225+
5 reviews
MikeMike
16:04 13 Mar 23
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.
C R.C R.
10:45 27 Jan 23
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! 😊
ChristineChristine
10:32 20 Dec 22
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!
Helen PinegarHelen Pinegar
16:19 18 Dec 22
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!!!
Lisa LeighLisa Leigh
11:56 30 Nov 22
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.
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Contact us
Derby
Suite 1, Ground Floor West,Cardinal Square,10 Nottingham Road,Derby. DE1 3QT
Nottingham
Stanford House,19 Castle Gate, Nottingham, NG1 7AQ

Welcome to our quarterly newsletter where we will be keeping you up to date with what’s been happening at Astute.  This edition also includes Trevor Dimmock’s Q2 Review. We hope you enjoy this newsletter and if there is anything you would like to see in future publications please email Kelly Thomas, Marketing Director [email protected]

NEWS FROM #TEAMASTUTE

We are delighted to have been joined recently by Sandra Ainger and Maya Zawora. They have both settled in well, and it’s great to have them on the team! Sandra is working on temporary transactional finance and Maja specialises in HR Recruitment for temporary and permanent roles, so if either of them can help please get in touch.

We had a great evening at Zorba the Greek for our Summer Social event earlier this month.  It was an incredible turn out and great chance to catch up with our friends from local businesses.

The food and drink were excellent and the relaxed social setting made for a wonderful evening and the opportunity to enjoy a face to face social event 🥂

Zorba the Greek proved to be the perfect setting! the service was excellent and the staff so friendly and helpful, and we would like to thank each and every one of them.

Also a huge thanks to our wonderful team at Astute and of course all of our fantastic guests! 👏

We’ve already had some amazing feedback –

“Thank you for a lovely night, I had a really great time, the food was amazing.”

“Thanks for having us. It was a good event and apologises I couldn’t stay any longer.”

“It was good to meet people and the food was great.”

“Great to mingle and meet up with an ex-colleague!! Also enjoyed meeting the Astute team face to face and chatting with them.”

Nigel & I had a great night last night, so a big ‘Thank You’ for inviting us.

Excellent food. We shall definitely return.

The evening was fabulous and I would love to be part of another event like this. This event offered the personal touch, was well organised and my colleague had a great time too!”

Q2 2023 – East Midlands Resilience Despite all of the macroeconomic challenges we are experiencing, the East Midlands economy is proving remarkably resilient with some brilliant stories of growth and expansion and a high-quality labour force that is proving attractive for inward Investment to the region. As a consequence the demand for Finance & HR professionals is still very high with no sign of slowing. With inflation falling and business confidence returning we expect this trend to continue and can look forward to continued growth through the rest of the year. In addition the diversity in the sectors that we operate in makes our region much more future proof as we are not overly reliant on one particular market.

Below are some of the topics that we have had the chance to explore over the last 3 months with our candidates and clients.

Working in the office 5 Days a Week Interesting one this and very challenging. We are seeing a gradual trend for clients to explore the option of bringing new candidates in without hybrid opportunities. This has previously been more prevalent when recruiting a Finance Director for a growth SME when the leadership team is being formed. We have had some of these requests for candidates at Financial Controller level and have found that around 90% candidates will rule themselves out immediately from these types of options based on the lack of hybrid working. I can understand the importance of fostering workplace culture face to face, but the new reality is that if an employer wants to explore the candidate marketplace fully then hybrid arrangements are required in a candidate driven market.

Cash is King Not really a surprising finding but salary considerations are now the number 1 reason for a candidate to look for a job, with the figure of 35-40% appearing on a number of recent surveys. Cost of living pressures and a tight candidate market will continue this trend for the foreseeable future but lower interest rates and continued economic growth should help mitigate this going forward. At the moment this is a major headache for companies looking at their retention strategies whilst also looking to attract new talent. We still find that proactive career management and ongoing 360-degree feedback appraisals with existing team members can mitigate many of these risks as they may uncover other factors that attract and retain staff on an individual basis.

A Four Day Week Many of the companies that have trialled the concept have reported; higher productivity, lower absenteeism, increased engagement, higher staff retention and an improvement in business performance. The condensed four-day week could be an alternative to hybrid working for some companies that have a more traditional working pattern. Another significant advantage is that it would remove the disparity of experience between Blue and White-Collar workers. The opportunity to be consulted about such a major change and the trust demonstrated by a management team could be very beneficial to retention and attraction.

Green Washing – Is it a thing? Most definitely and whilst there are some true believers out there, it is often a corporate tick box exercise. Superficially the right green credentials may attract and retain staff but most of our Finance and HR candidates are savvy enough to expose the imposters and see through the PR. As a business we are supporters of the green agenda with a number of initiatives that we sponsor such as planting a tree for every placement we make. We wholeheartedly support organisations that share our principles but only when it is genuine belief and anchored to some semblance of reality and not used to score Corporate or Political brownie points.

Up next...

  • Astute Newsletter – Winter 2022
  • Welcome to our quarterly newsletter where we will be keeping you up to date with what’s been happening at Astute […]

  • Astute Newsletter – April 2023
  • Welcome to our quarterly newsletter where we will be keeping you up to date with what’s been happening at Astute […]