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From good service to provable service: how Zitko Group turned candidate feedback into a commercial weapon.
A TRN member + Partner success story
How a TRN introduction connected Zitko Group with Recruiter Insider and transformed how a security technology recruiter collects, uses, and wins business with feedback data
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HIGHLIGHTS
✓ Under 1 hour from contract to fully operational: CRM integrated, consultants trained
✓ 4.5 years of continuous use: Zitko among the first TRN members to adopt the platform
✓ 0 manual emails or consultant reminders required: fully automated from day one
✓ 100% of TRN members introduced to Recruiter Insider in the first cohort are still active today
✓ 2 major platform features built directly from Zitko and TRN member feedback
THE CHALLENGE
Ella Lamport founded Park Avenue Recruitment in 2017, building a specialist firm focused on white-collar public sector roles across housing, town planning and the built environment. As the business grew, so did the pressure to hire well.
The irony wasn't lost on Ella. "We're recruiters," she says, "but when it comes to placing somebody in our own business, actually being able to judge their skill set is really tough." Park Avenue had always hired graduates and developed people from the ground up — but without a structured way to assess whether a candidate would actually perform in a sales-driven recruitment environment, the process relied heavily on gut feel and trial and error.
THE CONNECTION: LEVERAGING THE TRN PARTNER PROGRAMME
The connection to Paul Waters Associates came through TRN. Ella's business partner Richard was part of a CEO peer group with TRN co-founder Gordon Stoddart, where Paul Waters Associates was mentioned. They followed up through the TRN team, who made the introduction.
"It was a very TRN introduction," Ella recalls.
THE SOLUTION: USE A SCIENTIFIC SALES TEST (SPQ*GOLD) THROUGH A TRN PARTNER
Dom Waters at Paul Waters Associates introduced Park Avenue to SPQ*GOLD — a specialist sales profiling tool that assesses whether a candidate has the energy, resilience, prospecting motivation and sales comfort to perform consistently in a recruitment role. Critically, it was offered on a pay-as-you-go basis — no subscription, no long-term commitment.
"There was no tough sell," says Ella. "It was just a really easy decision."
Over the following five years, Park Avenue built SPQ*GOLD into every hire they made. Ella and Richard became confident enough in reading the reports that Dom's role shifted from interpreter to sounding board — a genuine working partnership rather than a supplier relationship.
THE OUTCOME
Since 2021, Park Avenue has grown from a small team to nearly 25 people. The business has just recorded its best year and its best month to date.
"The most important thing in any recruitment business is the people sitting at the desk doing the work," Ella says. "We use the SPQ test for every single person we hire. And we've just had our best year yet. I think it's all going to be linked."
Beyond the numbers, the value is also in what didn't happen. As Dom puts it: "It's the bad hires you didn't make that make the difference." For a business scaling at pace, avoiding costly mis-hires is as commercially significant as any revenue line.
Park Avenue have continued to use Paul Waters Associates for five years — not because they're locked in, but because they choose to.
"We don't have to carry on using them," Ella says. "But we want to."
WHAT TRN MADE POSSIBLE
This relationship wouldn't exist without TRN. A conversation in a CEO peer group led to a warm introduction, which led to a five-year working partnership that has shaped how an entire business hires.
For Dom, TRN members consistently show up as a different kind of client: commercially minded, open to better ways of doing things, and serious about building something lasting. "By definition, by being part of TRN, they're open-minded and know how to run a business and run partnerships."
For Ella, TRN's wider value runs deeper than any single introduction. "Whenever I feel a bit low or uninspired, there's always something I can sign up for — a call with Gordon or James, or other business owners — and it unlocks things. And the introductions to suppliers? It's saved us a lot of money over the years, trying before we buy through other people in the network."
THE CHALLENGE
Zitko Group has been placing talent into security technologies for over a decade - permanent, contingent, executive search, and managed service, across the UK, US, and broader EMEA region. The business knew its service delivery was strong. Proving it consistently was a different problem.
"We knew that our delivery of service was really strong," says Laura Raven, Managing Director. "But we weren't consistently getting feedback or referrals across the business because we were relying on individual consultants to remember to ask, or to send out an email. Some people were really good at that. Others didn't feel comfortable asking. So we were really missing valuable opportunities."
The result was a patchwork of testimonials. Useful for morale, but inconsistent, surface-level, and impossible to use systematically for business development or service improvement. The data existed somewhere in every completed placement. No one had a reliable way to collect it.
THE CONNECTION: LEVERAGING THE TRN PARTNER PROGRAMME
The connection to Recruiter Insider came through TRN. George Zitko, Founder and CEO, was introduced to Justin Hillier, Founder of Recruiter Insider, by Gordon Stoddart at TRN. Zitko were one of TRN's earliest Club members and the relationship was already established, the trust was already there.
"TRN for us is a really valuable partner," Laura says. "If they are saying they've got a really valuable partner, it's like the referrals we get from Recruiter Insider itself and someone you trust is referring somebody else. It rubber stamps that company straight away."
Justin is equally direct: "There is absolutely no way this relationship with Zitko would have happened without TRN."
THE SOLUTION
Recruiter Insider integrates directly into an agency's ATS and in Zitko's case, Vincere. Setup took under an hour: CRM configuration via dropdown menus, followed by a 30-minute consultant briefing. From that point, feedback collection became automatic, triggered at every stage of the hiring process for both candidates and clients, with no manual intervention required from the team.
"Overnight, our feedback, our testimonials, our usable data, our referrals were transformed," Laura says. "For the price point and what we got back in terms of usable stuff, it far outweighed the cost."
But the platform's value at Zitko goes considerably beyond automation.
THE OUTCOME
Zitko uses Recruiter Insider data across multiple commercial functions not just as a feel-good testimonial collection tool.
Flight risk identification. Post-placement candidate surveys flag dissatisfaction with salary, benefits, or job fit before it becomes a resignation. "We've been able to get increased offers for people," Laura explains. "We've gone back to them and said: based on your feedback, we've spoken to the client and got you more holiday or a slightly better package. And they've been really, really happy."
Hiring manager coaching. Candidate feedback on the hiring process is fed directly back to clients, identifying where process breakdowns are costing them candidates. "We can say: here's where a candidate said the process broke down, and that's why you weren't able to secure them over somebody else. Let's work on improving that."
Business development. Zitko takes aggregated performance data into quarterly business reviews and new business tenders. The New Business Toolkit, a Recruiter Insider feature built directly from a request George made at the TRN Bristol Retreat, allows agencies to produce benchmark reports for tenders and pitches. George needed it for a specific tender. Within three to four weeks, it existed.
Client benchmarking. Another Recruiter Insider feature traces directly back to the TRN network, Andy McMaster, a fellow TRN member, asked Justin at the Windsor Retreat if he could benchmark clients against each other. Justin couldn't work out how to build it at the time. Mid-conversation with another TRN member, the solution landed. That feature is now among the most powerful on the platform.
Internal recognition. Zitko has built a Recruiter Insider champion award into its annual end-of-year celebration, recognising the consultant with the highest score, most testimonials, and most referrals across the year. Competitive engagement with the data has become part of the culture.
TRN ANGLE
The Zitko-Recruiter Insider relationship is a direct product of the TRN ecosystem but it's also, in part, responsible for shaping what Recruiter Insider is today.
Two of the platform's most commercially significant features were built in direct response to requests made by TRN members at TRN events. The network didn't just make an introduction. It created the conditions for a product to improve in ways that benefit every agency using it.
"It's kind of like asking the meaning of life," Justin says. "Without TRN, we would not be the business we are in the UK today. Every TRN member I meet has a real desire and passion to want to continue to improve and grow their business. That's quite unique. I don't see that in other areas of the industry. And that's exactly the premise our platform is built on continuous improvement."
For Zitko, now 4.5 years into the membership, the relationship with TRN is inseparable from the trajectory of the business.
"I've worked at Zitko for seven years - the whole time Zitko have been part of TRN," Laura says. "I'm 100% convinced the reason we've grown so much is because of the support and the networking you get through TRN."
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"It's like the referrals we get from Recruiter Insider itself. Someone you trust is referring somebody else. It rubber stamps that company straight away."
- Laura Raven, Managing Director, Zitko Group
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