01/05/2026
Today marks IRP’s 20th anniversary, and it comes back to a simple question:
What does it actually take to get recruitment right?
Twenty years ago, while working in the industry, our Director and Founder Pete saw a clear gap in how recruitment was being done, and more importantly, what it was missing.
Recruitment was built around desks, not sites.
It was about volume, how many CVs went out today, not whether the right person was placed in the right environment.
Candidates would call asking where they’d been sent - roles didn’t match expectations, sites didn’t reflect what was promised, and there was little visibility once they arrived.
Clients felt it too.
High turnover, mismatched placements, and a process that looked efficient on paper but didn’t hold up in reality.
Three things became clear:
You can’t place people properly without seeing the environment yourself.
If you don’t understand the site, the team, and the conditions - you’re guessing.
Volume doesn’t equal value.
Sending more resumes doesn’t solve the problem, it often creates more of them.
If both the client and candidate are frustrated, the model is broken.
And no amount of process can fix that without changing the approach.
That insight led to a different way of operating.
Less time behind a desk, more time in your workplace.
Less focus on quantity, more focus on fit.
Less distance between promise and reality.
It’s also why we don’t take on projects where we don’t have visibility, where we can’t get into your workplace and properly understand what’s happening on the ground.
We chose to stay local, stay hands-on, and stay accountable.
Because the point of difference was never about doing more.
It was about doing it properly.
20 years on, that hasn’t changed.
