One Year Of Campbell Grove Talent

One Year Of Campbell Grove Talent

One Year In: What Building an Accountancy and Finance Recruitment Agency Really Taught Us

Twelve months ago, we launched Campbell Grove Talent, an accountancy and finance recruitment agency, with barely anything to our name. No client database, no guarantee anyone would take a chance on two women starting again from scratch. What we did have was a shared frustration with how recruitment usually works in this sector, and a plan to build careers, ours and our candidates, differently.

On our very first day, three clients picked up the phone without knowing whether we’d still be trading in six months. That leap of faith has stayed with us all year.

The Reactions Weren’t Always What We Expected

Leaving established roles in finance recruitment to build an independent agency exposes you to every kind of response. Some people offered genuine, lasting support. Others wished us well in that vague, non-committal way that doesn’t quite mean it. Some simply disappeared from view.

There was a quieter worry too. Emma spent two decades in accountancy and finance recruitment reassuring candidates that experience only adds value to a career, then found herself questioning whether that applied to her own. Lucy returned from a difficult period of maternity leave straight into the pressure of building a business from zero. Neither of us said much about that at the time.

Looking back, that discomfort was probably part of why we started at all.

What a Year of Running Our Own Recruitment Agency Actually Taught Us

You can’t out-think comparison. Silence from former contacts, lukewarm reactions, the odd cold shoulder, none of it meant what we feared it meant. Everyone’s managing their own version of not-quite-having-it-together.

Partnership matters more than a polished business plan. We didn’t launch with every answer. We launched with aligned values and matching ambition, and that combination got us through the parts no business plan could have predicted.

Trust arrives before you’ve earned it. Clients and candidates backed us before we’d delivered a single result. It’s a debt we still think about, and one that shapes how we treat every candidate’s career now.

Progress doesn’t have to be dramatic to count. A profitable first year. Donations to two charities that matter to us. Strong placements and long-term client relationships, built from absolutely nothing. Quiet wins, but real ones.

Hybrid and flexible working shouldn’t still be this rare. No permission-seeking for the school run. No guilt over sick days or after-school pickups. We built genuine work-life balance into how our agency operates, and this year has shown us how many people in accountancy and finance are still fighting for that kind of flexibility elsewhere.

Thank you, and here’s to year two

To everyone who backed Campbell Grove Talent before we’d proven anything, recommended us, or simply gave us a chance: thank you. A year has genuinely gone in a blink, and we’re proud of the agency, and the careers,  we’re helping to build.

Here’s to year two.