Working with 12 other women in a recruitment consultancy has been very rewarding for Hilarie Geary (32),who will shortly be sharing her Young Businesswoman of the Year £2,000 prize money with them on "a day off pampering".

I definitely believe in looking after your people and I think I do it quite well," she says. In her seven years running her own recruitment business, Executive Connections, which specialises in the banking and financing sector, she has been an accidental recruiter of her female staff, who are in their 30s and "confident, able individuals".

"I am not sexist nor, indeed, feminist. I could honestly say that, but you find that the response rate from males is much, much lower," she says.

She remembers four men applying for a position where there were more than 200 female applicants. "I think it's because of what we do. It is more male dominated in technical recruitment than in professional."

The all-female environment is "very healthy" and the staff are left on their own to manage their tasks.

"We do not have a corporate infrastructure as such. We tailor it to suit clients' requirements," she says.

She and her husband, Gary, the managing director of an office equipment organisation, have two children and are accustomed to the peculiar juggling arrangements of modern living which allows them to carry out the roles of parents and careerists.

They divide their working day to look after Sean (3) and Harry (18 months). "It is important to be organised . . . You are going to have to dedicate specific time to specific projects, and that is time management as well," she says.

They both rise at about 7 a.m. "unless we get a scream from another room and then you are awakened much earlier". She is in the office by 8.30 a.m., while Gary takes the children to a creche. They have a country cottage in Dunmore East, Co Waterford, which they use as a weekend bolthole and during the summer. "We love walking, going off with the kids."

Her day involves reviewing client business that has come in from the previous day, working on evolving strategies, and sometimes interviewing "back to back all day".

"It really, really varies on a day-to-day basis. Business development is very much part of it. You could have a free morning and by 12 o'clock two clients could have rung to meet them straight away."

The consultancy gets paid a fee of 10 to 20 per cent of the first year's salary of the person they recommend for recruitment.

Ms Geary is originally from Cork, but her family moved to Killiney, Co Dublin, when she was five and she went to Cabinteely Community School where both her parents work, her father as a music teacher, her mother as an administrator.

"I left there and was unsure of a career progression. I did very well in my Leaving Cert and all that, but I was unsure," she says.

She attended Cathal Brugha Street for a year where she did a course in hotel reception work, turning down a management course there. "I was just unsure of my career path at that age," she says.

On leaving she joined the staff at Forte's Dublin Airport Hotel for five years, moving into a marketing role from reception work.

She went on to work for the Irish Export Board as an administrator but left after her nine-month contract was up. "It was very generalised, a lot of paperwork and a lot of phone work and typing, basically general administration.

"I discovered that sales and marketing were what I wanted to stay in from the hotel experience."

Next Ms Geary joined a recruitment consultancy and describes a quick ascent through the ranks, being promoted to branch manager after six months, with 12 people under her.

"I was a very successful recruiter and a very successful branch manager, where I always reached targets . . . I was also hands on, as I still am today."

When she left to set up her own company, she says she did not steal clients. "I was bound by contract, and I know a lot of people sneer at contracts, but they were a generalised agency and I wanted to focus on banking and finance.

"I saw it as a niche market. I could see that the Irish Financial Services Sector was going to take off."

Armed with a bank loan and a rented premises on Upper Hatch Street, Ms Geary founded Executive Connections in November, 1991.

"You are, I would not say naive, but you are aware of sacrifices that you will have to make, but when they confront you, you say it is really happening. I went through it and it worked out very, very well at the end," she says.

Within a month she had employed a second recruitment consultant and an administrator. "I set up Executive Connections in a recession and at the end of the year we were in profit. Business planning is what it is all about."

Now she has clients in the international, commercial and retail banking sectors, financial services and the commercial sector.

"I had an awful lot of faith in myself to make it a success and it was an awful lot of very, very hard work and constant research of the marketplace and high levels of communication with clients, both existing and developing clients, at all times."

Her first big expansion came in 1994 when she purchased the company's present premises at Merrion Place, and invested £50,000 in office and computing equipment.

"Reinvestment is how we have grown and it is how we have become more successful," she says.

Sourcing individuals for clients involves checking a database of "live candidates".

"There are a lot of third-level graduates with three years' post-graduate experience professional executives."

She increasingly sees a strong female presence in this category. "They really are opening up more and more businesses and managing more and more businesses. It is slowly changing."

But having started her own business at the age of 25, she has become accustomed to being something of a trailblazer. "Inevitably I get asked the question, `What does your husband do, he must be financing this? And he is not'."

She has not been bothered that some people are taken aback at her success or that she has to work harder to be taken seriously.

"You have to be a very strong individual meeting with clients, particularly an older breed. You need to qualify yourself a lot. You really have to promote the organisation, and really push your ability and let them know your strategies and qualifications that you have in the organisation."

The company's advertising budget is more than £100,000 a year, "one of our biggest overheads", using the McConnells agency. "Our turnover is just under £1 million, which we will exceed this year," she predicts.

After recently receiving the ISO 9000 quality award, a memorable moment for her, she expects to double her staff within the year, increasing her commercial division and moving to a new premises.