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Stepping Beyond Comfort: Claire Cousens' Journey to Inspirational Leadership

Shining the spotlight on a journey of personal growth and development - where inspiring others and driving transformative changes that elevate the entire business makes for a great success story.

Beyond Lip Service: Embedding E,D&I into Recruitment's DNA

More than just buzzwords or the subjects of compelling corporate statements, E,D&I represent foundational pillars that can significantly influence a company's culture, innovation, and success. So why isn't it better tracked?

NED news from HARBOUR HQ

We're delighted to announce that amongst our numbers we can now count a Non Executive Director... click through to find out who ...

Jewish Care Case Study

‘Our old ATS was the M25 of recruitment processing. With HARBOUR, it’s like Highway 54. No palaver, straight through from end to end, and you get to your destination in really quick time.’

Evolving, but staying true to what HARBOUR has always been & will always be… daring to care. 

Our CEO's perspective on new categorising of what we do and how we do it

The HR Tech landscape is evolving rapidly in 2024

The emergence of HCM and advanced HR platforms is changing how organisations of all sizes address their tech needs.

HARBOUR success for Healthcare Homes

HARBOUR upgraded Healthcare Homes recruitment ATS so they could process all their recruitment activity in one place

The gift of giving this Christmas

We are continuing our long-established approach to donate rather than send cards or gifts

Fridge magnets and strides forward

HARBOUR CEO Alex Hens reflects on 2023

Tending to our Connections : Nurturing Growth in a Hybrid Work Landscape

Tending to our Connections : Nurturing Growth in a Hybrid Work Landscape : TeamBuilding; hybrid working.

How could recruitment be more efficient?

If you’re planning to streamline your recruitment processes for 2024 and need a helping hand, we’re ready to help!

A response to Peter's post : Focus Focus Focus..... Finish

A response to Peter Gold's Focus Focus Focus..... Finish blog

How we worked with New Look to provide "best in class" recruitment

HARBOUR and New Look work in partnership to introduce new HMP

AI: Additional Intelligence?

HARBOUR's Chief Commercial Officer, Sarah Axcell shares her views on the emergence of AI technology...

How to up your DEI game with recruitment tech

Want to improve your company’s DEI? No idea how recruitment tech can help? Let HARBOUR enlighten you…

Why we don’t work Friday afternoons

Do you offer your employees flexible working? We do – and we have a happier, more engaged and loyal workforce to show for it.

Is recruitment tech worth the money?

Is tech recruitment a good investment? Yes – if it’s user friendly and can be adapted for your growing business needs.

A rather chuffed client...

Award-winning law firm TLT needed to power up their recruitment tech with HARBOUR

A Real Commitment to Sharing Success

HARBOUR CEO, Alex Hens announces Employee Share Ownership Scheme

Happy birthday to us

A celebration of 15 years of HARBOUR ATS

Social recruiting for charities

Charity recruitment is in dire straits. The demand is there but recruiters are struggling to fill positions. Could recruiting via social media be the answer?

Why job hunting is all the rage for candidates

Rage-applying is a thing! Discover how recruiters can prevent churn using an Employee Value Proposition that aligns employer values with candidates.

How to recruit fast in a recession

Recruiting during the recession? Discover the ONE thing you need to do to speed up Time to Hire and grab candidates before the competition.

A personal view from the HARBOUR wall : Goodbye 2022 – you were so very valuable, but I’m glad to see the back of you

CEO perspective of business change

We’re blowing our own trumpet

Great recruitment software starts with a conversation. Find out how HARBOUR’s client partnerships lead to an Applicant Tracking System that exceeds expectations.

All aboard the candidate express!

All aboard the candidate express! Want to hold onto new hires during the onboarding process? Use automation to speed things up and give them a smooth ride.

Has psychometric testing had its day?

Has psychometric testing had its day? Spoiler alert – the answer is no. But if you want to engage candidates with a more exciting assessment experience read on…

How to do social recruiting

As more recruiters turn to social recruiting to find candidates, we look at what you can do to maximise your recruitment strategy on social media.

Want more candidates? Get accessible!

Disabled candidates are an untapped talent pool – so now’s the time for recruiters to make job boards and careers pages more accessible

A Right Royal Munch Up

How our HARBOURites celebrated the platinum jubilee

What – no dentist appointment?

Recruiters turned to video interviewing during the pandemic – but will online interviews replace face-to-face interviews in the future?

Modern recruiting tools, neurodiversity and keeping human

Modern Recruiting Tools, Neurodiversity and Keeping Human

Meet Alex Hens, CEO of HARBOUR

Meet Alex Hens, HARBOUR CEO

How to Recruit Neurodiverse Talent

From application forms to candidate assessments there’s plenty that recruiters can do to attract neurodiverse talent.

The HARBOUR hangout… with Sarah Axcell

She loves all things recruitment software, talking, brownies and Keanu Reeves – meet HARBOUR’s Chief Client Officer Sarah Axcell

Is the reference dead?

References are mandatory for some organisations. Recruitment technology can take the strain out of chasing them…

6 Ways to Successfully Recruit

From application to onboarding, discover six ways to engage candidates using recruitment software.

Introducing a new integration for video interviews

HARBOUR ATS join forces with Shortlister to bring you video interviews

HARBOUR Highlight

Innovating Retail Redeployment & Recruitment

Retail redeployment – doing it right, doing it nice!

Redeployment can be tough. But with the right recruitment software you can make it a fast, efficient and painless process for your people and your business.

It's that time of year again...

For those of you who know us (and indeed, those that are yet to meet us!), at this time of year we d...

Taking care of care sector recruitment

Covid left an already troubled healthcare sector in crisis. How can recruitment software provide emergency relief to bring care workers back again?

Direct Apply with Reed.co.uk

Direct Apply Functionality

"We all need people who will give us feedback..."

Our ‘Dare to Care’ is important to us – a vital part of our business is our Client Support and the s...

The latest addition to the office

Not a permanent or even full time addition (he has to go home for a nap in a while), but today we we...

HARBOURites in the spotlight - Dan Lynch

Video games growing up? Tick. Dungeons & Dragons team at work? Tick. Warhammer connoisseur? Tick. Pa...

Gutted to be saying 'see you round' to a HARBOUR legend

In any work environment there's a certain amount of person churn. Sometimes it's for the best for bo...

Top time for Topps Tiles!

If you’ve ever tried your hand at tiling, you’ll know how much time it takes. You have to plan, meas...

"it's sooooo unfair" - getting older

Well. Here we are. Another work anniversary. HARBOUR turned 13 on 27th May. It's been a lot of hard...

Is redeployment on your radar?

Redeployment. It’s a word that’s got quite a sinister aura about it, hasn’t it? Redeployment. It con...

Mental Health at work 2021: How can technology help?

Mental Health at work has been climbing in importance on the business agenda and amongst policymaker...

The candidate experience in 2021 - Learning the lessons of getting it all ‘Pete Tong’

As we step back towards re-opening life, I reflected back on one of the last crowd events I attended...

Changing – but not for change’s sake. Digitising The Royal Automobile Club Membership Application Facility

The fear of change or changing things is called Metathesiophobia. The origin of the word comes from...

National Apprenticeship Week 2021: Are you investing in the future?

Hands up if you’d like to be 16 again. When I look back to 1988, life was a whole lot simpler. I had...

On a mission with Off The Record

OTR are a charitable organisation who provide vital mental health support services to young people a...

A brand safety lesson for a Swedish super-brand - and its candidate experience parallels.

If you want the ultimate vehicle to keep you and your loved ones safe, I’d highly recommend the FV40...

Festive giving from all at HARBOUR

Something we've always done since we first started trading has been to donate to charitable causes r...

HARBOUR User Forum 2020

November 12th 2020, in a year of firsts, saw our first (and hopefully only ever entirely) virtual HA...

Remembrance in 2020

Lockdowns - video calls - masks - working from (often less than ideal) home situations - isolation f...

The lost art of asking why

Songwriters use it brilliantly, scientists build theories around it and children relentlessly ask it...

Going public

Over the years we've described ourselves as something like industry ninjas. We're really very good a...

Purpose beyond Profit – a client vision that’s dear to our (Midland) Heart

There are more than 8 million people across the UK living in unsuitable housing. The economic, socia...

Changing contracts and redeployment – stepping up and smoothing process in a stressful enough world.

March 2020 will go down in history as one of those times when everything changed. We all changed our...

War on waste - delivering digitisation of safety critical induction

Suez have a vision to live in a society where there is no more waste. They believe that waste is a r...

Learns from lockdown – the HARBOUR hive

As I write this we’re back in the office – kinda – ish. The office is open anyway, but for the momen...

More quizzical quizzing

Just sharing the joy that is Jared's Quizmastery :) That Was The Week That Was1. This week the damni...

Another quiz @ the HARBOUR Arms

From the quiz master general Jared. Answers will be updated next week :)That Was The Week That Was:1...

We're back in (ish)

Yesterday we started what's likely to be a long process of seeking to reclaim some semblance of what...

What’s a virtual pub without a virtual pub quiz?

Our virtual HARBOUR Arms Friday afternoon get together continues to be a real highlight in our locke...

A game of “House” – No, not the lockdown kind…

Whilst we continue to find ourselves working remotely and adapting to life of working from home, soc...

Keeping things ticking along - and some stepping up

Anyone else kinda done with this already?Having personally self-isolated for about a week before we...

A Covid-19 update from / about HARBOUR

Well - what a place we find ourselves in.rnTo cut to the chase : we're a software business and so we...

GDPR day (Getting Down with Processing things n people Right!)

Today it was time to catch up on GDPR for the HARBOURites - our annual review and re-train to ensure...

A RADical start to 2020

As the January wet weather hung around and we moved beyond Blue Monday, a couple of us had the oppor...

LVing a new launch for Allianz

Just over 4 years ago we were absolutely made up to be launching a double system for Legal & General...

Festive best wishes - for one and all

Well - what a year 2019 has been.A new look and feel for the brand, deciding to show ourselves as HA...

Forum 2019 : Thank you Bristol - you were marvellous

Wednesday 6th saw about 40 HARBOUR clients converge on the Harbour Hotel in Bristol (well - having d...

Forum an orderly queue - we're off to Brizzle

11 years ago we came into being.8 years ago we moved into our first formal office space with our nam...

More than a passing ir35-ritation - you got it sorted?

"IR35 is a word used to describe two sets of tax legislation that are designed to combat tax avoidan...

Legally speaking - this is a much better execution

We started working with Trowers & Hamlins (th) back in 2017. It was our first law firm to work with...

We Dare to Care - a new dawn

We started this business over a decade ago with a clear vision. We understood the ATS market well en...

On our marks - get set - ELDON!

We've always said we're not fans of "out of the box / off the shelf" solutions. Getting to understan...

Why oh why? Boiling it down to our "why"

I;m going to write something for this. 

Renewing & seriously upgrading our affiliation with a seriously smart club

Back in the mists of time we had the opportunity to establish an ATS for the Royal Automibile Club....

Never an ugly duckling - but now officially a Cygnet

We've worked with the business that has, for the past few years, been known as Danshell under a coup...

We'd have been barking mad to say no to this client

It's fair to say that there's a fair few of us in this office who are more than a little soft when i...

QUANTUM - a new chapter for HARBOUR

Through this 'ere blog I know I've / we've been notoriously poor at keeping people updated with what...

Where's ya bin?

Why - they're in the corner of the room. LOTS of them. And this week, we have one more to add to the...

Retail Recruitment - a relationship beautifully aged but now with added layers of vitality

Way, way, way back, we built a facility for Majestic Wine. Now this is further back than even this h...

Moving day - it's here!!!

No - REAALLYYY!!!Our time in Maldon draws to a close and today we "haul (collective) ass" up the roa...

the FIRM awards : Best OnBoarding Experience - Suez

OverviewPart of the global SUEZ group, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK employs over 5,000 people acro...

Avalanche of awards

Sometimes you get so swept up in anything you forget to stop and smell the roses (as has been said b...

Mixing things up in job seeking

Just incase you're a client and missed the email from us that set this all out - here it is publishe...

Career opportunities in Bristol are taking off - thanks to HARBOUR

Having delivered the first of a 2-phase execution for Bristol Airport at the beginning of the year,...

NEARLY THERE

 #ThatIsAll  

GDPR - Gang of Dedicated Programmers Rocking-out!

So everyone totally mind melted in regards to GDPR? Goodness me it's a proper bore isn't it. Still -...

Confirming our Christmas giving outcome

Oooops. Forgot to confirm just what the outcome was of the Christmas Charity donation didn't I :-/ A...

28th Feb 2018 - HARBOUR frozen

so'k - not really. We're still online, but just thought we'd make everyone aware that most people ha...

Christmas wishes & our charity tradition

Just incase you missed it, get yourself over to our Christmas page and help us decide how to divvy u...

Creativity comes in all flavours - inc. coffee

Looks like one of the team fancies themselves as a bit of a Barista, adding the HARBOUR / 3DMC blade...

Local Retail Recruitment - doing new stuff for a long standing client

To date I've not been able to let go of the mantle for updating this here blog with news of what we'...

Spell check is fine - but it's not everything

As an ATS (if you need to ask what that is then you're probably on the wrong site) when we help clie...

Charideeeeeeeee

Each year we opt to not send Christmas cards or quirky gifts and the like, but rather give a donatio...

Client Success - what we do, but with a new champion

As I write this we're now a business of 40 people - and with all those people comes the need to brin...

HARBOUR helps Redrow increase undergrad placements

We are officially RUBBISH at promoting ourselves. There are two good parts to this though:1. it's be...

Well that's torn it! (hugely delayed response to Brexit outcome)

Not a lot to say really - we said what we felt before. Brexit won. Personally I still think it's dis...

New year...

... new record for gap between blog posts? Possibly. Geez - So sorry - how rubbish of me / us. Still...

What Talent Acquisition / Recruitment is all about - basically what HARBOUR helps underpin

As time ticks along and we keep adding clients, probably one of the most heartening things is the nu...

Striking a chord when recruiting Developers

We've been going on a bit of a recruitment "splurge" of late, and part of that is looking for a coup...

It may be raining, it may be pouring - but L&G are far from boring

The world's largest insurance and investment management organisation with worldwide assets of $1 tri...

Trying to make up for lost blogs - Christmas & charity

Believe you me - I get annoyed when I find myself starting blogs "where has the time gone" or simila...

Festive jumper fun

As we head into our 8th year of company existance, there are some things that have become quite embe...

Job Boards, Candidates, Clients and ATSs - some truths & some agro (courtesy of Ri5)

This has been brewing in my angry draw for a little while now, but today saw the opportunity to lanc...

Our collective hats are taken off to Joel and his riding compadres

Absolutely incredible effort. We're very proud of you fella! Children's Hospital Challenge from Alun...

DDoS - it happens

This morning one of our client sites was the focus of a sustained DDoS attack. Distributed Denial of...

Update 2: It's not all about the massive

We like to think we passionate about all we do for our clients - and that goes for whether it's a hu...

New year catch up blog

January's a bit of a month for broken resolutions - and it would seem that our push last year on upd...

Jumpering for chariddeeee

So today was Christmas Jumper Day in work, well it was for us anyway - all in aid of Save The Childr...

The after shock

A vulnerability called “Shellshock” has come to light that is making the headlines. In the wake of H...

Living up to HARBOUR's strapline for Redrow

When you’ve been building award-wining homes for 40 years, you’re definitely doing something right....

a nasty sounding thing - The Heartbleed Bug

You may have heard about a vulnerability that's been discovered with some sites that use SSL certifi...

OnBoarding… Insurance for the last stage of the hiring process.

When it comes to what’s important to us in life, our families, our houses and our cars… We make sure...

HARBOUR makes Sense

We love all our clients, but some tug on the heartstrings more than others. So when we had the chanc...

Coming good on our festive promise

What's grown into a "bit of a thing" for us is that we don't send out Chritsmas cards or the like. T...

The 3DMarComms festive thing

It's now a pretty established tradition that we don't send out cards n stuff, but prefer instead to...

Getting into the festive spirit

so it's Thanksgiving over stateside today and it just so happened that it corresponds this year with...

2nd Annual HARBOUR Forum

Last week we held our second ever HARBOUR Forum - this time in Reading. We'll update more on the spe...

Man vs food - Shaun vs Alex

I've done quite a few daft things in my life - but this one I'm willing to blog about, because chari...

"Say what you see" - a neat little exhibition iPad competition

We're working hard building a great ATS and ensuring we maintain our great level of support, but it'...

Dale's got on his bike - literally

Well - not really - 'cos it's not his bike, but he's certainly breaking it in for someone as he's un...

So - what have we been up to?

Now there are plenty of things that we should be shouting about in the name of self-promotion, but a...

Playing the fool for Comic Relief

A month ago it was a great opportunity to 'Do something funny for money' on behalf of Comic Relief....

A year of nothing? Hardly!

The reality just hit hard - it's now been over a year since I last blogged. I don't know whether tha...

Busy busy busy - and recruiting too

One day there'll be time to update people on what we've been up to. No really. 'Cos there's loads to...

From a global brand - to education & back again - what a November

"Goodness me." As we approach the end of the year at Mach 2 then that's probably the politest way to...

Some things are worth waiting for - like AshleyKate

I won't even count up how long we've been waiting for this little launch - but suffice to say we sto...

Yelling about HARBOUR and the all important "S" word

Things have been busy here at HARBOUR HQ.Hell - things have been REALLY busy! But there's no complai...

One tiny step for LinkedIn - a giant statement and a UK first (possibly) for us

We're a small but merry and dedicated band here at HARBOUR HQ. We generally prefer to keep things pr...

A request for a vote for a young business

No   not mine! This is a request for you to spend two minutes giving a vote to a business of which I...

What price integrity in New Business prospecting? Yes HotLizard - I'm looking at you!

It's (probably) a little known fact that we share the same rural location (all be it separated by th...

Nurses, Wine, Yelling and much much more

No - this isn't a summary of a mad last weekend, but rather a top line on what we've been up to sinc...

A new home for 3D MarCommians & HARBOUR HQ

It's odd to think that only a year ago we were approaching the end of year 2 of 3D MarComms and feel...

OMG - who stole the past 8 months??!!!

I'm embarrassed. Horrified and embarrassed.It surely can't have been 8 months since I last wrote on...

Reality check & a quick pop quiz

OK - so things are busy.Damned busy. You know they (whoever they are) say "it never rains but it pou...

Lies, damned lies & Adobe surveys

This came up today in a little back and forth on Twitter & got me so agitated that I wanted to air i...

Look at us toddle

It's all been a bit busy of late, which is why my blogging has been neglected (what? you didn't noti...

As Spring Sprung so we hoped into a new home

With the cherry blossom now thick on the trees and daffs pointing skyward everywhere the change of s...

Say hello to Amy & Kimberly

Two hellos / welcomes from us today. Firstly I'd like you all to meet Amy. “If it seems too good to...

Fixing homes and losing pounds - all good for business

We've just delivered two nice little projects that I thought we should just tell you about - and as...

A quick sniff of our virtual roses

Someone commented to me before Christmas on how, having won a mile-stone piece of business, they wer...

New year - new recruit (& some clear MI)

Towards the end of last year we set about recruiting to expand our development capability (which has...

Here's to the best Recruitment (UK) blog of 2009

Before we all get swept up in the New Year we thought we'd just salute an evergreen presence in the...

Festive times, busy times, happy & sad times

As we approach the end of the year it is of course generally a time for reflection on the year passe...

It's why we do it

It's been a tough couple of weeks (hence the recent silence on here and other social media avenues)...

Are you a Junior Web Developer?

Are you:nn looking for an opportunity to prove yourself?n interested in getting in early with someth...

Heinz Meanz (no) Seamz

One of the things that Alex and Tony told me about 3D MarComms and HARBOUR was the speed at which th...

CareerSiteAdvisor Recruiter Cast 23/09/09

OK - week 2 and I'm like Johnny 5 in Short Circuit - input, input and more input!  (furrowed brow? c...

THEO PAPHITIS: Millionaire, Dragon, rubbish employer, hypocrite & Social Media dufus

Last week I read an article from the Daily Mail (a link I followed I don't hesitate to add) from the...

So that was the summer then?

It's been far too long since I put pad to key in regards to this ere company blog  but hey, sometime...

A new dimension to 3D MarComms

It's with a great big smile across my face that I can reveal some of the most exciting news for 3D M...

Harbour-ats.com launched with a flash and a bang

Last Friday we pushed live our ATS product site www.harbour-ats.com.At last we have a proper face to...

Are we nearly there yet?!

Not only is this the question I've heard alot lately as I drove down to South Wales with the family...

Zappos - Employer Brand leaders & Customer Service gods in action

OK â“ Iâ™ve been itching for ages to write about what I believe is probably my favourite compa...

HARBOUR ATS ready to go truly "entry level"

We've been on the road for the past couple of weeks telling a lot of people about HARBOUR® - to w...

"Recruiting people with tattoos" and other searching questions & debate

If you've never come across Sirona Consulting's blog (Sirona Says) but like a regular good thought p...

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us (etc etc)

Well - here we are then.nn1 year - 12 months - 365 days - 8760 hours - 525,948 minutesnnNot exactly...

Some thoughts on corporate recruitment blogging

I recently contributed the following to an ONREC magazine article (if/when I spot it online I'll add...

No matter the medium - some people can't help themselves but revert to shouting

If you’re a twitterer or read blogs of people who are you’ll almost certainly have com...

HARBOUR ATS - time to pull back the curtain

It's been a long time coming, certainly from this side of the fence, but HARBOUR is finally at a sta...

Why you ignore "pretty design" at your peril - whatever you build

My founding partner in crime, Tony, came across this post and whilst the original is very much worth...

Sometimes a seasonally re-skinned site just isn't enough

If you've popped into this site a few times since we launched it back in the autumn of last year you...

The end of Advertising agencies as we know them

This is pretty much a completely lifted article by Sean Carton posted on ClickZ.com, but I just thou...

My my, how a month flies!

I knew it had been a while since I'd got anything written on this ole blog, but could scarcely belie...

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