Background to the Exercise 

Jugo are part of GDS Group, an award winning, global digital event business, dedicated to helping clients meet the challenges posed by a fast-moving, digital business environments. Due to significant investment, they recently launched a brand-new SaaS platform product utilising enterprise technology and VR / game tech.  From their brand-new tech hub in Leeds, their world-class team would be responsible for building this greenfield product and disrupting the virtual event market.

Why Hotfoot?

Hotfoot have been established and active in the north of England for twenty years, working on niche technical requirements for some of the world’s biggest names, as well as start-ups and SMEs. The Directors play a hands-on role in Hotfoot’s targeted recruitment campaigns, and their highly experienced recruiters are adept at filling some of the most challenging roles in the tech market.

Hotfoot pride themselves on their expertise, market knowledge and commitment. Their long-lasting relationships are a testament to the success of their approach, with many clients continuing to use Hotfoot at multiple companies and over several years.

Hotfoot’s recruitment campaigns come with the guarantee of years of experience, and the backing of unbeatable market knowledge. Hotfoot’s recruitment methods are tried and tested, but they also appreciate the unique recruitment challenges that each business can face, and tailor their approach accordingly. Hotfoot will represent and promote your business as a recruitment brand in the best way possible and put together a tailored strategy to successfully fill the most challenging technical roles.

The Requirements

Hotfoot were tasked with building a development team including Principal, Senior and Mid-level Developers and Platform Engineers. In addition to this, they were tasked with recruiting a Test Lead and a Senior Software Engineer in Test, a Product Principal, a Scrum Master, and a team of Product Managers / Business Analysts.

Tech Stack: JavaScript/ React.js and Java / AWS

The Challenge

It was clear from the outset that recruitment advertising and / or recruitment agency databases would not produce the calibre or number of candidates required.

Jugo’s lack of presence in Yorkshire, as a new and unknown brand, presented a further challenge. Hotfoot’s job was not only to attract and engage the best talent to the new Jugo development hub, but also to promote Jugo’s exciting product and vibrant culture to prospective candidates, passive jobseekers, and to the Leeds tech scene in general.

Jugo employees are required to be in the office for a minimum of 3 days a week, in order to build an established team and foster a collaborative culture. This presented a challenge in that Hotfoot could only consider candidates within a commuting distance of Leeds, and also discounted any candidates who wished to work fully remotely.

Jugo’s product, a VR SaaS events platform, sometimes proved a tough sell in the initial approach. Passive candidates, in secure jobs, are less likely to move to a company that carries any element of risk, and metaverse products are still fairly untested. Added to this were the general recruitment challenges in the UK in 2022 - economic uncertainty, a cost of living crisis, and soaring energy bills making people wary of leaving secure employment.

The Solution

In order to proactively recruit the best candidates on the market, Hotfoot proposed a retained, ongoing headhunt campaign. This comprised of an intensive, full-time executive search exercise combined with a non-recruitment branded event which was managed and conducted by Hotfoot’s established events brand – “Northern Tech Events”.

The Event

In July 2022 Hotfoot’s events brand, Northern Tech Events, hosted a Jugo-branded tech event with the aim of promoting Jugo within the Leeds tech community. The event included tech talks by Jugo employees and the invitees were a hand-picked list of the best and brightest talents in the Leeds tech scene, invited personally by the NTE team. The event was well attended and received excellent feedback from Jugo and the attendees.

The Campaign

The success of the campaign was predicated on strong communication between Hotfoot and Jugo’s CTO, Dan Whiteley, and his senior leadership team. Hotfoot’s research consultant worked full time on the campaign, producing longlists of candidates for Dan and the team’s approval, and approaching each candidate with a personalised, targeted headhunt message. After an initial screening call with Hotfoot’s Director, the candidate then had an introductory call with Dan, followed by a meeting at Jugo’s office. Feedback and offers were handled by Hotfoot’s Director, to ensure a consistent and seamless experience for the candidate.

The Result

Jan 2022 – Jan 2023: 21 roles filled

Development Team:   2 Principal Developers

                                    3 Senior Developers

                                    4 Mid-level Developers

Platform Team:           1 Principal Platform Engineer

                                    4 Senior Platform Engineers (one later promoted to Principal)

Test Team:                  1 Test Lead

                                    1 Senior Software Engineer in Test

Product / BA Team:    1 Principal Product Manager

                                    2 Senior Product Managers

                                    1 Business Analyst

                                    1 Scrum Master