Ed Rossiter of Phoenix Recruitment is taking the global cloud.
“Phoenix was created to address the weaknesses in traditional recruiting,” said Ed Rossiter. This traditional model is a “transaction-oriented, non-advisory, inconsistent experience,” he said. This gave him the impetus he needed to found a “new, modern recruitment agency”.
Phoenix is a “fully digital recruiting service,” Rossiter said. “Since the beginning, we have consistently invested in cutting-edge technology to deliver key recruitment projects to our clients around the world.”
Achieving this global reach as an Irish start-up means Phoenix is working with customers where it doesn’t yet have a physical presence. Technology is the solution to this. “Our technology stack is completely cloud-based, fully mobile and accessible by our consultants anywhere in the world,” Rossiter explained.
When operations are fully digitized, Phoenix generates data that can then be used. “We use a unique data analytics platform to provide real-time insights to ensure that all of our employees are using their time in the most efficient and effective way possible, spending more time building relationships with our clients and candidates,” said Rossiter.
Another benefit of being a cloud-based recruiting firm is that scaling — whether global or otherwise — can happen quickly. In the year Founded in 2018, the group now employs 40 people with offices in Dublin, Limerick and London.
“We will open our first US office by the end of the year,” Rossiter promised. We are ambitious, aiming to be a 250-person team by 2025 and will continue to scale rapidly,” he said.
That’s why Rossiter says Phoenix is ”Ireland’s fastest growing recruitment brand”.
“Despite the impact of Covid-19, we have been able to buck market trends,” he said.
Phoenix announced a €1m funding round this summer to help expand this growth. “When we first started Phoenix, we were fortunate enough to have an investor that allowed us to grow, and this same investor has seen our growth and is backing us again,” Rossiter said.
In the last few months, the funding has been strong
– Ed ROSSITER
As well as incorporating technology into its services, Phoenix targets its recruitment offering at tech and fintech companies, as well as financial and professional services, and counts four Irish unicorns among its client base.
Rossiter regularly engages with these startup leaders through Talent Talks, a podcast that asks founders and CEOs to share their insights into the Irish job market. He had the opportunity to establish his business through his own experience in professional services and recruitment at multinationals such as Morgan McKinley and BDO.
“A lot of our top leaders in the business are very professional,” Rossiter said, referring specifically to colleague Ruth Linden. Linden is a qualified attorney, also with Morgan McKinley on her CV. “We are a recruitment agency with a high level of service not often seen in this sector, thanks to these qualifications,” says Rossiter.
He and Linden are joined at the helm of the company by David Harrington, director of accounting, finance, legal and tax.
One of the challenges Phoenix’s leadership faced in its early years was leading a new team through a global crisis. Because of the Covid restrictions, creating a culture of collaboration and energy has been difficult at times, Rossiter said. But we are glad to be back in coordination with all our offices.
Lately, Rossiter sees tightening purse strings as a new challenge to overcome. But he remains hopeful.
“Until May of this year, investment and capital was generally available for many startups,” he said.
“This landscape has certainly strengthened over the past few months, but we expect this to relax again over the next 12 months. Although we expect it to be significantly lower than what we have seen in the last 12 to 18 months, there is still a lot of capital in the market that is not being deployed by VC funds and lenders.
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