Entrée Recruitment turns 18!

Posted on 30/10/2019 by Megan Nicholson

Today, October 30th 2019, is Entrée Recruitment's 18th Birthday. Eighteen years ago today our business was born, and we always take this date as an opportunity to celebrate our company and our team.

In light of this achievement, General Manager Megan Nicholson has reflected on her time with the business. Have a read:

It was 2002 and I had just returned from an amazing working holiday in the UK.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to change career direction from finance into something new and exciting, except I didn’t know what that "new and exciting" would be! Back in 2002, the majority of vacant roles were still advertised in print media (i.e. the local newspaper) and it was there that I came across an advertisement for a Candidate Consultant position with Entrée.  I hesitated about applying. I really didn’t know anything about recruitment and I had never heard of this relatively new company called Entrée, but I applied and the rest is history. The best decision I have ever made in my career was applying for the role that day.

Six interviews later (yes, six!) I had the job. I started all bright eyed and excited ready for my new role, really having no idea about the rollercoaster of recruitment I was about to get on. (I don’t like going upside down, but I can certainly use that analogy for the day-to-day life of a Recruiter!)

In 16 years, I have seen so many changes in the way that we do things. Gone are the print advertisements; Everything we do is online now. We have gone from having to be exceptional writers to having to be in front of camera, starring in video advertisements for our clients.  Social media has had a significant impact on the way that we do things. Recruitment is no longer about putting a job in the Saturday paper and knowing you will have 300 applications sitting in your inbox on Monday morning.  Job vacancies now require a far greater reach to potential talent than ever before: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Seek, websites, Twitter and many more.  We are continually branding and marketing the business across all social media platforms to have the reach that we once did with traditional advertising methods.  It is so significant now in recruitment that we employed our own Marketing and Brand Specialists 18 months ago.  18 years ago it would have been unheard of to have this type of role within a local recruitment agency. 

We have seen the business evolve from client/Recruiter relationships to long term partnerships, where our Consultants act as an extension to a client’s business. And from a candidate perspective, it is now about the journey we go on within the job cycle of a candidate. Sixteen years later I still liaise with some of my first candidates, many now as clients. 

Our commitment to philanthropy work has deepened. We are blessed in our roles that we are able to give back to our community and the involvement in fundraising and volunteer work increases year on year. It is now such a big part of our business and we are so fortunate that we get to partner with so many not-for-profit and charitable organisations that are doing amazing things for our society.

We have seen the team grow by 75%.  We have launched two new divisions: Entrée Early Years Recruitment in 2013 and Entrée Training & Development in 2019.  We have had lots of weddings, babies, events and celebrations and too many birthdays (aka mine!). We have filled 2,000 permanent roles, 16,000  temporary roles and have interviewed over 16,000 people! Just amazing!

But even though we have grown, evolved and changed the way to we do things to adapt to best practice methods of recruiting in 2019, the fundamentals of the role haven’t changed since I started in 2003.  The role is still exciting, fast paced, rewarding, and an absolute rollercoaster. We are dealing with people after all! But the reason I am still here 16 years later is the most amazing people I have met along the way and the impact myself and my team have on people every day. We are blessed that we can literally change lives. And that warm, fuzzy, and extremely rewarding feeling of being able to do that has never gone away. And I don’t think it ever will.

Megan.

And with this being the 18th Birthday, in typical 18th style, we have created a presentation reflecting on the past 18 years! View the video below.

AND to celebrate the Birthday of Entrée Recruitment, our team climbed some trees. Yep, really. Each year, General Manager Megan encourages the team to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones by scaling to new heights - literally! Having already climbed the Adelaide Oval rooftop, and scaling the Mega Adventure scaffold at West Beach, this year we attended the Adelaide TreeClimb. Check out the video below, showcasing our team's escapades.

So Happy Birthday Entrée Recruitment. Here's to the next 18 years!