Ben Hobday - Don’t micromanage. Search for emotional intelligence. Constantly educate yourself.

Welcome to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. I'm your host, Hishem Azzouz, and this week I was joined by Ben Hobday. Ben has been on a fantastic recruitment journey. For the last 12 years, he's worked for Austin Fraser, and before that he worked for Hayes. What we uncovered in this episode really was we dug deep into leadership. Ben has been on a really interesting journey going from just being an individual contributor to becoming one of the best leaders within the brand that he works for. So if you're anyone that's aspiring to be a leader, you're currently on that leadership journey, you're gonna absolutely love this episode full of practical advice and tips on how you can become a better leader. So enjoy this episode. Ben Hobday, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

Excited for this. Obviously, uh, intended to have you at the live podcast. Yeah, but nature, nature got in the way. Yeah, but in a positive way.

Absolutely.

So obviously little one came all okay.

Yeah, a little bit early, but yeah, it was all good.

And here we are today. So where we always like to start is, particularly with someone in the position you're in now, on the journey that you've been on, probably just something that you've thought a lot about. So I'd love to hear your take on like, what does Ben believe are the characteristics and traits of like a really high-performing recruiter in today's market?

Yeah, I think for me, I look at skills and behaviours, right? So for me, things like integrity, all those things are really important. I think a lot of recruitment businesses look for passion, determination, resilience. I think they're a kind of prerequisite.

Yeah, yeah.

Like for me, I look for emotional intelligence. Are you coachable? Can you spark conversation? Can you tell a story? We're here to solve problems, right? So are you a good problem solver? Emotional intelligence is Like massive.

Yeah.

Can you read a room? Those kind of things. And I think it's easy just to look at someone who's hardworking.

Yeah, yeah.

But if you can't learn from a situation, it's going to be very difficult. So typically they're the things like coachability for me is massive.

Yeah, yeah.

Can you learn?

So when can you, on the coachability thing, I love that. When can you, what are the things to look out for when you like maybe early signs of like, this person isn't maybe willing to listen or at least take on other people's, like what have been the, common, like, key indicators early on that you think that you've seen in your time?

Definitely, can you take feedback? Like, that's like a massive one. If you can't take feedback, I mean, you're going to get nowhere, right? So I think constructive feedback, learning from it, asking questions on the feedback. If someone just goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then does the same mistake, they obviously don't understand, right? So you've got to be able to seek to understand, take that feedback, and recruitment's continuous improvement. Like, that's, that's all we're trying to do, find a better way. So Yeah, do they listen? Do they ask questions off the back of feedback?

Yeah.

And how they react to it, yeah.

Do you think you can make someone more coachable?

Definitely, because I think I'm an example of—

Really?

Yeah, 100%. I was quite hell-bent on working really, really hard and just working harder than everyone else when I first joined. Yeah. It wasn't that I wasn't coachable, it's that I probably didn't listen enough.

Right.

And, you know, I'm a prime example of someone who probably didn't. Didn't take to it quite so quickly.

I love that. So obviously you spent a lot of your career at Austin Proser.

Yeah.

And then before that you was at Hayes.

Yeah.

Right. Who was Ben before recruitment?

Yeah, so I was a personal trainer basically. Was it? Yeah, yeah. Classic personal trainer. Or it's normally an estate agent or a personal trainer. Yeah, personal trainer. You know, very average at school, to be completely honest. Didn't really apply myself outside of sports. Got a job in a gym because my friends did. And then really kind of realised I needed to get a real job because hanging out in the gym all day is pretty easy, but it's not going to pay the bills.

It's hard though, no? Like, you got this— I feel like I've had friends that have been like, it's a sales job.

Yeah, but I—

Sometimes people miss.

Agreed. I think that's why it was a nice transition into recruitment. But if you're selling your services, you know, you're doing that all the time. But I think For me, it was just at a point where everyone wanted to start being a personal trainer.

Right, okay.

So I kind of just bailed out of it.

Really?

Yeah.

So who sold, like, how did you stumble into recruitment? Did you have the classic story of like, one of my clients used to be a recruiter and they told me about it? Because we've had that a few times.

Yeah, it's just basically a friend. A friend was like, I'm doing recruitment. I used to work in a gym. It's talking to people all the time. Give it a go. I went to one interview, got the job, and straight away I was like, yeah, this is for me.

So did you start in construction?

Yeah.

What was that like?

People ask me all the time in interviews, like, it's a different world.

Like, different world. What was like the typical job title?

I was doing laborers, bricklayers, carpenters. So, you know, like real, real challenging jobs. And, you know, on a Monday if it was raining, people just wouldn't go to work. So I'd spend the first hour on Monday.

So that's contract that you was doing?

Yeah, yeah. Day rate contract stuff. Yeah.

That's wild. Yeah. And then, so you did that for a couple of years, right? Yeah. So I guess just on this, on the early part of your career, I guess what I always like to ask at this point, just curious, like, what do you think recruitment has given you that maybe you least expected?

Um, good question. I think for me, the opportunity to do something that I really enjoy. That has given me all of the opportunities in my life outside of work. Like, I think it's very rare. I look at some of my friends, they haven't had the opportunities to move forward in their career or potentially outside of work. And I think for me, I've had the opportunity through recruitment to do all of that and do a job that I actually really love, right? Which is rare.

Yeah, so rare. What was Ben motivated by in those early days? What was like your key?

Competition, probably. Money and competition. I'm a competitive bloke, right? And I wanted to make money. And I think those two, when I first started, that competition of— when I left construction, I was quite good. And I came to Austin Fraser and I was terrible.

Really?

You know, the standard was just up here and I joined and I was rock bottom. I was the worst in the office comfortably. And I think that competition of proving that you can do it, like, got me through.

Really got you through. Yeah. So when you went to Austin Fraser, how long have you been at AF now?

12 years.

Nice. So I guess like obviously went from construction and I'm assuming, I think when I saw on your LinkedIn, was it like infrastructure you started on, something like that?

Yeah, infrastructure.

So I'm assuming that there was a different skill set needed. Was it entirely different?

Yeah, huge. I mean, people say, oh, it was okay, you were in recruitment before. I had to literally forget everything, everything, because I was used to walking onto a building site and making friends with the site manager, you know, buying them donuts, taking them for a beer, like all the stereotypical things that you would associate. And then you move into a, you know, where you're calling infrastructure managers and they don't want to talk to you and you can't use your presence and your body language and things like that.

Was it contracts that you went into?

Contracts.

Okay.

Yeah.

Have you always typically—

always.

Yeah. Okay. So I guess just on that, on, on that journey really quickly, and obviously a lot of people will be joining, and I get this quite a lot, so a lot of people joining the recruitment industry right now who like are building their expertise.

Yeah.

Like, from everything that you've learned right now, and I'm sure you help your guys and girls with this now, but like, what's your advice for people that are early on in their career that obviously it will come with experience, with like their expertise and what they know about the market and stuff, but what would your advice be for someone that's like, I have the right mindset, I want to learn, what else can I be doing besides speaking to candidates, clients, to build up my market expertise? Like, what comes up for you on that?

For me, like, when you join recruitment, I think one of the things that the, I suppose the bar to entry is quite low, right? So a lot of people get into it. I think you have to be prepared to be shot at, right? That's the way I summarise it. You have to be able to ask the difficult questions, approach situations. And I think if you're the kind of person that wants to be shot at and you're happy to put yourself out there, I think that's— people can talk themselves out of doing things. So that's like number one piece of advice.

So what you mean by that is be willing to ask the stupid question, be willing to maybe look a bit silly, but yeah, just putting yourself out there where— yeah, okay, I get what you mean.

There's loads of opportunities where you go, I won't make that call, I won't ask that.

Right, got you, got you.

And, you know, putting yourself out there to ring that manager again and have that conversation.

Yeah.

It's easy to not do it, right?

Yeah.

And I think, I generally believe the people that are willing to be shot at all the time are the people that make it in recruitment quite often. Yeah. Because they're like, cool, I can dust myself off, go again, learn from it. But the people that put it off, you're always going to struggle. And I think hanging around with people that are better than you, you have to do that. So you can take bits from each and every one and learn.

So how, what was that process like of like, you was the bottom of the pack, you had to unlearn things. Like there'll be people listening that probably are going, maybe going through that right now. I don't know, like how did you get through that?

Yeah, great support from the people that were managing me and understanding that it was gonna be difficult. Brutal honesty. Encouragement, inspiration, self-reflection. You know, like, you have to— I'm a big believer in, like, self-talk. I talk to myself all the time. Yeah, like, whether I'm playing sports or, you know, my internal kind of dialogue. Self-belief, I think, is really important.

Where's that come from? Yeah, I don't know.

I've always been the same. I just, yeah, back myself in most situations, right? Yeah, whether that's a good thing or not, but I think, you know, unless you try, you'll never know. And I'd always be the guy who wants to try.

Okay, so let's just break this down a bit then. So obviously 12 years at Austin Fraser. So obviously you were starting the infrastructure piece, as you were saying. Like, how long was it until like you then started taking up some managing responsibilities and things like that? What, just give us a bit of a timeline.

Yeah, it was probably about 2 and a half years before I kind of, I found my feet. I was, you know, contributing well and I was a good member of the contract team. And I think, Quite quickly, I wanted to lead people. That was, you know, typically, you know, sports, I like leadership, captain the football team. I kind of naturally gravitate to that. So 2 and a half years, I'd say.

Okay. So just quickly then, before we go into the leadership piece, which I'm really keen to sort of go into detail with you, from your perspective now, from all of the people that you helped, supported, continue to work with now, what do you think a, like, really good contract recruiter has to master and why?

Good question. Again, being prepared to be shot at. Contract is hard. Anyone who says it's not, it's hard. You have to put yourself out there over and over again because not every business recruits contractors. Perm's relatively simple. Every company recruits perm. Contract is that self-belief that you may have to get in the trenches for 12 months before you actually see any results.

Okay.

And we talk about that all the time. So I think getting to grips with that, I think, yeah, being shot at, hanging around with people that can get you through the first period, being around people to learn from is really important for me.

Because I was speaking, obviously Paul sat down here earlier, and like he was saying he really didn't get going. He was a contract recruiter and he was saying like, yeah, it took him probably about 18 months.

Yeah.

For it to really click. Yeah. And I guess he got given the same advice that I did. Which was— and I'm sure you're giving this to people— where it's like, Ben, keep doing what you're doing, it will pay off. Yeah. So I guess my question to him, which I want to ask you, was like, so if I'm someone listening right now that's on that journey, I'm in the trenches, I keep being told like, keep doing what you're doing, it'll pay off. Like, from your perspective, what are those things day in, day out that I need to keep showing up?

Yeah.

Doing each day that hopefully will mean that I'll get to where I, I've been sort of told that I can get to in those things.

I think you need to work out what you're good at, like, quite quickly. For me, it was meetings, right? So I used to just try and get as many meetings as possible because then you can influence the process. Once you've met someone, you've got a different relationship. I think, um, that's what—

meetings with clients and clients, just getting in front of people.

Yeah. Um, and contracts, whether you like it or not, it's a relentless pursuit of information. Like, because perm jobs are advertised, right? You can find them. Contract jobs, you can't always find them. So yeah, you need to be talking to your network, you need to be pitching managers over and over and over again and finding out what they do need and when they might need it. So I think if you're not prepared to, again, put yourself out there, gather information relentlessly, contract's a really tough gig.

Yeah, yeah. What, uh, people, or honestly, people are so curious about this always. Like, I'm sure you help people with this now. What, what does this— what did, um, the typical day plan look like? Yeah, then at the height of, uh, yeah, contract days, like, because Obviously I was a permanent recruiter, so I feel like whenever I sit down with a contract recruiter, like, it's like, it really can be 24/7, can't it? And like, you could get a call from that hiring manager saying, Ben, we're ready to rock and roll, and it's 6 PM on a Wednesday. It's like, fuck, I need to call these contractors for the next 2 hours. It's like, what? Like, because honestly, that is probably the most common area that we hear at Recruitment Mentor is that people want to develop, want to improve on. I think that it's a continuous thing, but like, yeah, talk to us a bit about what did a typical day look like that made you feel confident that you were going to get the most out of it?

Again, it's, I think 9 times out of 10, I'd probably come into my desk without a job because contract's quite quick. You get a job, you fill it, you're back to square one again. So I think for me, it's again, information. Like if I don't have the jobs, very simply, who has the contract jobs? So was I, I don't know, I wasn't regimented in terms of like, I'm going to do this, do that. So I'd just be speaking to my network, where have they interviewed, you know, I'll be trying to find out who's hiring. And all I'm doing is just trying to find out who's got the contract jobs and I'm going to try and find a way to get in there. And it's just a relentless continuation. It's not particularly glamorous. And there is no substitute for picking the phone up on contract and having conversations with people.

Yeah, yeah. What did you do? Because I feel like the same for like if you're a permanent recruiter, contract recruiter, but just on this topic of like it really can be 24/7, like what did you do to make sure you didn't burn yourself out?

I look back now and I'm wondering if I did. We probably did work probably a little bit longer hours when I first started, when I was trying to build that desk. I don't know, I'm in love with the game, so I just kind of did it, right? My wife laughs now, but I'd be calling candidates on the sofa at like 8 o'clock at night, half 9 at night, right? Like, because in contract, if you don't take that chance, someone else will take it.

It's just gone. That's the thing, innit?

It's so short. And I think my first ever deal, everyone was going out from the office. I got the job at about 5 o'clock on a Friday.

Yeah.

And I stayed that Friday, found a candidate that lived 2 minutes from where the site was that the other agency hadn't found. And if I hadn't have stayed, I would never have done that deal.

And that's the thing, when you experience that, it's also a bit of a blessing and a curse, isn't it? Because it's like, right, got it done. But then you're like, fuck that, someone else could do that. So I'm not going to let anyone else.

You know, it's like you come into your desk and you call the candidate, oh, someone else has called me. And you're like, shit, I should have called them last night. So I think you learn very, very quickly.

Yeah, fair. So let's unpack this leadership journey then, because as I said before we started, I think a lot of people that listen to this podcast will have aspirations to become a leader, and it can be really challenging. So I guess from, from what we see is like a lot of people will have the goal, aspirations to become a manager, leader, typically might get there because their performance, because of merit. And then for most people, depending on how the company works, like they'll get there and then typically won't have like loads of support. Yeah, just have to be a pretty bad manager to become a good one. So like, obviously I'm assuming when it first started for you, like Ben still had a number, you were still very much contributing and billing. But then was you like mentoring, responsible for like a handful of people as well? Like how did the, how did, was it like that typical billing manager leader role?

Yeah, absolutely. The billing manager, I think we got up to a team of 6, I think whilst I was still billing. I think it's still the toughest job you will do in recruitment. I was told that. From day one. I still firmly believe it is. I think if you've built some of the biggest pitfalls, if you haven't built a sustainable business, if you're starting from scratch whilst trying to run a team, that's almost impossible. But I have my client base, I do a couple of deals whilst, you know, growing the team and trying to get them to do it as well.

So what would you say like the fundamentals to like performing in that role, do you think? So obviously one of them, as you said, is like to give yourself fighting chance is to have a, have a, like, build yourself a good platform, sustainable business going into that role. Yeah, like, yeah, what are some of the fundamentals? Because I think obviously, like, what I always typically find is I feel like it can become really quite frustrating where you've got a number on your back that you need to do, but you're also trying to get the performance up of your team. You may end up earning less money, like, I don't know, it's really— so like, what, what would you say looking back now, the fundamentals of like trying to, yeah, really perform in that role, do you think?

Yeah, I think being really clear on what your job and your responsibilities are, right? I think we've talked about this before. It's, um, if you're just chucked a team, that's not a good place to be. I think it's been very clear around this is your responsibility, that's the manager's job, or that's the director's job.

Right, nice.

Um, okay, so, you know, if you work in one of our teams, it's, hey, you do this, the manager does that, that's my responsibility.

Give you an example.

Um, so it could be monthly reviews.

Okay.

Um, it could be that's the manager's job. But the lead consultant or the team leader, you're responsible for almost like a big brother kind of helping with searches, fielding questions on desk.

Yeah.

Not managing someone 9 to 5, but just being there to support them and take them through that journey and show them and demonstrate the job.

That's good advice. So, 'cause you don't want to be in a position where your team are going, Ben, I thought that's what you were going to do. I thought that was your job.

Yeah.

To like really lay that out early. What about— and I know you've done some stuff with us on this— like, a really common question we always hear is like, how the hell do you go about managing your time and setting like almost boundaries, right? Because you want, you want to make your team feel like you're there to help and you're there to support them, but at the same time you don't want to be a manager who like always like gives them the answers rather than them being given the space to like find the answers themselves, you know what I mean? Yeah. How, how can people go about Yeah, just creating those boundaries and better managing their time so they can perform, but also give that space to their team.

Yeah, I think it needs to be a safe place that people can come back to you and go, "Hey, I'm struggling," or, you know, "I need help." But I think things like day plans, evaluating the day before, being really militant with your day plan, saying what are you trying to achieve? Yeah. Sometimes breaking up into sprints and saying, "Hey, look, I want to achieve this in the next couple of hours." Cool, off you go. If you need me, I'm over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's review how you got on and doing it that way. I think sitting next to someone and watching them all day is not the answer. I think just being really clear around what that person is looking to achieve, giving them some guidance around it, and then follow-up is the most underrated thing in recruitment. Follow-up. I mean, if you're not going to follow up, you might as well not bother setting the person up in the first place.

So what you say, if me and you sit down in the morning, you're my manager, and say, right then, this is my day plan, this is what I'm aiming to achieve by the end of the day, you're saying, like, are you making sure that you tie that together by going, right, How do you do today?

100%. I mean, there'll be hundreds, thousands of recruiters that get set up every day because it's the manager's job, but how often do they sit down and go through, like, how did it go, what did you learn, what do you need from me?

Yeah, nice. Asking those key questions. How, from your experience now, like, how many people do you think would be like the max where you would be like confident that, like, that confident that person could do a good job? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I know there probably isn't a magic number, just curious to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, I think when you start getting to like 5, 6, 7, it's difficult. If you're running a business as well, it's difficult. I think like 6, 7, pushing it.

Yeah. Yeah, if you're listening right now and you're a billing manager and you've got like 10, 12, ask for a fucking pay rise.

Honestly, yeah, yeah. Give me a shout.

Yeah, because that, geez. Okay, cool. So you was in that role then. So then when did you then transition to like a non— Yeah, billing role.

Like, yeah, it's probably about another 2 years down the line where I suppose the job is to, in our business, always kind of make yourself redundant, right? So, okay, if, if you're the doing the lion's share of the deals, you need to find a way to replace yourself, whether that's giving your market away, yeah, you know, feeding, feeding people jobs, and then eventually your contribution is a lot lower. So then I was able to kind of move out when I hit my targets.

Okay, nice. So, uh, just interested to hear your thoughts on this as you went on that journey. Yeah, when I— so I obviously sat down with Paul before you, and he's been on like a similar journey and got to direct in these things. He really believed that it was always good, even when he was in a director role, to always sort of have his hands involved in trying to just support the business by, I don't know, bringing in new logos or like just making sure he doesn't get so far away from that where you can't maybe lead by example or just make sure that he's involved in like the current day-to-day. Yeah, not that that would be a lot of his time, but he just felt that was really important. How— because you're just talking about, about their like making yourself redundant.

Yeah.

How do you feel about that, do you think? Because I think it can be quite easy for you to like— you don't want to be seen as someone that sits in an ivory tower and like, there's no way I'm fucking calling that candidate a client. Like, how do you feel about that? Do you think— are you always— do you think that's a good thing to be involved in, like trying to get involved in stuff like that? And do you still—

I think you should understand the business. I think you should never forget what's— I'll never forget what it's like to be a new person or to run a desk, right? I think people that forget that. I think you should always be humble around like how it is. Don't forget that. Like, um, yeah, I'm not out there ringing candidates every day, but if, if someone needed me to do something, I would 100% do it. And I think I'm close to the business. The difficulty when you move out is actually you don't want to be in— you can't tread on people's toes. You can't.

Yeah, that's true.

I'm sat on the desk minding my business, someone says something, I want to answer the question, but it's not my job, it's the manager's job. And, um, otherwise I'm just undermining the manager. So Actually, that was a big thing that I had to learn, was to keep my mouth shut and really let other people like tell and coach, because I thought I saw that, like, and you can't do that.

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Yeah.

What were the main differences in maybe your mindset, your approach to things? How did you have to then think about things differently then?

Well, one of the biggest challenges is that you go from being able to affect stuff personally to working through people.

Um, right.

And one of the things you have to get your head around is if people did stuff, then I wouldn't have a job, right? So you can't let that frustration creep in, and you have to accept it. People— and accept the fact that people don't care as much as you do. Not intentionally, but they just don't. And I think when I went on that journey and understood it, I could then be more effective. But I think when you go hands-off, I remember the first couple of weeks you sat there and you're like, what am I going to do? Like, you're sitting there and you're like clicking, like, how do I affect things without getting involved with everyone's business?

How did you end up affecting things then? What's ended up being the ways that you end up affecting things in a positive way?

I think you get paid to make less decisions but bigger ones, right? So less of the reactive stuff and it might be client strategy, it might be building a solution for a client or it could be hiring strategy, that kind of stuff. So you go from making loads of small decisions every day to very few, but the impact is massive.

Sure, got you. That's interesting. So in terms of like some of the things that I always, like how important is self-development been to you?

At the start, not so much.

Yeah.

Because I was just hell-bent on being a good recruiter. Yeah. But it's huge now. Like, it's the number one thing that I'm interested in.

Really?

Yeah.

Like, where did that spark come from? Because not everyone has that, but I feel like I'm always a bit baffled as to like why people don't have that. I don't know if everyone will have that. I don't know, like, where did that come from for you? Is it something you cultivated?

Is it Definitely. I think you get to a point where if you want to take a bigger job and get better, you need to develop skills. Right. And I think I didn't have those skills. I think having a mentor or working in your program, if you're serious about self-improvement, you haven't got a mentor, you're not in a program, I think that's criminal really. So I got myself a mentor.

How did you go about that? In the business?

No, no. I've got a couple probably in the business, but also outside because I wanted an external person perspective and stuff because otherwise you institutionalize a little bit by your company, right?

How do you, how did you approach that? People are always curious about that, like, yeah, how do you do it in a way where— because I always feel like the sort of key is like you don't want the other person to feel like you're just, you're just taking, if you know what I mean. Like, ideally you want to try and— and it is hard, but you want to come across in a way where it's like I'm some— like that you're someone that would really respect their time, you're coachable, you'll listen. And maybe this is also something that you might be able to help them with. Do you know what I mean?

Definitely. I think you have to ask is the first thing, right? You have to ask. And I think you just have to be really honest and say, look, I like what you do. I really value your perspective. I'd love to just spend some time with you. It's no more difficult than that.

Yeah, fair.

And then I think you develop a relationship and if they're a good person, helping people is really important, right? So no more difficult than that.

So on this like leader, director journey then, what have been, I think you've sort of spoken a bit about them, but like, what have been some of the biggest challenges then that you've really had to work through? So I know you said around like saying less and like, yeah, not just giving people the answers and those things. I don't know, is there anything else that you really had to work on and challenge that you had to work on?

Yeah, like I suppose my skills and how I influence people is definitely something, because you are, you know, you're trying to take a group of people from A to B, and I think making sure everyone feels it's fair, they understand it, it's inspirational. So things like storytelling and giving people vision and creating opportunities, like, quite difficult.

Yeah.

I don't think it's good enough to just say, hey, work really hard and do deals. People are like, nah, like, I think they need more than that. So yeah, working on my ability to influence people on a bigger scale, making bigger decisions that impact lots of people.

How have you got better at— you just touched on it there— like, how have you got better at understanding what people are driven by?

Yeah.

That's hard.

It is. And I think you only get there if you truly care about people. But I truly care about the people that work for me, genuinely. And, you know, I want to understand them. I want to understand their family life, everything, and spend time with these people. That it's not talking about how many phone calls have you made? It's like, cool, how are you? You know, how's your family? All that kind of stuff.

Just leading with empathy.

Yeah. And build some trust where they feel that they can share stuff with you. Yeah, that's a big part of it.

Love it. So how have you remained motivated in these 12 years?

Well, I've got family, which is, as you know, I think everything that I kind of do is linked directly to that. Like, I want to create opportunities for my family. I feel that as a company, we're on a mission to do some good stuff, and I think I want to be part of that. I like doing stuff that is challenging. So if I'm doing challenging work with people that are on the same boat, on the same, you know, bus as me, yeah, that feels good.

Yeah.

Um, I don't think I could necessarily just babysit a business. Like, I, I need to be kind of doing something big.

What, um, what, how have you— and then I guess on this as well, like, how have you gone about remaining current is like, I guess, and like sort of not out of touch with things, out of interest, because Again, I know I've sort of touched on it earlier, but I think sometimes that can happen where like, yeah, like if you've been in this sort of non-billing or leadership role for a while where you can sort of just, yeah, lose the nuance of the challenges that your team are facing day to day. How have you gone about doing everything you can to remain current and understand the nuances of the challenges and those things?

Pretty simply, I just ask the people doing the job, right? I don't pretend to know everything about the recruitment industry right now. I'm not at the cold face of the business, right? So Very rarely do I tell people what to do. I'll sit there and I'll almost provide counsel and say, look, what are your challenges? What are you trying to do? Have you thought about this? So the people that, you know, the cold face, they're the people that should be telling me what's going on and I'm there to help build a solution for them. So yeah, I just, it's wrong for me to say what's going on in the market because I'm not in it.

So let's obviously, Austin Fraser going into COVID, I'm assuming, like, I have no idea how many people you were at that point, but obviously a big business.

Yeah.

So I feel like just obviously how the challenges would manifest in a bigger business like that would just, just be even more difficult.

Yeah.

How, like, going into this year, not to go in like the classic like work from home poll scenario, but like how, how do you feel about this sort of hybrid work from home, leading remote, like how have you found that?

Challenging.

Has it taken shape?

Yeah, it's challenging, right? But we, we told everyone straight away like work where you want, work where you work best.

Yeah.

Um, we just went I think it's difficult to say you can work here on this day. So we just said, look, do what you need to do. I suppose the skill in it is to try and provide an environment where people can learn from home, but also in the office. You know, still a good uptake in the office, right? But my job as a leader is to create an environment where people want to come in, they value it, they can collaborate, but also they can work from home if they want to. And that's on them. It has been challenging and changing mindsets and, you know, I never know where any of my staff are, right? Because that's genuinely their business. So I think changing perception and what the old school, you need to be in at this time.

Because you hire a lot of young people, don't you?

Yeah.

So like, what are you seeing then? Like, do they, I feel like from the conversations that I've had, typically most young people like are leaning towards I'd really like the idea of being in the office more.

Yeah.

And then maybe, I don't know, maybe I'd like the flexibility to work from home 1 or 2 days a week. But then when I'm speaking to a lot of companies, how they're basically deciding whether Ben Hobday, the recruiter, can work from home or not is done on his experience.

Yeah.

So what I've heard a lot is like, if Ben's a trainee, then he's going to be in the office for 5 days a week, and that's what they're owning. But then as he gets more experience, then he'll have more flexibility. Like, I don't know, how's that? How are you seeing that? 'Cause you speak to a lot of young people and have young people in your business.

[Speaker] Yeah, I think it's difficult when you say you could do that, but you can't do that, right? I'd feel really uncomfortable saying, well, I can do it, but because you joined, you can't do it. For me, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that, but I understand it. I think a lot of young people, my job is to make sure that if that's what they want to do, which makes sense, if you've not done the job, get together and do it together. That makes perfect sense. My job is to create an environment where You can do that. And that you don't come into the office and you're the only one there because no one wants to come in.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah.

What have you found young people typically want? Not to paint everyone with the same brush, but what have you typically seen?

I think they want to feel part of something. I think, you know, the people that we are hiring, they want to come into the office, they want to learn, they want to see it. 'Cause a lot of time it's blind faith in recruitment a lot of time. 'Cause you're doing something 'cause someone's telling you to do it. But until you see it happen, sometimes you go, oh, I get it now. So I think they want to be able to go to the gym at lunchtime, come in at 11 because they've got something to do. I think they want the flexibility, but they definitely want to be together. So I'm all for make the decisions that suit you, right?

I think it's a social piece as well. If you think of who your friends are today and how many of them maybe you work through work and stuff like that, do you know what I mean? I think a big part of the whole being young and working in London and stuff is making those connections. Maybe not through a screen, do you know what I mean? Just curious, and then I want to speak to you about the— because I think from what I've seen, Austin Fraser's done a lot of good things, but I know you sit on the diversity inclusion board or faculty in the business. But just curious, like, what do you, from your lens, like, what do you think Austin Fraser have done really well that have enabled it to scale, scale in the sense of like in the UK, different places? I don't know what, what comes to mind for you, which you— because not a lot of recruitment companies will get to where Austin Fraser have got to, and you've been there for a long time.

Yeah, I think, you know, if you look at the founders, they're pretty inspirational people starting in a garage, you know. I think people buy into that, and I think the continual drive to be better, do more, is really inspirational, and people naturally follow it. Creating opportunity for like people like me who came in with no experience and now I run a function. Yeah, we're still trying to do that with people that we hire now. So we don't often come and hire external people in. We're trying to promote that, give people opportunity. And the reason I'm still here is literally I love it and the opportunity is endless.

Yeah, I think if you give that to people and you inspire them, I think people stick around because, yeah, that's what I definitely noticed is like, I don't know what the average tenure is Austin phrase, but if you were to like go online, I feel like there's a good cluster of people that have been there for a while. So like, how do you— I feel one of the biggest challenges this year for recruitment companies is going to be attracting but also retaining their people. So like, how do you feel about retention of recruiters? Like, because I'm sure this is something that is top of mind and you think about.

Yeah, I think if you lead with empathy and you generally care about people, you can get in front of maybe some of the problems. If you don't care about people, you don't give a shit about them personally and they're having a rough time, they may leave, right? Now we're not perfect, but I think if you generally care about people, you inspire them, you give them an opportunity that they can continually grow and learn. Because I think, look, you can get a job anywhere in London doing recruitment.

Yeah.

How you do it, who you do it with, what you're marching towards, these are really important things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you're smart, right? So I think as long as you give people that, you're halfway there.

Would you say, Out of those things you said, who you're doing it with, where you're marching to, I don't know, any of those do you think are like really important over the others out of interest?

Definitely thinking, knowing where you're going.

Yeah.

What is your part to play in the bigger picture?

Yeah.

Is really important. But I think doing a job that you love with people that also share same values, beliefs, behaviours, that's really important. I think if you're not comfortable there, you don't buy into the company, it's going to be a very difficult job to stick around.

So talk to me about the D&I piece then. Like, I think I caught up with, I caught up with Pete a while ago and he told me there's some really interesting things that you're doing around when people apply. There's things that like you can't see and like a lot of things are not, I don't know, there's loads of different things, but like where, like what's going on in like when in those conversations at the moment on I don't know what you call it, is it like a sort of faculty or like a charter? Charter, sorry, yeah. So what have been like the main topic of conversations and what is top of mind for all of you at the moment when it comes to D&I?

Yeah, I suppose as a company that wants to grow, diversity and inclusion is paramount, like diversity of thought, diversity of mind, like you have to do that and we're certainly not perfect and it's something that we know and we generally care about, right, and including Pete. So I think that was the first part, was just to say, look, cool, this is where we want to get to. Getting some external help is really important to come and say, this is where you guys are at.

This is where you're at.

Giving us a plan. But the charter really at the moment is saying, hey, where are we? What are we seeing? What are we feeling? Brutal honesty.

Yeah.

The first couple were quite funny because we weren't probably honest. A lot of people. I'm honest. Just say how I feel, right? Yeah, but you've got juniors in there that might not speak up.

So how big is the charter?

I think it's about 15, 16 of us at the minute. Oh, okay. But we will invite more people in. But I think having those honest conversations about, as a business, if you're going to pretend it's all rosy, probably not going to get anywhere.

So has it helped having like a dedicated group of people like driving, like, I don't know, driving a conversation? Or that, I'm assuming, like, that, like, yeah, that charter is accountable I'm responsible for driving initiatives, gathering how people feel about things across the wider business. Has that helped having people there? Because you— I think it's a great idea, right? Regardless of how small you are as a company, there might be one or two people, even if it starts there, that are like really passionate about it, that like— that no doubt other people in the company would deem it important, but like there's probably going to be people in your business that are going to be better at driving it, you know what I mean? So has it helped having like that group of people.

Definitely, and hopefully inspire other people to get involved, right? And I think if it's not important to you, you're going to have a hard time at our business, because if you want to scale to where we want to get to, unless this is in the forefront of what you're trying to do, I don't think you can do it. So hopefully it'll inspire people, it gets the conversations going, um, it's just a good place to start.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what have been some of the, like, initiatives that maybe have gone well so far? Like, what's been going on?

Really, we're at the point where we're just finding out brutally where we are. Okay. And then we had one yesterday actually where we were talking about experiences, sharing experiences. We've got a follow-up to that. Pete and I have been speaking to external providers around coming in to help us. Yeah. So I really value that external kind of piece.

What is it you're looking for help with out of interest?

A plan. Like, you know, someone, I think it makes sense to work with someone who's done this before and can give us a real, honest opinion of where we are as a company. Yeah, we have anonymized CVs and, you know, we're trying to make sure that that's fair, but that's a tiny, tiny part. If someone comes in and doesn't feel included or they're not seeing a representation of themselves, that's a problem. So I think having a plan so that everyone's on board is where we need to be.

What's like the typical advice you give when like someone, it is important to them, they're curious about it, they want to understand more, but I think in today's society a lot of people are worried about saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing. Like, obviously a lot of it starts with self-education.

Yeah.

So like, what's your typical advice for a recruiter listening to this that's like, you know what, it's coming up more and more in my daily conversations, personally I'm actually curious about it, it's important to me, but yeah, like, where do I even start?

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. We talked about it yesterday in the the group is like educate yourself. Yeah. It's hard work to inspire change or understand it, and you've got to do it. It's about action. And I think we're all taking that, we're all doing little things ourselves to try and educate ourselves. And I think that's the first part. And learning to, hopefully you're in a company where you can speak up or talk to someone. But yeah, educating yourself is the beginning part for me.

Nice. So as we come to the end then, obviously you've been in the game for a while.

Yeah.

Like what are some of the trends that you're seeing in the recruitment industry? So I know I've mentioned a few times, but for example, Paul was in the journey of selling these embedded talent solutions, which seems like they popped up quite a lot. I don't know if you're doing any of that AF. Like, yeah, so like what are some of the trends that you're seeing that you're quite interested in or do you think are going to be more prominent as we go over the next couple of years.

Yeah. Well, I think the perm market is flying. Everyone knows that. So I think being agile enough, like we've done an embedded model, like we've got that.

What's been the learnings on that, out of interest? Because it sounds great.

Yeah.

But from the conversations I've had, it can be really difficult.

Yeah. Commercially, it's challenging. How you package it up, what you're accountable for, how it works. I think it's quite challenging. I think this, all these things about building value, Retainers are being sold left, right, and centre, right? And there's great stories and bad stories about people not delivering on them. So I think being agile enough to find the right solution for that client.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think we should be selling contract solutions even harder because the war for talent is raging. So we should be selling contract solutions even harder now.

Okay. So you've got, so yeah, different, I get evolution in like services. What else are you thinking about? Or looking at that you're curious about, top of mind?

The top of my mind is hiring good people, right? That's top of mind, but I think making sure that our consultants are embedded in the parts of the market that we need them to be. So we've been really specific around the parts of the market they're responsible for and the kind of service they will deliver to that portion of the market, which has led to some really great results, right?

Yeah, yeah. Okay then, so on that topic, as you said, around like, yeah, really dedicated to hiring great people, like a lot of people will be thinking about— I think that'll be, yeah, easily in the top 3 challenges. If it's not how are we going to go about attracting the candidates that we know our clients need, it's going to be how can we be attracting talent internally. Yeah, from the conversation I'm having, companies have little or no success getting experienced recruiters through the door because, yeah, I think if if you're half decent right now, you should be making some good money. So the sort of why behind your move, you've got to really believe as a leader and manager. So a lot of people really going back to the sort of training, non-experience. So like, what's really worked for you guys on that, just for advice for people? Like, I know there's not going to be one thing, but like, what's typically worked to help you guys get more young people through the door and hire internally, do you think?

Yeah. Understanding where you're going and what that person's journey is, because I think, again, you can, if someone's interviewing at 4 different companies, it's the same job.

Yeah.

How you do it, who you do it with, how it feels.

Yeah.

They're really important.

Make sure you can really articulate that. Yeah. And they will have clarity on that.

Yeah, 100%. You know, if you can't, and even if you've got experienced people, you need to be able to sell why they should come and join you on your mission, because you could do the job anywhere, you could do it for yourself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What does it mean and can you spark that interest? I'm a massive fan of grads and inexperienced people. I didn't have that much experience. You know, this notion that everyone's gone back to hiring grads. Well, I've always done it and some of the best people we've got are, you know, they've not even come from sales or recruitment, they've done lots of different jobs. Yeah. So for me, be really open-minded. And for hiring managers, I mean, I've got the same list of quality skills and behaviours that I've always used. And if people don't match them, I don't hire them. Yeah. So be really clear on what you're trying to hire.

Yeah, no, I think that's good advice because I think particularly in the market right now, you can— it could be quite easy to drop what you're looking for, can't it? Because, you know, you've got this guy Ben, could he do the job? Yeah, I reckon. I mean, we've got this plethora of jobs that we can give him straight away.

Yeah.

So you could be smashing in deals quite quickly. But for you, you've really stuck to your standards.

Yeah.

Why is that important? Just because you know how it'll play out?

You just know. I mean, we've all, I'm sure as a business, we've hired people that we think, you know, they're going to come in and smash it. And look, we're salespeople, you should be able to sell. If you've done recruitment, you're going to be able to sell that you're good at it. I think for me, it's being sure what you want that person to do. If you want someone to come in and fill loads of jobs, then you could probably get a delivery person to do it. Yeah, you don't have to pay over the odds for someone to come in and do that for you. So be sure what you want to hire. If there's any doubt on any of the list, just don't hire them.

Yeah, no, I think that's good advice. So anyone listening, like, instead of just being like, I need to get people, take a step back and can you clearly articulate why this person should join your company, the journey that you're on, the mission that you're on, where you're going, where does that person fit in with that plan, uh, that on the business stuff, right?

Yeah.

And, um, that, that should give you a fighting chance of having people pick your company over the next company where the job's going to look very the same.

Yeah.

Um, so to wrap up then, where, uh, what, what would your advice be for those listening to this that absolutely want, want to smash this year? Like, just, yeah, just, just interested to hear your thoughts on, like, yeah, what would your— what would Ben's advice be for anyone that wants to absolutely have a a great year this year?

Keep your foot down, like now. Now's the time to do it. Be really open-minded with the kind of solutions that you have to provide. Yeah. Even if you've got lots of jobs, keep trying to get better ones. There's better clients. You might have 100 jobs on your list, but there are better clients, better fees. Keep your foot down and just continue to go for it. Don't coast because things may slow down, they may not, but—

Don't get complacent. No. Ben, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you, mate.

Thank you so much for listening to the episode. I hope you got value from the conversation and there was a number of key takeaways. So please don't forget to like, share, and please do share your key takeaways in the comments below if you did have some. And thanks for supporting the show.