WHEN we set up Spinnaker in 1997 to be a dedicated maritime recruitment agency focusing on commercial, technical, legal and insurance recruitment, the only other option available to maritime employers was press advertising.
Lloyd’s List was the market leader and Tradewinds the young pretender.
Over the past 12 years, Spinnaker has grown and now has three divisions – Commercial, Technical and Professional Services. We have recruited CEOs, superintendents, bankers, trainees and much more in over 30 countries.
Also over that time we have been joined by competitors, Lloyd’s List has totally squandered its market lead and Tradewinds has grown its recruitment advert page count considerably.
Countless other shipping publications and websites have announced their plans to launch recruitment websites. Most have fallen by the wayside and none has passed the real test – an effective place to advertise, i.e. one that works.
We all make bold claims of course. We argue that shippingjobs.com is THE place for maritime recruitment. Tradewinds do likewise and in a recent publicity email we learned that their job site is visited 22,500 times each month. In May, shippingjobs.com received 24,000 visits (and heaven knows how many ‘hits’, whatever that means).
Spinnaker’s clients can place an advert on shippingojbs.com for a month for £550 or for free when we are handling the vacancy for them.
In these hyper-competitive times, how should we respond as a service provider? We’ve been asking some of our clients recently for their views on recruitment agencies, how a good or bad reputation is built and what they expect from our service.
We have things to learn of course, but we’ve been very pleased to discover that the principles which we have always instilled in Spinnaker’s people are being recognised.
Recruitment can be a murky industry. At Spinnaker, we believe that an ethical approach will always win through.
In particular, it is fundamental that a CV should never ever be sent to a client without the jobseeker’s express permission. All too often that is not the case. It makes life awkward for the client and the candidate and it does the recruitment industry’s reputation no good at all.
For guidance on your rights see ‘Recruitment and the Law’ on shippingjobs.com – THE place for shipping recruitment (of course)!
