Chrissie McLaren, Founder of CM Event Recruitment discusses the founding of her business.
CM Event Recruitment is an events recruitment agency run by Chrissie McLaren, its Founder, and Richie McLaren, its Operations Manager: “I founded CM Event Recruitment because I didn’t like how recruitment agencies treat staff,” Chrissie explained. “Listening to what casual members of staff were saying, sometimes they would arrive at an event and be told they weren’t needed anymore with no warning. There was a lot of dishonesty and ticking boxes. Both Richie and I have been registered with agencies before, so we have first-hand experience with how unfairly staff are sometimes treated, though of course, not every agency is like that. I set up CM Event Recruitment to treat both our staff and customers better than some agencies do.”
Now, 11 years on from its founding CM Event Recruitment is going strong, thanks largely to the dedication of Chrissie and Richie: “I’ve been working in recruitment for 20 years, and I’ve known Richie for 11 years. We got married a couple of years ago, and Richie became involved in the business in November 2019, but he’s always been in the background. People don’t necessarily look at us as a husband and wife business because it’s not. Technically it’s mine, but the fact is we run it together.”
“This isn’t just a job for us,” Chrissie said. “We get so many compliments about how much we actually care. We bought a seven seater car just so that we can take staff to events if they don’t drive. We’ve had a call at ten o’clock at night before from one of our clients who desperately needed staff because one of their managers had left suddenly due to an argument. Even though it was late we sorted that out for them because we actually care. We also skills test all of our staff before we send them out, and we match them with positions that are suitable. So if somebody has never donea big VIP wedding before, there’s no way we’d just throw them into that situation, because it’s not fair to the staff or the client.” Contact Events@cmrecruitment.agency for more information about CM Event Recruitment’s service
