GARY Tappin studied sports science at Portsmouth University, and planned to make a career in the field.

After graduation, he moved to Sheffield, hoping to get a place in its highly regarded sports academy.

“I didn’t make it,” he says. He adds: “It was a blessing in disguise.”

Gary, 32, is now a business manager with Darwin Recruitment, a home-grown, fast-expanding firm based in Billericay, which has become a key player in the IT industry.

Darwin is making major inroads into the German recruitment market, as well as the UK.

“We deal with application development, people like web designers and software developers,” Gary says.

“Despite the German reputation for business efficiency, we are, to be honest, ahead of them in this area.”

Gary did a number of jobs while he tried to break into the world of sports management.

It was a friend who suggested he might do well in recruitment.

Gary says: “He’d seen me play football and he recognised I had a quality that could transfer well into the recruitment business.”

That quality was competitiveness. Gary considers it not just useful, but vital.

Gary, a golfer in his spare time, says that he has found a job which suits him to a tee, and has now happily given up any thoughts of sports management.

In his five years with Darwin, he has risen from trainee to managing a team of eight. His sense of competition has been a key driver.

He says: “It’s hard to see anyone would get much out of this job if they weren’t very competitive. You are constantly competing – against other individuals, other groups, against your own previous record.”

The other quality Gary stresses is initiative.

He says: “You have to think outside the box.”

Instead of sitting and waiting for clients to approach him, he takes a proactive approach. He is not afraid of cold calling.

He says: “For instance, I approached one German company directly. The result is we landed a £90,000 contract, with the money paid upfront.”

It did not take long for Gary to realise that he was a natural at the recruitment game.

He says: “You get about two weeks’ basic training. Then they chuck you into the deep end at the end of a phone. To be honest, most of what you learn, you learn by actually doing the job.”

Darwin knows a thing or two about looking after its own recruits, and it offers a well-structured career path. Gary has had four separate promotions during his five years with the company. This year he was named manager of the year.

Basic hours at Darwin are from 8.30pm to 6pm.

“But no one sticks to those hours,” Gary says. “I’m in at 7.45am and normally leave at around 7pm.

“We work hard, yes, but you get rewarded for it.

“I’ve been in jobs where you work much harder than anyone else, yet you get paid exactly the same. Here, you get out what you put in.”