Each Concept consultant started their careers in the creative, digital and communications industries. It’s why we’re so passionate about connecting the right people to the right roles.
Jo Carter is the Founder and Managing Director of Concept. She began her career as a Mac Operator, working her way up to Studio Manager. In 2002, Jo was made redundant – but she used the opportunity to dive into a gap she’d spotted in the market. She launched Concept and established the North East’s first recruitment agency, servicing the thriving marketing, advertising, creative, and digital industries.
Erin got her start as a Graphic Designer and Account Manager in the creative industry following her degree in Interactive Media Design at Northumbria University. She turned to creative and digital recruitment, joining Concept in 2015, and has recently been promoted to Regional Manager.
Steph experienced both the agency and client sides of PR and Marketing before moving into recruitment in 2008. After working for a high street recruitment agency, she found her niche at Concept, focusing on an industry she loves.
Demi joined concept in 2016 as an Apprentice Administrator. Since then, she has worked her way up to Office Manager and now handles all administration and finance for Concept. She’s currently en route to obtaining her AAT Advanced Diploma in Accounting.
Lauren moved from recruitment resourcing to join Concept as a Junior Recruitment Consultant at the beginning of 2018. After only six months, the ‘Junior’ in her job title was removed, something she worked hard to achieve. Lauren comes from a Social Media and Marketing background, a career she pursued after studying Journalism at Northumbria University.
Kelly got her start as a Digital Specialist within the radio industry, working with online content and social media. After taking a step back from Media Sales to raise her young family, she joined Concept as a Junior Recruitment Consultant.
We’ve worked successfully with Concept Personnel for a few years and have been especially pleased with the time spent in getting to know our business, how we work and the type of candidate we look for. They listen and take our requirements on board and offer a valuable perspective.
We’re looking forward to continuing the relationship.
I’m not a fan of using recruitment agencies at all. My experience in the past has been poor, feeling like you are just one in a queue of many. With no apparent expertise, they often send candidates that are not qualified. With Concept, the communication was good, I’m a big fan of using all types of channels and I’ve had text messages, WhatsApp, email and telephone calls. Some might think that’s over communicating but I absolutely don’t. Particularly if you are in a hurry like I was to find the right person. Concept found 6/7 candidates quickly and that was invaluable to us. They did a great job.
In a world where getting the right people, whether coders or content professionals is challenging, and we work with a number of recruiters to build a strong shortlist, Jo and Concept more often than not, find the talent we employ.
I’ve worked with them over many years and roles and they have always demonstrated real sector knowledge and connections, plus they are pleasure to work with.
Working with Concept saves me hours of time trawling through CVs and interviewing people. Because Jo and the Concept team have industry backgrounds they understand how agencies work and the sort of people we need, so everyone they put forward will be a good fit. They can open doors and help me fish where the fish are, and that’s invaluable.
I hate recruitment agencies. Like, really hate them. Whenever you advertise a job they’re on the phone in droves with their skin-crawling sales patter, their costs seem totally disproportionate to the amount of work they put in, they haven’t the first clue whether the candidates they send you can even do the work you need them to and most of the time you’ve seen most of their poxy CVs anyway. We vowed never to use them. Parasites.
…and then we found ourselves in trouble. Our Lead Website Developer left, we appointed a replacement who didn’t really work out and couldn’t get anyone good enough for love nor money. In stepped Jo at Concept and a couple of weeks later we’d screened CVs, interviewed and appointed. We’ve since used Jo to place a Designer, another Developer two Digital Marketing Managers and a role we weren’t even looking to appoint but that we created in light of one of Jo’s candidates being so bloody good.
I can’t recommend Jo and her team at Concept highly enough; they’ve completely redefined my perception of recruitment consultants by listening, reacting quickly and constructively to our emerging needs and working diligently and swiftly to deliver a truly impressive raft of potential candidates (and one or two wrong-uns for good measure!). Most of all, though, I’ve found Jo a really useful sounding board to help me clarify my own thoughts, provide a wider industry context to our recruitment decisions and help negotiate one or two sticky situations. If you’re in the Creative or Marketing sectors and are struggling with running your recruitment yourself, take my advice: phone Concept.
Working with Concept when recruiting for my team has been an absolute dream. Being totally honest, I was not excited about the prospect of recruiting again as I’ve used other agencies in the past who have struggled to fill the role, making the process seem really drawn out, time-consuming, and kind of deflating. Concept totally changed this and made recruiting enjoyable again!
I really felt as though Jo understood exactly what kind of person we were looking for from the outset and we were provided with an excellent pool of candidates. We wanted to fill the role relatively quickly and it only took a couple of weeks from providing a brief to Jo, to having a candidate accept our offer. We actually ended up with a really strong shortlist which was a great position to be in. The whole thing has felt effortless for me, too, and Jo and the team are all so lovely to work with – I genuinely felt like Jo was truly invested in finding Communicator a candidate who had to be 100% the right fit, so thanks again for all of your hard work! I’ll definitely use Concept when recruiting again in future.
Concept were extremely pro-active and effective at finding the right candidates for the roles we were looking to fill. Erin really understood what we needed and delivered high calibre candidates quickly. We were able to fill three roles in a little over a month and we are delighted with our new employees.
Very happy with the process and will most definitely be using Concept again!
I was extremely impressed with Jo and her team, in fact I had a better service from Concept than I’ve ever had from any other Northern or Southern-based recruiter. They are fast and efficient communicators, provided us with very useful and detailed information on candidates and did the initial assessments and first interviews, so we were able to come up from Southampton to meet the final handful face to face.
Although initially we gave Concept the brief for one role, the calibre of candidate was too good to pass up on and we made two appointments instead of one. It was a fantastic opportunity to add to our team, and great timing. The Concept team are both thorough and extremely professional in their approach. The whole process, from start to finish, was brilliant.
Concept understand the challenges of running a young but growing business. Every new appointment marks a critical stage and every person we take on must be exactly right for us, in both skills and personality.
Jo’s contacts book, combined with industry background, means she can pinpoint that person with no time wasting. They don’t do the hard sell, we have a real relationship and we get a personal service from experts in our sector.
Working with Concept for the first time was the exact experience that you would hope for from a recruitment partner. They were professional, organised, and took the time to understand our business and what we were looking for in potential candidates.
Lauren sold the benefits of our agency to candidates well, which definitely helped to generate more interest in the role, and worked really hard across several roles to ensure we had a constant stream of applications and interviews. Very happy to recommend!
The calibre of our team is what keeps us at the top of our game working with global brands, and Concept is now part of our recruitment strategy. We only look to employ the very best creatives so we don’t expect to pick them up easily.
Recruiting for us is difficult because our standards are so high and we are careful about who we take on, but Jo and the team are relentless in their efforts on our behalf, scouring further and further afield to find us exactly the right people. And they’re always great to meet socially too, and genuinely interested in what’s going on in our business.
