What do you currently do?
I am the founder and Chief Executive of Dartmouth Partners, a boutique recruitment consultancy placing rising stars and future leaders into positions within the financial services, consultancy and corporate sectors.
Previously I worked across financial services, having worked at JP Morgan and PWC before co-founding The Cornell Partnership.
I formed Dartmouth Partners in July 2012, with the aim of establishing us as a unique firm dedicated, but not limited to, the best graduate talent around.
We currently have 24 employees specialising in a range of disciplines including; M&A, Debt, Corporate Strategy and Private Equity, with a third of these making up the Graduate team. This number is set to grow, as soon as we find more office space!
Our first year saw a turnover of £1.7m and £920,000 in the first quarter of this year. Last year we placed 150 candidates in jobs externally, and we have already placed over 130 individuals so far in 2014.
We help clients hire each generation’s rising stars- effectively the elite one per cent of graduates and experienced professionals- providing recruitment solutions for over 100 clients.
Amongst these are six investment banks including; Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and BAML, high growth start-ups such as OneFineStay and Viagogo and FTSE100 companies such as SABMiller.
Retained contracts with over 20 clients allows our Graduate team to calibrate the clients’ benchmarks all the way through the recruitment process and gauge the most suitable applicants.
What’s your inspiration in business?
Working with great people both internally and externally is something that is really inspiring. We’ve been fortunate that everyone who has joined our business buys into our long term ethos and vision. Similarly, we are fortunate that we help high potential and high achievers into their next step- catalysts for change and growth in the companies we recruit for.
Who do you admire?
There are quite a few! From a business perspective, I admire Luke Johnson for the range of business interests he has and his broad commercial acumen.
What defines your way of doing business?
We combine a comprehensive advisory service with a rigorous assessment process to improve the applicants’ chances of finding their ideal job. Dartmouth Partners adopts a long-term view of our talent pools’ careers and forms relationships with candidates who will stay with them throughout the early stages of their career, and in some cases, go on to become clients.
Whilst Graduate recruitment is the foundation of our business model we aim to help people for their entire career journey- our network matures alongside their career progression, which in turn improves the company’s offering for experienced professionals with proven track records- effectively enabling them to recruit from classroom all the way to boardroom.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Take the long term view on your career, try to enjoy it and play to your strengths whilst acknowledging and working on your weaknesses. You’re only on the first step of what could be a long and winding road!
