Matching people with jobs is not an easy thing to do. Britt Reiss enjoys the challenge of the role so much that she's been doing it for 16 years. The president of The James Partnership spoke with The Royal Gazette's Alex Wright about her life in the recruitment business.

Recruitment consultancy has been a way of life for Britt Reiss since she started out in the industry 16 years ago.

A typical day for the president of The James Partnership, whose parent company is BermudaREcruit, could involve everything from face-to-face meetings with clients and interviewing job candidates to searching for the right people to fill the right roles and holding staff meetings to keep abreast of the latest projects her employees are working on.

One day she might be asked by a client to look for a candidate to fill a position, to use the company's redundancy counselling service, help them with an immigration matter or even carry out a psychometric test. Some days they might just want to run an idea for their corporate strategy past her.

Ms Reiss graduated from university and was all set to go to law school, but decided she did not want to study for another four years and having talked to some of her friends already in the sector, thought it would be interesting to embark on a career in recruitment.

She applied for a job with Hays, a recruitment agency, at the time ranked 73rd in the FTSE list of companies, was called in for an interview, and was so impressed by her interviewer that she made it her ambition to quite literally do her job.

"The lady that interviewed me at the time was impressive and I thought: 'Wow, I want to be her'," she said.

"The company sounded very exciting and dynamic and their training was second to none."

Having got through a gruelling interview process which took several days, Ms Reiss was offered the job and grabbed the opportunity with both hands, starting out as a recruitment consultant and quickly moving up the ranks to the role of business director.

"I took to it like a duck to water and enjoyed it thoroughly," she said.

"I was fast promoted to a management position and was soon running a region in the UK."

But Ms Reiss, who had lived as an expatriate in the Middle East in the past, really longed to experience another adventure overseas and responded to an advert in a recruitment magazine for a job with The James Partnership, which was part of Ernst & Young at the time, in Bermuda, which she was promptly presented with and accepted.

"I loved the job, but I wanted to get the Wanderlust over with," she said. "The plan was to come out initially for three years, during which time my remit was to develop the office — I increased turnover by 200 percent in the first year and helped with the set-up of the Bermuda Career Centre, a dedicated facility for professionals — and here I am 10 years later."

When Ernst & Young spun off The James Partnership three years ago to avoid independence issues, Ms Reiss took charge of the company and the rest is history. "What really drives me in this role is that it is so rewarding to see your clients flourish because you have found them the right people and the candidates really light up being in the right position," she said.

"What recruiters enjoy most is finding people that next career challenge.

"You could never get me out of recruitment — even if I won the lottery tomorrow I would still be at work the next day because I love the job so much.

"I have been in the recruitment game for 16 years and I have not got bored with it yet, I still enjoy it and it is wonderful to hear from people moving up the career ladder calling in to get their replacements or just staying in touch, and many of our clients have also become good friends.

"To do this job you have got to love people and have a certain intuition for what a person is really looking for, but ultimately let them decide what they want.

"But it is so enjoyable to work with a team that are excited about their jobs — it is hard work and a lot of negotiating, but it is just so rewarding."

The James Partnership, which consists of five employees as well as outsourced departments, focuses mainly on the re/insurance, banking, hedge fund, accounting (including the Big Four firms) and legal industries, as well as local businesses, according to Ms Reiss.

"We actually deal with a wide range of clients in terms of their industry backgrounds, but where we remain consistent is with helping them with their professional staffing requirements," she said.

"This could include finding group financial controllers, chief financial officers and human resource professionals for management teams at local companies and technical re/insurance staff for the exempt companies."

It also offers career advice, such as if the person is in the right role, is being remunerated the right amount and is in the right job, in addition to the options available to those who have been or are about to be made redundant or are simply looking for a new move, said Ms Reiss.

The a key part of the business is hiring for senior to middle management posts, said Ms Reiss, but it also sources support staff, as well as attending and speaking at conferences on industry trends. "We have an excellent recruitment system in place, which means that really we should be able to grab someone off the street, sit them down at the desk and match them up with the right job or person for their company," she said.

"Anybody that answers the phone here should be able to answer a client's query."

Among the biggest changes Ms Reiss has seen during her time in recruitment have been an increase in the number of females in the industry, more Bermudians occupying mid- to senior-level positions and the impact of the economic crisis.

"I think with Bermuda we really just need to unite to hammer home what a professional lot we are, that we can provide excellent service and companies are welcome here," she said.

Her greatest challenges have ranged from facing up to executives in boardroom meetings who thought her name was male and were expecting a man to turn up but got a shock when they found out it was her instead, to proving her doubters wrong when finding a top blue-chip company a new chief financial officer. Her proudest achievements encompass becoming a Fellow at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

She has also seen everything from discovering why an accountant for a Big Four firm was so keen to move to one of the company's big rivals — because he was having an affair with a employee there. Ms Reiss, whose husband is Bermudian and still works at Ernst & Young, where they first met, as a partner specialising in public reinsurance companies, has a 22-month old son who keeps her busy and whom she describes as "my biggest challenge yet". Outside work, she also enjoys playing the flute, attending her book club, supporting Masterworks and her husband's fund-raising efforts for the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

A big fan of travel, in particular visiting the English and Scottish countryside, Ms Reiss also plans to become more active in her work for the Women's Resource Centre in the future.

For now though she is relishing the challenge that the cut-and-thrust world of recruitment presents her on a daily basis.