£8K Fees to £132K Searches: From Corporate Generalist to Startup Top Biller in 2 Years

Before we dive into today's conversation, I want to quickly shine a light on the 3 partners who are behind the mission of the podcast this year. First up, we have Atlas. This isn't just another CRM with AI added on as an afterthought. Atlas 2.0 is the first platform in our space built with AI from the ground up and at its core. Next up, we have our longtime our partner Sourcewell. You may know them as a world-class outbound sequencing tool, but they fully evolved into a multi-modular system. And the best part is you can plug and play their tools, from the AI note-taker to the inbox agent, all without ripping out your entire tech stack. And finally, Raise. They remain the most powerful way to fund and run your contract book If you want to unlock cash flow and scale your agency with total confidence, you have to check them out. So if you go to the link in the description below, you're going to be able to get access to exclusive offers to all 3 of our partners this year. Let's get into this week's episode. Callum, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for making the trip.

That's okay.

I know you really enjoy living in Manchester. I've made you come down to London.

I do. 3 hours, but well worth it. It's appreciated.

Our goal for this conversation is we really want to try and paint a picture of what can happen when you apply skill set, experience, work ethic to a very different market.

Yeah.

And your world has now become cybersecurity.

Yeah.

So we're going to talk a bit about what that can mean because we basically ended up being in an environment where our average deal size was circa $10K or so.

Yeah, on a good day.

On a good day. To now, in the last 18 months, I've got here top 3 fees have been $120K, $130K, $132K. Yeah, we're going to talk about what's that been like. A lot of people might think that's a completely different world of recruitment, how can I get there? And I know you was maybe potentially in that perspective if me and you were to meet up when he was at Michael Page.

Yeah.

So we're going to talk about that journey and also what it's been like being part of a really cool growth journey where you went from working for one of the big brands, Michael Page, to then being employee number 6 of a business that had big ambitions and is on that growth journey and what that's been like. Yeah, that's our goal.

Sounds good.

So let me give everyone a bit of the highlight reel. Let me know if I get any of this wrong. So you've been in recruitment for over 10 years.

Yeah.

And I'll just reference the part before, um, Hubscale. But yeah, like, join Michael Page in the leadership role, and then you was there for like 3, 3 and a half years originally. It was around 8 when he was in Manchester, and then that got to around circa 30, 35 headcount. Your world was IT infrastructure, and like, we'd started to do some cybersecurity there a little bit. A little bit, yeah, for the UK. By the time you left, you had like 8 or 9 direct reports. And then we joined both the Elliotts, became employee number 6, and we've ended up heading up go-to-market for them in the cybersecurity space. And your world now has looked very different.

Very different.

Uh, not entirely sure. I'm assuming it was like last year would be the year where we track billings and everything, but you was last year's top performer. Yep, unreal. Uh, I think we did circa $600K US dollars. Yep, we've done quite like— we've, we've done placements in quite a few different places, haven't we?

We have, yeah, we're worldwide.

Name some of the— like, Japan is in there.

So we've got Singapore, uh, Dubai in the Middle East, but Middle East, APJ, US is, is our remit and, uh, what we enjoy.

Yeah. So we're going to talk a bit about this journey ultimately, like how we ended up there, what we've learned, because there's loads here that I think people can take away. But why don't we just, just set the scene a bit in terms of where we was at before we joined Hubscale, very quickly. So your world here— and feel free to help me out here— but basically your world was permanent recruitment. Yep. UK businesses? Was it more businesses regionally around Manchester? Was it like UK-wide?

Yeah, definitely. I've got— it's an interesting journey because when I began 10 years ago, I was actually a contract recruiter. So went from contract, went to a kind of dual desk in Australia before joining Michael Page, and that was the first time I'd really ever done perm recruitment. So that was an interesting one, but it was regional. It was Manchester, it was Liverpool, it was Cheshire, it was all the glamorous locations of the Northwest. And it was essentially anything from, you know, you know, low-level IT support roles all the way through to kind of IT management roles, but nothing really, you know, too technically intense, nothing too sexy from an AI perspective like you might get now. It was, it was very low-level kind of generic IT recruitment at the time.

And I think one of the things that we spoke about was in that environment, like, the way that we would be positioned was like you could do a lot of things versus I only do just this. Yeah. Just tell us a bit about that. What are some of the, the benefits that you found from a recruiter perspective, individual contributor, having a brand like Michael Page, saying and positioning yourself maybe as I can do this role, I can also do that? Like, what, what are some of the good parts that come with that, do you feel like, when you—

it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? Like, a brand like Page, phenomenal brand, you know, they've got an incredible history, an incredible track record, you know, they've built and scaled, and you can't deny a business that was doing £3 billion a year in revenue, you know, it's a pretty successful business, you go into an environment like that and you kind of go in with a bit of a badge on your back of, oh, you're Michael Page, you're generic, you don't really know what you're doing. And then you also go into it by having that freedom though to actually walk into a region, into a territory, you know, really start to look at, okay, what businesses can we go after? How can we actually become experts within this big brand? The brand might get you in the door, but it doesn't necessarily win you the work, it doesn't win you the results. And you have to kind of work out, you have to be pretty agile. I know we spoke about it, but how do you sell convince someone you're a specialist with a brand like that on your back, which is really difficult to do. And that becomes a bit of a superpower. And that's how you kind of really develop yourself and your skill set is Michael Page might be this big brand with all these amazing technologies and systems and databases sat behind me. But when I'm sat there in front of a hiring manager and they've just met a boutique specialist around the corner, how do you convince them that you're the right person for the job? And that's, that's not easy.

And that's something that you had— yeah, you got a lot of reps in.

Just a few. Yeah, just a few. 3 and a half years worth of reps.

But what we were talking about is before, right, did you— when did you really start to, uh, like I was saying to you, outside looking in, it feels like working in this cybersecurity world, you have to do a lot of work to be in it. And like, it's sort of us and very community feel. So when did we Like when you— I know you started to do a bit of it before we went to Hubscale, but did you cotton on to that quite early where if they— if I was to speak to a company about a cybersecurity requirement, or just— I'm sure there's a lot that goes into that world, right? But if it fitted into that, yeah, did you sort of find yourself very quickly being like, right, I need to try and really make it clear here that I really focus on that, or I have expertise in that? Is that sort of required in this space, do you feel like? By that focus, if we're going to stay, yeah, if we're going to focus on cybersecurity.

Yeah, I think in cybersecurity it is its own world. We spoke about it before. It has its own community, its own networks. I think a lot of people know each other. These companies are usually funded by the same VCs, the same private equity companies. There's a lot of crossover, a lot of overlap. And I think that you have to really be in it to be successful, in my opinion. And I think that's kind of true of a lot of markets now. I wouldn't necessarily just apply that to cyber. I think if you're going to go into AI, if you're going to go into data centers, if you're going to go into any sort of niche specialism, quantum, for example, businesses and investors and hiring managers want to know that you're in it and you know it and you understand it and that you're going to add more value to them than just throwing a few CVs their way. And I think that for us in cyber, especially at Hubscale, has been a game changer. You know, having that real in-depth knowledge, real true understanding of who's moving, who's not, who's doing well, who's not doing well, how can you really assess the market? Because also it sets us up for success if we know, you know, what markets are performing at a really high level, perhaps some that are maybe on the decline, because that's quite normal, you know, in these tech-led environments where, you know, I'm sure my old director won't mind, but, you know, they were probably recruiting for Windows 95 at one point. That's not a market anymore. So you have to be flexible within those ecosystems. I think you have to be in it to really know kind of what's hot right now, what's not, and what you should be spending time on as well.

I really agree with that. I think any great successful recruiter right now is absolutely immersed in their market. I feel like that's almost become, yeah, a non-negotiable if you really want to be high performing. Live it and breathe it. Do you— so how, on like, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much of that was necessary, do you feel like, in an environment like Michael Page? Because that is interesting, right?

Yeah, it's a good question. And I think we need it. You need a focus. So even if you're in a large-scale business with a great brand, because I think those businesses are phenomenal and I think they've got an amazing platform, and I think you can an amazing career in them, but you still need focus. And I think, you know, be it a geographical focus, be it a sector focus, you know, if you're going to be the person to say, hey, I'm going to be a bit of a generic tech recruiter, but I'm just going to do insurance companies, or I'm just going to do manufacturing companies, you still need focus because otherwise you'll lose your way. And I think you'll also lose that ability to build genuine relationships. You know, if you said, hey, we're just going to do manufacturing in the Northwest, there's an absolute, you know, powerhouse of businesses out there that you could go after. And that gives you that small edge to kind of go up against the boutique potentially in that moment to say, well, I'm working with your competitor, I'm working with that manufacturing business. I know the nuances, the legal regulations, the hurdles you guys have got to get over, the technological backlog you've got to work through because I've been there and done it and I've recruited for it before. And you should have the right kind of talent pool to be able to support that. But I still think even in those bigger environments, you need that focus.

Yeah, that's a great insight. So if me and— if me and you met around the time where you was in the trenches of Michael Page.

Yep.

We met for a coffee.

Yeah.

And I said to you, Callum, in, in 12 months' time, you're gonna be doing placements or working with organizations across the world where they're going to be paying you over 100 grand to find them really crucial, critical people for their organisation.

Yeah.

How would you have reacted to that?

I'd have probably said I need to update my geography at first, because I probably couldn't tell you where half of the places were at first. Um, but I probably wouldn't have believed you because it wasn't within the realm of reality, you know. It wasn't necessarily something within even the peer group that I was operating within had done before, I think. And even if you go back to when I first ever started in recruitment, it was regional it was fairly loose specialisms, you know, and it was within, you know, 2 hours of where you lived. You know, that was the reality. And I think I'd never seen any different at this point. You hear it, you know, you meet your mate down the pub, he's just built $1 million. You're thinking, nah, he's a liar. I don't believe him. Because you've never seen it. It's not reality. So I think I probably would've shrugged you off and said, I'm not sure about that one. I'll stick to Manchester for now.

And then if we, so like, if we just talk about early period with, with Hubscale there. Yeah, like, as you, as you like started to learn, I guess throughout the interview process, or, you know, learning more about the, the business, what they're doing, where they want to go, was again, like, before you joined, was there any like part of you that felt— you're gonna have to be honest here— but like, was there any part of you feeling like, oh, like, I'm gonna have to really improve here, or that feels like really out of my wheelhouse, or that's— I know I can do it, but I'm gonna have to really learn a lot. Because I think it'd be interesting just to hear like what maybe your preconceptions were.

Yeah.

Of how different it might be. And then we can then, you know, talk about a bit later on actually what were the differences and what were the parts that actually were still the same but yeah, in a different market. So like when we were going into, obviously back yourself, like, I'm capable, I know I'm going to be able to apply myself, I can, I can do it.

Yeah.

But what parts of the job, maybe was it the market, was it, I don't know, like, what were the parts where you're like, actually, I'm gonna have to really apply myself here because that's gonna have to be a level up for me from all of the skill sets, experience that you built up until that point?

Yeah, at the— truthfully, at the time, ignorance was bliss.

Okay.

Not knowing what you were walking into, having no preconceived ideas of what the reality was of what the job would look like, you know, what the market would look like was actually the best thing that could have possibly happened because it was a ring of fire. You go in, you figure it out, you fail, you make mistakes, we go again, we move. And sure, we'll talk through some of the, the stories that we've got in, in that process. But the, the biggest thing for me was, you know, as a recruiter, you're pretty confident in your skill set, you know how to do the fundamental basics. And I was convinced that those fundamental basics still apply, you know, whether you're doing the US or any sort of international market, you know, those fundamental basics of how you do the job, how you assess your KPIs, how you run your week, are all the The results can be much more rewarding, and that was the, I guess, the appeal of doing the US. And my main reservation at the time, you know, looking back, was I haven't done the US before. What does that look like? You know, what's the reality of that? Because the, you know, you come back to some of the basics around, you know, the hours that you have to work to really commit to be successful with it. You know, is it different just in terms of how they do recruitment? Are the processes different? What's the kind of buying going to be like? And I was very lucky. I joined two incredible founders who have been there and done before, so they kind of were really good at squashing some of the reservations that you might have had. But even down to what's the credibility of being in the UK and recruiting for the US? Because that's a big hurdle that, you know, we often overlook. And you go, actually, being somewhere and being present, which is all I'd ever known, you know, if I pitched to a client, they were an hour away, you know, jump in the car, jump on a train, you go meet them. You could be there the next day, you could be there within an hour, like realistically, to pitch a role. So what's the reality of being 12 hours away on a plane or potentially longer if you want to get that face time, you know, because it's not as easy. So you have to then think differently about how do you build credibility, how do you build trust, how do you build rapport, how do you build these relationships when 9 times out of 10 what you're doing is over a Zoom call, you know, or some sort of, you know, internet-led communication. So that was a reservation at first around how does this really work. Once you get in, it's, it's much of the same. Yeah, it's much of the same.

Yeah, that's really good, honest. That I can understand why you would be thinking those things.

Yeah.

So how did you genuinely— and we can talk a bit about how it's been, because I think what I would often say to recruiters that are really thinking about applying their skill set, work ethic, everything to the US market, from my conversations, I feel like the main trade-off is personally Yeah, yeah, because of the hours. Obviously you can make it work, plenty of people do, but that's where really some of the, the strongest trade-offs are. Because Monday to Thursday, you can tell us how you've, you know, tried to build a bit of a rhythm, but Monday to Thursday you will likely be working late, and then Friday might look a bit more typical if you're doing a UK or Europe market. Yeah, and then you've got the weekend. But if you're really trying to get in with one of your dream customers and the only time they can do a video call is like 1 AM your time, yeah, it depends how much you, you want to write, you might have to do it. Yeah, like what, like you said, I understand why, like, doing the US, you said some of the nuances, but yeah, that's what I found.

Yeah.

What's the rhythm there for you? Because you've obviously had plenty of time now to try and build this out.

I think there's a degree of acceptance you need that actually we all know recruitment's not 24 is not like a 9 to 5, it's a 24/7 job. You have to be committed. And I think irrespective of what market you do, I think, you know, even when I was doing the UK market, you know, clients would want calls at 8, 9 PM. You know, you just do it, you know, because that's what's required of you. It's a human-to-human job and we all have busy diaries and you just have to be flexible. And I think when you look at the rhythm and the cadence of— I'm not a morning person in any way, shape, or form. So I quite like doing the US because, you know, I can start my day a little bit later, 9, half 9. I'm I'm not having to start at half 7, 7 in the morning like I was in the UK. And I can ease into my day with 2 or 3 coffees before, you know, we kind of hit the ground running. And I don't mind being a bit of a late worker because that kind of works for me and my rhythm and my routine. But there's no right or wrong way to do it. And I think you have to be able to empower yourself and empower the people around you to find a rhythm that does work for you. You know, at Hubscale, we have no set working hours, we have unlimited PTO, and that's a big driver to allowing people to go, actually, if you want to come in a lot later, do it. If you want to come in earlier, you can do it. You know, it gives gives you the freedom to maybe do more admin-led tasks in the morning and free up all of your afternoon to be on calls. But you are kind of at the mercy of your customers, and if you're a good recruiter, you kind of should be. You know, there's plenty of occasions where I've been called up on a Thursday or a Friday and they want profiles on Monday or Tuesday, and you have to work through the weekend. Um, I think you have to, uh, reserve maybe 20% of your commission fee, girlfriend, to, uh, to apologize at some point, you know, uh, to keep, keep the house happy.

Um, that is a good point though. If you, if you are like going on that journey, part of it is what's your setup, right? Like, are you single? Where are you in life? If you are— if you do have a partner, let's talk about if I do take this job, it's an amazing opportunity, the rewards could be huge. Yeah, this is actually what reality might look like. It isn't going to be typical, you know, log off at 5:30, 6, 7. Sometimes I'm gonna say it's a good point. Yeah, it's just part of like the decision-making around it.

100%. And I think You know, as an individual, I'm very fortunate. My partner, she's incredible. She's very understanding. She gets it. But I think you have to have those conversations and you have to be able to be really honest with yourself about whether you want to do it as well, because there are easier jobs to do and still make good money. And there's other markets that are probably more accommodating to personal lifestyles, personal situations, where you can still make just as good money, you know, kind of in the process. But if you've got that understanding of what you're walking into from day one, I knew from the day I met the Elliotts, the day they kind of showed me that 2027 envision what the reality was going to be. And I was all for it. I was like, you know what, this is the way it needs to be to be successful. I'm willing to sacrifice here and there. And I think as long as there's that mutual understanding, and I'm a big believer that you need great leadership if you're going to make this transition. If you're in a generic firm, you used to work in 9 till 5, 9 till 6, if that's even reality anymore, and you do want to go and move into a US market, choose your leadership wisely. Choose a leadership that it's give and take, and, you know, you can have that flexibility with them of, if I go and do a 78-hour week, or if I'm, you know, spending 4 out of my 5 days of the week working till 11 PM, maybe I want a half day on the Friday because, yeah, you want to go out with your partner, or you've got kids or something like that. I think that's really important, and that helps breed more success out of individuals as well.

Yeah, you've got to be treated like an adult for sure. But fundamentally on this, because sometimes I do think this can be a big You'll probably see it in interviews. Sometimes it can be a real big barrier. We're not talking about nuances of doing the US market, just overall, how is that possible? Hours, all that. But you're in a growing office in Manchester, there's plenty of people doing it, right? You make it work. But I think the fundamental, like, really good point there is if you're in an environment where you've got good leadership, they treat you like adults, you're intrinsically motivated, like you're gonna make it work and you figure out yourself. But it's absolutely possible. Yeah. First 6 months then. How long did it take to do your first placement?

First placement was month 3. It was a dark October night with me and Elliot White in the office. Well, we thought we'd hit the lottery, but we hadn't. I'm sure we'll come on to that.

Um, should we talk a bit about this then? So like, why not? So you all paint us a bit of a picture then. So was your world straight away like clearly like the, the goal for you coming on was going to focus on go-to-market.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Conversation we'd had was, and again, this was a completely new market for me. I'd never done go-to-market before. My background was all tech, you know, very, very techie roles. But the vision was come on board initially as an IC, but with the vision to build, help both the Elliotts scale, help them effectively grow a business, right? And have some ownership over a business unit, which was go-to-market. But I'm a big believer, they're a big believer that you have to you know, cut your teeth in the market. You have to have credibility. You have to be, you know, have some success before you go into any leadership role. And that was it. That was the first sort of 3, 6 months was get your head down, learn as much as you can, speak to as many people as you can, do all the fundamental basics really, really well. And we decided that, you know, there's kind of two different sides of that cyber market. You've got the early-stage startup ecosystem Very founder-led recruitment can be a little bit more transactional, but still very much a relationship-led market. And then we have the growth side, which is the, you know, $50, $100 million ARR businesses, private equity-backed. These are huge international cyber vendors. And my goal was to go after the latter, which we knew would take a little bit longer, but potentially be much more rewarding for us. And the vision was always place the leadership, go and do big team buildouts. You know, rather than doing one role at a time, let's do 20. You know, how can we build this strategic partnership with some of the biggest companies in the world to help them scale and grow and do amazing things. So that was me figuring out really for 6 months on the phones, you know, getting great candidates out to the market, learning, just trying to just uncover little pockets, little snippets, little leads, little opportunities that you can really take advantage of. And that's really kind of where that first placement come from, which was the back of, in its essence, a lead chase really to its core.

We're gonna get that story because I know it's a good one. It's a really great—

it's a humbling story.

Yeah, but it's a really— I'm sure one that you're like— I'm sure you refer to it and you learn a lot from it. But just quickly on this, because again, I think this would be helpful for people. You were just sort of talking through it, so you said you've never done this particular market before. Yep. We said earlier how being in this space is important. Credibility, community. So how did you actually— besides time, conversations, like that's part of the equation here— like what were we doing really intentionally to build credibility in a market you haven't done before? Yeah, was you leveraging what the elites have done and sort of is that your in Was you being really transparent about, I've joined and this is what I'm building and where I'm going, which is what I wanted to connect?

Yeah.

Was it— I think the other thing I definitely want to hear your take on, because this come up so much when I was in, um, Austin last year, was the amount of senior leadership people in your space willing to network and be connected versus how unlikely that would maybe work in the UK market. Who would be happy to jump on a networking call. I don't know, you can tell us. But how did you actually build this credibility in this market? Like, just tell us how you actually did that, because I think that's really helpful for people.

100%. And they are very different, the UK and the US. I think the US is much more open and understanding of the network, the relationship. And I think they have it more broadly. And with like realtor and real estate agents, you know, that's just part of how things work over there. But it all began top down. So the mantra was always, we're going to start at the top, We're going to look at the senior-level leaders, the decision-makers, the economic buyers that are sitting in these accounts, and we're going to try and get in front of as many of those as we possibly could. And, you know, I set myself targets to reach out to X number of senior leaders every single week. The goal was to really start to understand the companies we were going after. So it was more fact-finding, you know, and it was very open. It was very transparent. Hey, I've just joined this company. I'm here to do senior-level appointments. You know, you're a great prospect, you're a great profile. I'd love to chat with you, whichever kind of direction we wanted to go in, and just speak to as many people as we possibly possibly could to get more of an understanding. And it was also trying to really understand the landscape of what go-to-market was, because I think a lot of people default it to sales, but it's so much more than sales. You know, it's customer success, it's marketing, it's pre-sales, post-sales, it's all of those different elements, renewals. You know, there's so much in there that you can go after. So we tried to— and I tried to initially build my network in as many different pockets as I possibly could. So I wasn't one-dimensional and I had different perspectives because I knew for a fact that you can't just call up CrowdStrike, one of the biggest security vendors in the world, and say, hey, I do exact search now for cyber, we should work together. It's not going to work very well. So you have to find the pockets of opportunity and it may not even be within the business you think it's going to be in. You know, a lot of what we did initially when we were just trying to figure things out, we would kind of map out some target customers and through speaking to those customers, we realised they're not really a great prospect. They're an incredible business, but that doesn't make them a good customer for you as a recruiter. They may not even need you. So we had to find out, okay, where's the gap? Where's the opportunity? Where's the pain point? And we kind of identified pretty quickly that if you look at that $50 million to $150 million range, the leaders in those businesses need to scale, need to move at pace, have money, have investment, but don't necessarily have the brand behind them or the reputation behind them to actually go and hire at scale and hire fast and quick. So that's where we really kind of unlocked the opportunity and started to really drill down and focus on. But it was, it was always a top-down mandate and making sure that I was covering every part of the market, not just what I thought was the easiest, which would have been sales. It's always a lot more candidates, a lot more people to speak to, but it was getting a full picture of what that market actually was.

And had you taken in the past that top-down approach in the past or No, complete opposite. So tell me about— because I think sometimes there can be, yeah, preconceived assumptions of why would this CRO speak to me, or why would the senior— so like, what was— just to get grounded for a second, because again, I think this can break some of the maybe preconceived beliefs around going top down. And one, what was— so let's just say your target each week was to try and have a connected call and an arranged call with 50 senior leaders a week, let's just say, what, like, what would be— starting out in that early period, what do you reckon your hit rate would be? Like, from I'm reaching out to 50, what percentage of people will come back that you then end up actually getting a meeting with, do you reckon?

Probably about 50%.

Yeah, fair.

50%, like, being honest, you know. And I think, um, there's two ways to go about it. You've got the open-to-work route. It's really easy to get people on calls when they're open to work. And I think you don't have to sell them a role, you don't have to fake anything, just be genuine, just say 'Your profile looks fantastic. This is what I do. Would love to connect to talk through the kind of companies we partner with and the opportunities we might have,' and build relationships. And I think in recruitment, we're always so rushed and so, like, you know, desperate to form a result immediately that actually just take a step back and go, 'Actually, it might take 3 or 4 calls with this individual at a senior level before they really trust me.' And actually, we're on WhatsApp terms and we're kind of developing the relationship. So you can start with open to work. The other way is a real fundamental basic, which is knowledge gathering, you know, and it's going into those companies, speaking to people that work there that aren't at a senior leadership layer. So if you look at like the individual contributors in sales, these guys love giving you gossip. They love telling you what's happening in the company. And one of the easiest ways to do that, you know, if a sales rep tells you, oh, by the way, we're looking to open an office in Canada you know, we're trying to explore a new market or we're trying to open up a market in Europe or whatever territory it may be, it's taking that information to the sales leader. You might go to the VP of North America and say, hey, I understand you're currently looking to open an office in Canada. Here's a couple of profiles that I work with, or here's an example of some of the work we've done in Canada before. I think it's valuable for us to connect and get together and talk about how we can execute on that. So there's the kind of tangible knowledge-led introductions where you're not just saying, But you're in cyber, I do cyber, let's speak because that result, you're probably going to get a 1 in 10 hit rate. But if you take the time to understand your market and take the time to really learn the prospects in your market, when your outreach is a little bit more credible, you're going to get a much higher strike rate.

Yeah, 100%. I think if you were to look at, you can tell me what you think about this, but if you were to, some of the stuff we did recently at Hector with a really great guy called Elliot, we did a really specific course on NPCs backing out. And he's saying one of the things that he really makes sure that his team always have in their introductions when taking candidates to market is either I know, I saw, I heard.

100%.

So like, it's a really good thing that, because if you can lead with I know, that's really strong. It's like, I know you're going into Canada, right? Um, obviously I heard, a bit of gossip, maybe not as confident, but I've heard this. And then I saw, that's probably the least valuable one because I saw like this information, or I saw this article, right? But ideally showing up and being relevant. What I wanted to ask you, just two things for a second. One, because I'm sure this is something that you coach and help your team with now. Yeah, I think that information gathering, connecting the dots, that commercial mindset is something that really great recruiters have, but average or below average recruiters don't have. Yeah, I'm sure sometimes you have helped your team be like, they said this, so I think you should— like, have you actioned this, or have you done that?

Yeah.

How can you— how have you— have you helped people develop that? Do you feel like you can get better at that? Because I think that's a really important skill.

Yeah, there's structure, um, and we developed this, and we're one of my principal consultants, she's brilliant, and we, we got together in a room really to kind of formulate how do you make this structural, how do you make it an actual thing, you know? Because it's really easy to say, I'll just go find things out, you know, and then speak to people, be fine, right? But that doesn't translate to a desk of someone who's got a couple of years experience. And we put together a model that we call KRP, which is knowledge, relationship, pitch. And the idea is, is that you can start to benchmark your prospects against those three things. What do you know? You know, do you have a strong relationship? And then how can you pitch, you know, in those scenarios? So the knowledge part of the baseline is when you're looking at a customer, you're looking at a client, you go, what do I actually know about them? And I'm really brutal with my team on this, but I'll ask them, I say, what do you know about prospect XYZ? And if they tell me anything that I can find in Google in 30 seconds, they'll get shut down immediately. So I go, you don't know anything, right? If you can't tell me things about your prospect that you can't find on the internet, you're not doing your job well enough. I want to know what their average deal sizes are. I want to know who their target customers are. I want to know if there's certain customers that they're really struggling to get into and actually they would love a rep who can get them into that company. I want to know where they are on their kind of exit journey, how How long have they got before they actually go out there? All of the things that you can't really find just on a quick Google search. If they tell me they're doing $100 million of ARR and they've got an office in 37 locations and their CEO is XYZ, I go, well, yep, we all know that. And so do your competitors. You're looking for information that your competitors don't know. And that's the knowledge part. And once you've got the knowledge part, you can build the relationship with your potential prospect by doing kind of what we said earlier, which is I know I know that, or, you know, I understand you're in the process of doing this. And you build credibility with that individual because you're helping solve problems, which is fundamentally what we're here to do. And then once you've got the relationship piece down, then you can pitch, then you can talk about the retainers, the projects, the HSSPs, you know, the solution ultimately that will make you money. But you've got to go through those 3 steps to really kind of get to that end goal. And anyone who's in my team or anyone who's junior or anyone out there who's kind of struggling to really get to that get to that point of, you know, how do you turn something into a really tangible relationship or make money? It's you've got to have a really good introduction, you've got to have a really good understanding of who you're going after. And that's why it's hard to be a generalist in such a specialist-led recruitment market that it's become, but it's still doable.

That's really great framework. The only other bit that I wanted you, if you don't mind, just to get a bit granular on, because I think this would be really helpful for people. Yep. Is like you said earlier, if we're going top-down, we're connecting with people, speaking to people, 50% hit rate, getting a Zoom call in, video call in. Yeah, like you said, we don't need to try and look a certain way or say like, yeah, I've got all these requirements. Like, like, try and just make— you know, a lot of recruiters will do that, right? You don't need to leave like fake information. Yeah, you don't feel like that. You have to anyway. Way. So all I just want to hear, if you don't mind, is— and you might maybe even develop this into a bit of a framework now— but is there anything that you, looking back or even now, you would do very intentionally on that call to maybe bring down the barriers a bit or build a bit of trust or build a bit of credibility? It might be that you ended up building a bit of an intro where it's like, look, this is where I'm at, this is why I wanted to connect, this is what I'm doing, and these are the reasons why I think it'd be worth us knowing each other. You might have built a bit of framework about that, I don't know, but I think that could be really helpful for people because I do think, and I'm sure you've run into this, seen this, or you can tell me what you, uh, think of it, but there'll be a lot of recruiters out there that feel like in order for me to have time with a senior person, I have to give them something or I have to bring something, aka a job, or— yeah, but that isn't always the case. And I think part of it can be understanding what we're talking about here. And frameworks like this can be helpful. So I don't know what comes up for you there.

I think, um, first of all, like, take the pressure off yourself, you know. You shouldn't feel like every person has to respond to you, every person has to be your best friend. And you're going to have a hit rate that might be 50%, it could be 80%. But I think the quicker you come— become comfortable with the fact that actually you're going to get fobbed off every now and then, and that is fine, it's perfectly okay. And I think But when you do, you do outreach and it is genuine and it is intentional and it isn't with a misconstrued kind of perception of why you're doing it. It's much easier to have those conversations. You know, I worked with consultants before that told all the time, you know, get a director on a phone, try and flip them, try and make them hire a manager immediately. And you've got 20 minutes to do that. Well, you're going to come across disingenuous because you're going to go, hey, how are you? Lovely to meet you. I do XYZ. Are you hiring? You know, you panic straight away. Then immediately you've lost credibility, you know, and you've lost that human-to-human interaction. And I think just be genuine, go in, give them a really good introduction about who you are, what you're looking to do, give them some social proof. This is number one. Are you mutually connected to anyone? You know, have you worked with a similar company within their field? You know, have you got similar events that you've gone to? Maybe you've got similar interests, you know, really simple stuff. You know, I've built connections with people based off the fact that they love Formula 1. I love Formula 1. Just maybe put a post out a couple of months ago when they've gone to a Grand Prix or something like that, you know. So you can be really genuine, and I think that's the big thing, is that we sometimes lose that in recruitment because we're so desperate to sell or we're so desperate to convert that you miss the genuine element that allows you to build the relationship that can bring you the 10x return. And you don't have to burn through as many people to get that client flip, you know, off of the first call that you've been pressured to do. You know, it's, it's be genuine, have a good intro, social proof with these people. And also as well, one thing that really works for us and that we get the team to do a lot is give them a reason to want to speak to you again. So, you know, if they're open to work, as a kind of more basic example, is ask them to go away and explore what companies are interesting to them and come back with a list. You know, if they could go away, pick 5, come back, we'll talk through those 5. Maybe we have a relationship with those customers already, maybe we don't, but it gets the prospect thinking about, oh, actually, okay, there's a mutual benefit here. Maybe 'Yeah, they might be able to introduce me to someone, or they might know somebody that I don't.' So you kind of want a bit of give and take. But I also feel like if you're the only one ever bringing something to the table, the odds of converting them anyway are pretty low because they obviously don't see the value back. You need to get to a place where you're almost playing tennis with a prospect. And I use the tennis analogy with my team all the time is, you know, you may reach out and make that connection with them, the ball's in their court at that point. Give them a reason to hit the ball back, you know. And if they— if you can't think of that reason, the odds of building the relationship and converting are pretty low. So you've got to work through that, and it takes a bit of time. It can happen on 2 or 3 calls, it might take 6 months. But if you do that at scale, you're always going to have something there tangible that you can work with.

Getting to know you in your journey, I feel like the big thing that you really developed here— you can let me know what you think— is observation, is patience, Oh yes. Yeah, it's like the way that you're talking, right, is this is coming from you're very accepting or being patient. Things don't happen overnight. But that might not have been the case.

Not if you met me a few years ago.

Yeah, so like I feel like that's— I just wanted to point that out because that, that is part of this, right? So let's just break down the story a bit then. Like we're talking about, I guess, what we just went through there are ultimately a lot of the things you're likely doing that led to this first quote-unquote big win, like that first milestone, like first placement, new company, always the, the first thing that you really want to try and ideally make as quickly as possible, right?

Yeah.

You know, when you're coming in at the senior level, you want to have an impact. You'll be putting pressure on yourself as well as the company will be. You're always going to be putting more pressure on yourself, most likely. She tells a bit about this story. So I've got here, so we placed a senior customer success person.

Yep.

Right. And you can tell us a bit more about the story, but this person was on 7-figure package.

Yep.

I think we introduced them— did we? We introduced them to like a, a private equity. Yep. Or venture capital firm.

Yeah.

You can tell me. Something ended up happening. They ended up like— you connected this part, you can tell us, but you connect to this person, saw an opportunity, connected the dots, made the intro. Ended up hiring them. This was a 7-figure package. It was like, our fees are this. That didn't quite play out. Then we had to sort that out. Just tell us a bit about this, because doing this approach led to this opportunity. It happened, and then we can take the lessons from it.

This is— it's a great humbling story of feeling like you've made it and then realizing very quickly you haven't made it and you've got a long way to go. Um, but it's a great story, and I think It was the fundamental basics of recruitment, right? You know, all the things we've been talking about. It began with an open-to-work, you know, a C-suite-level candidate who was open. We had a brilliant conversation, we built some rapport, and through just a bit of knowledge gathering, I had a lead for another business that had recently been through a transaction. They had new investors, so I reached out to that investment group and basically said, hey, look, I've got somebody here who I think looks absolutely perfect for your company and what you're looking to do. And I understand you've got this issue in your company. This person could be great for them. So we went through a very long process. We had some brilliant conversations. We kind of felt like, this is nice and smooth. This is amazing. I thought, this exec stuff's not as hard as people make it look, you know? And then we kind of went through the process. Nothing really too dramatic in that process. We shared our terms of business. And the first kind of lesson there was, you know, just because you're sharing terms doesn't mean you're agreeing terms. You know, just, you know, you need signatures.

I hear that a lot in the US.

Oh yeah, you need signatures or it's not real. And we went through the whole process and the candidate effectively was put into a role. We were super excited. It was a freezing cold October night. It was pitch black outside. I think it was only me and Elliot White left in the office at this point. Super excited. Put the invoice around, sent the invoice to the customer.

That would have been the biggest invoice you sent, right, for recruitment?

Biggest invoice I've ever sent. Didn't feel real at the time. Thought, this is crazy. But it was on top of the world. We thought, you know, this is it. Like, this is the thing we needed really to kick on. It was the business that we were recruiting into were worth a few hundred million. You know, it was, it was absolutely— It's a good start or something. It could be the start of something. And then that invoice was received pretty poorly, to say the least. Me and Elliot ended up in a room being savaged pretty much by this customer.

And what was their perception? It was like they just thought they didn't— it was like an introduction almost.

Yeah. Yeah. They very much saw it as, look, this is the first time I've ever worked with you. This is an introduction. This is the beginning of a relationship. You know, sending an invoice like that for the first time we've ever worked together.

And we haven't got anything signed. There wasn't a—

it wasn't a full search. It was an introduction. It was— opportunistic, as they described it, which it was, you know. So we had a very interesting phone call quite late at night where we both sort of sat back in our chairs and thought, right, well, that's that over then. We're never going to work with them ever again. And managed to very quickly turn it around, kind of resolve things, and had to slash the fee down to a third of its original size in order to make it happen. Um, and it was the first kind of real wake-up call of like, actually, you guys, you got a long way to go. And not me personally, you know, you got a long way to go. Actually, it's, it's time. It's relationship. Slow down. You know, there was so many things in that process that we could have done differently in terms of asking the right questions, just, just taking our time to ask. You know, if we'd have asked before we sent that invoice, hey, we sent the terms, what did you think? Is that what you're expecting? If it's not what you're expecting, what are you expecting? And yeah, it was an incredible few weeks really, from highs to lows and feeling like we're on top of the world. But they're a phenomenal customer for us. And last year we did amazing work with them, partnered with them a lot. They've given us plenty more opportunities and a few searches as well. We now know the difference. But it was a real kind of moment for me as well to kind of go, actually, 'You know, there's more to this than just the basics of just throw a CV out and hope for the best. There's real relationships that have to be developed.' And it took a lot to get to that point to even get the guy towards an offer. I think that process was 4, 5, 6 weeks, whereas a normal process was a couple of weeks in the UK that I was used to. And like you mentioned before, just having the patience and starting to learn okay, I need to slow down here to speed up if I'm gonna get this right, because I can't afford to make this mistake again. Um, and we never have since, thankfully.

Yeah, it's such a great— sometimes, like, your best customers may not always have, like, the most straightforward start. No, but absolutely, if you're willing to look in the mirror, learn from them, understand what you've done better, and then, you know, move forward with that.

Yeah, drop the ego.

That there's no reason why that maybe rocky start, or maybe not quite straightforward start, can evolve into a key account and, and a really important client relationship. What will we be taking into the next, like, 6 months then? Because this is then really the catalyst to really kick on, right?

Yeah.

So what were the— so we've got patience, I'm sure, throughout that, learn even more about the ecosystem and these types of things. So what did that then, like, inform you of going forward? Did it make you be like, right, we've done this now. I— the great thing about that is I can now leverage this case study. I can go to these sorts of companies and go, we've just put this person in this seat, we can do this sort of stuff for you. Like, would it really inform moving forward to then kick on and get some of the results that you ended up getting?

It, it did the opposite that I think most people would probably think it would do. You know, I think if that kind of scenario happens to you where you've got, you know, your first kind of customer and client screaming at you down the phone that what you've done is out of order, you probably think, oh my God, like, you know, let's just steer clear of it. But it actually, for me, gave me more confidence that we were on the right track. The fact that, you know, we were in the room, you know, we were having the conversations, we were even being considered for some of this work at the time. And as the kind of journey went on, you know, it unlocked more doors for us. It was something to talk about, you know, this senior placement allowed us to to have a case study. You know, it allowed us the ability to go out into the industry and say, hey, I've made this placement. I think it allowed us to network around that individual's network as well, you know, really utilize the people they knew. Um, he gave us phenomenal feedback on the process he'd been through with us, and I think he, he continues to this day to recommend us to other people in the industry. So it was a real platform for, to build on and, and allow us to kind of recognize that Okay, yeah, look, in the moment it felt like the end of the world, but actually there was tons that we could take from it. And it really became a catalyst of like how we could build, how we could move forward, how we could kind of run that kind of part of the business. And it kind of formulated the initial spark to separate the two brands from Hubscale. When I joined, it was just Hubscale, and then it became Hubscale and Hubscale Exec Search. And it was that kind of catalyst where You know, by January we'd launched Exec Search as its own brand because we understood that, hang on a minute, there's something different here. It's a different type of process, it's a different type of prospect, and we need to operate slightly differently with a different expectation of what that kind of looks like as well. So it sparked lots, you know, not just personally but also in the company around, okay, actually there's something here that we can really go after. And, and it and it's blossomed from there, really.

I think that's a really good— it can be very easy for recruiters because we're used to, of like, got that, uh, big win, that success story, onto the next.

Yeah.

But the way, if you think about it, there, there's loads of different things there where off the back of it, what's ended up happening, case study, who else you connected with that you think would be worth us speaking to. Yeah, like all of that. It's a really important point. Again, sometimes to slow down to speed start. Yeah, you work really hard to get to this point, try and actually make that the start of like a customer journey and like what can now happen with this. And I think sometimes that can be missed.

Yeah, because the interesting thing was we didn't have a next. So it's really easy, I think, as a recruiter, if you're in a business or an environment that's established, or there's loads of customers, there's loads of prospects, or maybe there's just a full database of customers you could probably go after. We didn't have a next, right, at the time. It was, well, this is it, this was the start. So we need to figure out how we make this potentially lead to what's next. What can come of this that actually sparks the next part of this journey? And I completely agree with you. You know, how many times have you, you know, as a recruiter, we place someone, we move on, you know, next, what's next, what's next? But actually, the hardest thing you can do in this game is place someone sometimes. So you should be milking that for all it's worth, you know, getting the recommendations, getting the referrals, getting introduced to their friends and their prospects because, you know, you never know who they know and how that, where that could lead to and what opportunity that could lead to next. And I think if you're doing a great job along the way and you're not too transactional and you're building relationships and you genuinely are, you know, having great communication with those individuals to the point of placement, they should want to give you something back off the back of that as well, more than just a LinkedIn recommendation. So that was it for us. We didn't have a next. So I personally definitely didn't have a next. I was like, right, this is my first customer. I've nearly ballsed this right up. So I bet figure out how I can use this to my advantage. Um, and I think if you do that, even if you're in an established business, um, you'll, you'll 10x your outcome. Yeah, yeah.

Let's just— because you're just talking about it here, there, like, that ended up being a bit of a catalyst for the positioning of Hubscale Exec Search.

Yep.

Which you've then gone on to do a lot more of these types of searches, a lot more experience now with these, right?

I'm getting there.

Yeah. So the, the first thing that I would just love to get your take on is firstly, from like a recruiter perspective, because you've done a lot more of these now, process-wise, what are the main differences? Like, if you think of Michael Page, I've just signed a client, I may be working on like 2 or 3 requirements, they're similar roles, process for that versus what maybe the process looks like for a search.

Yeah.

What are the main— from a recruiter's lens, like, what are the main differences? Because this is where you would have had to build and develop your skills.

Yeah.

Main differences, talk to me, what are they?

First of all, the first thing I'll say is anybody who does recruitment can do search. There's this big, uh, mystic cloud around it that it's, you know, something otherworldly and you need 15 years of experience, 20 years of experience. But, you know, if there's somebody listening or watching who's in a generic or a larger firm or even in a boutique and thinks, actually, I'd love to do more senior-level searches, I'd love to trade up, it's entirely possible. Like, you can do it. It's not as big of a leap as people probably try to make it out to be, you know, and I think we need to kind of get rid of that barrier to entry and just allow people to develop and grow in their careers. But I think for me, the fundamental differences is the front end is entirely different. Different. And what I mean by that is that intake, that brief, you know, how much time you need to spend on actually understanding what you're doing from a search perspective takes a little bit more time than probably looking for an engineer in Stoke, you know, for example. You know, taking— you might do— and we— it's quite traditional recruitment, isn't it? You'd have a client meeting, you spend 45 minutes to an hour with someone, you do a brief on that call with that hiring manager, and you go and you look for an engineer. And, you know, you come back and you might throw CVs in the mix and give or take a bit of feedback. And maybe it's multi-agency, so actually pace is everything. You need to be the first person on the phones, and the first 48 hours is critical to get the right people. Um, and that pace and that urgency, it sometimes overpowers the quality of actually what you're doing. I think sometimes, you know, especially if you're working at like 8 to 10K fees, because you need to be doing 2 or month to really make any good money and start to hit targets and hit, you know, $200K+ years. In search, if you're making $150K, $200K from a fee, the level of detail that's expected from you, the level of insight and knowledge and the time commitment from you is a complete game changer in my opinion. And we've had it recently where, you know, we were introduced to an organization, we met the CEO, we spent an hour with him, he gave us a brief on the role. And the old Callum probably would have ran with that and gone, it's the CEO, there's nobody more important than CEO. He's given me an hour of his time. I know what I'm looking for. I'm out. I'm off. I'm going to go find something, see what I can do with it. The difference now is that actually there's a lot more than one stakeholder involved. And in that scenario, there was a global HR leader who had a very different opinion of what the profile was. So we met with the global HR leader. She gave us an entirely different brief on the search.

Search.

And then the next step was to actually get them both in the room together and redefine the role, redefine the package, redefine what we were looking for so that we were all on the same page. And it took a lot of time. You know, we run MEDDIC within Hubscale, and MEDDIC's an incredible sales methodology that allows us to truly understand, you know, who are the economic buyers, who are the decision makers, what is the decision criteria, what's the decision process here, who are the champions that we've got in this search so that we understand all elements of what the search is and what's involved. Had the old me just ran off of what the CEOs told me, it probably would have led to 8 to 12 weeks worth of pain where me sending CVs to the HR leader, who's the first person to do the review of a profile, meant all of my profiles got rejected, right? You know, and it's that initial bit where I think you have to slow down to speed up. You have to be willing to kind of go, I'm not ready. And that's, that for me, that took a lot of of, you know, kind of tweaking of my style to be like, am I really ready to fill this role? Am I ready to do this search, or do I need one more call? I think never be afraid to ask the hiring manager for another call or for clarification, or to feel as though I haven't met every single person involved in this arrangement, this search, or this role yet, and I need to. I really need to. Because if they're serious, they're paying a lot of money, you know, and if they're serious about this and it's retained 100% of the time usually, They want you to meet all these different stakeholders. They want to know who's involved. And I think most of our search kickoffs take 2 or 3 calls, sometimes more, before we even sign on the dotted line and agree to go out there and actually run that search. And that initial intake, if you do that right, means your search will condense itself down by weeks and weeks and weeks. And in the industry, I won't name them, but some of the more traditional search players are filling roles in 6 to 9 months. But our average fill time is 8 weeks in exec. Back because we spend an awful lot of time at the front end, sometimes a week, 2 weeks, getting that right before we kick on. And then we can take weeks, sometimes months off of the search because we don't need to keep going back and forth. We don't need to keep analyzing profiles and we just get it right. And it's that, that patience piece or the attention to detail that is the game changer between a $10K fee and a $150K fee, you know, because you will get asked, what's their family dynamic? You know, what do they enjoy doing at the weekend? They want to know the candidates on a really granular layer level that maybe you don't need to do for a 10K fee. You know, 10K fee could be, are they a good engineer? Can they do the job? I've got a project.

Yeah.

Do I like them? Perfect. But more often than not, there's a 7-figure package on the table for this candidate. And a lot of risk, a lot of risk from an investment perspective, people who have invested in the company, and potential targets and goals that shareholders are looking for. If they make the wrong hire in 2 years' time, it means a lot of people are unhappy. So you've got to get that right.

Really good breakdown there. And like, just out of interest on that, up the front end part, yeah, is a big part of that as you build your expertise, your focus. A big part of that also is not just what you're getting from them, but then what you're bringing to the table and helping them shape that right and advising to go 'Hang on a minute, guys, this is important, we need to include it. These are the reasons why.' Yeah, it's also that as well, right? So yeah, I don't know what you— you can tell me what you think about this, but I think a really good way to reframe this for, for people on what you're just talking about there is if you are in that environment where, like you said, urgency is key because your competition can beat you, that's just might be the situation you're in. But in this type of world, we can get to the end of the process and all be confident that this is the best person for job.

Yeah.

But in that other environment, which you might be in, which is fine, if we were to genuinely say, Callum, did the best person get the job, or did the person that was available that came back to you got the job?

Yep.

Which one is it? And I think on this search piece, it is a lot of the time, like, the, the real just bottom line is we are getting the best person for the job, not the, the best person that comes comes back to us.

Yeah, I think also you have to be ready for the rejection of it as well, because like, 100%, I agree with you. You know, when you're in that world where actually, oh, it's the first person that was available, it was the quickest people to get through that interview stage, and the hiring manager is probably making a decision based on what's in front of him. You know, they're going, well, I've seen 5 profiles and I assume these are the best people for the job because this is what the recruiter sent to me. Happy days, there's your 10K But often I think with search as well, it's because there is that level of detail and scrutiny in it. We need the best person for the job. You've got to be accepting of the fact that there will be rejection, then they'll go, actually, no, we're not happy with that first shortlist. Or yeah, we've interviewed a couple of people that you thought were perfect, but actually we don't think they're perfect. And there's a lot of toing and froing, probably a lot more toing and froing, which is why the processes can take a little bit longer. And more often than not, Because it's not about the first person to reply to you, I'd say in nearly 100% of all of the searches that I have filled, it's been the person that's taken 3, 4 weeks, sometimes longer, to actually get engaged that takes the job, you know, and it's very rarely the first few that are interested or even right for the opportunity. You have to really deep dive in, explore different parts of the market, get recommendations, get referrals, and also really trust your network and trust your gut, trust in your gut, because you'll make some great relationships and you'll meet some incredible people who on paper are right, but because you've done the brief to the level of detail you have, you know they're not. So you've got to really kind of put that aside as well and focus on going out there and doing the job to the best of your ability to, like you say, get the best person for that job, even if it's someone you've never met before or spoke to for, and that takes time.

So front end is different. What about running the process? What part is the same? What part's the different?

I think, yeah, there's not huge amounts of difference. I still think, you know, you're there, you're the mediator between the client and the individuals that are looking for the opportunity. I think recruitment for me is, is not a product-led sales, it's a service-led sales. So like, the, the what you do between briefing and filling the role is sometimes often more important than what happens on the, on the friend. Whilst they're looking for the best candidate and they want the best person for the job, they know and we know this is a human industry. People change their mind, people pull out, people lie. All of these things happen. The fundamental crux of how you get through those things is how good is your service? How knowledgeable are you? How much data are you bringing to the table? Do you do what you say you're going to do? Which is just the number one thing. And it's having that weekly cadence and it's getting the time from them. We probably spend anywhere from from 1 to 2 hours a week with our clients when we run searches to give them the insight and knowledge of what we're doing, the profiles we're speaking to, giving them insight, sometimes pushing back and having really difficult conversations and saying, actually, what you want isn't going to happen. And this is the feedback on your brand. I think some of the hardest conversations I've ever had to have is when the company's perspective of their brand is not the reality of their brand. And when you go out to the market and you have to say, well, actually, Hey, you know, what we're hearing about your brand is XYZ, which contradicts what you believe your brand is. Therefore, it's limiting your ability to attract that tier 1 talent that you really want. And then you have to kind of get through that and re-piece the search and kind of give them a new reality check of what is achievable. Because every search you'll ever do, everybody wants the number 1 person from Wiz or, you know, the next big, best, brightest AI company or whoever it might be. But there are realities that some companies just cannot attract that talent.

Why are they joining me?

Yeah, and more often than not, they're paying you because they can't attract the talent.

So fair to say then, if you think of your skill set previous to Hubscale, like, though there'll be loads there that would have shown up you can do, and they'll just be— there'll also be parts you would have had to develop and evolve over time, but there's no reason why someone who is in that environment where maybe yeah, it doesn't just have to draw it down to the average fee size, but what they've been used to is maybe they do work with their clients exclusively.

Yep.

Like, they're a lot— I found if recruiters really do double down on their service and they work contingent, but a lot of people do run a good process, like they care about those things, and there's a lot there, it sounds like, that someone could easily use and apply in this environment, right?

I also think that, you know, when I look for people when I hire as well, one of the first things I often ask is how much repeat business have you got? Because that tells me everything about your service. You know, if you're a 500K a year biller, but you're having to generate 20 new customers every year to stay sustainable at that number, there's something in there that's not quite right. You know, every market has the ability to be repeatable, to have return customer spend. And if you've got someone who's doing 500K a year and it's on 3 customers, I go, you're doing something right there. That customer really trusts you. They really believe you're the right person for the job. And whilst they may not even be recruiting at a senior level, they could be recruiting being an engineer, a mid-level, you know, it could be doing 20K fees. But it's that repeatability that tells me there's something there. You're trusted, you're seen as an advisor more than just a consultant who's out there to do some recruitment. And I think if you've got people out there who are going, well, I don't know whether I can do exec or I don't know whether I can do those bigger fees, I think it's have a look at your desk and look at the reality. If you're getting repeat business, if you're able to get exclusivity, if you're able to sell retainers, especially then you've probably got some of the fundamental basics there that can make you a phenomenal search recruiter and take you from, you know, good to great, you know, as we say, and take you from, you know, that place of the unknown and give you the faith and trust of actually this is doable, this is achievable for me because I've got some fundamental basics already there. You could be doing 1K fees, but if your customer comes back 57 times, you're probably doing something right.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely in reach for people. People. That's why I just love a story like yours, because yeah, like, like we said earlier, like, if I asked you, you would have gone, no, I don't believe you. But now we're in it and we're doing it right, and we're going to keep developing, but we're doing it well. We're getting repeat business, we're building our reputation. I think the other big part of this, then you can tell me what you think— I think another big part of this search piece, and it's interesting that that early experience then informed the decision around Hubscale search, is I think so much of this from our conversation is position German. Yeah, like how you guys are intentionally positioning. Yeah, what you do, because I think it'd be very hard for someone to build a reputation and repeatability on doing these senior searches if at the same time, in the same breath, when I'm on a call, I'm saying, yeah, I can do your AE roles. Yeah. And do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So I think positioning on that standpoint, so how, how we how am I positioning myself to the end customer? And then also, the positioning might not be the right word, but then also I'm sure over time for you it's like how you like look at yourself as well, and how you just like how you think about what you bring to the table in your service, right? Because I think we spoke about this, going into rooms and going, we can help with this, this is our process, and for that process in this service it's going to be 150 grand fee. Yeah, like you have to be saying that with confidence, belief. Yeah, so it's then also like how you view that and your relationship with that, do you know what I mean? Because there can't be any like really lack of confidence in that. You have to back yourself. What do you think about that? I do feel like position is an important part here as well.

I think it's everything, um, you know, because it's about trust as Well, you know, people are parting with a lot of money, but more often than not, what we found, it's not about the money, it's the importance of the hire. And they need to trust that you're the person to deliver that hire for them. They need to hope and see that you're going to represent their brand in the best way possible. So I think your perception and how you come across is really important. And that doesn't necessarily have to be, you've got to turn up in a suit. I don't think I do any of my my briefings in a suit, you know. I think I'll probably wear a dodgy Merino polo at some point, um, but it is about, you know, how you articulate yourself. Are you listening? You know, are you— have you done your research? Do you know the company? You know, simple things that can, can lose you searches is going, tell me more about your company. Okay, how do you not know about our company? You're, you're asking us for 150 grand. Or, you know, simple things like, how much revenue are you turning over at moment, or it's like, you know, or who are your investors? These are fundamental basics that you can find out really quickly before the call. And going from tell me more, who are your investors, to what would your investor ABC think about this hire and what's their perception, what do they need from this hire? That's a very different take. It's two different people. Who do you want to spend £150 grand on? The person who asked you who your investor is, or the person who asked you what's your investor take on this hire and what's their opinion on the hire and what does that mean for them? And you've named their investor. They're going to go, oh, this person knows what they're talking about. They know us, they know what we're trying to do here. So I believe that position is everything. And it doesn't mean you have to be the most prim and proper individual. You don't need to be, you know, in your suit and show up, but you need to be well-researched. You need to be prepared and you need to really show that you want it as well. Like, you know, I've been on many many calls with junior consultants and sometimes come off and gone, how did you feel that went? And, and, you know, the feedback has been, I'm not even sure you really wanted the role, to be honest. You're pretty blasé about it. And, you know, people can read that, they can feel it, they can see it. Um, so I think position is really important.

So to round this out then, like, what do you think would be the real differences in, like, Callum 360 Recruiter, Michael Page as a recruiter? Like, the things that would be different there compared to Callum's Exec Search recruiter? Like, what are the main differences from a recruiter standpoint?

That's a good question. Um, I think the fundamental basics are still there. Like, you know, what we do day to day, you know, what I do day to day is all still there. I think the difference is the ability to slow down, to speed up. It's being more patient, it's taking the time to know the details, and it's not rushing into things because you want the deal and you want it fast, you know. These things take time. If you're doing senior-level exec searches, you probably only need to do 2, 3 a quarter, and you can start to hit million-pound years. You know, that, that's the level of fees. But you may also only do one a quarter, so it's really important you get it right, especially when you're starting out. You know, you're not going to hit the volume from, from day one in exec. And, um, I think one of the big things is, is getting comfortable not having jobs on That's really important because when I was at Page, it was pretty flush. You know, we had a good customer base. I had a good, you know, market, had a good reputation. I always had a good, good amount of work on, you know, anytime managing from 5 to 10 jobs at one point. And that gives you a little bit of complacency because sometimes you can be like, well, if this doesn't work out, I'll just fob them off and I'll move on to the next one, right? When you're retained and you're on a senior level search, you can't get rid of them. You're tied in. It's a mini marriage for the next, you know, 2, 3 months potentially, and you've got to get it right. And like any relationship or any marriage, you know, like you've got to work on it to get the result you want at the end. And I think the big difference for me, if I go back to me at Page or me 3, 4 years ago, was that's probably a little bit less into the detail because I kind of felt like I could probably find the next one, I could probably move on. Whereas now it's like, actually, we've got to get this right. Slow down, patience, do the job to the best of your ability, be the number one at what you do, and everything will come good in the end.

Yeah, that's a really good breakdown. That, because that is what— that was where my mind was going. Not surprised you said the patience piece, slowing down, speed up, but then also managing, like, because as you can imagine, in that other world, it's like I've got loads of job flow, working on that, filling on that, then I'm not building my new pipeline.

Yep.

Shit, job flows down, right, I need to do— it's just so common, right?

Yeah.

So like you're just saying there, getting really comfortable with you're not always going to be landing these new multi-hire, retain, or senior things every single week. And the other part, as you just said, it is really a good point because I got here like rough year one breakdown, you had 5 big retained searches and then the splits with the team as well. Yeah, I don't know how collaborative you guys are, but yeah, to get that top performer spot, hit the numbers you did, you know, over half of that was through just free searches. Yeah, so we're definitely not getting as much volume, but my thing to you then is have have you, like, going through all of that and this different journey around the type of recruitment you're doing, have you found it to be more, like, fulfilling? And, like, more— because I can imagine that can feel a bit different again compared to what you was doing. Maybe fulfilling in different ways.

Yeah.

But it can definitely make you feel different about the job. I don't know, you can tell me.

Uh, the job's still just as stressful. I don't know, it doesn't get any easier.

Yeah, just as hard. But in in terms of, like, if you really— I don't know, maybe it's the wrong way to look at it, but if you're putting these types of people in these organizations, like, you're really going to see that impact there of what you're part of.

Yeah, I think the wins feel bigger. Um, yeah, the wins definitely feel bigger, but the losses feel bigger, you know. And I think that we talk a lot about the positives of it, but, you know, and there is also a reality that what happens when the client turns around and says, oh, we don't need that search anymore, and you have to knock 150 grand off of your board that you predicted for the year. Because that's the other reality to this, is like, you know, it's an incredibly rewarding job. I love recruitment. Like, it's an amazing job, whether you're recruiting, you know, low-level, mid-level, senior-level, whatever it is, putting people into roles, the satisfaction, doing the deals, it's amazing. You get that buzz. And I think that, you know, if you like the volume-led recruitment, you can get the buzz a bit more often, but the buzz is bigger and You know, there is that thing of going, wow, like, you know, I've put like a C-level person into a company that's going out there to try and sell it for a 10x. That's a pretty, pretty cool thing to do. And that's exciting. That's rewarding. But on the flip side, this is recruitment. You know, it's not all smooth sailing. There are moments where you lose searches. You will not win those pitches that you think you're going to win. You will have clients turn around and say, ah, we don't need that anymore, actually. You know, and chalking £8,000 off the board is a lot easier than chalking £150,000 off the board, put it that way.

I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, that is— you're completely right. Like, we have focused a lot on the changes, the differences, but that is another thing you've got to adapt to, right?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. If you put, you know, 2, 3, 4 weeks into something to try and get it off the ground and try and get a search there, or you've chased something down, or you've had an introduction and you know, you're on the cusp of signing a retainer that's going to pay you a lot of money, you're like, that's, that's incredible, how exciting. But the moment that you get that email laying in bed at 11 PM at night from a US client that says, we've changed our mind, is, is equally sobering when you've not got any jobs on. Yeah, you've got to go—

yeah, different.

We could do another hour and a half on that, probably. Yeah.

So I know you, you guys are really big on leading by the front. Yeah, something that you're actively doing, still involved in searches, winning, supporting the team. So one of the— I just think it would— I think we're talking before this, like, I think now it's non-negotiable to like really immerse yourself in your market.

Yeah.

One of the best ways that you can be doing that is out there spending time with customers, doing all of that, which we're still very much doing whilst— right now it may have changed, but when we prepared for this, 11 direct reports. So what are you like This year then, from your perspective, what are you really doubling down on now? What are you really focusing on that you feel like if we sit down this time next year you would have gone, 2026, great year. What are you really focusing on now? We've obviously, you know, grown this team.

Yeah.

Talk to us a bit about what you're focusing on.

There's kind of twofold. It's maintaining the momentum on my own desk and, you know, ensuring that, you know, you're still leading from the front. But I think the leading from the front will change and it is different. You know, you can't necessarily be the biggest biller anymore. You know, you've got other responsibilities, but it's still being that person who's still client-facing. It's customer-facing. It's making the introductions. It's being present for the team when they have those big pitches. You know, we're massive advocates for succession planning and internal promotions and trying to push people through into the Exact Search brand. We've got, you know, some phenomenal people in our team that are ready to go into Exact Search, but they just maybe need need, you know, a couple more calls, a couple more pitches with my support on it or the Elliott support on it just to get them over the line, you know, and they're at that point, which is great. And realistically, by the end of next year, if we're in a position where we have, you know, really established Search brand, which is backed up by the Hubscale core brand as well, and I'm not the top biller, that's a great place for me to be.

That's very humble of you.

Yeah, I hope so, because what I want to see is I want to be able to get out of away. You know, we did a lot of the foundational work, the Elliotts especially, like a lot of the foundational play over the last 12 months has been put in there for these, you know, the team that we've got and the business that we've got to be hugely successful. I don't think me and the Elliotts being top 3 on the leaderboard is the best benchmark for whether the business is successful or not. I think it's, is the peer group, is the next layer and the next cohort coming through able to be the high performers, the top performers, go from good to great? Are they able to be, you know, the new front face? You know, in a year's time, I hope you've got two people from my team sat here, you know, and not me, as much as I've enjoyed this, you know, and it's really about, okay, how do we build? How do we make momentum? How do we move at pace but keep the quality there and make sure that we're reinvesting in that team as we go on this journey?

Yeah, I love that. I think, yeah, we're definitely in, it sounds like in this phase of like done a lot of the hard yards, the foundational stuff, but some really good credibility. We've got this platform now. It's like, let's really just try and, like you said, take this to great, bring people on the, the journey and like what they can be part of. And really like just love that perspective that you shared of, if we've had a really good year, then I'm not going to be at the top of the leaderboard. I think that's such a— that can be hard for people.

Yeah.

So I think that's really cool that you're— that you see it that way. And I think the best leaders will see it that way. Like, how can I overall impact, support, empower my team doesn't mean that you're— it like, it's that versus how can I beat everyone.

Yeah, yeah. And I also think it's not, you know, I— when I go back to, you know, the companies I've been at and when I was the person trying to charge through, you know, to be on the leaderboard and charge up, it's not the most inspirational thing in the world to see your CEO or your founder at number one spot, you know, what you're looking for is the people that sit around you, the peer group, you know, the people that are on the journey around you. You're looking to compete with them. And I think, you know, getting out of their way and allowing them to be their own superstars is so important. You know, you need the team to kind of feel like we're next, we're the next cohort, we represent this brand, we've played our part. You know, myself, Jake, the Elliotts, Alia, you know, we all came in really early and helped kind of build the foundations of what Hubscale is. But it's this next cohort that are going to take us to the next level. It's this next group of people that are in there now, this 7 to 23 that we did in the last 12 months. They're the people we need to really shine through. And if we do our jobs and we get out of their way and we give them the guidance to support and make their life just that little bit easier every single week, we're doing the right thing. And I think then we can, be in a position where hopefully they become either future leaders or just make a load of money billing. And then we get the next cohort through and we can grow sustainably with high performance, you know, people that, you know, have built more than they've ever built before and then do go on the same journey I've been on. You know, we've got people in Hubscale right now who have never done exact search but want to go on that journey and then they'll be able to do it within the confines of the same company, you know, and scale and go on that journey as well. So It's going to be an exciting 12 months.

Look, I think really just cool story with where we've been, where we're now, what you're now being part of. Like, there's still so much more to come, which is really exciting.

Oh yes.

But what I just— I said it to you before, like, what I just really hopefully will inspire other people and what this podcast is about is like just breaking down those barriers, as you said earlier. Like, everything that you've— you're building and have achieved so far other people can.

Yeah.

And it isn't like out of reach if you're willing to work hard, you're willing to drop the ego, have the humility to go, right, where do I need to improve? I need to slow down, I need to make some changes here. You can absolutely achieve and get into the rooms that you think are currently right now unreachable.

100%. Yeah.

And that's what's really cool about your journey. So I know that's going to inspire a lot of people, and I really appreciate coming on the pod.

It's been a pleasure. I've enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.