
Astute’s latest Business Breakfast With Neale Lewis at Pride Park Stadium
What an amazing Friday morning we had at Pride Park Stadium with Neale Lewis. His presentation on how to scale up your business for financial success went brilliantly! We were able to capture some great snippets on video of Neale too and you can watch these HERE! Over 50 businessmen and women across Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire came and enjoyed a powerful workshop.
Some key takeaways: – PEOPLE – STRATEGY – EXECUTION – CASH
PEOPLE – Get your recruitment strategy right: –
Put a proper consistent process in place. Of your existing staff – work out who are your ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ performers? Be brave and honest enough to let someone go if they are not right as its your ‘c’ players who will frustrate and ultimately cause your ‘a’ players to leave!
The phrase ‘slow to hire, quick to fire’ is really important! Don’t hang onto the wrong people for any longer than you have to.
Be thorough!! Have rigor in checking the past performance of your ‘potential’ staff and have the processes in place to make this happen – every time!
Have regular performance or ‘talent’ reviews
Have a strategy how to hand onto your ‘a’ players?
STRATEGY – Be different to your competitors: –
Have a strategy to monitor what they are doing. What can you learn from them? Do’s and don’ts!
Understand the core values that make your business different and stand out from the crowd
What trends are happening in your market space?
How can you take advantage of these?
EXECUTION – Make your plans happen: –
Have a 5 year plan – have a clear goal of what you want to achieve for your business and YOU personally!
Put in place processes to monitor your progress against your plans
Have 90 day plans and make sure all your team have their own plans to achieve their targets
What are the ‘rocks’ in your business? What are the priorities that HAVE to happen in your business in the next 90 days?
Surround yourself with people better than you – seek a professional Coach / Mentor / NED to steer you and keep you focussed
CASH – Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity: –
Always remember that cash is king in business
Know what your cash to conversion cycle is – how much money does it take through overheads to achieve profit?
The power of 1% – if you could generate just 1% extra performance, 1% extra sales volumes – how much extra profit could that mean? Small steps = big changes in your financial bottom line.
Recognise the importance of truly understanding the numbers and true meaning of your balance sheet and what it is telling you – week in week out, month in month out!
FINALLY: –
Visualise your company’s performance – have a visual representation for your aims and where you are to date in achieving them – for you and your team!
Set yourself, your team and your business a ‘hairy, audacious goal’. Dare to dream.
Have processes in place to track performance at all levels, all the way, ALL THE TIME!
Consistency is everything. Once you have processes in place they have to happen consistently to make an impact!
Thanks again to everyone who came, our team at Astute and of course the staff at Pride Park who made everyone very welcome and provided a much needed breakfast! A special thank you goes to Craig Barker of Koobr for his video testimonial about his thoughts on the morning! You can watch that HERE.
How to scale up your business for financial success
Bring your leadership team for Astute Recruitment’s powerful breakfast workshop focusing on the Four priorities that you need to master to successfully grow your business.
Neale Lewis is an international coach and acknowledged expert in helping SME businesses and start-ups put in place the key strategies for growth.
Join us at 7.30am Friday 21st July 2017 at the Dave Mackay Suite, Pride Park Stadium, Pride Park, Derby, DE24 8XL. You will learn from Neale the tools to overcome the four critical issues facing every business: –
Attracting and keeping the right PEOPLE
Creation of a truly differentiated STRATEGY
Driving flawless EXECUTION
Having plenty of CASH to weather the storms
You will also learn about the key strategies you need to adopt in your business and team including: –
ALIGNMENT – How to get faster results with less effort by developing organisational clarity and accountability
ACCELERATE – How to develop a strategic advantage over your competitors and position your brand as a market leader
ADVANCE – See your company’s reputation and revenues soar as employees fulfil 100% of all promises
Neale is owner and director of Neale Lewis Associates whose services are specifically designed to help growth minded entrepreneurs, companies and business professionals achieve their potential. His team recognise the challenges that come from developing a company from the ‘Start Up’ to ‘Scale Up’ phase helping to achieve clarity on the numbers right through to developing a powerful business growth strategy.
This is the fourth business breakfast event hosted by Astute Recruitment and follows on from the great successes of our first event “Strategies to win in business with Neil Back MBE”. and two subsequent breakfasts on “Emotional Intelligence for Business Success with Lisa Spencer-Arnell”
Neale Lewis ★ Scale Up Expert ★ High Growth Business Coach ★ Leadership Trainer ★ Strategic Planning Consultant ★ Keynote Speaker
Programme:
7:30 Registration, complimentary tea / coffee and breakfast
7:45 Introduction
7:50 Neale Lewis
8:45 Opportunity for Q & A/ Networking
9:00 Close
Free car parking is available and if you have any special dietary requirements please contact Mary Maguire – [email protected]
This event is strictly by invitation only. To find out more please contact the team at Astute on 01332 346 100.
It was great to host our second event on ‘Emotional Intelligence For Business Success’ at Alfreton Golf Club. With over 30 local professional businessmen and women in attendance it proved to be a great morning. Here are some of the photos… Our thanks to Lisa Spencer-Arnell, and to everyone who attended on St Patricks Day!
It’s important to all of us here that our events are useful, engaging and enjoyable so we took feedback from everyone who came. …. Some of their comments are below…
“I found the event very informative and gave me some good ideas to use with my current team”
“Very interesting topic. Thanks for the invite!”
“A very relaxed and interactive session – I found it to be quite inspiring”
“It was a great event with a really interesting speaker”
Our next event will be on 21st July at Pride Park with guest speaker Neale Lewis, business scale up expert, high growth business coach, leadership trainer and international strategic planning consultant. Neale will be talking about how to scale up your business and career for financial success. We will announce more details on this event in the next few days.
Neale Lewis, International Business Coach, Trainer and Speaker
A brand new networking group – Derby’s Finest – aiming to celebrate and support women who make a positive contribution to the city – was officially launched with a great event at Derby College’s Engine Shed restaurant at the Roundhouse in Pride Park.
This new group has been set up by Claire Twells from Smith Partnership, Bev Crighton from the University of Derby and Amanda Strong from Mercia Image Print in Little Eaton. Fifty women from a wide range of businesses and organisations attended the launch event to hear about plans for future events and about the chosen charity of the year – Prostate Cancer UK. This first event raised nearly £300 for the charity and the target is to grow this to thousands over the coming year.
Sarah-Louise Wykes and Mary Maguire went along as guests and look forward to supporting Derby’s Finest with their future events!
All of the team here at Astute are keeping our fingers crossed for Sarah-Louise Wykes. She is one of the very deserving finalists in the category for Best Female Employee. The awards evening is being hosted at the prestigious Colwick Hall Hotel in Nottingham to celebrate business women across the East Midlands region. We are taking the team and of course Sarah-Louise to enjoy what should be a fantastic night. It’s brilliant for Sarah-Louise to have been shortlisted for this category and while we are keeping our fingers crossed for her, we wish all the finalists the very best of luck.
Roger & Joanna sharing top tips at NTU’s Employability WorkshopDeborah Labatte Giving Tips To IoD Student Members
Simon & Dean Sharing Their Wisdom on Interview Tips With IoD Student Members at NTU
Graham & Mary Sharing Tips On Assessment Centres & Psychometric Testing
It was a great evening working working with NTU’s Employability Team to provide support to the IoD’s Student Members. Splitting into 4 teams each led by a business owner and member of NTU, we each advised groups of IoD Student Members on tips and how to prepare for interviews, assessment centres, psychometric tests and more. The evening was a great success with really positive feedback from the students who attended. Thanks to the team at Nottingham Trent University, Deborah, Simon, Roger, Mary and of course the IoD Students!
Astute Recruitment hosting 2nd event on Emotional Intelligence for business success
Due to popular demand, Astute Recruitment are delighted to announce our second event with guest speaker Lisa Spencer-Arnell. Our first event at the end of last year in Branston on Emotional Intelligence was so popular amongst attendees with those who couldn’t make it saying that they would definitely attend another event if it was to the north of Derby closer to Junction 28 of the M1. So we are all delighted to announce we have booked Lisa again!
Our event will be held at Alfreton Golf Club, Wingfield Road, Oakerthorpe, Alfreton, DE55 7LH on Friday 17th March 2017 and will commence from 7.30am with complimentary teas/ coffees and breakfast cobs. Emotional intelligence and wellness at work have become key topics of importance to business professionals.
What is more important to your financial success? IQ or Emotional Intelligence (EI)?
What has the biggest impact on achieving extraordinary results, building great relationships and being fulfilled in life?
Over recent years Emotional Intelligence and mindfulness have become recognised and acknowledged as key elements of business and personal success, outstanding performance, happiness and good health.
In this interactive session, you’ll hear about and experience the positive difference EI can make in your business and team, including: –
· What EI really is and the role it plays in work & leadership.
· What the research tells us about IQ & EI.
· How our amazing brain works and what we can learn from neuroscience to get the best out of ourselves and others?
· How you can increase your self-awareness through EI.
· Mindfulness and the impact on your focus, clarity, and effectiveness.
· The most important question you can ask yourself.
· 3 ways to raise your game and impact your results.
Lisa Spencer-Arnell is ideally placed to explain Emotional Intelligence and Wellness at work through her highly successful career as an International Consultant & Coach – Inspirational Speaker and Published Author. Her work on Emotional Intelligence has been widely praised and recognised.
This is the third breakfast business event hosted by Astute Recruitment and follows on from the great success of our previous events: –
“Emotional Intelligence For Business Success with Lisa Spencer-Arnell” at Branston Golf Club
“Strategies to win in business” at Geldards on Pride Park with Neil Back MBE.
Again we only have a limited number of spaces to attend our forthcoming breakfast on emotional intelligence so please register HERE to register and confirm your place on our dedicated Eventbrite Page.
Lisa Spencer-Arnell speaking at Astute Recruitment’s first business breakfast event on Emotional Intelligence at Branston Golf Club
All of the team here at Astute are keeping our fingers crossed for Sarah-Louise Wykes. She is one of the very deserving finalists in the category for Best Female Employee. The awards evening is being hosted at the prestigious Colwick Hall Hotel in Nottingham to celebrate business women across the East Midlands region. We are taking the team and of course Sarah-Louise to enjoy what should be a fantastic night. It’s brilliant for Sarah-Louise to have been shortlisted for this category and while we are keeping our fingers crossed for her, we wish all the finalists the very best of luck.
