TWO former directors of the car supermarket group Carcraft, which was placed into administration last week, have come together to launch a new recruitment portal for ex-employees.
Based on a Facebook platform, the intention is to help around 500 former Carcraft employees to find work quickly within the industry.
Robin Bridge, director at Vehicle Trading Group, moved on from the Carcraft business in 2014, while Andy Coulthurst, managing director of Manheim-owned Motors.co.uk, was sales director of Carcraft until 2008.
Coulthurst started working for the Rochdale-based business as a car parts assistant when aged just 15.
Bridge and Coulthurst believe there are plenty of dealer jobs in the regions where Carcraft had locations. Their aim is simply to connect previous Carcraft employees with dealers looking to fill vacancies with experienced candidates.
Bridge will collate the CVs of interested people and has already more than 40 since posting a message on social media on Friday evening.
Coulthurst, with the assistance of his team at Motors.co.uk, will provide a hub from which former Carcraft employees and dealers can communicate.
Bridge said: ‘I set the ball rolling on Friday with a post on social media. Since then we have had a huge number of CVs come across and expect to see more in the coming days.
‘Key industry players have already stepped in, offering positions for sales executives, call-centre staff and IT-related roles. The next stage of boosting awareness and access should really help things move along.’
Coulthurst said: ‘The Motors.co.uk team set about creating a Facebook hub as soon as we opened for business on Tuesday morning. We will promote this hub to all our dealers by email before the end of the week and we will publish a summary of the candidates by job role and region.
‘Dealers will be able to post their vacancies on the hub and we will also provide a dedicated resource for a couple of weeks to update Facebook, forward CVs and respond to any queries from candidates or potential employers.’
The plan is already gaining support from the industry. Dylan Haskell of GardX contacted Car Dealer over the weekend and said: ‘It is fantastic to see the industry coming together to help.
‘There are some great people who worked for the Carcraft business and I am personally committed to spreading the word and pointing dealers at the new Facebook hub.’
Dealers and former Carcraft employees can access the hub at www.facebook.com/carcraftpeople
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