Laura Middleton, Author at Sarah McKenna HR Recruitment

2nd March 2026

Inclusive recruitment starts with how we design the process

Inclusive recruitment is something most organisations want to get right. In my experience, the barrier isn’t resistance or lack of care. It’s hesitation. In conversations with hiring managers and HR teams, I often hear the same thing: “We want to be inclusive…we’re just not sure where to start.” There’s a fear of saying the wrong thing, getting it wrong, or

30th January 2026

Recruitment 101: A simple hiring process you can build from scratch (and actually stick to)

If you don’t have a recruitment process yet, you’re not alone. This usually happens for one of two reasons: Your business is growing quickly and hiring has become urgent You’ve always relied on word of mouth, agencies, or “we’ll figure it out” and it’s worked…until it suddenly hasn’t Either way, if you’re thinking “we need to get this right from

22nd January 2026

7 practical takeaways from our first HR Manager Community session

This week, we held the first HR Manager Community session and I left feeling really proud of what we’re building. The best part was how open everyone was. People shared what’s working, what’s been hard, and what they’d do differently next time. That mix of honesty and practical ideas is exactly the point of the group. Here are the seven

15th December 2025

Recruitment in 2026: What Worked Before Isn’t Working Now

If you’ve spent 2025 feeling like recruitment has become harder, slower and more unpredictable, you’re not imagining it. The UK hiring market has had an unusual year. We’ve seen fewer permanent vacancies, lower hiring intentions and a lot of nervousness from employers driven by rising employment costs, policy shifts and the ongoing question of what AI will actually mean for

23rd July 2022

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Event

Bathed in warm light and abuzz with positivity, Hope Street Xchange’s state-of-the-art enterprise suite played home to some of the region’s best HR professionals one summery day in June. Industry specialists gathered for Sarah McKenna and 50:50 Future’s Equality, Diversity & Inclusion event – a 90 minute session providing an overview on how to avoid tick-box narrative and embed inclusion