Chris Cranshaw

Bio

Chris is the Founder and Managing Director of Halt, leading one of the recruitment industry’s most respected specialist marketing agencies.

Since launching the business from a spare bedroom during the pandemic in 2020, Chris has overseen Halt’s growth into an international agency supporting more than 300 recruitment agencies, talent businesses and in-house talent functions across the UK, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australia.

As the primary point of contact for all new business enquiries, Chris works closely with founders, CEOs and leadership teams to understand their ambitions before helping shape the right branding, website, marketing and growth strategy. Whether it’s launching a start-up, repositioning an established recruitment business or supporting international expansion, Chris remains heavily involved from the very first conversation.

Despite leading the business, Chris is anything but hands-off. He’s just as likely to be facilitating a brand workshop, reviewing website designs, brainstorming campaign ideas or jumping into client strategy sessions as he is working on the agency itself. In fact, it’s become something of a running joke that the rest of the leadership team regularly remind him to spend more time working on the business than in it.

Chris believes the best recruitment marketing is built on commercial understanding, genuine partnerships and delivering measurable results, principles that continue to shape Halt’s culture and the way every client relationship is approached.

Experience

Chris’ career spans almost 30 years across recruitment, talent acquisition, marketing and employer branding, giving him a unique perspective that very few recruitment marketers can match.

He began his career during the 1990s in what would now be recognised as an internal Talent Acquisition role for one of the UK’s major banking organisations. Experiencing recruitment from the client side gave him an appreciation of what hiring managers genuinely value before moving into agency recruitment, where he spent the next decade progressing through several senior leadership positions with well-known recruitment businesses.

The turning point in Chris’ career came almost by accident. After becoming involved in a recruitment marketing campaign for one of his clients, his commercial creativity and strategic thinking caught the attention of senior leadership, resulting in an unexpected move from recruitment into marketing.

Over the following decade, Chris built extensive expertise across recruitment marketing, digital strategy, employer branding and business growth, ultimately leading a ten-strong marketing and employer branding function for one of the UK’s largest global recruitment businesses. During this time, he supported multiple brands, international markets and senior leadership teams, generating significant commercial growth through marketing.

In 2020, Chris combined nearly three decades of recruitment experience with a decade of marketing leadership to launch Halt, creating a specialist recruitment marketing agency.

Today, his advice is grounded in experience from both sides of the industry, understanding not only how to build a great brand, but how marketing directly contributes to commercial growth, stronger client relationships and long-term business success.

Achievements

• Founder and Managing Director of Halt Recruitment Marketing Agency.
• Nearly three decades of experience across recruitment, talent acquisition, recruitment marketing and employer branding.
• Multi-award-winning recruitment marketing leader.
• Created and launched countless recruitment brands, brand refreshes and rebrands.
• Generated millions of pounds worth of sales opportunities through marketing campaigns, both in-house and for Halt’s clients.
• Trusted strategic advisor to recruitment founders, CEOs and leadership teams.
• Co-founder of the Association of Recruitment Marketing & Agencies (AoRM&A).
• Regular speaker, mentor and commentator on recruitment marketing, branding and business growth.

Outside work

Away from work, Chris is first and foremost a husband, father and proud grandfather, and enjoys nothing more than spending time with his family.

Golf is undoubtedly his biggest passion outside of business. As a keen golfer starting only a couple of years ago, with a handicap in the early 20s, he’s always looking for an excuse to squeeze in another round, whether that’s at home in the UK or during regular trips to the family’s home in Spain. Those long weekends usually involve good food, sunshine and, unsurprisingly, at least one golf course.

He’s also a lifelong Manchester United supporter and an avid Formula 1 fan, rarely missing a race weekend.

Away from sport, Chris has always enjoyed making things. A keen (and permanently overambitious) amateur carpenter, he’s built everything from garden bars and bespoke decking to custom furniture. His proudest creation is a fully playable Halt-branded bass guitar, now proudly displayed in Halt’s Bristol office.

Creativity extends beyond woodworking too. Chris enjoys comic book illustration and character design and is a self-confessed questionable musician, regularly picking up the guitar, bass or drums with considerably more enthusiasm than talent.

Finally, there’s the trainer collection. Somewhere along the way, Chris developed what many would describe as a slightly ridiculous obsession with Air Jordan 1s and retro Nike Air Max trainers. The collection continues to grow despite regular promises that “this pair will definitely be the last.”