At Zookel we believe that existing model for online recruitment is broken and that when it comes to careers social networks don’t quite cut the mustard! Controversial we know, but let’s face it:

• Candidates find it difficult to stand out amongst the noise.
• Employers find it difficult to identify the best candidates.
• Neither party is able to easily leverage their biggest asset – i.e. their own network.
• Social networks leave us wondering what people are going to dig up.
• Social recruitment sites, to date, have spent more time worrying about how to build a network instead of how to leverage the networks that candidates already use.

Zookel has been built to address these shortfalls and to provide candidates and employers alike with a Social Recruitment solution that really works. How? By:

• Harnessing the power of existing social networks (including Facebook, LinkedIn etc) to provide candidates with more opportunities (including unpublicised ones), and to provide employers with the tools to tackle the Holy Grail of recruitment – employee referrals.
• Providing forums for candidates & employers to ask questions, interact, give & get feedback and gain insight (straight from the horses mouth).
• Allowing candidates to use advanced tools incl. psychometric profiles and video CV’s to gain more insight into their career motivations and showcase their personality.
• Providing access to a range of additional tools, including 3.9 million company profiles & hundreds of salary benchmarks, allowing them to be better informed and more prepared for interviews and / or job offers.
• Allowing companies to manage their own corporate recruitment profile.

Zookel – powering Social Recruitment

Our values aren’t glamorous or funny (generally we think the guys in the drinks industry do this best), they are however important as the guiding principles that we’ve used to build the business and set us on our way.

Work Hard & Smart
We work hard, take risks, seek innovation and use technology with a singular focus = to solve our users & clients recruitment needs.

Constantly Evolve
We push boundaries, challenge conventional wisdom and explore new opportunities with energy and passion. We don’t rest on our laurels and truly believe the best way to affect positive change is to drive towards it relentlessly.

Impatience can be a virtue
We want to be better - not tomorrow, not next week or next year but today. We will strive to consistently improve our product offerings for both candidates and employers.

Be resource efficient
We believe Zookel is a less resource intensive recruitment tool. Removing the need for printed job ads, and improving recruitment speed and processes are the start points in our commitment to reducing our environmental impact wherever possible

Share success
We believe in the sharing in the success of Zookel™. We therefore give each staff member a number of ‘community days’ each year to volunteer to a cause of their choice & we donate 10% of all profits to charitable causes.

Sound like your kind of place?
We’re always looking for creative, ambitious and talented individuals to come and join us. So if you want a role where you’re encouraged to take risks, work with great people and be part of a revolutionary new business that you can be proud of, join Zookel now and send a link to your profile to hr@Zookel.com

Of course to make Zookel succeed, we need brilliant people who create, inspire, challenge and most of all help us deliver for both our users and our clients.

Our Founder & CEO –

Paul Duggan
Paul does not sell himself well on paper. In person he’s been told he’s charming, enthusiastic and at times brilliant – however he’s far to modest to ever allow someone to write this.

Paul’s early career achievements saw him promoted to be the UK MD of IMP - a $500mil business publishing collectible series through direct marketing channels across 20 countries - at the age of 26. In this position Paul was responsible for the development and implementation of a turnaround strategy which resulted in double digit increases in revenue & net profits, the implementation of improved management discipline, and the businesses initial diversifications into new online ventures.

More recently Paul has taken an active angel investor in a range of successful start-up and early stage companies including: clientplus.com, monumentaladventures.com and mySapient, whilst continuing to be an active senior level advisor to a range of companies including LexisNexis and Goldclipper (an innovative CRM company serving The Guardian amongst others).

Having founded Zookel, Paul is continuing to drive the young company forward by taking on the mantle of CEO.  Paul is originally from Australia, but has lived and worked in Sweden, France, Germany, Australia, the US and the UK.

Our Advisory Board –

David Holmes

David is a senior executive helping clients improve their performance in today’s changing, competitive environment by advising and supporting executives in key positions. With a diverse range of well know clients including Phones4U, BT, Alcatel, Reuters, Royal Bank of Scotland, Grant Thornton, B&Q, and Freemantle Media to name a few, David brings 30 years of his successful business career to bear on advising clients on their own career and on selecting the right candidates for key roles.

Prior to devoting his time to coaching and mentoring David was CEO and a Holding Board Director of Dorling Kindersley (DK) for eight years and was a key member of the Board during a period of rapid expansion and the revolution in information technology. In addition David is Chairman of Make Believe Ideas Limited, an international packager of children’s books and games.

‘I value the wise advice of David Holmes – the first consultant we have ever hired that we admired!  - Dame Anita Roddick

Josh Bottomley

As Managing Director, Josh is responsible for LexisNexis' UK & Ireland operations including Butterworths, Tolley, Visualfiles and LexisNexis News & Business. With over 1000 staff in the UK, LexisNexis is the leading provider of client development, research, productivity management and compliance services to legal, tax and other knowledge-driven professionals.  

Prior to his role at LexisNexis, Josh was CEO of IMP Europe. In this position Josh was responsible for re-organising the business to generate industry leading margins.  As a director of the Financial Times Group (Pearson), he had responsibility across the publishing, online and data businesses during the most successful period in the FT Group's history. He previously spent seven years working internationally in professional services for Goldman Sachs and McKinsey.

Josh has a degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, an MBA with distinction from INSEAD and enjoys sailing and spending time with his family.

Lesley Blume

As Global HR Director of Skype, Lesley was instrumental in growing the company from just 52 to over 300 employees in just over 18 months. Lesley has joined the advisory board of Zookel in order to continue her focus on helping new companies find talented and committed staff who possess the drive and ambition to bring new technologies to the market.

Lesley is a HR professional and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (MCIPD), with a proven track record spanning 20 years in finding valuable and qualified individuals across business disciplines as well as implementing HR Policies and procedures within greenfield situations.

‘My greatest pride and achievement has been working with great visionaries such as Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis of Skype - truly inspirational’

Matt Heiman

Matt is a serial entrepreneur with board positions / angel investor undertakings in numerous successful start-up and early stage companies including: JustGiving.com, Mobix Interactive (£200m+ first year turnover), Diagonal View (the largest content library globally), HSO (HighSpeed Office) and mySapient (a world-class MMOG). 

Alongside his entrepreneurial undertakings Matt is an active advisor to the UK media sector with clients including: Channel 4, The Cloud, and O2, and further donates a significant portion of his time to charitable causes & educational activities including currently advising an MBA group at the Judge School, Cambridge.

Matt O'Neill

Matt is president of AdMonsters LLC (the only professional association dedicated exclusively to online advertising operations and technology), where he has been responsible for helping to take AdMonsters from a few yearly conferences to an all-encompassing global ad operations resource with operations in both the US & Europe.

Prior to joining Admonsters Matt spent nearly 6 years at Yahoo!, Inc where amongst other things he led Yahoo!’s exploration of online Reach & Frequency advertising delivery, championed an industry-wide initiative including agencies, ad serving companies, and publishers to explore the feasibility of a universal ad measurement system, and directed Yahoo!’s Pricing & Yield Management team across Europe.

“Mat is truly one of the great thinkers of our time! And he is one of the hardest working people you will ever encounter” Director Industry Relations, Yahoo!