History
The origins of Cambridge SkillsTap lie with Skills Link which was an initiative by Jane Darlington of Enterprise Link.
the early days: Skills Link
Skills Link aimed to help local highly-experienced professionals who were in-between jobs to get back into employment and offered a platform for networking. It also provided speakers and relevant courses at regular meetings. One of its ideas was to encourage flexible and proactive ways of helping local businesses with consortia, for example, to prepare tenders. Skills Link received limited funding from a charitable source to cover operating costs.
more ambition: SkillsTap
Members of Skills Link felt that it needed to go further and actively market itself as a source of highly skilled people. As a result SkillsTap was born and Alan Syrop facilitated a group to develop this idea further.
the advisory board
Subsequently Alan Syrop and Thak Patel approached Walter Herriot (St John’s Innovation Centre), Peter Hewkin (Cambridge Network) and Ian Mather (Eversheds) who agreed to join a SkillsTap Advisory Board. They added gravitas and have opened several doors for SkillsTap’s activities. In particular, Walter Herriot (who was a champion of Skills Link) has given direct support with introductions and practical resources in the form of facilities and refreshments.
a unique offering
The idea was that SkillsTap would be unique: neither a recruitment agency nor a consultancy. It would introduce experienced members to prospective clients and they would agree terms and conditions between them. This might mean part-time support, contingent fees or other individually appropriate conditions. Immediate financial rewards may not always be relevant. SkillsTap would be a not-for-profit organisation and there would be a charge to neither members nor clients for its service.
the last iteration: Cambridge SkillsTap
Having been in existence since summer of 2003, SkillsTap had reached the limit of its existence in its then current form and a sub-group led by Peter Hase (an active member) embarked on a mission to develop a proposal to commercialise SkillsTap. This initiative had the full blessing of the advisory board. The team consisted of other active members: Krysia Brown, Julian Chesshyre, Daniel Dearing, David Jenkins, Laurence Meade and Thak Patel, supported by Alan Syrop.
