Recruitment in... Bristol

Bristol is one of the UK’s most popular tourist destinations, with crowds flocking to see the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Cheddar Caves, and Brunel's SS Great Britain.

However, for some recruiters, this isn’t just a family-friendly holiday resort – it’s home. Recruitment Grapevine caught up with Alan Furley, the Director at ISL in Bristol, to find out what it is like to live and work in this up-and-coming city.

What do you love about being a recruiter in Bristol?

I came to Bristol for University, and I have stuck around ever since! I do have experience working in London, but I have found Bristol can provide you with a great quality of life with some great opportunities, and it’s a great place to grow a business.

There’s also some really great business community support available. You can be just ten minutes away from some start-up incubators, but when there are also large businesses like Lloyds bank based here. It’s not sleepy by any means!

What challenges does a recruiter face here?

There certainly are challenges – we have a team focused on IT in London, and they do sometimes want to make sure we understand what is going on from Bristol. All our teams are focused on one region, so we allow them a level of flexibility to go out to meet their clients or candidates wherever they are – be it Manchester, Sheffield or London.

Recruiting staff to work for us can also be tricky. Of course, that’s not a challenge that is unique to Bristol, but there are a lot of recruitment firms here. As a result, it’s a very active market and we’ve got to keep on top of our game in terms of employer brand so we’re attracting and keeping the right people.

What do you see in store for Bristol in the future?

Bristol is looking good at the moment, especially when it comes to technology. There’s a lot of support for start-ups, as I mentioned, and we have a Science Park with a great reputation. We’ve also noticed there are a lot of big plans around engineering and FinTech cropping up in the area. Obviously, there’s a lot of focus on this area globally, but more firms are paying attention to the tech community in Bristol, so I expect to see some inroads into this sector before long.