“I often hear people saying they fell into recruitment. It was never a career choice at school and yet everyone knows somebody who is in this sector. Well, that was definitely the case with me and I guess I have to thank my German teacher at secondary school for that. Mr McDonald also taught rugby and when he asked me to be captain in the 3rd year (today’s year 9), I started showing more interest in his subject! All this fuelled an interest in modern languages and a few years later I found myself studying German at university with a year in Cologne and even managing a ski season in Austria, not knowing then what I really wanted to do.
My working career started temping at a bank in London and when a recruitment agency said we have an interview for you doing IT recruitment I wasn’t sure what I was letting myself in for. It turned out however to be a perfect match; IT Link was a start-up recruitment business specialising in a software called SAP that only happened to have its headquarters in Germany!
In 2005, after 9 years within the same organisation, I was starting to get itchy feet and decided to set up my own business. Ideas flew past me from Starbucks to corporate training, but in the end I decided to better the devil I knew and stuck with SAP recruitment. DSR was born!
When I look back over the years, business has been solid and steady but it wasn’t easy though at the start. Re-mortgaging in the first year and digging into savings were tough decisions. Six months in I even had to borrow €20k from a couple of friends because one of my suppliers was late paying me. Having worked in big corporate teams, working on my own initially was tough, making all the decisions yourself, with no one else to bounce ideas off. It was the one thing I hadn’t really considered.
More than 10 years on, DSR has developed into an £8 million business with 15 staff. Our customers and candidates are from all over the world – from Boston to Beijing. Tunbridge Wells is a great place to run a business from and we have built up an amazing team with most living in the local area. We’ve created a strong work family, looking out for each other’s best interests as we have grown. The opportunities ahead look very promising for all.
On the whole, I’d have to say I loved every minute of my career (well, almost!) and have a lot to thank the recruitment industry, and Mr McDonald, for!”
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DSR is a recruitment consultancy operating globally providing expertise in SAP and change management. Our ability to align consultants to our clients’ business objectives helps to differentiate us from our competitors.
We stand out in the SAP staffing marketplace for our understanding of the range of SAP skills and complexity of SAP implementations. Our consultative approach takes account of every cultural, technical and functional nuance of our clients’ recruitment requirements, so we can source a bespoke and best-fit solution. This capability is complemented by our extensive contacts with some of the best SAP consultants and experts in the market.
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