The Recruitment Revolution

Today marks six months since Radical Recruit incorporated. I am incredibly proud of our achievements to date.

We have placed 26 people into paid employment. We currently have 13 young people, mostly with disabilities, eagerly waiting to complete trial shifts or start work.

Over 150 candidates have registered with us and we are supporting these individuals to become work-ready with the help of our committed and dedicated volunteers who have delivered over 300 hours of service.

We have received referrals for candidates in England, Scotland and Wales.

We have secured support from RG Foundation and we are working with countless businesses – big and small – to support them as they work to re-imagine the ‘impossible’ and source their talent ethically.

We also enjoy relationships with corporate sponsors, such as Firefish, who see the value of our work and want to be a part of our journey.

We have even secured pro-bono support from LEAP Psychological Services which is headed up by our friend Dharshi (Sivadharshinie) Chelvendra.

We have brought together a community of like-minded people from disparate backgrounds to champion the business and ethical case for radical change. Our model is working.

“What I have learned is that I wasn't dealt the best hand in life, in fact I probably wasn't even dealt a hand at all. I even stole a few cards along the way, keeping them up my sleeve until one day I got caught and I decided to use everything that went wrong in my past as an example of how a person shouldn't live, how a child shouldn't be treated and how every single person is going through their own issues and is fighting their own battles, unseen inside their head.”

- Michael Clarke, Radical Candidate & Adviser

Radical was borne from the belief that there is a desperate need to boldly and unapologetically challenge the status quo and redress the imbalance of opportunity afforded to people labelled ‘care leaver’, ‘disabled’, ‘gang member’, ‘black’, ‘uneducated’, ‘homeless’, ‘criminal’ or generally, ‘not good enough’. We believed it was time to call out businesses who talk a big game, when it comes to inclusion, equality, and diversity, but fail to translate their rhetoric into practice.

During my time as COO at Working Chance, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at the 2019 Reward Gateway Engagement Excellence Summit. The panel was moderated by the wonderful Rob Marsh and I was joined by Chanel Allen and the Head of People at Honest Burgers. Our discussion centred around what is possible when the third sector and the business world unite in purpose.

Chanel courageously shared her personal story – an incredibly intimate recollection of her journey from life in State ‘care’, to prison (the only place she had ever felt safe) and finally, following her release from HMP Downview, back into the community and the wonderful world of work.

She beautifully articulated how the power of paid work transformed her life and had the potential to transform the lives of other people who experienced disadvantage as she had. She spoke about the many benefits of hiring people with ‘a past’ who desperately wanted to build better futures.

She championed the rights of people born into tumultuous circumstances and advocated that people who made mistakes should be given a second chance.

Immediately after the event, I went to a nearby pub, ordered a large glass of red wine and started madly scribbling down my thoughts. My mind was buzzing – being in a room with 400 other rebellious brains will do that! I felt invigorated and excited for the first time in a long time. In the days that followed, I simply could not stop thinking: if this model worked for someone like Chanel, born with the odds stacked against her, why couldn’t a similar model work for other people who experience multiple and intersecting disadvantages?

Fast forward six months to the 1st of October 2019 (our date of incorporation) and my scribbled notes had formed the ‘bones’ of Radical Recruit’s manifesto; a name inspired by the Summits theme: ‘HR Rebels’.

We recruited a team of amazing Advisors: Chanel Allen, Mikes Clarke, Andrew Farrow, Lisa Selby and Elliot Murawski whose lived experience makes them experts in areas where people continually face the disadvantage we seek to address.

Our Board also benefits from the expertise, skills, energy, and enthusiasm of Louise Triance and Katrina Collier who are HR Gurus in their own right and who give so much of themselves to raise our profile and connect us with the business world.

We have built an infrastructure (website, policies, and procedures) and developed quality partnerships with the people we exist to serve as well as the business community and a large number of other third sector support providers who we rely on to make quality referrals.

The current political and economic landscape has and will continue to test our resilience as a small business and more broadly, as a provider responsible for delivering vital human services to the most vulnerable people in our community. Despite this, I am filled with hope for our future and I remain steadfast in my conviction that Radical will continue to excite, agitate and shake things up within the recruitment industry!

We Are Radical.

We Are Stronger Together.

Join Us.