THE Australian office of recruitment firm Placing People 1st is poised to open. Former Guernsey branch manager Cara De La Mare is going Down Under to help launch and manage an antipodean arm of the business, which in turn led to the appointment of Kim Sanders to her position locally.

‘I am really excited to be relocating to Sydney to launch our new office out there,’ says Mrs De La Mare. ‘We will be right at the heart of Sydney’s central business district and I can’t wait.’

She will be joined for the first three months by group managing director Lynda Sims.

‘This is the way Lynda established the Guernsey office, so it is a model we will be repeating out there. We have already got a diary full of client appointments.

‘Lynda has lived and worked in Sydney so knows it very well and she was there again recently to review the financial marketplace. She decided the timing was right to launch a business there.’

Mrs De La Mare’s husband, Martin, is taking up a job with Sydney-based chartered accountants Moore Stephens.

Mrs Sims and her husband, Paul, a co-director of the group, have been in Australia for the past few weeks organising the office premises.

‘It is an exciting time, but I am obviously a little sad, too, because the Guernsey office has been my baby,’ says Mrs De La Mare.

‘But I do welcome the new challenges ahead, both professionally and personally, and it is a move my husband and I have both welcomed since travelling around Australia a couple of years ago. We went back to get married in Melbourne and always knew that one day we would live there.

‘The great thing is that I know Kim will be fantastic as the new manager and we will be in touch regularly as the plan is to offer suitably qualified candidates – particularly accountants and lawyers – exciting sponsored job opportunities to move between Australia and the Channel Islands.’

Ms Sanders, a former client relationship manager, admits the career move is a very different one for her but she welcomes the diversity of her new job and is already enjoying the industry.

‘When I relocated back to the Channel Islands 18 months ago it was Lynda who found me my job and I was then delighted when she offered me the manager’s job here. You can’t fail to be impressed by the dynamic work environment and there is a constant buzz in our offices.’

She spent 10 years working in Jersey and a further five in the UK. Her experience in client services is proving invaluable in her new working life, she adds.

Both women agree that the recruitment industry is more than a job – it becomes a way of life. ‘You basically never switch off. Each time you meet someone out of the office, you are thinking of career opportunities for them.’