Transition time for Parker Young...

As we grow and evolve, I have been keen to explore opportunities to broaden the Parker Young offering over and above the Recruitment, Search and Talent Mapping services we provide.

An important factor in identifying complimentary solutions, was in the individuals we partner with. In the case of Mike Prenton, it was a pretty straightforward one.

Ellie (our social media and marketing intern) and I met Mike earlier in the week to discuss background, why he loves what he does and how his specialist knowledge could benefit our candidate and client base.

Over to you Ellie….

This week Parker Young Recruitment met with Mike Prenton; a coach in career transitioning, whom we are pleased to announce, has become an associate of our company.

Mike’s background is a really interesting one; having gained his CIPD Status in HR Management, Mike has worked in Human Resources, Employer Marketing and is even a university lecturer. It is clear to see that the common theme which runs through his work is his desire to help people and businesses solve their people challenges. We’ve seen a huge opportunity to tap into Mike’s knowledge and desire to help our candidates and clients, by launching the Parker Young Career Transition service.

Career transitioning or ‘outplacement’ provides support for people who are typically in a redundancy process, coaching them on how to navigate this period of career change. This ranges from generating insight as to career direction, developing candidates’ “offer” – to developing CVs & social media presence to help maximise the effectiveness of their job search, as well as offering emotional support and a place to start when faced with what can be a daunting period of change. More specifically, Mike Prenton’s approach to career transitioning is a bespoke one that favours a personal face to face approach; a value Mike shares with us. In fact, the more we talked the more we found shared attributes: Mike, in his own words, “helps talented people to find great companies”, which chimes very much with Parker Young’s mission statement: To help companies find great people.

Capitalising on the natural synergies between our businesses, we aim offer candidates who may be some way off being “interview ready”, access to professional advice that can take them right from the point they find themselves on the job market, through to the point they have settled into a new role.

So why have we found this partnership to be an important one?

We regularly speak to candidates about returning to the job market and who claim they struggle to know how to go about finding the right recruitment partner to support them. We are in a digital age with lots more independent, bespoke recruitment agencies - and some candidates tell us they last found a job when there were maybe only one or two of the “big firms” to go in the pre-internet era.

Many candidates have been told to “create a LinkedIn profile”, but don’t know how to use it – or to ‘maximise their networking opportunities’. But when you haven’t needed to write a CV in 15- 20 years, how do you know what employers are looking for and what to add?

Mike has many years’ experience working with some of the UK’s largest Career Transition firms, to offer support to cut through the “white noise”. Whilst his approach is entirely to upskill and guide, rather than to find his clients jobs himself, he has managed to support people of all levels of experience and multiple disciplines, to feel confident about their job prospects.

In recent years, Mike has contacted our Managing Director, Dave Young with some superb candidates, who Dave has gone on to help with finding them interviews and new jobs.

It is a proven formula to help the candidate, but also gives our clients more value in providing additional information on you as a candidate over and above a CV.

And yes there is a commercial advantage to Parker Young offering this to our candidates. Just imagine the confidence gained by our clients when are able to share details of committed professionals who have invested in their career transition by working with a CT expert. We can provide a unique overview of the candidate’s fit for a role, business culture and team fit based on the work that Mike has done to get each candidate “Parker Young ready” to go out to the job market.

Research shows that career transition support can significantly increase your chance of securing a particular role. Now having seen the positive impact it has had with numerous candidates we’ve worked with- we have now decided to bring our offer “in-house”.

Welcome to the team Mike.

For more information on the services on offer and pricing structure of the support, please contact Mike Prenton directly via linkedin – or contact us directly here at Parker Young.