Graduate Recruitment Scheme
Success Stories
Julien
(OPS – Angela Mortimer)
From University to Telecom Sales
I graduated from university without a clear roadmap. Like many in Brussels who speak multiple languages, I gravitated toward sales simply because it was a straightforward way to earn some independence. I moved into the telecom industry, where I spent five years honing my sales craft. During that time I also worked for a job board company, which gave me my very first glimpse into recruitment—how adverts get published, how clients think about talent, and what really goes on behind the scenes.
A Detour into HR and Freelancing
Despite the thrill of sales, I eventually felt squeezed by constant targets and the “never‐ending chase” for quotas. After being laid off, I took stock: by talking with colleagues, friends, and mentors, I realized my strengths and interests aligned perfectly with Human Resources. I completed a one‐year post‐graduate in HR, then spent a couple of years as a freelance HR consultant. I loved the autonomy, but I missed the camaraderie and daily collaboration of an office environment.
The Pivot: Meeting Angela Mortimer’s OPS Team
On a whim, I updated my CV on Excel Careers’ database and was contacted within minutes. After a short chat, I was introduced to Frédérique and Charlotte at Angela Mortimer. Initially, I was guarded—“recruitment” sounded too salesy—but they convinced me that, with the right people and tools, it could be very different. I accepted an offer to join their OPS (Operations Support) team on April 23, 2019—even though it meant a modest salary cut.
First Week at OPS: Structure, Support, and Autonomy
Walking into the office was exhilarating. Because we’re a tight‐knit team, I actually got to meet everyone beforehand, which melted away any first‐day nerves. My OPS mentor sat with me the entire week: Day 1 and 2 I observed and took notes; by Day 3 I began practicing tasks under supervision; by the end of Week 1 I was nearly autonomous. Best of all, I could already start optimizing processes—like re-negotiating supply contracts—which freed me to focus on building my own strengths.
Key Challenges and Learnings
- Learning Curve: OPS immerses you in tools, processes, and interpersonal skills—everything from candidate and client outreach to data analytics—so that by the time you’re signed off, you have the arsenal to succeed.
- Self-Development: I’m not an avid reader, so keeping up with self-development books and internal training materials took extra effort.
- Data Analysis: I’ve always loved numbers, so diving into our reporting dashboards and ratios felt natural—and reinforced my belief that recruitment can be measured and managed scientifically.
Transitioning into Recruitment Consulting
In October 2019 I moved from OPS into Frédérique’s recruitment team. The difference was striking: recruitment consultancy isn’t about ticking off a predefined checklist—it’s an open conversation about who you are, what you care about, and how your strengths can be matched to the right role. “Define your own boxes,” they told me. I stepped into a warm desk, inherited a solid client portfolio, and dove into the metrics-driven game of calls, emails, and placements. Suddenly, sales targets felt like a clear, trackable challenge rather than a vague quota.
Weathering the COVID Storm and Earning My Stripes
Six months into my consulting role, the pandemic hit. Recruitment freezes were everywhere. Yet while on furlough I decided to plant seeds relentlessly—prospecting, nurturing relationships, and staying top of mind. Frédérique kept reminding me, “You’re planting seeds.” A year later, as hiring resumed, I reaped the results of that persistence. Clients returned to me because I’d stayed engaged when everyone else had gone quiet. That performance led Frédérique to ask if I was ready to lead my own team. I said yes—partly because I wanted full accountability. As a leader, I could build my own P&L, own my successes (and failures), and shape a team culture. Yet leading colleagues—rather than just my own desk—was a new skill. Hiring the right teammate became a mission: I needed someone who shared my drive but whose strengths complemented mine. It’s been a lesson in quality over quantity, and I look forward to welcoming the right person soon.
Matt D'Silva
(OPS – Angela Mortimer)
I always knew I loved people long before I ever thought about recruitment. At university—Loughborough, where I studied sports science and geography—I balanced my studies with a part-time job at Wagamama, often doing 30–35 hours a week (and even more in the holidays). I loved the buzz of the restaurant: the camaraderie, the fast pace, the feeling of being part of a team. By the time I graduated, I’d moved into a management role—running shifts, handling cash-ups—but those 50– to 60-hour weeks were slowly killing me. My parents reminded me that I couldn’t stay in hospitality forever, so I tossed my CV at anything and everything. One day I found myself knocking on doors, doing marketing sales in the pouring rain—hardly the career plan I’d pictured.
Then I stumbled on Angela Mortimer Group’s AM City Grad programme. I applied because, frankly, I needed out of hospitality—and within days I was at my desk in Birmingham, wired into a world I’d never imagined. After six months at AM City Grad—where my role was pure business development, hitting inboxes with sales emails, and barely stepping off the laptop—I realized I craved more human interaction. I watched the consultants around me hustling: meeting clients face-to-face, getting out of the office, doing real deal-making. When the opportunity arose to move onto the OPS desk, I jumped at it.
OPS was the most “real” experience I’ve ever had. You sit on the reception phone, you learn customer service cold: how to pick up candidates’ moods, how to juggle competing priorities, how to stay organized when you’re the only person on your floor.
It’s brutal for the first couple of weeks—kind of like recruitment’s roller coaster compressed into one. But by the time you master the phone scripts and reception hand-offs, you’re ready for the juicy stuff: arranging client meetings, briefing consultants, even helping craft business plans. OPS teaches you to dig for answers, take ownership, and present yourself smartly—skills that make or break any recruiter.
When I was signed off from OPS, I lined up meetings with various teams. It’s a two-way interview: you pitch your plan, your targets, and they pitch why you should join them. I had one meeting with Kam’s division and knew immediately it was the place for me. They were high-performing, collaborative, celebrated wins together, and—most importantly—were honest about the challenges ahead. I accepted Kam’s offer less than a week later.
As a new consultant on Kam’s team in January 2020, I vowed to live in the now: learn from every call, every placement, every candidate interaction. I didn’t obsess about titles or three-year plans; I just focused on being the best consultant I could be. When COVID lockdown hit two months later, our division became the only one in the company to stay profitable every month—we didn’t miss a beat. Proving myself through the toughest market of a generation earned me my first team-lead role in 2021.
Leading isn’t about micromanaging. I lead by example: I win my own deals, set the standard for quality conversations, and then recruit people who share my drive, integrity, and hunger to learn. My goal has always been simple: raise the bar for everyone around me. You get out what you put in, and I’m committed to delivering excellence every day—whether I’m coaching a new starter or strategizing with a senior director.
Looking ahead, I want to keep pushing myself and my team. Recruitment isn’t a nine-to-five; it’s a “what-you-invest-is-what-you-get-back” game, and I thrive on that. I aim to bring in people who want to grow, who want to surpass their own limits, and who value collaboration over cut-throat competition. Together, we’ll keep elevating standards and making a real difference—for clients, for candidates, and for each other.
That’s what makes Katie Bard different in Birmingham: unparalleled market knowledge (Kam has 24 years under her belt), interview depth that leaves candidates more self-aware than when they walked in, and a genuine ethos of helping every person—even if we’re not placing them right away.
We don’t treat people like transactions; we treat them like the unique individuals they are. And that, to me, is why I’m still here, eight years on—because helping people find their next great opportunity never gets old.
Verity
(OPS – Angela Mortimer)
I was the first in my family ever to go to university. I’d dreamed of it since I was a little girl, but it never felt guaranteed—when the Blair government introduced tuition fees, I remember sitting in floods of tears with my grandma, terrified we couldn’t afford for me to go. Luckily, the shift to student loans meant I could scrape together the funds, and after long nights of comparing courses across every UK university, I chose medieval studies at the University of Birmingham—even though I was convinced I’d hate life in a big city and craved rolling green hills.
As soon as I arrived, I threw myself into everything I could: I ran junior-common-room committees, became a student ambassador, did work experience in different departments, and savored every lecture—even the six-day stretch of four-hour finals exams that nearly flattened me physically and mentally. Those challenges taught me resilience and the thrill of diving headfirst into something I loved.
Graduation came and went, and—with no corporate grad-scheme offer in hand—I spent that summer teaching English to Spanish children and backpacking around Italy. When September rolled around and I still hadn’t secured a job, I realized I needed to move back to a city. London was my dream, but it was unaffordable, so I set my sights on Birmingham. I researched every recruitment agency downtown, matching their values to mine, and eventually registered as a temp with Katie Bard’s Birmingham office.
My first assignment wasn’t glamorous: I commuted two hours from home, juggling admin work at a local school by day and temping on the agency’s OPS desk by afternoon. The phone never stopped ringing. I learned to read tone and urgency, to pick out what was unspoken in a client’s voice, and to prioritize tasks in the moment—skills that would become the bedrock of my career. On quiet days I’d dive into the back end of our systems, devouring financial reports and training materials so I could hit the ground running once I went permanent.
Four months later, I finally interviewed for a consultant role. The grilling was intense—team leaders challenged me on why I’d willingly leave OPS and how I’d prove my worth—but I said yes. I would give it a go. I told myself it was just a two-year learning stint. Twenty-two years later, I’m still here.
I started on temporary placements, running around seven flights of stairs to get candidate referrals in first, racing colleagues to answer the desk phone, ditching heels for flats so I could hustle down corridors. What began as a £2K-a-month temp book skyrocketed to over £10K in just five months. When summer hit and the book crashed, I learned resilience again: build it up, lose it, rebuild it. That cycle taught me that success comes from grit as much as strategy.
After two years as a high-billing consultant, I realized I also craved strategic oversight. I’d loved working with “big picture” thinking on OPS, and I knew that to shape budgets and long-term plans, I’d have to lead my own team. So I pitched becoming a temp-desk team leader—training and sometimes competing with the very consultants I was mentoring—and grew our book back into six figures. Then I founded our Enterprise division: a blend of trainees fresh from OPS and a former client-turned-colleague, focused on keeping Birmingham’s brightest graduates in the city.
Through the 2008 crash and again during COVID, our division stayed profitable by doubling down on exclusivity and deep client relationships. My work with local universities—and a “brain-drain” report showing 70 percent of grads were leaving Birmingham—fueled my passion for graduate retention. Over ten years we reversed that statistic: 70 percent of graduates stayed. That impact led to my promotion to director, charged with growing both our Birmingham and, eventually, London operations.
Now I split my time between cities, guiding a team that spans both markets. We’ve built an enterprise business turning over half a million pounds annually, and I get to blend hands-on recruiting with strategic expansion. Looking ahead, I’m eyeing New York and the U.S. market—dreaming of a London–Birmingham–New York triad. And if an opportunity in Paris or somewhere unexpected comes knocking, I won’t hesitate. After all these years, I still believe in diving into the unknown, running those seven flights of stairs, and throwing myself headlong into the next great challenge.
Kam Vara
(OPS – Angela Mortimer)
I never set out to become a recruiter. In fact, I moved up from the South to Birmingham to study law at the University of Birmingham, convinced I’d end up in a courtroom. But by the time I reached my third year, the textbooks and lectures felt hollow. I’d dabbled in a bit of work experience and discovered that, despite the prestige, a legal career just wasn’t for me. So I took a deliberate detour: I stayed on in academia for another year and completed a master’s in Business and HR at Aston University—and absolutely loved every minute of it.
I still had no idea what “recruitment” really was until I stumbled across it almost by accident at a campus recruitment fair. Curious, I applied to a graduate programme, and before I knew it I was sitting through five interviews with divisional leaders from Katie Bard—all of them grilling me on my ambitions, my work style, and how I’d handle the front line of the business. A few weeks later I found myself offered a spot on the OPS desk in our Birmingham office, and even though I didn’t quite know what recruitment entailed, I could feel the buzz in the air and thought, “Why not give it a go?”
My first weeks on OPS were exhilarating. The phone never stopped ringing. Five of us shared the desk, and we’d leap over each other to answer every call. We’d split between projects and reception, then swap mid-shift. Every Friday, we decamped to the pub for our informal “OPS meeting,” laughing about the week’s disasters and cheering our small victories.
When I messed up, I learned to own it—lift my hand, say “that was my fault,” then move on. By month three, I’d built enough confidence, made enough matches, and impressed enough people that four different teams were vying for me to join them. Suddenly, it wasn’t me trying to sell myself—it was them. I chose the team whose energy felt right, and that choice set the tone for everything that came next.
I spent a year on the temporary placements desk, sharing a book of clients with a colleague. I poured my heart into candidate care—hand-picking each shortlist, keeping in constant touch, learning what made a good fit. By the end of those twelve months, I’d grown our temp book to some sixty active bookings and was offered a permanent-consultant role. I’ll admit, I cried—because I’d loved the buzz of temps so much—but I threw myself into permanent placements and hit commission in my very first month. From then on, commissions became routine—through recessions, through returning from maternity leave, through every market twist I’ve seen in my 24 years.
It wasn’t long before my next chapter opened. After two years of consistently high billing, Charlotte Bell—the MD at the time—came to me and said, “You’re ready to lead a team.” Alongside Fay, I built out our first A-Team: two consultants, an established client base, a shared ambition. We thrived. When Charlotte later left to start her own agency and took some clients with her, I partnered with Mike Chapman, regained every account we lost, and even expanded our remit. Along the way I got married, had a baby, and learned how to juggle parenthood with the relentless pace of recruitment.
Then came COVID. While much of the market froze up, my division remained profitable month after month. We doubled down on exclusive roles and leaned into the relationships we’d cultivated. After that performance, I was officially made a director—tasked with growing our Birmingham business, mentoring new talent, and setting a standard few agencies could match.
Today, I lead a team of ex-OPS graduates—most notably Matt D’Silva, who joined me eight years ago and now runs his own desk. My mission remains the same: deliver a white-glove service to every client, match candidates to roles as if they were my own hires, and never settle for “just good enough.” I believe deeply that recruitment is more than transactions; it’s about understanding people’s ambitions, companies’ cultures, and weaving them together into lasting partnerships.
After 24 years in Birmingham, I’ve seen plenty of agencies come and go. What sets Katie Bard apart is our reputation for integrity, our willingness to have brutally honest conversations, and our insistence on quality over quantity.
When we present a shortlist, it’s been hand-crafted—no database-dumping here. We move fast, communicate openly, and treat every candidate and client as an extension of ourselves. That personal touch, backed by heavyweight market experience, is why I’m still passionate about recruitment—and why I’m more excited than ever for what’s next.
