Executive recruiter, Alium Partners has been recognised for its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) achievements at the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards.

The City- based SME supported the Uprising: Fastlaners programme, which helps to address high youth unemployment in the east end of London. Using its expertise, Alium Partners’ staff volunteers, worked with young graduates who faced barriers to the workplace. The firm hosted interview days, director-led mentoring sessions, and advice on networking, to help the young candidates increase their confidence and boost their chances of employment. After just 3 months, 50 per cent of the young people had successfully entered the workplace.

Alium Partners’ day job involves recruiting senior executives to firms across the world. The small company started its CSR journey around 18 months ago, prompted by the staff ‘who wanted to do something that made a fundamental difference to peoples’ lives”, said Nigel Peters the managing partner. It was matched with the charity, Uprising through the City of London Corporation’s initiatives, Heart of the City and City Action.

Winners of the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards were announced at a Mansion House ceremony. The Awards, now in its 28^th year is among the most established and distinguished Corporate Responsibility Awards in the UK.

The Lord Mayor Alan Yarrow, who presented the awards, added: “I could not be more proud to champion the participants and winners of the 2015 Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards. Their innovative contribution to our communities shows the immense value of CSR. In fact, we could not do without it. Today’s Dragon Award winners such as Alium Partners, are continuing this work with a broad range of initiatives – enabling business employees to use their skills to maximise the impact of the voluntary sector, and help 300,000 Londoners directly. Whether serving as mentors for school children, or accountants for charities – they are a fantastic example of corporate community engagement, and helping to build a fairer and more prosperous society.”

This year, the applicants for the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards volunteered around 92,000 hours, helped around 300,000 people in London and created 5,000 training placements as a result of their community engagement.

The other winners

• Barclays- Lord Mayor's Award for Longstanding Achievement
• London Wildfire Trust for their work with Mace Foundation – Winner of the Community Partners Award
• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP- Winner of the Enterprise and Employment Award
•  IBM- Winner of the Education and Lifelong-learning Award
• Aimia- Winner of the Future Proofing Charities Award

For more information visit http://www.dragonawards.org.uk/ and for more infomation on Alium Partners, visit http://www.aliumpartners.com/