Company: CV International (A Division of CVUK Group) Name: Cassie Owen – Head of International Email: cassie@cvinternationalgroup.com Web Address: www.cvinternationalgroup.com Address: Head Office, Duke House, Level 5, 50 Duke Street, London W1K 6JL Telephone: 0207 491 5300
Best in Fashion & Retail Recruitment – International
CV International is a division of CVUK Group, a leading international recruitment partner to the fashion and retail sector. The firm has a Head Office located in the heart of central London and international offices in Melbourne, Australia and a new international office opening in Dubai in January 2016. ’We caught up with Cassie Owen, Head of International at CV International Retail Recruitment, who told us about the company and just what it is that makes them unique in this exciting and fast-moving industry.
WHO WE ARE As an International company working across the globe, we focus on understanding each market independently in order to truly understand the cultural differences between our clients. We recruit across all International markets including the Middle East, Asia, Australia and of course Europe. Whilst our new office opening in Dubai will have a key focus on the Gulf region and the Middle East we are also seeing a huge increase in recruitment across Europe, Asia and also the US. Where fashion retailers are expanding across Europe we have seen a particular increase in recruitment projects across Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Denmark where our clients are rapidly expanding with new stores opening this year and plans for further store openings for 2016 and beyond.
The Dubai Mall is the Worlds Largest Shopping Mall
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT From our experience, it has been essential to understand the challenges associated with recruiting in emerging markets particularly with more challenging countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Egypt and India where the market continues to be particularly buoyant. To this end, we work in close partnership with all of our clients to ensure we identify the talent they require and are in a position to offer vital advice and knowledge of their markets and the talent pool within each country. As a result of providing such specialised and in-depth services, we have an excellent track record of placing key talent successfully into new roles. We have a database of over 40,000 candidates and on average successfully place every year more than 1,000 candidates. We firmly believe that our success is based around our forging of strong client relationships based on honesty, trust, transparency and an unswerving commitment to excellence. The working week in the Middle East is Sunday to Thursday so we have ensured we have consultants in the office during this period to reflect our commitment to our clients and their needs. From our perspective, this commitment to excellence ensures total dedication to client delivery, which is a large part of what lies at the heart of our values and success to date. WORKING FOR US We also foster a strong team culture across the board and believe in always recruiting the very best in the industry. We run an advanced training program and a clear internal career path as we firmly believe in promoting from within.
26 Corporate Vision Recruitment Awards 2015
Furthermore, we are also committed to recruiting specialist consultants into our teams, which we believe has gone a long way to separating us from our competitors. Many of these consultants have worked internationally and so understand exactly what candidates experience and encounter throughout their relocation journey. These specialist consultants work across Head Office roles such as buying and merchandising, design, technical, wholesale, ecommerce, PR & marketing and executive c-level appointments. As well as store based roles including retail operations at all levels from store managers and visual merchandisers through to area managers and regional managers. What makes us unique is that we take the time to understand our clients’ requirements and understand our candidates’ motivations for their next career move. We understand relocating to another country is a huge leap personally and professionally. We offer advice and support and provide local knowledge such as anticipated cost of living, accommodation costs in each area, cultural and social differences and local knowledge so they have all the information required to make the transition easily and comfortably into their new environment and next career step. We have taken the time to work with clients in challenging and emerging markets, which many of our competitors have chosen to shy away from. We believe that by taking this step we have found our niche and have built our client base through reputation and the ability to understand and adapt to these more challenging markets. All of these factors combined have led to our firm becoming a byword for excellence and patience in recruiting in the international arena.