CEO & Co-Founder
New team member – Liam Fogerty – Web Master & Multi-Channel Manager
Please tell us about your organisation. Why did you need to bring someone into the team?
TheVeganKind is a family-run business co-founded in 2013 by myself and my wife Karris. We now work with a team of visionaries in the Glasgow office and warehouse environment. The company is at the forefront of taking veganism to the masses and making a completely cruelty-free lifestyle feel accessible to all.
TheVeganKind is now two rapidly growing businesses in one — Europe’s largest dedicated Vegan Subscription Box Service which includes a monthly Lifestyle Box and bimonthly Beauty Box as well as UK’s leading Online Vegan Supermarket which ships vegan cheese, burgers, steaks, doughnuts and more to thousands of delighted customers in the UK and beyond.
As an organisation, we were starting to have more complex needs. As we have gotten bigger, we have more software, more development needs, and more ‘tech’. This particular role was for someone who could come in and understand coding and development to ensure we are harnessing all of our currently utilised software, to the best of our ability.
Why did you choose to hire a graduate intern for this role?
We just knew that as this was a specialised role, we were going to need some assistance finding the right candidate. As a small business, this is a key role, and one that would be difficult for us to fill given we personally lack coding and development experience.
How did you hear about AAI and what was the process like working with us?
We heard about AAI when we won Scottish EDGE in December 2017. The process was really smooth. We laid out the role in question, the type of person we were looking for and what skills we would ideally like them to have and then AAI got to work with promotion and shortlisting candidates for us. We were presented with the top 3, who we took to interviews, with Liam coming out on top.
Please tell us about your new team member. In what ways did they contribute to your business? How did they fit in with the existing team?
Liam has a real can-do attitude and is very autonomous in his working. He is a real team player and happy to take on any tasks that are put in front of him.
He is a super fast learner, which means he can be left to his own devices in a lot of ways. He has fit in perfectly with the team and already has a very busy workload.
When we interviewed Liam, he had taken one of the problems we had listed on our job advert, signed up for a demo of some software we use, and then live in the interview demonstrated that he A) understood the issue fully, and B) had done some programming to fix the problem and make it go away.
It was a real hands-on approach, and won him the job. It took guts to do that, and really proved he had the skills we needed. Our outsourced developer was in the room at the interview, and he co-signed that what Liam had demonstrated in front of us was the correct route to fix the problem, and that Liam knew his stuff.
What is the most valuable thing that you learned from your experience of hiring through AAI?
That it saves me a lot of time, and gives you access to a pool of candidates who are pro-actively seeking the line of work you are offering. It allowed us to concentrate on running our business while the candidates were sourced on our behalf.
What would you say to other employers about using graduate internships to find talent?
I would say go for it! AAI will find you the right person, for sure 🙂 We enjoyed working with them so much, we have since used them a second time for a Customer Service role.
Want to find out what AAI can do for your business? Talk to us today.
