/About
A small firm, on purpose.
Brennan Hale was founded in 2016 on the premise that a smaller consultancy with better consultants would place better people. Nine years later that is still the whole strategy.
Marcus Brennan and Ola Hale had both spent a decade inside larger consultancies: Marcus running technical divisions, Ola latterly heading an in-house talent function. Both had watched the same pattern. A client briefs a role, four agencies send forty CVs between them, and the hiring manager spends a fortnight filtering out people who were never right.
We built the firm around the opposite premise. One consultant per sector, each with a background in or around the field. A market map before any approach. Four candidates on a shortlist, with a written note on why each one is there. And a willingness to say no to briefs we do not think we can fill, which is the part most agencies find hardest.
Nine years on we are thirty-four people across Manchester, London and Dublin. We have deliberately not opened a fourth office, and we have deliberately not added a seventh sector.
/How we operate
Four things we will not trade away
Consent
No CV moves without the candidate agreeing to that specific role. It costs us placements and we do it anyway.
Candour
If the band is wrong, the process is too slow, or the candidate is not right, you hear it from us early rather than politely late.
Depth
One sector per consultant. We would rather know six markets properly than twenty superficially.
Restraint
We turn down briefs we cannot fill well, and we do not chase headcount growth for its own sake.
2016
founded in Manchester
34
people across three offices
6
sectors, and no more
91%
still in post at twelve months
Leadership
Memberships and accreditation
REC Member
Audited against the REC Code of Professional Practice
APSCo
Association of Professional Staffing Companies
ISO 9001
Quality management certification
Cyber Essentials
Certified against the UK government scheme
Working here
No cold-call targets, no leaderboard, no desk you did not choose. We hire consultants rarely and expect them to stay a long time.