David Faik

Cisco is enjoying a period of fast growth driven by innovation and sales. It is the brand leader in networking.

My function is to manage the recruitment of European Theatre vacancies into Cisco for areas including Finance, Leasing, Human Resources, Legal, ICT and Communications into Sales. I have a great team supporting me in this function.

Cisco is an employer of choice, with particularly attractive employee benefits and a big focus on training and development.

Globally Cisco made over 10,000 hires last year. So feel free to get in touch even if you are seeking career opportunities at Cisco outside of my direct area of responsibility, as I can refer you to the appropriate contact.

Essent is a major European electricity supplier. Essent Trading ( www.essenttrading.com ) is an Essent company that trades commodities like electricity, gas, coal, carbon emissions market, foreign exchange, freight and so on.

Having aggregated several commodities and financial services products under one roof, Essent Trading has decided to expand which involves dramitically increasing its headcount.

My role is to energise the recruitment process: when I started slow talent acquisition was a brake on the business plan. This has involved the employer brand (esp regards attracting foreign nationals), agency management, recruitment process redesign, referral programme, selection approach, career site, MBA hiring programme etc. (i.e. very broad remit)

Worldhotels is the world's fastest growing group of independent hotels and local hotel groups.

The talent project is to help Worldhotels offer a shared Human Resource Information System and HR Services to its member hotels to allow them hire more effectively over the internet and to exchange staff. My work involved:

* Strategic Consulting: challenging the business plan & sales strategy development.
* Process Consulting: dealing with technology providers and Worldhotels members to devise solution(s) that work across different businesses, languages, legal environments, time zones, practices etc.

Successfully set out a solution that was adopted by the board.

Won / on occasions delivered new business at 3, ARM, Bentley Motors, Leadership Trust, O2, Reed Elsevier and Smith & Nephew. In 2005 responsible for £452,000 of assignments (£189,000 invoiced and £263,000 booked 2006). Developed 5 strategic accounts from scratch. Was the only employee to win assignments with new client contacts that Getfeedback had not worked with (received commendation). Won employee award for self development.

Created product collateral and process guides. Subjects inc employee research. Developed action-based surveying approach giving management action plans rather than the typical ‘sounding’ of employee opinions (three case studies). Developed method to help organisations create meaningful behaviour frameworks that were embraced and used by leaders (four case studies). Created sales force analytics approach in big blue chip for selection and succession (i.e. which of many measures predict high performance). Press interviews with CNBC & HRMagazine.

Six years of challenging assignments across Europe in Telecoms, Software, Automotive, Outsourcing and Finance sectors:

2004 MOTABILITY FINANCE: 9 months
HR Project Manager: Payroll Outsourcing & HRIS Implementation
2003 HRM SOFTWARE: Short Contract UK
Project to find sales partners in France & Spain: HR Software
2003 CONSENSUS SOFTWARE: Short Contract UK
Product Manager: Learning Management Software (LMS)
2001 - 2003 MSX INTERNATIONAL Contract: 3 + 12 months
Staffing Industry Consultant: Germany & Netherlands
European Recruitment Manager (Ford's Managed Agency Service) UK
2001 GLOBAL HEALTHCARE EXCHANGE: 6+1 Months Belgium Interim European HR Manager
2000 - 2001 VERSAPOINT: 3+1 Months Netherlands Technical Recruitment: DSL Broadband Telecoms (now Versatel)
2000 FORMUS COMMUNICATIONS: 6 Months Netherlands
Senior Recruitment: Broadband Wireless Telecoms
1998 - 2000 OAO TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS: 3+6+6+3 Months
UK HR Manager: IT Outsourcing (for IBM and Compaq)

First UK hire into the business (large US company). Set up one of the major UK technology recruiting houses from scratch.