Richard Cooke founded Seven Resourcing in March 2011 after identifying a gap in the market for a recruitment agency that valued honesty and innovation above all else in an industry that was becoming stale in its approach towards customer care.
Armed with two junior consultants, three second-hand computers and an office the size of a garden shed, Seven started its incredible journey from scratch. Now, with over 90 staff spread across four stunning offices in England, Australia and the USA, Seven’s multi-award-winning service forms a global brand with a reputation for always going further for its people.
Surviving 10 years in recruitment is a wonderful achievement, so we’ve delved into the archives and pulled out a few defining moments that contributed to our success today.
How it all began…
Seven’s current digs are a long shot from the company’s humble beginnings. Seven started its journey in a tiny office above a Tesco Metro in central Ipswich. With 2 newbie consultants and 3 desk-setups worth about thirty quid each (including a computer, monitor, mouse and keyboard), Richard and Seven’s first week consisted of Windows updates and a dodgy internet connection – not exactly a dream start!
Fast-forward a few months and business was slow. Winning clients and opening doors in social care is never easy in recruitment, especially when you’re the new kid on the block. Seven had fantastic social care candidates in Scotland but the clients didn’t want to know. So, after one too many answerphones, Richard took matters into his own hands, and in the middle of the night, he booked a next-day flight to visit Dunfermline in Fife for a meeting that didn’t even exist (yet). After hearing about Richard’s valiant effort to win their business, the head of social care recruitment in Fife agreed to meet Rich and later rewarded him for his dedication. Rich came back to Ipswich that day with 5 jobs to work, and the rest is history!
Over the last decade, Seven has provided thousands of social care professionals to almost every county council in the UK and it all started with that spontaneous trip to Scotland!
The bit in the middle…
After a successful start in social care, Seven introduced criminal justice and healthcare departments to its service-offering after identifying that it could provide fantastic support in probation, substance misuse and NHS healthcare.
For many years, Seven experienced wonderful success in physiotherapy and occupational therapy for the NHS, but new government restrictions surrounding agency workers forced Seven to adapt, and in 2014 it decided to concentrate its efforts on Nursing. Seven Nursing was introduced that year and quickly built a fantastic reputation for providing Nurses and healthcare workers to the UK’s leading private healthcare organisations quicker than any other agency.
In 2016, Richard Cooke created Seven One – an entirely unique investments programme that allows successful Recruitment Consultants to start their very own agency. Natural leaders and top performers have the opportunity to pitch their business plan to Richard, before the winners are provided with a flat-pack recruitment agency to open in a location of their choice, anywhere in the world.
Later that year, Mathew Pitcher successfully secured the first spot on the prestigious scheme by opening Seven Life Sciences in Essex – a vibrant agency specialising in pharmaceutical, medical device and biotech recruitment, supporting global organisations such as Pfizer, Thermo Fisher Scientific and QIAGEN.
Shortly after, experienced Recruiters Adam Gould and Alex Foden opened branches of Seven Animal Health in Australia and the USA, providing international recruitment services for the world’s leading veterinary employers, subsequently positioning Seven as a truly global brand.
Seven upgraded offices 4 times during its first 8 years, before finally moving to its current home on Adastral Park in the beautiful Suffolk countryside in 2019. The office took 6 months to design and build in order to house its state of the art technology, awesome recreational facilities and ultra-wide recruitment setups. Seven’s offices are incomparable within our industry, ensuring our staff have the best chance of providing a world-class recruitment service to all of our customers.
In 2018 Seven won Animal Health Recruitment Firm Of The Year, and in 2019, scooped a Recruiter Award for Most Effective Back Office Operation, positioning it as the leading agency for payroll, compliance and customer service.
Seven today…
Today, Seven’s recruitment services can be found across the globe, covering 7 core sectors in Social Care, Nursing, Healthcare, Criminal Justice, Animal Health, Education and Life Sciences. After winning multiple awards, accumulating a mass of wonderful reviews and working with some of the largest companies on the planet, Seven is growing at a staggering pace and has big dreams for the future.
Spread across incredible offices in Ipswich, Colchester, Miami and the Gold Coast, Seven’s expert team of recruitment gurus offer a service with unmatched customer care and a reputation for always going that extra mile for their candidates and clients.
COVID-19 has been an absolute rollercoaster for Seven, and despite all of the challenges that came with the pandemic, there is light at the end of the tunnel for everyone and we are extremely excited about that. With demand for health and social care staff higher than ever, Seven has grown by almost 40% in the last 12 months and shows no signs of slowing down – a staggering achievement from a recruitment team that committed heroic levels of dedication to its customers throughout the pandemic.
Seven’s success is never taken for granted and we are already rolling out HUGE plans to invest in every area of the company, including mental health support, staff development, office improvements, charity & community work, digital marketing and so much more. We also continue to concentrate our efforts on creating innovative and exclusive recruitment technology to provide faster, safer and more reliable recruitment services for everyone.
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If you’re local to Suffolk or Essex and a career in recruitment sounds right up your street, go ahead and view our careers by clicking here.
