S3’s history and it’s staff

Being in an industry that relies on it’s service providers being quality driven, trustworthy and honest we pride ourselves on combining all of the above in our constant strive to become “people experts“. We wouldn’t be where we are today without an enthusiastic management team skilled enough to understand what makes our business great, to continually question and develop our service and mentor our staff at all levels through thick and thin.

Together we provide our industry with a range of skills that both compliment and enhance one another. Like all good companies we are the sum of our parts.

Here Steve Walker, S3’s Managing Director talks about how with a lot of hard work, some good fortune and even greater staff S3 has developed and grown to become the preferred choice for clients and candidates looking for recruitment expertise in the animal sciences job market.

“Learning my recruitment skills from mainstream IT and Teaching recruitment backgrounds taught me a great deal. I’ve seen and experienced the many changing faces of recruitment over the past decade and a half, from sweeping employment law changes through to the advent of online advertising. With good fortune I was lucky enough to find a career I genuinely enjoy, something I tell candidates of S3 to strive for whenever I can. The diversity of my role and the business relationships I’ve enjoyed developing have kept me both enthusiastic and constantly challenged throughout the past 15 years.

I started my recruitment career in the early ‘90’s at MSB International Plc as a junior candidate resourcer - a great role, a true baptism of fire for learning about dealing with the public. Being subjected to candidates at all ends of the emotional scale taught me the value of being both honest and diplomatic regardless of whether delivering good or bad news. With a knack for understanding people I was quickly promoted to Recruiter, being awarded Recruitment Consultant of the year 3 years consecutively before being headhunted to lead a new contract recruitment division at Lorien Plc. In 1997 I went onto found my 1st recruitment agency. During those early years I was fortunate enough to build a good management team around me. After growing my fledgling company year on year I successfully lead my team into a management buy-out in 2001 freeing me up to search for a new challenge.

After witnessing the negative media attention surrounding Huntingdon Life Sciences difficulties in the midst of the terrorist actions of the then animal rights movement I instantly knew I’d found an organisation where my people skills could make a real difference. Within a week I’d had a meeting with HLS, committed myself to finding a solution to their recruitment problems and incorporated S3 Science. In just 18 months and with a young enthusiastic recruiter (Ayse Anderson) S3 placed 72 trainee Animal Technicians, an incredible figure inlight of the huge learning curve we’d had to climb to get there. We found that by spending time talking to candidates and listening to their concerns whilst providing them with industry facts and figures we could re-educate them as to what an animal technicians work involved and the industry surrounding it. With hard work we’d discovered the key to generating genuine enthusiasm in candidates that had once spurned the role of an animal technician. Subsequently S3 never stopped growing, attracting clients by word of mouth and candidates recommending us to their friends on forums and social networking sites. By this stage we’d began to recruit huge numbers of trainee technicians for Covance and Charles River whilst becoming HLS’s sole provider of technicians, something I’m incredibly proud of to this day. From 2005 with yearly figures showing recruitment of 200+ technicians annually we’d become the largest provider of animal technicians in the industry. We continue to grow and now offer our recruitment services to clients of all shapes and sizes whether for trainee or experienced staff, in permanent or temporary roles.

With our success S3 has attracted some truly gifted and enthusiastic individuals to lead and grow the business into new areas. I’m incredibly lucky to work with Linda Green and Ayse Anderson, both hugely passionate people who relish the challenge of making placements, whatever the grade. Between myself, Linda’s and Ayse’s recruitment teams we have placed over 1000 candidates in animal science jobs at organisations of all sizes up and down the country.

Personally I’ll always get a massive kick out of working with clients new and old as well as enthusing young candidates and watching them start out their careers. Who knows where their enthusiasm will take them or what positive mark they’ll make on the industry. I always remind my candidates and staff that we’re in jobs where we can really contribute to the amazing advances in science in the UK.
When you really think about it, it’s genuinely exciting.”

If you’re a candidate thinking of registering with us call us today and see if our energy and enthusiasm for recruitment can match your ambition to develop a truly great animal sciences career.

If you’re a new client considering entrusting us with your recruitment rest assured we’ll dedicate all our hard earned skills and people know how to make this placement the 1st of many.