Two mums aim to rock recruitment

Monday 05 February 2018

Two mums with experience in legal recruitment and the finance industry have launched their own recruitment agency to help plug what they see as a gap in the market.

Sisters-in-law, Emma and Heulwyn Rothwell set up Rock Recruitment in January after 10 years in legal recruitment, and 20 in the finance industry, respectively.

Emma spent 10 years in London working in legal recruitment for private practices. Born in Jersey, she returned to her home island a year-and-a-half ago as her children, aged five and three, were about to start school. 

Heulwyn, who is married to Emma's brother, with whom she has three children aged 11 to 16, is a chartered accountant with 20 years' experience in the finance industry. She is also a senior lecturer at Jersey International Business School, where she runs one of the degree programmes. She says: "I have always been involved in the development in newcomers. I love working with people and the people side of things."

The two decided to combine their experience and to plug what they saw as a gap in the market: "Heulwyn has a lot of contacts in the finance industry and knows a lot about the industry. I have legal experience in recruitment. It feels like we are much better placed to give advice and to present relevant CVs."

One of the challenges in setting up the business was choosing the right name for the agency. Emma says: "It took ages and we had a lot of different opinions, if we learned something in this process it's that is best not to ask people. We discussed it quite a lot and Heulwyn came up with the idea of Rocque, because La Rocque is the closest beach to where we live. In the end we picked Rock as the spelling felt more adequate."

While setting up the business took a lot of time, and include many forms and administrative steps, now that it is up and running, Emma and Heulwyn say they manage to work around their busy lives easily. They say: "It's the two of us, working from home. You don't have to be sitting in an office to do this. As long as you are at the end of the phone or email and able to meet candidates and clients, it is quite flexible."

Speaking of flexibility, they have been asking the clients they meet if they are open to the idea of part-time or flexible hours for mums like them and the response has been quite positive. Heulwyn says: "We always ask them if it is something they would consider. It has been quite refreshing to see that they are open to the idea and realising it's the way of the world now. They have been very receptive. Some have explained certain departments would require a full time employee but they are definitely much more open to the idea."

Emma adds: "It is good for businesses because I always think you get more out of part timers. They don't just leave the office and forget about it, they also work outside of work and end up putting more hours than what they are paid."

While they have only just started, Emma and Heulwyn have already found enough clients to keep them busy. Heulwyn says: "The response has been really positive, we have had a lot of people tell us 'We need people like you."

Emma adds: "We know there is competition out there but there are a lot of jobs to work on. There are plenty of vacancies and no shortage of jobs. We are not looking to be huge. People keep asking us about our growth plan but we are not thinking about this at the moment. We know it is a gradual process.

"We have a few candidates in our books now and we have met a few clients, now we have to service them!"