Marble Group to roll-out brand plans

STANDING out from the crowd in a busy marketplace such as recruitment is sometimes as much about what you don’t do as it is about what you do.

Marble Group founders Gary Denton and Lee Corbitt identified a gap in the market back in 2006 for a technical recruitment business servicing the busy mining, construction and engineering sectors.

And vitally, they had the depth of experience to understand what frustrated clients and lost business.

Mr Denton said the single most common complaint about the industry was that recruitment companies just “flicked CVs” with a singular focus on filling a role, no matter what.

The Marble Group has a markedly different approach that is most elegantly illustrated by its name and the schoolyard game of marbles.

Mr Denton said recruitment and marbles were both about the “dynamics of connections”.

These connections are more than a handshake and a promise – they are a portal to the aspirations and goals of each and every client.

“The most effective recruiters sit in the middle of the market,” Marble Group managing director Mr Denton said.

“We call it inch-wide, mile-deep recruitment ... they become, in essence, an expert in the field they are operating in.”

He said this intimate knowledge of each client’s business meant consultants could pro-actively present exceptional candidates.

“In the WA market at the moment every client is recruiting, they may have a full quota of staff but they are always looking for someone who can help them achieve their goals,” Mr Denton said.

“The reason someone uses a recruiter is that they are experts in their field ... and they can help them achieve their vision, their dreams for their business or project.”

This singular focus on ensuring clients grow their business has proved to be a powerful formula for Marble Group and its turnover, which has rocketed from $3.9 million in 2007-08 to as much as $25 million this financial year.

Based on its current monthly turnover, the result for 2011-12 could be as high as $40 million, and this forecast doesn’t take into account the group’s aggressive growth plans.

Marble Group has a staff of 44 employees in its Perth, Melbourne and Sydney offices, and plans to open its second Perth branch later this year.

Marble Group Brisbane will enter the Queensland market in 2012 followed by an Adelaide branch and additional offices in Sydney and Melbourne.

And the Marble brand will make its international debut in the next six years with plans for offices in Auckland and Wellington, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore.

Marble Group will need an army of new staff to fulfil its ambition, and just like its clients the business will have to compete to secure the best and brightest.

The company’s intuitive approach to finding its own staff broadens the field of potential candidates and sits at the centre of its ‘exceptional’ strategy.

Developed in the shadow of the GFC, Marble Group’s decision to narrow its focus to exceptional candidates, or the “tip of the arrow” as Mr Denton put it, paid big dividends.

“We embraced all of the most advanced candidate-unearthing tools, some technological tools and some very advanced searching tools,” Mr Denton told WA Business News.

“We knew in our markets there would still be candidates we could place, market movers that would open doors but they would be your exceptional, stand-out candidates.

“We had to be speaking to the decision makers and the decision makers alone; only by finding exceptional candidates and introducing them purely to the decision makers would we be able to continue to make fees.”

Forty per cent of recruitment businesses went to the wall during the GFC, while Marble Group doubled its turnover.

Marble Group’s devotion to its strategy is reflected in its diverse in-house talent pool, a large portion of which had no recruitment industry experience before joining the business.

By the same token, Mr Denton said the business was cautious about employing experienced senior consultants who may not fit its dynamic culture.

Technology and the emergence of powerful online networks such as LinkedIn and social media have radically expanded the recruiters’ tools, but these changes have had little impact on the core business of recruiting, which Mr Denton said would always be about connecting people with people.

“I don’t think you will ever be able to take the human element out of expert recruiting, I think there are too many variables to consider,” he said.

“A true expert consultant can offer so much more to a client than some kind of online sifting model.”