News and Press Releases
A New Office Manager News - 11th August 2010
After working at Gallery for ever Sarah is leaving and we wish her well - we will be keeping in touch and we're exceptionally grateful for all her hard work over the years. Sarah is busy handing over to Carmen, our new Office Manager. Carmen has previously worked in similar roles in marketing agencies and studios and we are delighted to have her on board.
New Tenants Arrive News - 4th June 2010
Well, we hunted high, low, far and wide, to find tenants for the vacant ground floor of our building. So who have we found to take-on the superb and spacious modern offices, moving in this week? Our next door neighbours, a friendly firm of financial advisors.
We still have to pay the agent, but can't complain of course, as without their advertising we wouldn't have started talking to our neighbours about the space.
Office dog Huey is less than pleased, he no-longer has the run of the entire building!
We are Compliant News - 27th May 2010
We recently had an inspection by our professional governing body, the REC, to measure our compliance against REC standards and the Conduct of Employment Agencies regulations.
It's now official, we tick the right boxes, ask the right questions, fill-in the correct forms, and file the correct bits of paper. We are compliant.
It doesn't make much difference to the way we work, but it's nice to know that we're working in accordance with the large rule book that governs recruitment agencies and businesses.
Charity Drive News - 27th May 2010
At last some news, we should be on Twitter!
Sarah our Office Manager has been busy recently taking part in two sponsored events. The first event was a walk to raise funds for The Cobalt Unit Appeal in Cheltenham, a cancer treatment centre. The walk itself was not very long, the fact that it started early on a Sunday morning was a big problem for Sarah, who is not known for her ability to be able to get up early. However, everything went according to plan, the walk was completed and she raised £260 for this worthy cause.
The second event was something very close to Sarah's heart... a Ladies Driving Challenge. Sarah (the office petrol head) is well known for her enthusiasm to drive all kinds of weird and wonderful vehicles so when the chance to do this to raise money for The Fire Fighters Charity turned up Sarah jumped at the chance. During the day Sarah drove about 30 different types of vehicle including several 40 ft articulated lorries, a double decker bus, a coach, a snow plough, police cars, a hummer, a tractor (which apparently was the hardest task of the day), a low loader, huge dumper trucks and of course a fire engine complete with lights and sirens! "I wanted to raise some money for this charity because the firemen were so wonderful when they rescued my brother after his horrific road accident so to be able to do this and drive all these vehicles at the same time was great fun, thank you to everyone who has sponsored me this year". Sarah raised another £170 for this charity and already has her name down to to the event again next year
A Cute New Member of Staff News - 19th February 2010
Read the News pdf.Gallery now has an office dog, a 9 week old whippet puppy called Huntinghill Cheeky Boy, or Huey to his friends. He's been with us for a week and has already charmed the postman, several candidates and a telephone system repair man (did that cable just break on its own?). Here's a picture.
Update and New Website News - 7th December 2009
If anyone wants to rent a very high-quality office near the M5 see www.officeinstonehouse.co.uk or www.officeinstroud.co.uk . Nice views, but above all, very friendly neighbours!
The recruitment market shows more and more signs of life as we reach the end of 2009. Nothing like the activity levels of 2-3 years ago but clients are making decisions, some candidates are receiving multiple offers and in some areas candidates are in short supply.
And finally, the whipping boys of Conference football made it to the FA Cup 3rd round, again. And their reward… a rather unglamorous away tie away at Notts. County. We’ll keep a look-out for Sven making a spying trip to Nailsworth.
Hurrah News - 31st August 2009
We've been keeping quiet about the progress of our favourite football team this season as Forest Green Rovers managed exactly 0 points from their first 5 matches.
But in what was on paper their hardest match to date, away against Oxford United, they gained a draw and could easily have come away with all 3 points. A spirited performance and a sign of better things to come!
New Neighbours News - 19th August 2009
Well we hope to have new neighbours soon as we’ve decided to let the ground floor of our office building. With a bit of remodeling we’ll have a kitchen and interview room upstairs in no time.
Our already very high business rates have just doubled, following a surprise visit from the Valuation Office. The inspector explained that a lot of properties are being revalued with the aim of increasing business rates “because they need every penny they can get” (at least he was honest).
It’s an interesting example of the talk (supporting small business in a recession) not being consistent with the reality (extract as much money as possible from the business community). As a company that has managed costs effectively and hasn’t needed to take-on debt we do seem to be an easy target!
Anyway, enough of our rant and back to recruitment. All eyes are on early September now, as activity in the first few weeks after the holiday season will tell us if the market will improve in 2009, or if we’ll have to wait until next year. Over the Summer a couple of our competitors have ceased to exist or have reverted to being home-based businesses, which is no surprise.
There’s a steady volume of work coming through, which is keeping us surprisingly busy, but for some job roles and salary brackets (£35-50K permanent, and senior contractors) there’s still very little, and there are many candidates who are really struggling to make ends meet. It's frustrating for senior candidates when they can't even secure more junior roles because of the 'too senior' response from clients.
The End of Another Financial Year News - 4th April 2009
We’ve been trading 11 years now and this is our first proper recession, but we’re pleased to be able to report that in the financial year to the end of March 2009 we’ve actually achieved a record turnover.
Against a background of a tough market and our larger marketing recruitment competitors closing offices and shedding consultants we are very pleased with how the year has turned out, although we're under no illusions that 2009 will be tough and keeping costs under control is going to be order of the day.
The volume and value of permanent placements are both below last year’s level, but the contract and temporary business has improved - hence the good turnover figure.
As soon as it first became known that the banks had all gone crazy, we focussed on trimming our costs, and we’ve all worked hard to offer our loyal clients high levels of service (without hassling them every 5 minutes!). We’ve re-tendered successfully for some good contracts and resigned others that involved too much bureaucracy and risk, and really focussed on the core areas that we know well – marketing, account management, production and design.
Are there green shoots of recovery now? Hard to say, but we do feel things have bottomed-out and whilst 2009 will be challenging we’re cautiously optimistic.
2009 so far... News - 27th February 2009
This week we say goodbye to Heather who is leaving us to work in HR within financial services, and we wish her all the best. We will be keeping in touch with Heather – to make sure she uses Gallery when she needs to recruit!
We’re not revealing any hot news by saying that the market isn’t booming. There are many candidates chasing few vacancies, and some recruitment companies are delving deep into their manual of dirty tricks in attempts to make placements.
We have seen this part of the cycle before (although not quite as severe). The recruitment consultants who really want to be in this business will see it through, and those who came into recruitment purely for the money will leave, and clients, fed-up with endless recruitment sales calls, will choose to work with a preferred recruitment supplier list.
Activity in the market seems to be mainly at the more junior levels, but once the dramatic rate of redundancies slows down the market will recover. We expect the contract market to improve later in the Summer, with the permanent market following-on, but we feel this might not be until next year.
Sat Navs and Postcodes News - 8th January 2009
Our shiny new office was given a new postcode when it was built, and many of our candidates and clients who use sat navs to find us are directed to a very picturesque part of Gloucestershire that is no-where near us.
So, until everyone’s sat navs are updated people can use GL10 3RF which is the postcode of the original commercial park next-door, only about a 100 yards away.
Happy New Year to all candidates and clients, and we’ll update this site on the state of the recruitment market when we’ve worked out exactly what’s going on in 2009.
December Update News - 2nd December 2008
The traditional Christmas slowdown has started early this year – it usually kicks-in a week or so before Christmas – and we are receiving a lot of calls from candidates who have suffered redundancy. With the glut of bad news in the economy we feel that companies in our sector are preparing for a hard year and cutting costs early. With quite a lot of candidates about it’s vital that people really consider the detail of their CVs, making sure that the basics are accurate (spelling, layout etc.) and that their key skills come across strongly. A recruiter looking through a pile of CVs will usually decide within a few seconds whether a particular CV merits a thorough read or a ‘no thank you’ response, so the top half of the first page has to be strong and relevant.
Not all these news stories will contain football and rugby updates that will be totally uninteresting to most people, but Forest Green Rovers beat (and outplayed) Rochdale in the FA Cup second round and now have a home tie against Derby County. It will be the first ever full house at The New Lawn. Can’t wait!
Credit Crunch and Recruitment News - 20th October 2008
Just as everyone is thoroughly bored with tales of panicking stock-market traders, bankers who understood little except the minutiae of their bonus calculations, and how Gordon Brown has saved the world, we thought we’d weigh-in with some observations from our corner of Gloucestershire.
In our business it’s true that plenty of recruitment briefs have been shelved over the last couple of months, but new briefs are still coming through. As these are given to us in light of the current situation these should progress to completion; there is certainly activity in the market place.
Financial services is a tricky area at the moment, but contrary to the endless doom and gloom and pointless interest in daily stock-market movements from the media, most companies are carrying-on as before, with just a little more caution. Fortunately most business owners and managers respond to insight they gather from their own activities, and don’t succumb to media-induced panic, continuing to do what’s right for their own businesses.
We feel that the main cloud on the horizon is the banks’ reluctance to extend credit to knowledgeable and responsible owners of established and sound businesses, as an outcome of their inability to understand their own businesses. If this continues then our customers might be unable to recruit even if they need to bring more talent on-board to grow and become more profitable.
Here at Gallery we have been fortunate in successfully re-tendering for some of our long-term contracts, which gives us great regular business, and we remain very optimistic. But it could be an interesting next 6 months!
And now to the really important news. Forest Green Rovers continue to score goals, although generally one fewer than they concede, Matt’s team Ipswich are also flirting with the relegation zone and Sarah remains very unhappy with Gloucester Rugby’s form. We don’t like seeing her unhappy after a match (or during it if you pay close attention the crowd scenes on Sky’s rugby coverage), so come on boys, put some effort in and bring the Heineken Cup to the West Country!
Summer Update News - 8th August 2008
There’s no really tasty news, it’s just been business as usual over the last few months. Although perhaps that is news in itself, as the credit crunch is supposed to have led to a huge drop in business. The recruitment sector was a sector that should have suffered badly but Adecco’s proposed acquisition of Michael Page is an indication that there’s plenty of positive sentiment around.
There have been redundancies amongst our client-base, but mainly from companies that operate in property and mortgage / lending sectors, with other companies and agencies briefing away as normal.
There have been some difficulties however, as when uncertainty looms candidates who might otherwise be on the market and actively looking for work decide to stay put for a while. Also, high fuel prices have made the market more inflexible, with more and more candidates narrowing-down their job hunt to locations near to where they live.
Closer to home we’ve invested in some automated job-posting software which works brilliantly so far, helping us get new roles advertised widely with the minimum of delay, and we have one or two other investments planned for later in the year.
An incredible 30% of employees now cycle to work on a regular basis (Kelly and William). Watch this space to see if that continues as the weather turns. William has a fancy new bike and has been receiving regular parcels from Wiggle so he needs to carry-on to justify the investment!
Now to the important news. The Football season starts tomorrow, with the two most keenly followed teams at Gallery, Forest Green Rovers (FRG) and Ipswich Town kicking-off their competitive league programmes. We are business club sponsors of FGR this season, just to make sure we’re guaranteed tickets when they draw Arsenal at home in the 3rd round of the FA Cup!
We've Moved News - 23rd May 2008
It's a few weeks since we moved in and so far so good! We're enjoing the space and seeing a lot more candidates. Although we're only a few miles from the old office being very close to the M5 makes us a lot more accessible for candidates. Attached are some pictures of the new place.
Gallery's Expansion Press Release - 23rd May 2008
Here's our latest press release to promote the move to our new office.
New Talent at Gallery Press Release - 19th March 2008
New Developments News - 16th March 2008
We now have a moving date - the weekend of April 19th. We start fitting-out the new office this week, arranging phone lines, data cabling etc. There's plenty to think about, but we're all looking forward to working in a modern office with two and a half times the space. It's near the motorway but still has great uninterrupted rural views towards the Cotswold escarpment and Selsley.
The new address is:
Gallery Resources, 403 The Waterfront, Stonehouse Park, Sperry Way, Stonehouse, GL10 3UT
We’ll have a new local phone number but 0845 450 3200 will be moving with us.
And we have 3 new members of staff. Heather and Kelly are working as Researchers, helping the consultants and Lisa is giving great support to Sarah, helping with the administration and office management. Watch out for their caricatures coming soon!
Marielle has now gone back to Sweden, and we wish her and Chris well.
Galllery celebrates 10 years in business Press Release - 9th January 2008
Gallery was started 10 years ago this month. It will be a challenging but exciting year for the company with lots of developments planned.
Christmas Charity 2007 Press Release - 20th December 2007
We've chosen The Nelson Trust as our Christmas charity for 2007. See the press release for more details.
We're Moving! News - 29th September 2007
In the New Year we reach a milestone of 10 years in business and there will be a major change for Gallery as we are buying our own office and will be moving. The new building is twice the size of our beloved barn on top of the hill where we've been for most of those 10 years.
We'll miss the peace and quiet, the horses and the amazing Cotswold views. We won't miss how the snow and the fog descend rapidly in winter and the noise of the Spring lambs, and candidates will appreciate the accessibility of the new office, right next to the motorway (just 20 minutes from the Bristol area) and walking distance from a train station.
Expected move-in date is March 2008, assuming all progresses smoothly, and we'll update this page with developments on a regular basis.
On a sadder note Alison Hayward is leaving us, to move back to the big-city life. We definitely plan to keep in touch as we've really enjoyed working with Alison, and we think she's enjoyed working with us!
A New Face at Gallery News - 30th June 2007
It has been recruitment business as normal over the last few months and we're very busy with a record number of live briefs. Business is brisk across many areas with particularly high demand for digital specialists, marketing executives, data marketing professionals and agency account managers / executives (DM and B2B/IT sectors). As ever there's a steady demand for financial services marketing professionals with many roles being temporary or contract.
High demand doesn't mean candidates just walk into highly-paid dream jobs, as clients are not actually hiring until they find a candidate who meets a very specific set of criteria - skills, sector knowledge, reasonable salary expectations, and for creative people a really polished and relevant portfolio. The marketing world in our part of the country is optimistic but cautious, and that is demonstrated by the fact that salaries in some areas are barely higher than a couple of years ago and for many they prefer temp. to perm. arrangements to be sure a new recruit is the right fit before committing to employ someone.
Marielle, all the way from Sweden, has been with us for a few months and is really getting to grips with the recruitment business, helping the consultants across the range of day-to-day and planning tasks. We finally got round to going out for a company night-out to welcome her properly and also to mark Sarah's move to a 4 day week (we're a very modern employer!).
We enjoyed a meal at the Lamb in Eastcombe, as it has a great dining room and garden overlooking the stunning Toadsmoor Valley, and more importantly because it is walking distance from home for several of our number.
Amazingly, in view of recent weather, we sat comfortably outside until the early hours, disturbed only by some of the many bats that inhabit the area, and bizarrely, were introduced to a very friendly 5" long corn snake belonging to the landlady's son, who very kindly explained all about its diet of frozen mice.
Skills Shortage News - 18th March 2007
There have been various surveys and reports over recent months regarding the difficulty of recruiting skilled staff and in finding employees with a positive attitude to work.
Here at Gallery Resources we attract plenty of candidates, and bar a few amusing exceptions CVs are generally well-written and candidates are perfectly competent at presenting themselves to potential employers.
In some specific areas though we are currently struggling to attract enough experienced candidates, and through our discussions with clients we know that other agencies are in a similar position. For these clients direct advertising is not an alternative and we know of some expensive campaigns not producing a single relevant CV.
So what are the areas where there are skills shortages? On the account handling side it's in the specialist areas of DM / data and for people with automotive and retail experience. Designers and artworkers with brand packaging and retail / POS portfolios are currently in demand as are marketeers at a relatively junior level but with recognised brand experience.
To successfully recruit in areas where candidates are in high demand or short supply clients need to be flexible and decisive. Candidates can receive multiple offers so companies need to be willing to recruit quickly from a shortlist of one and also consider flexibility in areas such as salary and benefits.
Small organisations can prosper in these circumstances at the expense of larger companies whose recruitment processes can take several months and where it isn't possible for recruiting managers to agree to salaries and benefits outside of a pre-determined range.
Gallery Bowling Night News - 25th February 2007
In the absence of any serious news here's a run-down of last week's company visit to Stroud's newish bowling venue. Rumours that William would bring his own ball (c/w protective velvet bag), bowling shoes and bowling gloves proved unfounded, and this lack of professionalism was reflected in him only knocking down 7 pins in total in his first 6 bowls (throws?).
Rank outsider Alison gained an unlikely lead at the end of the first of two games, with Sarah and Ian also performing well. Mike, Joanne and Penny were struggling with an unsatisfactory lane that clearly sloped from right to left.
As the second game got underway the alcohol began to improve the men's hand-eye co-ordination, with Ian streaking through to second place and William coming from behind to take an unlikely overall lead, collecting the gold-coloured card trophy and a small radio that came free with our last stationery delivery.
Sarah played a solid game in the final quarter, and Mike, clearly inspired by the famous comeback of Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) in one of his favourite movies "Kingpin" made a valiant effort in the last few rounds, but his successful adoption of the "caveman" style of bowling came too late for him to challenge the leading "strokers".
New Legislation News - 21st January 2007
A couple of planned legislative changes look like having an impact on many of our clients and candidates during 2007.
Firstly, holiday pay. Currently agency temps. receive 20 days' paid holiday a year including Bank Holidays, or 12 days + Bank Holidays. The Government plans to increase this statutory minimum entitlement to 28 days, or 20 days + Bank Holidays.
It looks like the additional 8 days will be introduced in two stages, with an increase from 20 to 24 days in October this year, with the remaining 4 days added a year later. This is great news for temporary workers, as long as clients are prepared to pay the extra cost that will have to be passed-on in higher invoices.
Secondly, the rules under which Managed Service Companies operate are set for a shake-up as early as April this year.
Managed service companies (MSCs) provide contractors with a Limited Company structure, allowing them to be paid a mixture of PAYE income and dividends to minimise the amount of tax they pay. For this the MSC provider charges a weekly fee to the contractor, but at higher daily rates the cost of this is easily outweighed by the benefits.
From April, MSCs will no-longer be able to operate in this way as all payments made to a contractor (except expenses) will have to be subject to PAYE, meaning contractors who currently operate under these schemes will have to re-consider their options, deciding whether to work through an umbrella company, be paid on an agency's payroll, or set-up a personal service company or PSC (their own limited company).
In theory those currently operating through an MSC would be better off creating a PSC, but using an umbrella company or working on an agency payroll will continue to be attractive options, with insurance and administration all taken care of, and the great advantage of prompt payment without the need for credit control.
Contractors currently working under a MSC arrangement should consider their options early to be sure of making the right decision before April!
Christmas charity donation Press Release - 9th December 2006
We've added a page to our website to explain about our Christmas charity donation.
Intead of sending cards this year we're paying to establish and maintain a vegetable garden at a school in El Salvador, on behalf of all (well most!) of the candidates and clients we've worked with over the last 12 months. Thank you all for your support in what has been a very busy year for Gallery Resources.
Paris Trip News - 7th November 2006
A busy weekend for Gallery Resources, as we all went to Paris on the annual company trip, staying at the luxurious Hotel du Louvre and spending Saturday night at the Restaurant La Gare, an amazing underground restaurant in the setting of a former metro station at La Muette.
Mike makes a point of visiting as many libraries as he can whenever he's in France, just so he can ask the locals "ou est la bibliotheque". Others opted for more traditional ways of passing the time in the City of Light with the highlight being the Orangerie Museum in the Tuileries Gardens, recently re-opened after eight years of renovation.
Thick fog caused chaos at Charles de Gaulle airport on Sunday night and we were told our incoming flight was being diverted to Ostend. After we were resigned to spending another night in Paris (a problem as there was no-one else to man the office the next day!) the little BA jet from Birmingham miraculously appeared through the gloom and we were away just 90 minutes late.
Website problems News - 5th October 2006
In case you noticed that our website has been out of action for a few days at a time and not updated regularly over the last couple of weeks that's because our web hosting company had technical difficulties which resulted in their service being suspended and then our website being deleted off their server! We do apologise and are now with a more reliable supplier.
Age discrimination legislation is now in force. We've had to change the way we write advertisements and don't ask for candidates' ages, but the real impact of the changes will only be known when there's some case-law on the subject. Watch this space!
New Website News - 5th September 2006
The most recent news – you’re looking at it. Our new website is up and running, the 3rd incarnation of www.galleryresources.co.uk in our 8-year history.
This is the most complex yet, with a proper search facility and as you can see a space for news. We can’t promise to update the news page every week, but will try to provide regular updates on what is going here, industry news etc. So keep checking this page.
If there’s anything you’d like us to feature or venture an opinion on just send us an email.
A new member of the team
Alison Hayward joined us in early August, working as a Senior Consultant. Alison has recently been working in recruitment for the retail sector and together with her early career as a Designer she’s a great fit for Gallery’s clients.
New Arrivals
Sarah, our Office Manager, had a couple of additions to her family over the weekend, and she was back at work the day after. We appreciate her dedication though and are helping out with collecting carrot-tops as fast as we can. Apparently baby rabbits like them above anything else!
Some thoughts on recruitment
It’s a busy market, particularly for freelancers, and we expect a very steady second half of the year. On the permanent side of things there is demand, but clients are insisting on very relevant experience for most roles. We do notice a definite and steady improvement in activity from the agency sector – Account Handlers and Designers.
It’s graduate time again. Unfortunately we rarely place graduates unless they have at least a year’s experience –our clients won’t pay us a fee for people they need to train from scratch. Graduates please help yourselves though - check the spelling on your CVs and make your interests believable!
Age discrimination legislation comes into force in October. At Gallery we’re Age Positive and this does benefit clients and candidates, so the new regulations are welcome and bring the UK up-to-date with other countries. We do hope, however, that the rules are implemented with some common sense. We’re told the words “dynamic”, “flexible” and “enthusiastic” in job ads. might imply that a younger person is required, as would the phrase “in tune with current thinking”. Can’t people over 40 be any of these things?
