Background.

SW Education provides specialist care and education for children and young people with complex needs. Recruiting for these roles isn’t easy; candidates need qualifications, resilience, emotional intelligence, and a genuine passion for helping young people who’ve experienced trauma.

SW Education first partnered with Flat Fee Recruiter in October 2023 and has since relied on us to fill multiple roles while keeping costs down and avoiding the admin burden of traditional recruitment agencies.

As Andy Simms, the CEO, explained.

“You’ve definitely had more success than we’ve experienced previously. In terms of value for money, I rank Flat Fee Recruiter very highly… Do you deliver successful campaigns? Yes. Those boxes are great and ticking.”

 

Their priorities included.

• • Attracting candidates with the right motivation and long-term commitment (‘stick-ability’).

  • Finding people who are able to handle high-trauma environments calmly and professionally.

  • Keeping costs down while avoiding high-percentage agency fees.

  • Freeing up time for the leadership team to focus on running the organisation.

Operational constraints, including long delays in Ofsted registration, meant Andy had to be careful about overstaffing.

“The danger for me is I take on a full staff team, and they’ve got nothing to do for months… the costs are so enormous.”

Our approach.

We designed a targeted campaign that took the entire first stage of recruitment off SW Education’s hands.

 

1. Full advertising management.

• • Created separate adverts for Care Worker and Senior Care Worker roles to reduce mismatched applicants.

  • Optimised job titles for search (e.g. ‘Support Worker’ instead of internal terms).

  • Ran branded advertising on Reed, Totaljobs, CV-Library and other relevant boards.

  • Took over full management of SW Education’s Indeed account, including posting roles, optimising listings, and managing candidate communications.

  • Directed and pulled all candidate applications into the Flat Fee Applicant Tracking System (FFATS) for a compliant and consistent candidate journey and one-stop process for SW Education.

 

2. Proactive sourcing.

• • Database searching and outreach on Reed, CV-Library and Totaljobs.

  • Targeted LinkedIn outreach to approach suitable candidates directly.

 

3. Rigorous screening.

• • Quick qualification calls with relevant candidates.

  • Mandatory ‘safer recruitment’ application forms to filter timewasters.

  • In-depth competency and culture-fit interviews to assess resilience, motivation and suitability for a high-trauma care setting, including role-specific questions, such as:

    • “What makes you confident that you can stay committed through tough times?”

    • “Why do you want to work with teenagers who have experienced trauma?”

    • “What are the most important leadership qualities when working with children who’ve experienced trauma?”

 

4. Admin & candidate management.

• • Sent application forms to shortlisted candidates and chased for completion.

  • Passed only fully vetted, ready-to-interview candidates to Andy’s hiring team.

 

“I don’t really give a monkeys what works, because one month it seems to be this, the next month something else. I just want somebody else to deal with all the hassle, take it away, and you guys do that.”

The result.

The hiring team interviewed some great candidates and successfully filled their positions despite the location and sector challenges. Andy praised both the process and the partnership:

“I am very pleased… well done on chasing me, that comes across brilliantly. One email a week to say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ is all I need. I don’t want to be badgered, but it makes me feel like things are happening.”

He also reaffirmed the value of the relationship:

“In terms of marketing our vacancies and working in partnership to get these candidates across the line, you’re top of our list now… Once I feel the buttons are going hot for the next round, I will be in touch”

Why it worked.

By taking complete control of the advertising, their company Indeed account, candidate sourcing and early-stage screening, we freed SW Education from the operational hassle of recruitment while ensuring only qualified, motivated candidates reached their interview process.

This meant Andy and his team could focus on business priorities and trust that recruitment was being handled professionally, proactively and cost-effectively.