Recruiting staff

Sapphire Capital Partners is a Belfast-based venture capital firm and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorised investment manager. The company helps individuals and teams launch their own venture capital funds by providing regulatory, operational, and fund management support.

Vasiliki Carson, CEO, explains how Sapphire Capital Partners accessed support from a local university to help recruit a graduate and how the business recruited and supported a graduate from onboarding through to becoming a productive member of the team.

Our recruitment challenge

"Sapphire was growing key areas of the business, including digitising operations, strengthening HR, and launching a new fund. We needed someone who could contribute across investment analysis, operations, and people processes, but finding a candidate with this combination of skills was challenging."

"We were looking for someone to grow with the business and felt that an experienced hire in this market would come with fixed habits and a premium cost. We believed that a graduate recruit would bring fresh thinking, genuine enthusiasm, and be at exactly the right stage to shape their professional identity around the way Sapphire works."

Accessing support to help with our recruitment challenge

"Sapphire discovered suitable support offered by the Ulster University’s Graduate Boost programme. The Graduate Boost Programme helps graduates with a disability build their careers through a 15‑week paid internship with a Northern Ireland employer. The programme offered a structured framework to support both the employer and the graduate during the transition into work - an added benefit that traditional recruitment routes do not typically provide. The combination of professional development modules, daily monitoring, and mentorship support helped our graduate develop skills, confidence, and professional experience."

"The Ulster University programme team took time to understand our business, the role we were recruiting for, and the environment our graduate would be joining. They engaged with us in person, visiting our offices and meeting with us individually. That level of attentiveness and personal engagement was invaluable and helped build alignment, confidence and a shared commitment to create a positive experience for everyone involved. It helped ensure that the job role was shaped in a way that would work well for our new recruit and our business."

Supporting our graduate's onboarding and development

"The programme’s structured components such as daily progress monitoring, regular feedback cycles, and professional development tracking provided a formalised rhythm that complemented Sapphire’s own onboarding process. Having an external framework reduced the informal guesswork that often accompanies bringing in a very early-career professional."

"For an organisation like ours, where learning the regulatory, operational, and commercial context takes time, the programme created a helpful framework for that transition. This enabled our graduate recruit to quickly become productive in day-to-day operational work, while also developing professional and business-writing skills."

What were the benefits to our business?

"Participating in Graduate Boost reinforced the value of building broader and more inclusive talent pipelines that are not solely dependent on traditional routes into financial services. Our graduate recruit has made a practical contribution across both our investment work and wider operations. Their support ranged from becoming involved with the due diligence on investee companies to helping with certain elements of the website rebrand. Their contribution has added capacity, fresh thinking and new perspectives across several areas of the business while supporting our longer-term talent development objectives."

"The programme has encouraged us to think more deliberately about how we identify potential, not just prior experience, and how we create the right structures around young professionals so that they can develop with confidence. It has also reinforced the importance of university partnerships as a way of reaching graduates who are capable, motivated, and looking for a supported bridge into industry."

Lessons for other businesses facing similar recruitment challenges

"Be specific about what you need, but stay open to what the graduate brings. The best outcome is not a graduate who fills a fixed job description; it is one whose particular combination of skills helps you see a challenge differently. Invest time in the matching process, engage genuinely with the support organisations available, and build in proper time for integration before you measure impact."

"Graduate recruitment requires time, commitment and support, but the right programme can help businesses identify potential, build future capability and develop talent that grows alongside the organisation."