Same Named People in the Australian Recruitment Industry Awards

After you have been around the recruitment industry as long as I have (29 years and three months thanks for asking) you come across lots of recruiters. And what you probably aren’t surprised to know is that it’s not uncommon for recruiters to share the same name.

Although we are coming up to a very important recruitment industry awards night next month, I thought you might enjoy something a little more light-hearted with my Same-Named People awards; awards for those in our sector who share the same name.

1) Award for Same Named People in the Same Company (same office)

Winners: Karen Thompson, Managing Director, people2people (WA) and Karen Thomson, former Area Manager (WA) for Aquent. Karen and Karen worked together in an office of less than ten people at Aquent (WA) across 2006 – 2009.

2) Award for Same Named People in the Same Company (different offices)

Winners: Emma Hill, Divisional Manager – Pre-Construction at Now Careers in Sydney and Emma Hill, Director at Hill Recruitment Solutions (former Director at Now Careers in Brisbane. Emma and Emma worked at Now Careers at the same time for nearly three years across 2014 – 2017.

Runners’ up: Andy Grant, Founder and Director of Grant Executive Search, in Melbourne and Andrew Grant, Global VP Allegis Global Solutions in Hong Kong and formerly CEO, APAC of Robert Walters, in Sydney. Both Andy (in Melbourne) and Andrew (in Europe) were both employed at Hudson during the same three year period across 1999 – 2002.

3) Award for Same Named People in the Same Sector of Recruitment

Winners: Adam Brown, Manager – Civil and Infrastructure Engineering Recruitment at Aspect Personnel in Melbourne and Adam Brown, NSW Manager (and Facilities Management recruiter) at Kingfisher Recruitment in Sydney.

4) Award for Same Named People who are Owners of a Recruitment Agency

Winners: Paul Murphy, Owner and Managing Director of Ensure Recruitment (wealth management and insurance recruitment in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland) and Paul Murphy,   Owner and Managing Director of Stratacon Recruitment (construction, property, engineering & local government recruitment) in Melbourne.

Runners’ up (1): Stephen Moir, Founder and Director of RETAIL2Recruit (recruitment of retail professionals) in Melbourne and Stephen Moir, Founder and Director of Moir Group (recruitment of accounting and finance professionals) in Sydney.

Runners’ up (2) (if you indulge me one vowel): Matt Simpson, Owner and Director of Blackbook Executive (recruitment for the Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Technical disciplines in Melbourne) and Matt Sampson, Managing Director of Aspect Personnel (recruitment for the built and natural environment in Melbourne) and RCSA (Aus & NZ) Director.

5) Award for the Same Named People in the Australian Recruitment Industry

Winners: Justin Hillier, Recruitment Lead, LNG Recruitment Group (infrastructure and resource recruitment) in Perth and Justin Hillier, Founder and CEO of Recruiter Insider (candidate and client experience platform for the recruitment industry) in Melbourne).

Runners’ up: Greg Brown, Director of Kaliba (recruitment of sales, professional services and technical roles for IT vendors) in Melbourne and Greg Brown, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Unilever, formerly a Supply Chain and Ops recruiter at people2people (NSW) in Sydney.

6) Award for the Same Named People, one of whom was, but is now no longer, in the Recruitment Industry

 Winners: Mark Smith, Managing Director of people2people (NSW) (recruitment across many sectors in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Auckland) and Mark Smith, formerly Regional Manager at People At Work, 2009 – 2016, in Geelong.

Runners’ up: Adam Walker, Director, Deloitte Consulting (Talent Advisory) in Melbourne and Adam Walker, Founder and Director (2006 – 2013) of Conduit Recruitment, in Sydney (now lives back in the UK).

7) Award for the the Same Named People (different gender), one of whom was, but is now no longer, in the Recruitment Industry

Winners: Chris Emery, Client Solutions Manager at Beyond Recruitment in Auckland and Chris Emery, former recruitment consultant at Recruitment Solutions (used to report to yours truly) prior to returning to the legal sector where he now runs his own legal practice specialising in   property.

I am sure there must be other same-named recruiters out there – please feel free to add names in the comments section, below.