The press kit.
Everything an editor, journalist or event producer needs to write about Start Group, boilerplate, fast facts, a founder bio and brand assets. Lift any of it verbatim.
About Start Group.
Start Group is Sydney's rec-to-rec consultancy, three-time NSW Rec2Rec Agency of the Year (Sourcr, 2022 to 2024) and an RCSA member. Founder-led by John Bourke, it places recruiters into agencies across Australia and New Zealand under one brand with four focuses: Start In Recruitment (rec-to-rec placement), Start In Australia (UK & Ireland relocation), Start Training, and Start Automation & AI.
Start Group is a recruitment-to-recruitment ("rec-to-rec") consultancy based in Sydney. It began as Start In Recruitment, John Bourke's social-first rec-to-rec desk, built to show good salespeople why recruitment is the career worth starting, and has since unified Start In Australia (UK and Irish recruiters relocating to Australia), Start Training and Start Automation & AI under one master brand.
The through-line across all four focuses is the same: a decade spent knowing the market in detail. Which desks are warm, which comp plans actually pay out, and which agencies are about to grow or contract across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Start Group places recruiters at every level, from first-desk rookies to GMs, and is candid about which agencies to avoid.
Start Group is the three-time NSW Rec2Rec Agency of the Year (Sourcr Awards, 2022, 2023 and 2024) and a member of the RCSA, the Recruitment, Consulting & Staffing Association.
The details, at a glance.
Sydney, 2018
Sydney, NSW, Australia
John Bourke
Rec-to-rec (recruitment-to-recruitment) consultancy
3× NSW Rec2Rec Agency of the Year (Sourcr 2022 to 2024)
RCSA member
Sydney · Melbourne · Brisbane · Perth · UK & Ireland → AU
Start In Recruitment · Start In Australia · Start Training · Start Automation & AI
John Bourke.
John Bourke
John Bourke is the founder of Start Group. He has spent a decade in agency recruitment, built an award-winning rec-to-rec in Sydney, and consulted to the RCSA, the peak body for the recruitment industry across Australia and New Zealand.
He founded Start In Recruitment in 2018 and Start In Australia in 2022, building both social-first, using content and automation to show good salespeople why recruitment is a career worth starting, and to move experienced recruiters from the UK and Ireland to Australia.
John is also the founder and CEO of RecView, the AI meeting assistant and note-taker now used by recruitment agencies across ANZ and beyond. That instinct, recruiters building better tools for recruiters, runs through everything Start Group does.
Speaking & events.
John speaks on AI, automation and the future of recruitment, including the RCSA's Talent X and JobAdder's BDX Summit.
Podcasts & interviews.
Long-form conversations on recruitment, tech and building tools recruiters actually use.
Logos & recognition.
Please use the wordmark and award badge as shown. For other formats, get in touch.
Wordmark, "Start Group." with the accent full stop. The brand pairs with four focus dots: Start In Recruitment, Start In Australia, Start Training, and Start Automation & AI.
Writing about rec-to-rec? Let's make it accurate.
For interviews, quotes, data or a fuller press kit, email hello@startinrecruitment.com.au, we usually reply same day.