Matchmaking over cups of coffee

By VIKKI BLAND

Fancy a short black with that job application, sir? It's a novel idea, but one that just might work - at least, that's what Laurel Gillan and Sarah Lee believe.

Gillan, 37, and Lee, 32, are founders of ITManiacs, a niche IT recruitment firm located in a tiny room above Interface cafe on Auckland's busy Ponsonby Rd.

The central perk of this location is that Lee owns the cafe as a separate business, providing ITManiacs with a quirky and comfortable downstairs environment in which to do business.

"Job candidates love it because they come in and have a coffee while we interview them or they view jobs. Clients love it because they get a free lunch," says Lee with a wink.

Lee, a self-confessed "ideas person" and mother of one, says the concept for ITManiacs came from dissatisfying personal experiences with IT recruiters.

In August 2001, and six months pregnant, she convinced Gillan - an Anthony Robbins devotee with the kind of expansive, high-octane personality marketing executives die for - to join her.

"I love connecting people together," says Gillan. "I'll call anyone and just bug them until they love us."

And it seems they do.

Garry Collings, general manager information technology for TranzRail, has employed around 30 staff through ITManiacs and says it is the only firm he will use.

In comparison with some other firms he has dealt with, Collings says ITManiacs is flexible, with impeccable follow-through.

"I love the way they present a person. You feel like you know them before you've met them."

Lee says ITManiacs is most successful at matching candidates with client cultures and personalities.

"We send clients small numbers of well-matched candidates sourced via networking."

It's a formula that certainly seems to be working.

Despite an uncertain beginning - ITManiacs was launched just three weeks before the events of September 11, 2001 - a steady decline in national and international IT spends, the competitive nature of the IT recruitment industry and the small size of New Zealand's IT market, the company reported a rise of 139 per cent on undisclosed revenue for the 2003 financial year.

And staff numbers have trebled, from just Gillan and Lee in 2001 to six fulltime staff by the end of last year.

"It took us a year to break even and nearly another to become profitable," says Gillan. "But we're now dealing with figures in the millions."

"Let's just say it's getting harder to deal with the tax department," quips Lee.

Both women say running a successful IT recruitment company is not a piece of cake, even for those with their own cafe.

"In our first year we used to dread the fax machine running out of toner because we couldn't afford to replace it," says Gillan.

The partners also admit to the occasional "catfight" while building their business.

Lee says significant learning curves were complicated by the fact that neither she nor Gillan - both former IT project managers - had any previous recruitment industry experience.

"We had all these ideas but we found we couldn't be all things to all people."

Directional help came in the form of US-born Glenn Ricketts, whom Lee and Gillan convinced to work for ITManiacs as a non-executive director.

"Glenn had worked at an executive level with large US IT companies like Cisco and Nortel," says Lee.

"We call him 'Charlie' after the Charlie's Angels character. We contact him for advice and he doesn't let us tackle new things until the timing is right."

So what's in the two-year plan for ITManiacs? It's the sort of question Gillan loves.

"We could be SalesManiacs, MedicalManiacs or CreativeMediaManiacs next. The skills we have are not restricted to the IT recruitment industry."

Lee agrees. "Once a business like this gets around six fulltime staff, it's time to replicate into other locations or industries, not expand in size."

The key to it all, she says, is the fact that both she and Gillan are having fun.

"We've both agreed that if either of us gets to the stage of being too serious, then something is wrong."

However, serious job candidates are very welcome to pop in for a coffee.