Niche Recruitment

Posted by Niche Recruitment
16th June 2021

Recruitment, Relationships and Wonky Carrots

MEET NICHE DIRECTOR MICHELLE GRAHAM

At Niche Recruitment, we are all about relationships. So much so, that we base our entire recruitment process on the importance of building long-term relationships with our clients and candidates, getting to know every customer so we can better understand their individual needs. 

Yup, relationships are what inspire and motivate us. It’s not about simply placing people into jobs. Instead, we always take the time to get to know our clients and candidates so we can match the right person to the right role, every single time.

With relationships underpinning everything we do, we thought it was about time that you got to know us a bit better! So that you can find out all about what we do, what makes us tick and, well, what our niche is. And what better place to start than our lovely Director and Co-Founder, Michelle…

Michelle’s background

Michelle is something of a recruitment rockstar with nearly 20 years of experience in the industry. She started out working with Reed Recruitment back in 1999, where she rose through the ranks to top billing consultant before being promoted into a management role. It’s this level of experience that makes Michelle the recruitment guru she is. 

After leaving Reed to have her son, Oscar, Michelle returned to work for a spell in marketing at a parenting magazine. The perfect combination for that stage of life. But her love of recruitment ran deep, and it wasn’t long before she joined her old colleague, Nick Wimshurst, back in recruitment – first at Wells Tobias and then, motivated to do things on their own terms, in a way that matched their own values, by launching Niche Recruitment!

Michelle’s niche

With hands-on experience working in marketing and a real passion for the sector, it made sense for Michelle to focus on marketing recruitment. So, she immersed herself in the sector, learning her craft and building her network until she was able to walk in her clients’ shoes, understand their pain points, and ultimately, help them take the stress out of recruitment. 

And there’s no one better suited to do so. Having been in the industry for 19 years, Michelle knows her stuff. She’s been an employee, a consultant, a marketeer, and a business owner. She’s seen the highs, the lows, the recessions and the booms, and has honed her skills throughout. From faxing and tippex-ing CVs pre-millennium to embracing the latest video recruitment innovation, there’s nothing Michelle doesn’t know about marketing recruitment (trust us, she never misses a trick!).

What makes Niche unique?

When Michelle and Nick launched Niche Recruitment, they had a very clear vision. They wanted to introduce a recruitment service that would consistently provide the highest level of care to every candidate and client. KPIs and power hours wouldn’t be the drivers here. Rather, they wanted to build a business based on relationships and underpinned by their core values of integrity, innovation, understanding, quality, and passion. 

Why relationships are important

But why are relationships so important to the team? For Michelle, she started seeing the importance of investing in relationships while working as a consultant at Reed. Her role saw her growing an account by 180% in 12 months. Something she firmly believes was down to building a real, long-term, positive and trusting relationship with the client. 

Michelle says, “I split my time between working in the office and being on site with the client, which was still quite a new concept back in 2004. The end client came to see me as an extension of their HR team, and I began to realise the importance of nurturing relationships. The same still applies to this day: if a company gives me the time to get to know them, that’s where I can make the biggest impact”.

Outside of the office

With Michelle’s husband Patrick also owning his own recruitment firm, it’s fair to say that recruitment well and truly runs in the family. But Michelle and her husband have a very strict rule about not talking shop at home. “I believe that work-life balance is incredibly important in this day and age, and, as a working Mum, it’s something that I’ve had real insight into, which is why we agreed to never talk shop at home!”.

Instead, to relax, Michelle likes to play netball, take her Hungarian Vizsla for a long walk, or tend to her garden and vegetable plot. She’s got quite the crop growing, including asparagus, courgettes, cucumbers, chillies, tomatoes and carrots – even though her carrots do tend to grow slightly wonky (much to Oscar’s dismay when he was sent to school armed with a bag of perfectly imperfect carrots for his food technology class!)

Instead, to relax, Michelle likes to play netball, take her Hungarian Vizsla for a long walk, or tend to her garden and vegetable plot. She’s got quite the crop growing, including asparagus, courgettes, cucumbers, chillies, tomatoes and carrots – even though her carrots do tend to grow slightly wonky (much to Oscar’s dismay when he was sent to school armed with a bag of perfectly imperfect carrots for his food technology class!)

What’s next for Niche?

It’s been a tough time for everyone, but now that normal life is slowly returning, Michelle and the team are looking forward to growing the business even more. Michelle says, “We are so proud to have built a company that has gained a good reputation and a loyal client base. It’s put us in a good place and allowed us to be ready to move forward. And already things are looking brighter! In the past few months alone, we’ve been briefed on more new roles than throughout the pandemic, so it feels good to be coming out the other side.”

Want to find out more?

If you’d like to chat with Michelle, whether about gardening, parenting or filling a marketing role – get in touch.

Niche Recruitment is an award-winning specialist recruitment agency working across the digital, marketing and creative, head office & management, and HR and Learning & Development sectors. If you’re struggling to find the right people for your organisation, let us take the stress out of recruitment. Call our team today on 01793 230469 or fill in our contact form here. 

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Michelle Graham

Helping businesses recruit top talent in Marketing | Digital | Creative | Retail Head Office Functions

Niche Recruitment Ltd.

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Meet the rest of the Niche Team