Matthew Guest or ‘Guesty’ as he’s known by many of his colleagues, is our Section Manager here at Niyaa People. Over the five years he’s been here he’s worked his way up from a Trainee to becoming a key part of the leadership team, managing his own desk and now his own team. His journey has been one of the most progressive here and is one of the originals in the Niyaa People family.

Q If you were asked to give three words to describe Recruitment what would they be?

MG Fun, relentless and empowering.

Q Has recruitment changed within the last 5 years?

MG I think the recruitment industry has certainly changed; more organisations have looked to streamline services and bring their recruitment in house to have clearer processes and to cut back on agency spend, which naturally creates a bigger challenge for consultants.

Changes in government legislation have impacted the market with the introduction of IR35 having a significant impact on the public sector, where experienced contractors no longer find it financially viable to work within an industry that they have known for all of their working lives, not to mention contractors being unable to offset business and travel expenses.

Q What trends do you think we’ll see within the next 5 years?

MG In the next 5 years I expect Technology to continue to produce various different methods of communication, which could potentially reduce the number of duties and responsibilities that recruitment consultants currently have, for example Facebook/Google jobs will empower hiring managers to seek their own candidates through the click of a button on some of the biggest media platforms in the world.

Q What advice would you give to the future generation of Niyaa People in order to have a successful career within the recruitment industry?

MG I would recommend that they identify who the top performers are within the business and why they are top performers; I would then take one or two key attributes from them and look to implement this within their own recruitment style.

Recruitment overall is a competitive industry to be in and you need to be prepared for the highs and the lows, with the current structure and leadership team that we have in place here at Niyaa People, I am confident that the future generation will produce results that will drive the business forward and continue with our growth.

Q What are your Highlights over the last 5 years? (Personal and Professional)

MG I have had a fantastic 5 years so far, I think my biggest highlight would be my promotion to Section Manager, I had a clear objective in mind and a team behind me that bought into that vision, so to achieve it as a team just after Christmas was a fantastic feeling. Next up would have to be going to Dubai as an incentive – a great place with a great bunch of people, an experience that I’ll never forget. Oh and I suppose I could mentioned that I got married in 2015!

Favourite Food: Meat feast pizza or a plain cheese burger.

Favourite Drink: Estrella Damn or JD Honey with Lemonade, otherwise Pepsi Max is fine.

Fact nobody would know: I postponed the birth of my daughter to go to a villa away game!

Biggest Fear/Phobia: Wasps!

If you weren’t working in recruitment what would you be doing: To be honest it’s difficult to imagine doing anything other than Recruitment at the moment! Coming from a Sales/Lettings background I would imagine that I would still be part of that industry.

What can you be found doing on the weekend: Wherever Aston Villa are playing, I’m there. Other than that my weekends mainly revolve around my young family, where we will do anything from pub grub to getting covered in mud with our Springer Spaniel!

Want to know more about Guesty, watch his full 5 year story