Following an education in Law, Steve entered the IT recruitment industry at the age of 21 as an interim before continuing studying towards the LPC. Within his first six months however, he had decided that recruitment was the career for him. He quickly progressed with a leading record of delivery with a Manchester based IT agency, however during a successful managerial career he became frustrated by the general treatment of Recruitment Consultants across the industry. Alongside his former colleague Steve Taylor, and Circle’s financial investor (the MD of a global software organisation), Steve co-founded Circle in 2003 and realized his dream of growing and developing an agency with a very different ethos, an ethos that has led Circle from strength to strength.
Alongside his busy role as MD, and with the help of Key Account Manager Lucie Alker, he actively recruits for his clients which enables him to remain fully in touch with the day to day issues of working in recruitment, as the leaders of many agencies can quickly lose touch with the difficulties of the market. Steve works with some of the largest IT, finance and software companies in Europe, as well as many smaller niche players. He specializes in statistical and IT recruitment.
Steven Taylor Operations/Finance Director & Co Founder
Alongside Steve Ricketts and the financial investor of Circle, Steve laid the groundwork for what is today recognised as one of the UK’s most dynamic and successful recruitment agencies.
After studying in Manchester, Steve worked for a global IT outsourcing organisation, working on technical solutions for a wide array of blue chip clients. The relationships, technical knowledge and skills gained during this period were to prove invaluable, and when Steve entered the IT recruitment industry in 2000, he was breaking sales records from his second month onwards. Here he worked with Steve Ricketts, and shared his views regarding the general culture of the UK IT recruitment industry, and in 2003 Circle was born.
Steve is responsible for the general running of the company, focusing on management of the company finances, and operational and technical developments. He also finds time to remain hands on and successfully recruits for many organisations, in particular public sector/health industry companies.
Jonathan Brass
Director
After an exemplary education culminating in graduation from Sheffield in Business and IT, Jon started his career in insurance. After two successful years, he moved into the recruitment industry, and joined an IT specialist recruitment consultancy in Manchester . He joined Circle during the company's early expansion, his frustrations with the industry mirroring those of the founding directors. He quickly established himself as not only a fantastic recruiter, but also a first class trainer and manager. Within his early career at Circle, Jon's performances and management prowess saw him promoted into the head of one of Circle's two Profit Centres , and his influence, talent and dedication for the company to manage and treat people well has helped Circle continue their outstanding success.
He specializes across the general IT, legal IT and engineering sectors. Having developed an excellent knowledge of the candidate base within his markets, Jon is able to identify the key skills that his clients demand, and in doing so has forged an ever increasing number of key client relationships across the UK . He is responsible for over half of the company's staff, and has developed his staff, often with no prior experience, to outstanding performance levels. Jon holds the record for Best Back to Back months, and was promoted to the board of directors as part of our 2006 AGM.
Tariq Dirania
Director
After graduating with a degree in Business Administration, Tariq spent two years working in the finance and communications industries before moving to a Sales & Marketing role in which his immense talent for winning business was realised . After working for one of the UK 's largest IT recruitment agencies, Tariq joined Circle in 2005. He works on the IT Security Recruitment marketplace, where his dedication to clients and candidates alike continue to thrust him into the very highest achievers echelon at Circle. He is an ever-present at the top of the board at Circle, and this, coupled with an engaging, dynamic personality and a natural ability to instill his passion for excellence into his team, led to official promotion to Circle's Management Team in early 2007, and he was promoted again to head up half of the company's staff a year later, and again to the board of directors in November 2008
Tariq has been instrumental in winning preferred supplier agreements with an eclectic client base including some extremely prestigious clients. Tariq's ability is almost legendary at Circle, and has led him to being the current holder of the following Circle Records: Best Month, Best Back to Back Months, Best Quarter, and Best Year. His consistent excellence has led him to hold several other Circle records at some point and he regularly breaks his own records.
Matthew Leach
Managing Consultant
After graduating in 2005 in Business Finance at Durham University , Matthew attended several interviews in both London and Manchester to pursue his chosen career in recruitment. Enthusiasm and natural flair attracted interest from several of the leading agencies in the country, and Matt chose Circle and joined in Summer 2005. After a strong start he was awarded with the prize of Best Junior at the company Christmas Awards of that year and was promoted shortly afterwards.
During 2007 Matthew progressed and began to secure first class supply arrangements with several blue chip organizations, enabling him to become Circle's highest performing Consultant and win the Circle Best Quarter record. Matthew's continued progression earned him promotion to Senior Consultant in January 2008, and to Managing Consultant later that year, duringwhich he will also head up Circle's new Leeds office. Matthew's high levels of intelligence and ability to diversify allow him to deliver recruitment solutions to his clients across not just one, but several of our markets – he specializes in General IT, Online Marketing Recruitment and also in Statistics.
Shaun Coulthwaite
Senior Consultant
After graduating from Manchester with a degree in Business Enterprise, Shaun gained solid business development and client relationship-building skills in the retail and events industries, before entering recruitment in 2004, joining a successful independent specialist agency in Manchester . Shaun sought to progress his career in the summer of 2006, when he joined Circle.
Shaun has won Preferred Supplier List agreements with a growing number of key clients, including household name organizations to smaller software houses. His ultra-ethical style and professional approach enables his clients to rest assured they are always receiving 100% in his recruitment for the best talent. Circle's ethos and environment have encouraged Shaun to flourish to outstanding levels of new business achievement, and in March 2007, Shaun achieved more than four times his target and also won the Best Placement record outright. Shaun's talent and professionalism has earned him great levels of respect amongst his colleagues, and his 2007 performances earned him promotion to Senior Consultant in January 2008.
Fahim Rashid
Senior Consultant
After graduating in Economics from the University of Manchester in 2004, Fahim worked for two years for the British Red Cross. During his studies, he had already gained strong skills in Customer Service through work as an advisor for a major banking organization, and he put these skills to use at the British Red Cross, working closely with internal and external people to assist with the fantastic work of the society.
At the start of 2006, Fahim entered the IT recruitment industry, joining one of the largest companies in the European marketplace. Here he performed extremely well, his ethical approach and dedication to both the needs of clients and candidates ensuring that he achieved high, winning the Most Improved Consultant award in his first year. His skills developed further, and in his last month he achieved a personal best before seeking to progress his career in May 2007. Fahim's talent, dedication and ambition was clearly apparent, and he received offers of employment from each and every recruitment agency he interviewed with, and chose Circle primarily to develop his personal talents without frustration with our increased freedom and flexibility, and also for career progression and remuneration. Fahim concentrates on the UK IT contract recruitment marketplace and has made an outstanding contribution to Circle's contract services offering. As of February 2008, he was the proud holder of ALL of Circle's contract-related records, and such excellence saw him promoted to Senior Consultant that year.
Gillian Twist
Senior Consultant
Gillian's studies focussed around the hospitality and legal industries, following which she worked in the advertising sales industry in the charity sector before moving to a team lead position in another B2B sales role.
Gillian's passion for people and ability to meet customer needs let her towards the recruitment industry, which she joined in 2001 working for a European leading IT specialist agency.
Here, Gillian started as a trainee and quickly established herself as a top performer, earning two promotions and becoming responsible for a team of consultants. In 2008, Gillian decide to move to a more boutique agency where she could focus on delivering a fuller range of recruitment services to her clients. Here she also performed well, and joined Circle in Summer 2009 to continue to provide a first class service to her growing clientele.Gillian focuses mainly on permanent IT recruitment.
Scott Carline
Recruitment Consultant
After studying Business Information Technology in Manchester, Scott began his career in the retail sector, working for a national clothing retailer.
Here he developed solid customer relationship skills, and he progressed exceptionally with four promotions in two years from 2005 to 2007. He soon became manager of his department.
Scott's developing business acumen and passion for working with people led him to the recruitment industry in 2007. As he had studied an IT related degree, Scott joined an agency that specialized in placing IT candidates.
Scott's main speciality was working with software/web development vacancies, ranging from graduate roles to Programme Manager and CTO level positions.
Scott was consistently a top performer and developed an eclectic client base, and his work earned him Consultant of the Month on three different occasions. Scott decided to join Circle for career progression reasons in Autumn 2009, where he continues to service this sector as well as handling his client's vacancies in all other areas of IT.
Elizabeth Radcliffe
Recruitment Consultant
After her studies at Huddersfield University, Elizabeth began her career in marketing, predominantly providing services to the telecommunications and media industries. Elizabeth developed solid customer relationship skills and her desire to deliver to a high standard earned her promotion to management, where she was responsible for training new staff members in how to ensure customer satisfaction.
Elizabeth joined the recruitment industry in 2007, where she worked for an IT specialist agency. Here she worked with both permanent and contract candidates, and as her customer service skills were so strong she developed her client base rapidly. Elizabeth performed well consistently, and sought to progress her career in the winter of 2009. After generating interest from several Manchester based agencies, Elizabeth chose Circle where she continues to service clients in the IT Sector.
Katja Bennett
Key Account Manager
Katja entered the recruitment industry in 2004 working for an IT specialist agency. Working on the Technical Support area with a geographical restriction of the Midlands only, Katja was still able to progress swiftly with two promotions in two years before moving on for career progression reasons.
Her experience gained much interest from the industry and after receiving several offers, she joined Circle in the summer of 2006. She later left the industry in order to pursue further studies, and re-joined us in 2010 in the role of Key Account Manager. Katja is responsible for ensuring pinnacle service delivery to several of Circle's key accounts. Katja also enjoys continuing to develop Circle's client base, together with contractor care, CBI interviewing, performance of internal reporting audits, and the attraction/sourcing of candidates.
Lucie Alker
Trainee Recruitment Consultant
Lucie's achieved straight A GCSE's (four at grade A*), four A levels also at grade A, and a 2:1 degree in Law from Leeds University, where she was also responsible for the organisation and promotion of various charitable events.
Following her studies, she decided to travel abroad to Australia, and worked as a Paralegal for a large, successful corporate law partnership.
Having received an insight into the commercial world of the legal industry, Lucie decided that this was not the ideal career for her. Given her logical approach, experience of dealing with different people and situations, and ability to quickly decipher requirements and the needs of customers, recruitment was an obvious route and upon her return to the UK she pursued this with an independent IT specialist agency. Lucie later joined Circle for career progression reasons in 2009, where she was our Key Account Manager until Spring 2010 before moving into a Consultant’s role to help develop our client base.
Tania Graham
Trainee Recruitment Consultant
Tania developed a passion for the recruitment industry very early in her career. After her studies, she worked in a Recruitment Support role for a training organization that specialized on helping school leavers find work. Following this, she gained valuable customer service skills whilst employed by a major high street bank, before moving into the IT industry and joining a digital media agency. Here, Tania would promote the company’s solutions, such as PPC, paid search, digital strategy and web development.
The job satisfaction that Tania experienced in her first role, coupled with her interest in and knowledge of the IT and digital media industries, drew her to Circle in 2010. Tania focusses on permanent recruitment.
James Chapman
Trainee Recruitment Consultant
James graduated from Nottingham University in 2005 with a degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering, before working for Nottingham City Council until the start of 2007 in an operations and administration role. James developed strong interpersonal, communication and organisation skills, and later sought a career in recruitment, IT recruitment being the perfect sector given his studies.
James joined a Manchester-based IT specialist recruitment agency in January 2007, and performed well working on the Graphic and Web Design sector across Yorkshire . In Summer 2007, James joined Circle after seeking to progress his career with an agency that could offer training and the opportunity to work on a wider scope of technology, allowing him to provide a more comprehensive spectrum of recruitment services to customers. James has settled into the company well and has a growing desk of satisfied clients.
Suzanne Owen
Trainee Recruitment Consultant
Following an education in her home of Wales, Suzanne began her career in the telecommunications industry, where she developed excellent customer service skills and people skills. Suzanne’s passion for people led her to the leisure and tourism industry where she worked abroad in customer services and entertainment, before being drawn to the recruitment industry upon her return to the UK in 2006.
Suzanne joined a commercial recruitment agency as a Resourcer, and six months later was promoted to Consultant level where she established a successful desk and provided first class recruitment solutions to a range of companies across several industries. In Autumn 2008, Suzanne sought to enter a more professional sector in the recruitment industry, and chose to join Circle where she focuses on providing permanent recruitment services to the IT sector.
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