The Story Behind Sales Recruit UK

A senior-led specialist sales recruitment firm. Every search is run personally by one of the two consultants who founded it.

Hire Now Our Process

The Agency At A Glance

Sixteen years specialising in sales recruitment across the industries where selling is genuinely complex.

Founded 2009

Sales Recruit Scotland launched in Glasgow in 2009. Sales Recruit UK followed as the national-facing brand as work expanded across the rest of the country.

Over 50 Years Combined Experience

Robert and Derek bring over fifty years of combined sales and recruitment experience between them — every brief is run by a senior consultant from the day it lands.

Nine Specialist Sectors

Construction, Industrial, Engineering, Energy, FMCG, Technology, Logistics, Healthcare and B2B Sales. Genuine depth across the sectors where selling is complex — not headline coverage.

National Coverage

Headquartered in Bellshill outside Glasgow, with resourcing and support teams in Manchester and Birmingham. We place sales talent the length of the UK and across the Republic of Ireland.

The Story

Sales Recruit UK exists because the recruitment industry has a quiet problem: too many agencies operate as order-takers. A brief comes in, CVs go out, fees follow placements. The consultants involved are often early in their careers, the relationship rarely extends beyond the transaction, and the work done is closer to logistics than advice.

Derek Anderson founded Sales Recruit Scotland in 2009 to build the kind of specialist firm he had spent the previous decade looking for from the inside. Derek’s career began as a service engineering apprentice with an international engineering services company, followed by four years in commercial sales before he moved into recruitment with BMS Sales Performance, then Orion Electrotech’s specialist engineering recruitment arm in Aylesbury. He returned to Scotland to join Cirrus, a Hamilton-based sales recruitment specialist, where he progressed from Consultant to Operations Director over three and a half years. When the 2008 credit crunch took Cirrus into liquidation, Derek launched Sales Recruit Scotland with a clear view of what he wanted the firm to be — and what he wanted it to avoid.

Robert McGougan joined as partner in 2011. The two had worked together at BMS, where Robert had been recruited onto the graduate fast-track programme, set up the Dublin operation, and run the Scottish branch. Robert spent ten years at BMS before the Scottish operation closed, then worked at several specialist agencies before partnering with Derek. The two have built the firm together since.

Sales Recruit UK is a deliberate choice to operate at the senior end of recruitment. Every brief is run by Robert or Derek. Every interview is conducted by one of the two consultants the client signed terms with. Every shortlist is built around evidence, scored against the brief, and delivered as a structured SRUK CV. The firm is built for clients and candidates who want a peer-level service — not a CV pipeline.

The Senior Leadership

Derek Anderson

Co-Founder and Senior Consultant

Derek Anderson Sales Recruit UK

Derek co-founded Sales Recruit Scotland in 2009. His career began with a service engineering apprenticeship at an international engineering services company, followed by four years in commercial sales. He moved into specialist recruitment with BMS Sales Performance, then Orion Electrotech’s engineering recruitment arm in Aylesbury, before returning to Scotland to join Cirrus where he progressed to Operations Director.

Derek works across all nine of the firm’s specialist sectors with a particular pull toward technical and engineering-led briefs where his early career still pays back. Outside work, Derek’s wife is an advanced paramedic and they have two children. He sponsors his daughter’s local under-15s girls’ football team.

Robert McGougan

Co-Founder and Senior Consultant

Robert joined Sales Recruit UK as partner in 2011. He began his career at BMS Sales Performance on the graduate fast-track programme, where he was identified early as senior leadership material. Robert set up the BMS Dublin operation from scratch and went on to run the Scottish branch through ten years at the firm. He worked at a number of specialist sales recruitment agencies before partnering with Derek. Robert is a natural manager whose temperament is process-driven — both qualities that show up in how the SRUK Fit Score and the firm’s search methodology have been built.

He works across all nine of the firm’s specialist sectors. Outside work, Robert lives with his partner and daughter, who share a passion for show-jumping.

Robert and Derek front-end every assignment personally. All client conversations, all interviews, all shortlist decisions are handled by one of the two consultants the client signed terms with — backed by a resourcing function that supports the search itself. There are no juniors, no account managers, and no Talent Acquisition middle layer between the client and the senior consultant on the brief. Senior involvement on every search is the firm’s core operating principle.

How We Work

Every shortlist Sales Recruit UK delivers arrives as a SRUK CV — a single, structured document that combines the candidate’s career history, reformatted into the firm’s standard layout, with a SRUK Fit Score scoring them against six brief-specific dimensions weighted to what the role actually needs. Hiring managers can compare candidates like-for-like in thirty seconds, then read deeper where they want to. The methodology is the institutional asset behind the senior-led model: a productised, repeatable, evidence-driven process that does the heavy lifting on every brief and lets Robert and Derek focus their attention where it matters most.

Our Process

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Sales Recruitment That Fits How You Sell.

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