Bespoke Careers voted best recruitment agency to work for

The winners of the Creativepool Annual 2019 were announced last night at a celebratory event held at East London’s Banking Hall.

Global industry figures and key members of the Creativepool network gathered at the exclusive venue to toast the work, people and companies that have achieved creative excellence in the past year.

Bespoke Careers were voted 'Best Recruitment Company to work for' in the People's Choice category with the award being collected by Sophie Tait, Global Head of HR, Jennifer McKenzie, Marketing Manager and Molly McCloy, Marketing Coordinator.

What makes Bespoke Careers a great place to work?

Set up and run by qualified architects and designers, Bespoke Careers is a recruitment agency

that understands and genuinely cares about the Architecture & Design industry and its people. It doesn’t just service it, it is a part of it. By researching and producing annual Salary Guides, Job Satisfaction Surveys and an annual employee survey, Bespoke have an in-depth understanding of what employees want and what makes an outstanding workplace.  In fact, ‘Culture’ rates as our highest category in our annual employee survey with 95% of employees rating Bespoke highly for workplace culture.

Last year Bespoke published a book that examines the culture and dynamics of the architectural workplace. Named ‘The Culture of Practice’, it offered a unique insight that the industry had never seen before.

Bespoke Careers is the only specialist A&D recruitment agency with 89 employees across offices in London, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, New York and Los Angeles.  All Managing Directors began in the London office, before relocating to set up additional offices in these key cities. Bespoke also encourage staff members to work from any of these locations if they are nearby following a period of annual leave.  

Career development and knowledge sharing is a key focus for Bespoke Careers. When each employee starts, they are put on a 12-week recruitment training programme. This includes a mentor scheme, internal training, upskill hours; and ongoing career development meetings which have now replaced the traditional annual appraisals. Whilst an employee’s success as a recruiter is a fundamental part of Bespoke’s promotion criteria, the activities that help towards learning and development are also important. These include contribution to social media, delivery of training sessions, attendance at industry and in-house networking events, and candidate and client feedback. Bespoke Careers do not just reward the best figures, and thanks to this employee led approach, pay promotion has become fairer and more consistent across the agency, in turn increasing employee retention from 34% to 81% over a 4 year period.

With this strong focus on its people, Bespoke Careers also offers an abundance of fun perks to help build lasting relationships throughout its teams. With quarterly activities (which have previously included an LA wine safari, boat trips, murder mystery evenings and The Crystal Maze!), Bespoke also provides a Friday drinks trolley at 4.30pm, target hitters lunches at city hotspots, generous work anniversary gifts (including 1 extra day annual leave p/a) and amazing seasonal parties. On top of this, Bespoke run an annual recruitment competition where 10 employees get an all-expenses paid holiday with extra leave included. Past trips have included a luxury getaway to Bali, a ski trip to France and a New York city break!

Retaining and nurturing its talent is key, which is why Bespoke offers an enhanced maternity pay package, topped off with a ‘baby bonus’ for returning mothers. Its founder and CEO, Lindsay Urquhart is a strong advocate of nurturing female talent and is proud that Bespoke now has a demographic of 70% female employees with a number of these being senior leadership positions.