Consultant takes on America's best in fight to be the top recruiter

Adam Razzell is the head of rail at Advanced Resource Managers, which has an office at Langstone Technology Park.

The 31-year-old was hand-picked as one of just two Europeans to appear in the American show called Top Recruiter.

The programme, which has found global success online, also features Dragons’ Den star James Caan and West Ham’s vice-chairwoman Karren Brady, who is also Small Business Ambassador to the UK government.

Adam was one of four contestants tasked with creating a plan to reinvent business recruitment – the two Europeans were then pitted against an American duo to determine which bloc had the top recruiters.

Adam said: ‘It was a challenge at first, and day one was daunting because as someone who hadn’t been in front of the camera before I wasn’t sure how to react.

‘After that first day, though, I relaxed a bit and learnt how to adapt to having a camera in front of me.

‘To have been selected as one of only two people to represent Europe felt like an acknowledgement of my recruitment and reflects well on UK recruitment across the industry.’

After four days filming in Nantes, France, production moved to The Painted Hall in London where Karren and James were present.

‘They were there at the final and are really nice people,’ said Adam.

‘They were great communicators, weren’t stand-offish and were happy to answer any questions we had and to give us some advice.’

Already a distinguished recruiter – winning recognition as a highly-recommended finalist during The Global Recruiter Awards 2016 – Adam hopes the experience will aid his future career.

‘To have gained the network of people at the show is invaluable,’ he said.

‘In my role I have to call CEOs and to be able to call some of the names involved with the programme and get their advice on things is great.

‘This will give me greater exposure in terms of my clients and potential customers so they will have a better idea about the work we do.’

The recruitment industry is estimated to be worth £32bn to the UK per year and Adam said he feels its importance can sometimes be forgotten.

‘Sometimes recruitment can be seen in a bad light,’ he said.

‘The show is about trying to showcase the good in recruitment and to put across that we do care.’

Top Recruiter is due to be aired on January 15 next year.

It will be initially launched on website recruiter.com before being aired online on website toprecruiter.tv

Executive producer Chris LaVoie said: ‘It is going to be massive. We are very excited about it.

‘Adam is a really clever guy and a good contestant.’