Who we are

Quality driven recruitment experts

Shelli Gafan is the founder of Advance in IT.  After a few years of working for numbers driven recruitment companies in the city of London, she took the bold move in 2011 to set up on her own and do it her way - focusing on people and relationships.  For this reason, Advance in IT continues to thrive and prides itself on the highest level of customer service.


In her earlier career, Shelli worked in Operations roles for companies such as Microsoft, T-Mobile and Adecco.  She likes pushing her own boundaries but also thrives on developing others, whether her own employees or her clients and candidates. Shelli's nature is to go above and beyond.  This gives her great satisfaction and makes her stand out as a recruiter with a proven track record.


Headquartered in the UK and with employees working remotely, we together provide a tailored recruitment service using our combined 30 years' experience. We have customers mostly in the Netherlands and thousands of contacts globally.


Our team consists of Louisa van Vessem who is a Business Support Co-ordinator and Alex Golding who is the Operations Director.  Louisa and Alex work part-time.  Shelli, being a working mum, wanted to create a business environment which offers its working parents the flexibility they need to work but still look after their families. 


Meet Us

What people are saying about us...

"One of the best, most conscientious recruiters I've had the pleasure to work with, Shelli is committed to delivering the very best service to her clients and wants to make sure each and every candidate with whom she works end up in a role that is going to work for their immediate and longer term plans. She is an excellent communicator, highly dedicated and, best of all, no-nonsense with her approach in a pleasant, positive way. If you're recruiting in Europe and not using Shelli, you're missing out!"


Ross Owen Williams, Recruiter Trainer and author

"Being approached by many over-eager headhunters in this field I was about to brush off Shelli thinking she was the same, but I'm glad that I didn't, because I was wrong. Shelli stands out as the first headhunter to ever approach me in such a friendly and professional manner, who took the time to actually listen to what I was looking for in a job and tried to help me find it. Shelli helped me get my current position, a job which surpasses my last position in many ways."

Aage ten Hengel, Full Stack Manager