Serap Zel, Ph.D., FounderAdd to this the shortage of relevant talent, which means that many of their crucial positions in companies are currently vacant. Hence, businesses will need access to a broader candidate pool beyond regional borders to onboard the right people quickly, remotely, and effectively, all within the constraints of their budget. Interestingly, these are the exact capabilities that underpin the RPO, talent sourcing, and in-house recruitment services of Uplift People Consulting—a firm that is proving a saving grace for businesses seeking to fill their vacant job roles with the most suitable candidates.
What Makes Uplift Different?
“We combine speed, global reach, passion, and customer satisfaction for both clients and candidates when sourcing the best talent from all over the world and place them in compatible positions to benefit not only the organization but also the candidates,” says Serap Zel, Ph.D., founder of Uplift People Consulting. The company’s recruitment teams are therefore strategically located in Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and the APAC region. Moreover, these teams are equipped with the latest technological tools and platforms, so that they can connect even with difficult-to-reach candidates across larger geographies and varying time zones without being hindered by the pandemic’s challenges. This ease of access to a diverse candidate pool enables the company to generate the first shortlist of potential employees for clients in no more than five working days, a feat that speaks volumes for itself. The progress of these candidates, further, can be continuously tracked throughout the recruitment process, giving Uplift’s clients’ the necessary information needed to make their final decisions smartly.
While the talent acquisition capabilities of the company are indeed proving phenomenal, it is interesting to note how the name of the company, ‘Uplift,’ also intertwines with the company’s motto. It comes from the founder’s desire to help people and uplift their lives. Inspired by Serap’s values, her team brings the much-needed ‘human touch’ into the recruitment landscape, albeit virtually. Serap further elaborates, “We seek to make a positive impact on the lives of candidates, their families, and new colleagues—as well as their teams and business—by matching them with the right opportunities. Even we were candidates once, and the struggles we faced have instilled in us the empathy to give every candidate the importance and respect they deserve.”
The company also employs this human-first approach through its in-house recruiter services. Especially preferred by clients seeking to retain a greater level of control in the recruitment processes, this service revolves around its talent acquisition partners called ‘Uplifters,’ who are assigned as full-time recruiters for the clients. Uplift’s talent partners work with clients on-site or remotely, ranging from a period of three months to over a year based on client requirements. These talent partners then leverage Uplift’s tools, resources, and the global network to streamline the search of client companies for the right candidates and help them fill the positions as soon as possible, thus playing a critical role in bolstering their business continuity.
We combine speed, global reach, passion, and customer satisfaction for both clients and candidates when sourcing the best talent from all over the world and place them in compatible positions to benefit not only the organisation but also the candidates
Interestingly, it is not just corporates that benefit from Uplift’s services. The company is especially sympathetic to the challenges faced by candidates, and as such, offers a robust career coaching program, especially for those who are without work or who have jobs but are unable to shift to their dream careers. The company’s program, on that front, equips candidates with the knowledge and skills they need to pursue the jobs they like. “It does not matter from what function, industry, or job level they seek; our program is designed to help and empower them all,” avers Serap proudly.
The Roots of Empathy and Excellence
Notably, the ‘humanised’ talent acquisition fostered by Uplift stems from its founder’s almost two-decade journey through the HR space. From Toyota to Facebook, Serap has filled the shoes of some of the most demanding and fast-moving HR job roles in some of the noteworthy multinational organisations across Europe, Middle East, and North America, helping them acquire the best-suited talent for their varying requirements. “These job roles prompted me to learn and grow at a rapid rate, enabling me to perceive and understand the different cultures, social modus operandi, and the way of living of candidates based on geographies, and whether their potential job roles would meet their expectations,” says Serap. She had to continuously develop new skills to make the HR teams more effective, human-focused, and adaptive with changing times and needs of growing businesses. Along with these corporate insights, she also gained significant knowledge about the legislations and regulations of different countries and regions.
So, when she started Uplift, the expertise she had gained over the decades became the backbone of her company, enabling it to meet almost all the recruitment challenges of multinational companies, and ultimately, empowered her to fulfil their urgent hiring needs, perform seamless succession planning, and create healthy leadership pipelines. That’s not all. By leveraging her engineering educational background, Serap has ingrained constant improvement into her company, utilising the power of analytics. She states, “What gets measured, gets improved.” So, all the data gathered from the firm’s collaboration with clients is frequently analysed, and the insights gained from this data are used to develop new strategies for recruitment even easier and faster for its clients.
Illuminating the Path to a Sustainable Workforce
To further illustrate Uplift’s collaboration process with clients, Serap sheds light on a recent partnership with a global logistics company. This particular client was facing a turnover of more than 40 percent in the customer service function, in addition to their regular turnovers. Alongside, several members of their HR team had resigned to pursue other career opportunities. As this started to affect their business, the client quickly approached Uplift People Consulting to come up with a relevant solution. But, since they did not have sufficient internal resources in their HR department to handle end-to-end recruitment and had to fill the positions within a specified budget, the client was stuck between a rock and a hard place. So, after a detailed interaction, it was decided that Uplift would do an exclusive search to source the best talent to fill the client’s vacant HR positions in the shortest possible time. To make this happen, an experienced Uplifter (Uplift Talent Partner) was assigned as a dedicated inhouse recruiter for three months for recruiting and onboarding relevant HR candidates. As soon as the HR positions were filled, the Uplifter also helped them fill all the open positions for the client’s customer services roles, along with the company’s several other functions.
This is but one of the many success stories that Uplift has penned over the years. Multinational companies across Europe and beyond trust the firm’s expertise today to bolster their recruitment operations even in the dire conditions of the pandemic. Even now, Uplift is cementing this trust and strengthening its presence across the Nordics, and expanding its footprint in the APAC region. While the firm’s growth will continue, it will also focus on bringing a greater level of transparency and eliminating all intentional and unintentional biases during the recruitment process. “We want to be seen as a trusted partner for any recruitment needs; and to this end, we will continue giving our all—mind and heart—into every project we do as Uplifters. By blending the human touch and bringing love and passion into recruitment, Uplift will ensure longterm success and satisfaction for its clients,” concludes Serap with conviction.
