With many recruiters struggling to survive the effects of coronavirus, a small logistics and driver recruiter has demonstrated how ingenuity and taking a long-term approach can help recruiters through the crisis.

As the coronavirus took hold of the UK, even before the start of the government lockdown on 23 March, transport operators were having to ramp up deliveries to supermarkets. So J&J Recruitment Services, based in the Midlands, decided to waive all fees to transport operators that were finding themselves in this fast-paced situation serving supermarkets, many of whom J&J already partner with.

The only cost the transport companies are being asked to cover is the cost of advertising their vacancy, usually about £100.

“The last thing I want to do at this time is to make any money on anybody else’s shortfall – the country is in crisis,” said J&J co-founder Joanne Davies. “As a person in the most vulnerable group who can’t go out and volunteer, this is my way of being able to give something back.”

According to Davies, five transport operators have already taken up the offer that guarantees fees at cost for 12 months. With hiring by builders merchants, clothes retailers and commercial hiring into offices, the other sectors that the company serves grinding to a halt pretty much overnight, Davies says that without this initiative the business, which prides itself on being perm only, would have had to close its doors – at least until the pandemic was over.

“I think you have to be agile and flexible,” says Davies. “If you are a recruiter that is stuck in one kind of mind frame it limits what you can do. You have to be versatile and chop and change what you do. It is just different demands at different times. You have to be able to jump from one thing to another.”

As well as ensuring that the company survives in the short term, Davies says she expects the move will have long-term business benefits: “I can imagine that by doing this there will be a lot of repeat business. People who wouldn’t have necessarily tried us or put us on a PSL [preferred supplier list] because we would be deemed as not big enough, now they may use us.”

The company’s long-term goal is to achieve top client satisfaction, with clients believing the firm is “worth their weight in gold. We will continue to work with them”, says Davies.

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