Supporting The Construction Industry with Key Hires since 1998

We have been using Harvey Jacob for both our permanent and freelance recruitment needs since 2007. Simon had been recommended to contact us by an old colleague of ours whom he had been recruiting for in Australia, prior to returning to the UK to set up Harvey Jacob. We specialise in Design & Build fit outs for Life Sciences. A lot of our projects involve repurposing existing commercial space and requires teams that understand the clients’ requirements, able to design and deliver projects to a high specification. Due to our expertise in this area, we were recently acquired by a global Fit Out business to act as their UK specialist within the Life Sciences sector. Harvey Jacob have always provided a professional and consultative approach, taking the time to get to know the business to allow them to find suitable candidates. As it is sometimes difficult to find the ideal candidate, they will think outside the box and present candidates to us with the rationale behind why they believe them to be a good fit. They have been very consistent in providing quality staff from Senior level roles to include Director level through middle management, from Pre-Construction, Estimating, Technical Services, Quantity Surveyors and Contracts Managers. Bulb Interiors would highly recommend the services of Harvey Jacob and will continue to use their services when recruiting.

This serves to confirm that I have known Simon Cross – Director of Harvey Jacob since 2009. Simon Cross has placed me in various roles over the years, both on a freelance and permanent basis. From the first time I spoke to Simon he delved deep into my experience, competence, strengths, and he made sure he placed me in a role that suited my experience and skillset. In 2014 he placed on a permanent role which allowed me to grow, and I was soon promoted to Senior Site Manager and onto Contracts Manager, I stayed in that position for 8 years. When I contemplated moving on, I knew that Harvey Jacob would be able to assist and they helped me get the role I have to date as a Project Manager running Industrial new builds / warehouses. Over the years Simon and the team at Harvey Jacob have also recruited people for the businesses I have worked at, to include Site Managers, Engineers and Quantity Surveyors. Harvey Jacob are very experienced and skilled at asking the right questions which allows them to either understand what you can do and have done in your career or when recruiting for a client, asking detailed questions to understand the client, their needs, to help them source suitable candidates to fit the businesses requirements. I can highly recommend Harvey Jacob as specialist Construction recruiters and 15 years on, I have no bad word to say about Simon Cross or the staff at Harvey Jacob.

The group has had a long standing and successful trading relationship with Harvey Jacob since 2014. All companies and in particular our large new build industrial business company, have relied heavily on Harvey Jacob to source appropriate, good quality candidates for some very large projects for our client a global food retailer around the UK and Simon and his team have always delivered for us. Harvey Jacob are one of just two partners that provide the spectrum of both temporary and permanent white-collar candidates needed by the business; including Site Managers, Health and Safety Managers, Design Managers, Contracts Managers, Engineers, Quantity Surveyors as well as more senior roles such as Operations Manager. We have always found Harvey Jacob's responsive and professional in approach, diligent in necessary background checks; always ensuring candidates have suitable qualifications, experience and approach to our way of working. We rarely find that candidates provided by them don’t ‘fit in’ and deliver for us. I think that is demonstration of how well Simon makes sure he understands the businesses he provides for and cares about the service his company provides and the reputation that service earns them.  We would highly recommend Harvey Jacob as a partner for both temporary and permanent staff recruitment as the service that we have received from them over the last 10 years has been excellent.

Simon has recruited Freelance technical construction staff for me over the last 7-8 years; mostly freelance but I have also engaged the odd person on a temp – perm basis. I have always found that Simon is good at taking on board the type of individual I am looking for and on the whole delivers with a good degree of success. I find that Simon is honest about the knowledge of his candidates and gives me as much information as he can about the individual in order to make me feel comfortable that the candidate meets the specification I originally out lined to him. All in all I trust Simon and this is important as it means I can give him the information and know that 9 times out of 10 he will deliver the right person.

While I have been working for Simon Cross I have been in the very fortunate position.  Due to what I would like to think was a good pairings of client requirements and the placement of a manager,  Simon has managed to keep me in work even through this credit crunch. I have been working for Simon now continuously for over 2 ½ years and am pleased to say that Simon has a very good reputation within his clients for providing the right personnel for their needs. For my part meeting Simon and working on a freelance basis through his business has been the best career choice I have made. I have had the opportunity to work along side some of the best in the industry. I myself have worked on Two projects with a contract value of 20 Million plus. On the last major project I was involved in I was asked by the Construction Manager if Simon could provide additional managers to assist with the project, I was joined by two other Managers to assist, one in the role of finishing manager and a further site manager to assist with the M+E. Both the managers had been with working or known to Simon for a number of years and both proved to be a success, one of the managers are already on another project with me for the same contractor. To close, Simon is a professional recruiter with many experienced personnel at hand, and it is a pleasure to work with his business and be part of their success.

I have known Simon Cross for twelve years as a recruiter and have always found him to be committed to his clients and to his employees.  He always seeks a high calibre of employees in order to provide an excellent service for his clients. He is approachable and always available for his employees and works very hard to find them employment even in difficult times. I rate his professionalism and his friendship very highly and he is always my first choice for finding me suitable employment.  

I was made redundant xmas 2008 at the height of the economic crisis. I contacted many agents but due to the volume of candidates that were made redundant, agencies were overloaded and weren’t too interested and helpful in finding me a new role. Numerous phone calls and emails were left unanswered. However, I found Simon Cross would regularly update me with perspective job opportunities and was very swift in returning my phone calls. Simon was also very particular in matching my skill set with the clients requirements – this ensured that no time was wasted putting me across to a prospective employer who were looking for something else! (Happens very often). I was quite lucky that shortly after speaking to Simon, he found me a job which I am still enjoying!  

I have worked for Simon for 3 years and in that time he regularly visits me on the various sites to see that I was ok and to get a feel for the project. Simon is always on call for any problems he can help with and I look forward to working with Harvey Jacob for years to come.

Simon Cross has been providing me with a recruitment service for temporary staff for almost 10 years. I have always found that he listens carefully to the employers brief and is invariably successful in finding candidates to meet the requirements. He has gathered a broad knowledge of the Construction Industry and is also able to support his clients in developing the precise requirements of their recruitment needs. His polite and amiable manner enables him to maintain a close and regular contact in order that his candidates performances are reviewed, and that his services are on hand to meet the ever changing needs of his clients' business.