40 CK Recruitment

Recruitment is an interesting part of business: everyone needs to do it, but the process is expensive, the stakes are high and recruitment agencies can be difficult to deal with.

That last part is what Kylie Hayes and Cassie Greenland, founders of CK Recruitment, are trying to move the dial on.

The industry veterans, who have spent over a decade working in the recruitment space, decided to get together and start their own agency in 2014 to bring service back into recruitment.

There was only one problem: the pair had non-compete clauses built into contracts with their previous employers, restricting them from working with clients they knew needed a change of pace for 12 months.

“We were experienced and extremely successful when it came to business development, however, within the first three months we went through periods of doubt and started to really worry we wouldn’t be able to get our business off the ground,” Hayes says.

CK Recruitment turned over $9.7 million in 2017-18 and has grown by 95% since 2014-15, so they obviously got through it, but how?

“We learnt doubt will inevitable restrict your results, stress to perform was taking away our down-to-earth approach, and therefore, we just had to back one another and be confident we could do it,” Hayes explains.

That approach appears to have paid off for the duo, who are now moving forward with all gears firing, overseeing a growing client list and enjoying every moment.

After opening a new office in Sydney, CK Recruitment is looking to cash in on the white collar sector in a bid to reduce its exposure to typical labour hire, which is becoming riskier.

“We still feel the candidate market is significantly changing. How we go about sourcing talent, especially in the area of trades, is extremely challenging,” Hayes says.

“We feel there is a need to improve the candidate experience so we can acquire the limited talent available within sectors such as these.”