I don’t know what’s going on currently. Each Friday, I sit here thinking I can go on some random tirade, and each Friday I seem to be presented with some actual recruitment news. In what should be a stagnant market, there seems to be plenty of winners, losers, launchers, sellers, and combinations of all of the above. Recently, we’ve had Robert Walters go on a diet, OCG close their doors, Emergent sell to Alpha, and Lynx sell their contracting arm to Stellar. And all I want to do is write about a recruiter who pretends to be a client to headhunt from their own client.
This week, there’s so much going on, that I’m going to cover a few topics. Here we go…
Firstly, and sadly, we see Kinetic making 7 roles redundant. Just when you think you’ve reached the bottom of the dip, 2025 throws some more sh*t at us. My understanding of this move is more about a restructure than prevailing market conditions. In its condensed version, Bluefin Group (who own Kinetic), who in turn are owned by Japan’s Outsourcing Inc, have restructured the business. This means out with Bluefins’s excellent CEO Christine Wright, and Kinetic now reporting into another group business in HOBAN. HOBAN, being heavily in favour of labour hire, seem to have no appetite for white collar recruitment, so it’s out with Adam Edwards and anyone else who doesn’t want to place hammerhands all day long. A shame, given I went from despising Kinetic and everything they represent, to actually enjoying recruiting for them. Given Kinetic were only at about 14 people or so, how will it fare going forward? My prediction? It either won’t exist or it’ll rebrand to HOBAN. If this happens, I see Kate Ross buying back the Kinetic brand like it’s 2011 and me eating rat poison to deal with the situation.
We’ve also seen two (yes TWO) new companies launch, or at least tease us with a launch. The first being from everyone’s favourite ultrapreneur and a man no stranger to these pages. I am of course referring to the one and only Pete Stewart. Seeing a genuine gap in the sales recruitment space which has existed since Gaulter Russell sold to those wonderful folk at Consult, Pete and Ettienne Erasmus have just launched KPI Recruitment. The name, which is sure to attract dickhead candidates, harks back to a simpler time when sales people actually had to achieve metrics to keep their jobs. Remember that? Contrary to what some buffoons may think, I like Pete and respect his gumption. Let’s see how this one fares.
Next up is a little teaser. One that I spotted a few week ago thanks to my addiction to “Companies Register”. If you to find yourself with time to kill, you might find yourself wondering what happened to Recruitment Entrepreneur. You may, with this time to kill, type Jason Walker’s name into the search bar to see if he’s still a director. You may then see that Jason is actually a director and minor share holder of a new entity. An entity with a warmly familiar ring to it. OK ok, Jason Walker has gone into business with Regan Higgins of Franklin Smith to launch “Walker Smith“. At the moment, this is just a name and a “coming soon” website. On a side note, when I noticed this new company, I raced to claim the URL. I would have eventually let them have it, but imagine a pic of me in my speedos waiting as a little easter egg for them? Oh the laugh we would have had! My prediction for this one is that it will be the professional services arm of Franklin Smith, however, this is a very vague guess. If it’s true, will Jason stop doing rec-to-rec? C’mon mate. It’s not that bad.
Anyway, plenty of comings and goings of late. Commiserations to the guys effected at Kinetic, and well done for those taking a punt in a tough market.
Until next week!
^SW
