Beyond the Job Board: Lorraine Ali and Placr Recruitment Join Connected100
Today's blog comes from new Connected100 member Lorraine Ali, founder of Placr Recruitment, a specialist recruitment agency based in Brighton. Lorraine introduces herself, shares her unplanned move to Brighton and her background before recruitment, and introduces her business partner, Michelle, who brings more than 25 years of recruitment experience to Placr. Together, they explain why the best candidates are often the ones who aren't even looking.
Placr Recruitment is delighted to join Connected100 and become part of such a driven community of local businesses.
I'm Lorraine Ali, founder of Placr Recruitment, where I work alongside my business partner, Michelle. Our tagline is simple: the right people, not more people. That's the philosophy behind everything we do, and it's why we're excited to be joining Connected100.
An unplanned start in Brighton
I was born in Northern Ireland, and I moved to Brighton in 1996, completely unplanned. Nearly thirty years later, it's home. I'm married to Kausar, and life at home involves our two French bulldogs, Ronnie and Roxy, who keep things entertaining. I've played senior level sport over the years, hockey, football and table tennis, so it's fair to say I'm a little competitive. High energy, people-driven and community focused sums me up pretty well.
Not just a recruiter
Before Placr, I built and scaled businesses, led teams of over 100 people, and worked on improving operations and performance from the inside. I've got a coaching and leadership background too, which shapes how I work with both clients and candidates. Most importantly, I've seen first-hand what a bad hire costs a business—in time, money and morale—and that's exactly what I set up Placr to prevent.
Meet Michelle
Michelle is my business partner at Placr and brings more than 25 years of recruitment experience to the business. Her depth of industry knowledge, instinct for people and long-standing commitment to doing recruitment properly are a huge part of what makes our partnership work. Michelle lives in Shoreham with her son and, like me, believes recruitment should always be personal, honest and focused on finding the right long-term fit—not simply filling a vacancy.
The talent iceberg
Here's how I explain what Placr actually does.
Picture an iceberg. The small bit above the water is your active candidates, the people on Indeed, sending out CVs, applying for roles. That's where most businesses fish when they're hiring.
But underneath the water is a much bigger group. These are people who are already employed, doing well, not applying for anything, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't move for the right opportunity. Most businesses never even see them, because they're not advertising, they're not on the job boards, and they're not going to answer an ad.
That's where Placr comes in. We go looking below the surface.
Why headhunting beats "post and pray"
The traditional way of hiring is post an advert, wait, receive CVs, filter them, then interview whoever applied. It's a passive approach, and it only reaches people who were already looking.
Headhunting works differently. It means identifying the right people first, researching who's doing similar work well elsewhere, approaching them directly, starting a genuine conversation, understanding what would actually make them move, and then making the case for your business.
One approach waits for talent. The other goes and finds it.
My favourite sentence to hear is, ‘Thanks Lorraine, but I'm not looking for a new job.’ Because we don't need someone to be looking. We just need them to be interested enough to have a conversation.
Who I want to meet
We specialise in placing people across Engineering & Technical, Manufacturing, Construction & Property, Finance & Financial Services, IT, Digital & Telecoms, Sales, Marketing & Business Development.
Don't refer us someone who needs a job. Refer us a business that needs the right person.
If you ever hear a business owner say, ‘We can't find anyone decent,’ ‘We've had the job advertised for months,’ or ‘There's someone we'd love to get but they're not applying anywhere,’ that's our perfect referral. You don't need to remember every sector on that list—just introduce us, and we'll work out whether we can help.
Why Connected100
Community has always mattered to me, and that's exactly what drew me to Connected100. It's a network built on genuinely supporting local businesses rather than transactional networking, and after years of building relationships across Brighton, that felt like exactly the right fit.
We're looking forward to meeting more of the businesses in this network. If you're struggling to fill a role, or simply want to know where the best candidates might actually be hiding, we'd love to chat.
Website: www.placrcruitment.co.uk
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