Populus Select

Sim Hall, Managing Director of Populus Select and Research

How was 2022 for the company? Did it perform as expected, above expectations or did any economic headwinds hamper performance?

Following a strong 2021, our growing reputation as a STEM specialist placing highly skilled senior level professionals, has seen us achieve a 20 percent increase in revenue for 2022. More importantly we have been reinvesting the profits of this growth back into the business to strengthen the team, structure, and systems to ensure the quality of service to our clients continues to improve as we go into 2023.

What kind of momentum is the company ending the year with? Will it start 2023 in a strong position?

We are a global firm working with organisations in countries like Germany, the US and even as far afield as Singapore, we expect that the international shortage of skilled workers will only see demand for services like ours continue to increase. We have just appointed a senior member of the team to allow us to make the most of the growing demand for specialist recruitment services. Our client relationships are paramount to understanding the challenges they face year-on-year and allow us to be ready, and able, to deliver against them.

What kind of challenges – either in industry or on a wider national scale – might the company come against in 2023?

One of the main drivers of the world’s economic struggles is a lack of available workers, and especially that of specialist-skilled individuals. We support our clients to attract and retain the talent they need, but in an increasingly candidate-led market where wage demands continue to rise, we are in a situation where organisations are fighting hard to retain their employees with offers and counteroffers growing. One of the biggest challenges for us will be developing packages which are within client budget but also secure the right candidate.

In the UK, we have too many economically inactive people, a lot of whom are individuals who have taken early retirement and taken their skills with them. We have more than 500,000 more people economically inactive than we did pre-Covid. Business and government need to work together to draw these people back into the labour market, even if it is just in the short term while skills reach the required levels.

What would the company like to achieve over the next 12 months? What would it have wanted to have done if we had this chat next year?

Populus Select’s focus is maintaining our growth throughout 2023, by sourcing and placing excellent candidates, helping our clients to grow their business and provide industry insights that place them ahead of their competitors. We would like to grow our research department which does some really interesting work helping businesses understand their own clients, their competitors and opportunities in new markets. We have recently partnered with the charity Trees For Life to plant a row of tree for every candidate we place – I hope by the end of 2023 we’ll have a whole forest in the Scottish Highlands!