One of the Black Country’s fastest growing recruitment firms is celebrating its 15th birthday in style after seeing revenue pass the £8m mark.
MET Recruitment, which supplies thousands of industrial workers and hundreds of permanent staff every year, has overcome the shackles of the pandemic and a rapidly diminishing candidate pool to win a string of new contracts.
The company has continued to grow its portfolio of clients by focusing on its proven ‘partnership’ approach, where it commits to going beyond their recruitment needs and looks at delivering a long-term labour solution.
It is a philosophy that founder Robin Tong put in place in 2008 when he decided to swap a safe career with a big high street recruitment business to set up his own company in a shared office next to Den’s Diner on the Pensnett Trading Estate.
Fast forward 15 years and MET Recruitment is now one of the leading local names in the sector and boasts customers, including Dreams, Trebles, Winster and Isaac H Grainger’s, the latter a family-run Black Country business that was the firm’s first ever client and still works with it today.
“If you told me in 2008 that I would have to guide a business through an immediate global crash, Brexit and a worldwide pandemic, then I may have had second thoughts,” explained Robin.
“Despite all of these challenges and a rapidly shrinking labour force, we have emerged stronger and in a fantastic position to claim our record year in 2023, with 70 industrial clients in place and commercial customers now hitting 35.”
He continued: “We’ve had some major milestones along the way, including Nella Share (Commercial Director) and Matthew Hunter (Industrial Director) joining, bringing the old Merlin Wine Bar in Dudley back to life to house our HQ and the recent £300,000 investment in a second office on The Waterfront to look at our permanent staffing division.”
Originally set up to supply staff to the mechanical and electrical trades, MET Recruitment has gone from three people in a small office to a 23-strong agency operating from two modern offices in the Black Country.
Rob was determined to ensure that it was like no other recruitment business he had ever worked for, where they just simply reward top billers only. This sentiment was mirrored by Matt and Nella, who felt as passionately about creating an inclusive culture and this is why the business reward all staff for their efforts with team trips away and nights out for everyone, not just the sales team.
This year saw the business extend its offering even further with additional benefits including getting birthdays off as an extra holiday day, the introduction of ‘MeTime’ which allows the whole team to take an extended lunch break every week, and paid volunteer leave for people to help a cause that is close to their hearts!
MET Recruitment has also partnered with the Black Country Living Museum and The Grand Theatre, two fantastic local gems that employees have been able to enjoy.
“When we first started, we were still using paper-based timesheets that were faxed to us – now candidates have their own portals to log into and input hours, whilst jobs are at people’s fingertips and not found in newspapers,” added Robin.
“There were a lot of challenges along the way, and you sacrifice most of your personal life to make it work, but when you step back and see ’15 years in business’ it’s difficult not to feel an overwhelming sense of pride.”
He went on to add: “The team we now have in place is phenomenal and is helping us to grow when other rivals are slipping back. Covid-19 and Brexit has changed the recruitment landscape – we’ve stuck to our core principles and, through personal relationships and hard work, we are delivering labour solutions that firms require.”
MET Recruitment has just held a party for staff to mark the official date of the anniversary and all eyes will now be on the big anniversary evening at the Black Country Museum.
Due to be held on Saturday September 30th, the event will bring together employees, their families, long-standing clients, and suppliers to celebrate 15 years in business.
For further information, please visit www.metrecruitment.com or follow @met_recruitment on twitter