A RECRUITER for hi-tech businesses says it is beating Americans at their own game by placing US candidates in roles in US companies in the USA.

Poole-based executive search firm Oakstone International is reporting 400 per cent growth in US roles placed over the last two years compared with 2018-20.

The global software and fintech executive recruitment consultancy has a specialist division working exclusively on US hires from its offices in Poole.

This UK-based team of US expert recruiters secured 82 per cent of Oakstone’s US hires in the last 12 months.

Oakstone divisional director Andy Strong leads the expanding team, which works into the evening to cope with the time zone challenges.

He said: “It is hugely rewarding how much business we are winning and delivering in North America despite the fact that we are primarily based in the UK. We are delivering more roles in the US than ever before.

“The vast majority of our clients are North American-headquartered and we work with them on Europe-based projects, but it became apparent that they would also like to use us for internal US hires as well.

“Off the back of our delivery, having built trust in our quality, speed of work and results, we made it clear that we were as capable of hiring in the US as we are in Europe. Consequently we end up delivering for them domestically in the US too.”

Oakstone works for businesses such as Introhive, Korn Ferry, Coupa, Simpplr and Pagerduty in the US.

The firm, which has US satellite bases in Chicago and San Francisco and turns over one million US dollars in the states, says it has a 100 per cent delivery record on retained projects.

Mr Strong said it was still unusual for UK recruiters to place US candidates in US roles. It is estimated that less than 10 per cent of recruitment companies in the UK are doing work in north America – and the vast majority of Oakstone’s business competition was US domestic firms.

He added: “Clients that know and trust us and are benefitting from the services we provide to them. We ultimately have an opportunity to show that more US software companies can be benefitting from that.

“The objective we have now is to engage with US companies we don’t already deal with.”

He said Oakstone had built a built a business model before Covid-19 which did not rely purely on in-person meetings.

“Since Covid the need to meet face to face has diminished, not entirely, but the world has evolved and there are now no barriers. We can cover any part of the world,” he added.