Callum Buxton - Unpacking Executive Search & the granular details

Welcome to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz. Today I'm really excited to be joined by Callum Buxton, who is the client partner for HR and people functions at Heybury. Callum started his recruitment career at B&C, which is the professional service arm of the Adecco Group, in 2014 after working within the public sector for 8 years. Over the 7 years he was there, Callum progressed from associate consultant to senior consultant and was responsible for building out a brand new division within HR operations. As well as this, Callum got the opportunity to be a shadow board executive member, which meant he was tactically involved in helping direct board-level initiatives, strategies, and projects at the Adecco Group. In August 2020, Callum then joined HeyBury, who are a well-established executive search firm specializing within the life sciences space, where he now partners with HR and people functions within life sciences. Callum, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Morning, good afternoon. I've lost track of the time already.

Good. Looking forward to, uh, thank you. I'm well on this journey, but as you'll know, we'd like to start with the million-pound question. So I'd love to hear your take on what you believe are the characteristics and traits that make up a highly successful, a high-performing recruitment consultant in, in today's market.

Yeah, sure. So I think there's so many different ideas about what success is, whether that's billings or whether that's how you build your relationships. But the most important thing to me is a customer focus. And I don't just mean clients by that, but it is everything you do in search, in recruitment, you're thinking about the person you're speaking to and how you add value to them. How you make that relationship work and how you can often become a trusted partner rather than just a transactional supplier. That's a really critical thing I think that everybody needs to develop is that focus on their customers. The second bit is just a really strong level of humanity and just being a genuine person, having a lot of authenticity to who you are and what you do. The best search and recruitment professionals I've ever seen are those who are really comfortable being themselves, being very genuine, being very honest in how they build the relationship.

Sounds very obvious, doesn't it?

How they represent themselves. It does. And you know what, the being human one was something that took me a while to lock down. Early career me would leave voicemails that sounded almost automated and robotic. My team actually joked I could just be an autodialer, prerecorded like a PPI message. And it wasn't until I started to be a bit more myself, a bit more natural, bringing connections to who I am and how I feel personally to the relationships, the dynamics, and start building those links. Let's talk about that very quickly because I think people can really—

I think everyone goes on that journey and I think like you may or may not agree, but I do really believe over the last 12 or so months and going into 2022, the amount of people that are in their sort of 0 to 12, 18 months part of their recruitment journey will be huge just because of the amount of companies that have been hiring to keep up with their clients' demands. And most companies that I speak to have really, really got back to hiring that trainee, um, non-experienced, uh, level person just because they've had little or no success hiring experienced people. Because let's be honest, if, if, if you, if you're half decent, you should be making some good money. Uh, right now, right, with, with the, with all-time high job markets and how busy it is. So let— because, so, so why I think this is important is that I, I, I, I can definitely relate to that, where you sort of got this like really professional mask on, you're like so conscious of the other person's opinion of you, and you also, as you said, you can sort of lose yourself, can't you? And actually, as you said, with time, in hindsight, clearly you've realized, well, actually, when I actually I sort of was myself, I really owned who I was in these things, I actually built better business relationships and that impacted my performance. So what was it looking back, what was it that held you back? What was it that made you that automated dialer person? Like what was it do you think that held you back that people can maybe relate to and we can talk a bit about how you broke through that or what was the catalyst to break from that?

I think the reason I kept that really professional mask when I started was a massive amount of professional nervousness. So I came into recruitment with zero experience. I've never done recruitment and I've never done HR, so I knew nothing about my discipline and vertical, and I knew nothing about how to actually be a good recruiter and what that meant. One of the very first meetings I ever went on, the customer actually said to me, so why are you the partner I should have? You don't know anything about HR, you've never worked in HR, you don't know anything about recruitment, you've only been doing this 3 months. So I, yeah, that was really challenging and put me on the spot to think a lot. And what it then meant is I had this idea in my head that, you know, I had to act like how I thought this professional person should be. I was 21, baby-faced, completely green, and I just thought, I've got to act like I'm a business professional. I've got to act like I am someone that you should be speaking to because I'm, you know, I sound good or I look good or I act good. I was working in an area where a number of my competitors were well established, knew their markets, and were obviously older and more established than me. So I felt like I had to build this air of being something bigger than I was. And I think that's where I got that.

And then, okay, love that. What, so then what were some of the moments or things that made you realize, hang on a minute, I've been missing a bit of a trick here? Like, I don't know. And like, when did you start to realize, actually, I need to Actually, it's probably a better idea to own who I am or bring more of myself to the table.

Like, it was looking at those around me who were successful and seeing how they did it. And then I very quickly realized, yes, I'm the youngest person in this room. Yes, I'm the least experienced person in this room. But all the people around me are acting natural. They're not trying to be more professional, act older, even though they were, they were just being themselves. I was really lucky that the person I was learning recruitment and search from, you know, spent her entire, made her entire business out of being emotionally empathetic to her customers. A business development call for her was speaking about, you know, the school run and speaking about how difficult it is trying to balance being a working mum. And I realized, Having that level of personality and being that individual allows you to build such a stronger connection. You go from being this automated faceless brand image to being a person. And ultimately that's how the world works, isn't it? People buy from people, not from brands, not from personas, they buy from people. And if you are hiding who you are as that person, it's so much harder to build a relationship relationship of trust, it's so much harder to engage on a personal level.

So I'm going to put you on the spot, Callum, okay? So I want to hear— people, you know what you said earlier around what you experienced quite early on? I think, I think people will be experiencing that right now, or will be worried about being asked that question. And as I said, a lot of people listening, a lot of people, uh, in their recruitment career right now will be quite early on and, and may feel the things that you're talking about. So I want to let's sort of put you in that situation again with hindsight of all the experience you have now, with the benefit you have of that. If someone was to ask you that and you was in the, but you had the exact same experience, you was there a couple of weeks, months, whatever. How would you answer that question when I say, Callum, why would I choose you? You know nothing about HR, you know nothing about our people function. You've got no experience. Like why would I choose you? How would you approach that?

If I was to know what I know now but be in that situation, I would be a very genuine person and show that level of vulnerability. I would admit that. You can't deny the fact that you lack that experience, but you can own that to your own benefit. So you can say, yep, I'm new, I'm learning, this is all new to me. But then you can own the things that you are doing. So you can say, I'm speaking to people in this market day in, day out. It may be new to it, I may be new to it, but I'm very quickly becoming an expert in this field. And I spent my time day in, day out speaking to the experts in this field. I also was, you know, at that time and still now able to be surrounded by a very strong team of individuals. So you can borrow their credibility and say, again, I'm new to this, but I'm working in a team that have got over 100 years search experience. So I am being partnered and being supported and being grown and developed constantly. So I think if you try and hide that lack of experience, if you try and get defensive about that lack of experience, people will see through it straight away. And I think that's where that level of authenticity, that level of genuineness, that level of vulnerability comes in. You know, you own the fact that you don't have experience and be very abrasive of it. And ultimately that's only going to be happening to you once, twice, 3 times. And that was probably for me a massive learning curve because it meant that in that first year, no question a customer gave me was worse than that question. You know, I was able to, to come out of that meeting and survive. So every other meeting was never as bad as that one. And it's only a short period of time, you know, you can very quickly learn what you do, very quickly become an expert. So I'd say—

Great. I love it. I think I just love the fact you can— I think that's the great, the really good bit of advice there is like, yeah, own it, but own the bits that you, that you will be sort of, that you can control and that you can do. Like you said, speaking to every single person in the market I can every single day. But I love that, like just, just owning that and that sort of will immediately make them feel at ease, or like you're just taking that power away from them, isn't it? When you're going, you're completely right, I don't have all the experience, but this is what I will be doing. Yeah, I love that. I know that would be really helpful for people. So loads that we can unpack here, right? But what I'm really keen to sort of dig into when we spoke was just this journey of you transitioning from B&C to then getting into a sort of exec search environment. So now we're going to really dig into that, but just a couple of things I want to touch on before we get there. Firstly, I'm just curious, like, from what I can see on your journey, you've clearly been a man of the people, elected councillor for, uh, like, your local area. Like, just interested, like, where, where was— I don't know, how, how was that draw? I don't know, where's that drive? Like, where did that come from? Where was that? Like, how? And then How is it— I don't know, how has that journey then sort of cross-pollinated with what you've ended up— where you've ended up taking your career out of interest? Like, one, where did that drive come from and what did you learn from it? And two, how did— how do you feel it then maybe helped you in the quote-unquote professional environment in recruitment and building your career there? I'm just curious.

Yeah, okay, that's a really interesting question. Um, so I mean The whole time of me coming into politics, being in public office, came from the fact that I have this really strong personal belief that it's the responsibility of every person to make the world around them a better place. And you can do that in a really small way by simple acts of kindness, or you can do that in big ways by service, by different things you do. And my way to do that was to go, I can make a difference. I have an ability to speak in public. I have an ability to win trust and support. I have an ability to think very critically and to make change. So let's, let's do that. Let's represent people. Let's take a collective voice and make action from that. And I think that guiding ethos of just constantly thinking, how can I make things around me better, guides everything I do. So, you know, I still do that in, in work now. I'm constantly looking at how do we work How do we do what we do better for everyone around us, whether that's our customers, whether that's the community, whether that's the environment, whether that's our own process. Just this constant thought of how do we make things better.

Where did that come from? Like, have you got people in your family that have got a similar mindset? Or, because I mean, some people may say that, but do they do anything about it? Do they use their recycling bin or do they do other things? Maybe not. Really?

I honestly don't know. It's just this, this mental idea that I've always grown up with that we're here not to— we're here to enjoy ourselves and to be the best, but also to make things constantly better. You know, I love this idea that the next generation that comes after me is going to have a much better environment to work in because of what we've done as a discipline. As an industry, as a world, as a generation, and that our generations in 10, 15 years' time are going to be so much better. And, you know, if I reflect to the way that our grandfathers were working, you know, 50 years ago mining in coal pits, I'm really thankful that because they did that hard work, I mean, that we don't have to, and I don't have to be in that environment now because the generations before me made the world a better place. So I don't have to do that. That's what I want to do. I want to make the world. I think that's brilliant.

So you've got that mindset. How— what, what did you learn? Because you obviously— I'm from— whenever I, I don't know, whenever I learn or consume in terms of like politics and these types of things, being in the construct of like the system and how things work, like you might have that mindset, but I don't know, you may, may have ended up feeling frustrations on things that you'd really like to change but can't because of how things work, all these things. I guess just last question on it really, like what, obviously you did it for 4 years, so like what, what did you, if you went into it with that mindset, what did you learn being in that environment or being limited to what you can and can't do in that construct of being an elected councillor and the things you can do?

Yeah, I, I learned a significant amount of patience and how to deal with frustration. Patience is the biggest thing I got out of that. Yeah, and that's critical when you start thinking about being in search and recruitment. Patience and resilience. You know, the public sector, like, things take 5 times as long as they do in any other world, but there's so much levels of bureaucracy, of process that you have to go through. You can't just have an idea and make a change overnight. It has to be very slow, it has to be very well thought, it has to be very calculated, and it also has to be in the best interest. That was something I learned in politics as well. No matter what you do, someone's going to be unhappy. You know, you can have the best means, motivation, idea in the world. Someone's going to think you are the worst person ever for doing that. And so it's developing that level of resilience of no matter how good of something you do, someone's not going to be happy. And whatever you do, it's going to take a long time. Change isn't imminent. And it also gave me a really strong, I suppose, insight into critical thinking about how decisions in general are made. So now when I think about the way I work with my customers and my organizations, I try and put myself in that mindset of if they're making a decision, how is that actually made? If they're trying to make a change process, how is that actually happening? Because if you just kind of look at it from an external perspective of I'm unhappy about something, I want something to be different, or I'm unhappy and I want something to change, why isn't it changing yet? And you have a very blinkered view externally about why that's happening. It can be really easy to become frustrated if you try and have that bigger picture understanding of I'm going from here and I need to get here, but what actually has to happen to get there? It makes you much more welcoming of the time, of the process, of the change, of aware of what can go wrong. And I think that's how I've been able to bring that into my professional career, is a really strong understanding that if my customers want to do something, it can't just happen. They've got processes, approvals, changes they have to go through. They've got stakeholders they've got to keep happy. And you've got to be really aware of what process looks like to make it happen and not just be really blinkered about what your personal interest is on that from an external perspective.

I love it. I think, love that, love that mentality. Yeah, I'm sure that, that, that was, uh, as you said, at times very difficult frustration thinking, why do I do this? So no, thanks for sharing that. So look, so B and C then, you touched a bit on some of the early challenges that you, you faced. Um, I guess what I'm always interested to, to find out and ask a lot of people this, so always interested to hear people's take, but, but most people listening to this, they will have aspirations to go from where they are today to become a principal, senior director, that they want to progress their career. So I guess what I'm always keen to find out is, as you all know, recruitment is competitive internally just as much as it is externally. So I guess what I wanted to find out from you, as you said, you described a bit your environment, you were typically the youngest in the room, there was a lot of experienced people around you. What do you think, looking back at your time at BC, what do you think you did well enabled you to push your, your career forward? If that was getting to senior consultant, if that was getting the opportunity to be a shadow executive board member, like, what was it that Callum did well that enabled you to push on your career, to progress and get those opportunities that I'm sure other people were going for and trying to grab for themselves as well?

Okay, so I was really lucky in my time at B&C in that it was an organization, a team environment that wanted you to succeed. Every person in my team wanted everyone else to do well in the team because everybody knew that one person doing well meant the whole team did really well. It wasn't a sharky environment where you have people that are trying to stab you in the back, that were hiding candidates, that were trying to steal customers, trying to steal pretty stuff. That was really great for me. And what that instilled in me throughout my career is that mentality of me doing well means everyone else does well, but someone else doing well means that everyone else, which includes me, does well. So I suppose that's how I've been able to take advantage of that as I've grown through my career, constantly thinking, how can I do something that benefits everyone around me but also benefits me, and then using that to my advantage when there is an opportunity. So how can other people winning business be beneficial for me? Does that mean I can win business off the back of that? Um, does that mean there's opportunities for me to grow? When I look at things like the shadow executive role I did, that was very not focused on me as an individual being a good person. That was very focused on How does an organization as a whole get better? And the focus then was, how do I feed into that? And that's where that came from, was not thinking about me succeeding as an individual, not thinking about how can I get a title or a status or how can I progress my career, but how can I do something that makes things better for everybody else? And in turn, success came from that. And that's exactly the same as what I see here at Haveri as well is How do we all think individually we want to achieve our group goal? When we all achieve that group goal, success then comes to me individually off the back of that. I get more business, I get more billings, I get my promotions, I get my growth. But it's constantly thinking, how do I make everything better? And in turn, I love that.

I think that's such a great mindset. And I think what I take from that is I'm sure you've heard that advice before where like if you aspire to be a leader, then you need to be a leader before you are one. It's sort of what I take from that, is that your mentality was like, right, yes, I'm here for myself, and like, yes, I have my own goals, but I'm going to approach it as, like, as you said, like having the wider mindset or the bigger picture of like, how can I, what can I do that can benefit everyone, and have that mentality. And in turn, you've got the promotion opportunities, you've got opportunities to then influenced the things that did benefit everyone, which in turn benefited you. So, um, yeah, I love that. That's brilliant. So I guess the, the final thing on, on B&C then, obviously you spoke about the, the early meetings. Obviously you was responsible for basically building out that HR operations piece. So I guess the thing that I'd love to just get your take on, looking back on it, was what, what were some of the— we can get sort of quite practical here, but as you were building that out, looking back, what were some of the the key things that you did, you think, quite well that enabled you to build traction in that market, which as you said, you didn't have experience in, you didn't have the expertise in. Obviously everyone listening, again, there will be people that are now building a brand, building expertise in a new market and hoping to build that successful expertise and build a desk and these things. So looking back, what were some of the 1 to 2, 3 things you think you did really well that enabled you to build traction? In that operations, and then we'll get on to Heybury.

Yeah, so building HR operations was really nervous for me because when I first joined B&C, the basic message was we do not do operational hiring, we only do mid-senior management, we do not do anything entry-level, junior. And then halfway into my career, we went, hey, this is now all you're going to do. You have to make this market that for the last 3, you know, 2, 3 years you've told your customers we don't even touch, all that business you've turned away, you've now got to go and work. So I think the main thing there was, we were semi-fortunate, is that the people I then spent 2 or 3 years building relationships with as candidates became my clients. So I was able to use those relationships in a different way. So everyone that I've been speaking to about their own personal career suddenly became my hiring managers, and we were able to roll that out from there. I think what was critical in that happening was that always-on mentality. Was not separating clients and candidates into these two separate pools, but just seeing everybody externally as a customer. Because if I had only ever focused on those individuals as candidates, when you then need to say, hey, you're now a hiring manager for me, and you treated it differently, it wouldn't have worked. The fact that throughout that time it was always focused on how do you get the best experience for me as a customer meant that when it was now time to meet them as a hiring manager, it was a really smooth transition. Because they were able to go, you're interested in me as a person, as a customer, as someone who has an experience with you rather than just someone you're going to— Yes. And never speak to. With that, along with any kind of build-up, there always needs to be a massive amount of patience. You may see one or two quick wins, but it's such a slow build whenever you're trying to build something new, if you're going to do it in a really thoughtful way. So the focus there was also on— and every time now as well, sorry, when I'm doing the build at Haveri was How do I build a long-term relationship? How do I make relationships now that are still going to be working for me in 1, 3, 5 years? Not just how can I quickly win business and make placements? And I think they're the two really critical things for any kind of build-out, is the patience to do it right and think of those long-term relationships, and to have that always-on customer-focused mentality that everyone you speak to is going to be a customer for you in some capacity.

I love that tip so much. I think sometimes people really struggle with that. And I do think sometimes it's at the detriment of like the typical journey that recruiters go on because most people, most companies have people start on like the candidate side and then they're like, right, okay, now start speaking to clients. So it can be quite easy to go, okay, I'm just doing candidates, just doing candidates. And now it's like, oh, I've got to do clients. And it can be quite easy to view those as different things. And I definitely did that. But there, um, there's a chap, um, Nick Carman, who, who he just believes this is the, the big reason as to why he's been able to really build out a successful career for himself. And he sees, again, a lot of people fall short of this. And I'm, I definitely see this in the L&D conversations I have, that you can sort of have your blinkers on, um, and you, and you miss those sort of, um, commercial opportunities to go, oh, Callum, we know you mentioned about your hiring manager doing this. Tell me more about that, rather than just sticking to, I'm speaking to Callum as a candidate, he's telling me the reasons for leaving. Did you get what I mean? So it's like, have you always had that? Where did that come from? I think that's important to understand why that's critical, because I think a lot of people fall short on that.

So when I first started, I was purely in a candidate role. For the first 18 months of my career was pure candidate generation. Wow. Sourcing, screening, building relationships, and then passing that on to the consultant that I work with to go, hey, these are the people that are right for your jobs. And I think something that was instilled for me from day one is always thinking bigger picture. Yeah. If you're speaking to a candidate now, don't just think about, hello candidate, are you suitable for this one particular search that I'm running, or are you suitable for this one particular job? But think bigger. How is this candidate suitable for me as a specialist in my market? So I was always trying to think, okay, yes, I'm looking for an HR business partner right now to work for X company, but also I need HR business partners in my network. So I was always trying to think bigger of, are you suitable for this, but also are you suitable more generally in a wider scope? So then when it came to that extension of, okay, I now need to start incorporating client conversations into this, it was just an extension of that, of how are you someone that should be within my network? So if you have a very blinkered view on, I am focused on one particular thing right now, it makes it really hard. I think you always have to have that slightly more open perspective, whatever you do. So if it's candidate delivery, not just thinking, what do I need for this search, but what do I need for my network holistically? If you're in a 360 role, not just thinking, who do I need to make a job with right now? Who's my focus for business development? But thinking on a wide scope of Who are good customers? Who are good clients for me to have in my network? I should be building relationships with. So always trying to be non-blinkered in your approach.

Love it.

Hopefully that's where it all came from.

Yeah, that's brilliant. I think, I think that's— and I think just a final note on that, because I speak to recruitment owners all day, like, if you have that mindset and you're listening to this, if you have that mindset, you might be in a delivery role right now, might be early on, but if you have that mindset and your manager, the business you work for, like, see you having that more non-blinkered view, bigger picture thinking, they're going to get excited. And that's what they want to see from you as well, do you know what I mean? Um, so I think also in terms of progressing your career and, and doing the right things and showing the right things to your manager and these types of things, I think that will also go down really well because I know business owners and leaders can get quite frustrated when they find out certain information with what you shared with them and you and then they go, why didn't you ask them this? Or that was a great opportunity to do that, right? So I think really cultivating that non-blinkered approach will really help. So I love that. So let's unpack then, um, as the, the second part is HeyBury. So what I'd— just to frame this up, so firstly, what I'd love to just hear your take on was, what was your perception of executive search before you joined HeyBury? How would you describe it?

My perception of executive search before I started doing it was probably very similar to everyone else's perception of executive searches. Yeah, normal search process, but you get paid up front. It's retained search. And that's really interesting because now that I do executive search in its truest form, everyone I speak to when they think about it, that's what they think of. They think it's a standard recruitment process, but you do it on a retained basis. And That was my perspective before I started doing it. And again, that was maybe a little bit blinkered of me to not be aware of what that meant.

Yeah. Okay. So let's, let's break this down then. There's a number of things that I want to break down, which I know people would be interested in. So I guess firstly, what, what has, what has surprised you most about now being in an executive search environment for the last year and a half? Um, we obviously went into it, that mindset, that perception. So now what do you think? What surprised you most around working in this way and in that environment?

How similar they still are. So regardless of the fact whether you're speaking to an $18K HR administrator or an HR, a chief HR officer that's going to be on a $500K package, that the processes, the fundamentals of what you do throughout search are the same. But the structure to it is very, very different.

The structure?

Yeah, and I suppose the process, the level of detail, the level of support, the level of guidance you have to go into, that's probably a massive change. That's the biggest thing I see when now I'm in Exec Search looking at what we do. So the support and guidance we give to our customers, the support and guidance we give to our candidates, our clients throughout all the process, but the level of detail you go into, you know, the level of screening, the level of sourcing, level of searching. I think everybody knows this term headhunting. You know, everyone thinks that headhunting is you go out and I've found someone on LinkedIn, so I've headhunted them. When you think of exec search, it is true headhunting. It is targeting specific people because of their skill sets. Rather than targeting anyone for a generic skill set, or it is a truly extensive market search. So the searches I run now aren't just a matter of going, okay, my customers told me they want this, so I'm going to try and find someone in their immediate area that matches that. And if I can't find it, it's not a problem. My job now is to find them that person, whether I find that in their local area, whether I find that domestically, whether I find that internationally. Whether I have to find them alternatives. It's that massive focus on how do I fulfill my customer's need, and I don't have the ability to not do that. When I agree a mandate, I am committing to build that. That's why in the last 18 months it's 100% success rate for me, because it's— yeah, that, and that was a big shift as well, going from, you know, 40 to 60% success rate to around 100% success rate. Because you are—

was it just contingent that you did before?

Yeah, at B&C, very, very heavily in a contingent world, you know, or exclusive contingent. So it was paid upon— yeah, yeah, sure, it was on that exclusive supplier basis. But when you then go into that much greater level of extensive search, to committing to that is, is really mentally challenging, but it's so much more rewarding because I now go into a search with this mindset of I am partnering on the search, I am going to fill this. I will do everything I have to do to find this person. I will make sure every single stone I have to turn is turned. I will look in every little nook and cranny to make sure I find this talent because I have to. That's my service offering.

Yeah. So let— I'm keen to sort of just zoom in on the mindset piece because when I— so for example, I sat down, I caught up with someone the other day and we were just talking talking about how their year's been and these types of things. And I, I don't know if you agree, but obviously you're quite active on LinkedIn, but I would definitely say that this year, over the last 12, 18 months, like, there's definitely more people talking about retained, um, and sort of just not, not saying contingent is, is rubbish, but I don't know, I do feel like sometimes people give off that impression, right? Like, why would you, why would you work contingent in these things? But I was catching up with someone, uh, the other day And I said, oh, how's your year been? Blah, blah, blah. They're saying, yeah, it's been great. And I was, oh, out of interest, like, have you sort of developed any different solutions or have you sold different recruitment solutions? And they're like, you know what, we actually haven't. Like, every single deal that we've done has been contingent. And when I said, oh, that's interesting, like, why haven't you explored doing exec search retain, whatever you wanna call it? Typically, and I would say this is typical, is like just that mindset of, well, this is working, why would I put my neck on the line for it to potentially fail and for it not to not work, right? So this is what I want to zoom on quickly. You said it was mentally challenging. You come from an environment where it's 46% success rate. So why would you not then go into haywire and go, oh, okay, well, I've now got to have the mindset of no, I am going to deliver. Whereas before you would have obviously said, yeah, I'll definitely help with this, but you know that you may not be able to to get the person they need. So how did you, how did you deal with that? And I guess advice for people that may find themselves interested or curious around the retain piece or getting paid upfront or whatever you want to call it, but have that mental block or challenge of like, what if I fail? What if I don't get this person? What if I don't deliver? Because I'm sure that's something you had to deal with.

Yeah. So if I knew what I knew now and took that back 2, 3 years ago when I was working in a heavily contingent market, I would have the mindset I have now of, okay, do not fail. You cannot fail. That is not an option. And that's a bit of a contradiction on a personal mantra I have, which is failure is okay. But when you actually look at the search, go into that mindset of not you can't fail, but you just will succeed. You have to succeed because that is the option for you is, is is winning. If I was more reflective now, I would probably have turned away a lot of the contingent business when I was working in the market that I knew I wasn't going to fill. I used to work so many roles that I knew I wasn't going to fill because I thought I just had to. So I was working on roles that had 6, 7, 8 other agencies partnering on them. I was working on roles that I just knew the talent for what that customer wanted wasn't available, or there was unrealistic expectations or the market just didn't allow it. So if I was still working in a highly contingent role or highly contingent basis, it would be that focus on let's win the business that I can fill, let's focus on that, let's make sure I'm filling roles, and I'd focus on how I can increase my success rate over how I increase my volume of opportunity. And I think that's, that's probably the biggest thing I've learned if I was to go back to that. Now is treat it like not failure isn't an option, but success is the only option. You have to find this talent. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So what I really take from this when I speak to people about this is what I really take from it is what you're actually saying and what you now do is you work with like way more committed clients. Not just find that— not that they may financially commit that, right, we're going to partner with you, Callum, we're going to start this mandate, start this search, but Just in the sense of like, you probably feel like success will happen because the client, the customer is willing to spend 45 minutes with you to really paint a picture of this is what we're looking for, these are the non-negotiables, this is what we can be flexible with, these are the types of companies that we've had success. Did you not, do you get what I mean? And I, I think it really comes down to like you just said, you were working on jobs 'cause you felt like you did, but I'm sure also if you were to call those customers up and go, hey, look, this is where I'm at with my search at the moment. I'm not quite sure this skillset actually exists or this experience happened. Like, are you happy to give me 20, 30 minutes so we can talk a bit about it further? They go, Calum, look, I haven't got time to do this. Like, we've got 4 or 5 other agencies, send us some CVs, like, crack on. So I really think it comes down to the client commitment piece where you feel way more comfortable with being more successful because you know that one, the client's, the customer's gonna listen to you. Like when you're going through your search and you go, actually, after looking at the market, I'm not— I think we may have to look at this or look at that instead. And they're going to be more willing to listen. I don't know. That's what I take from that. That's much more on the customer piece.

It's not just our mindset of what we're doing, but it's how we work with those customers. So when we're assessing business opportunities now, that's part of what we look at. Is this customer actually committed to working with us? Is this a customer that wants this to be a true partnership? So we don't want to do transactional search and recruitment. When I say transactional, I don't mean the level, I mean the service agreement. We don't just want to be an external supplier. They go, here's a job spec, go away and find someone. Like you said, it's that commitment for the customer to go, I'm going to give you 45 minutes of my time to talk about what I want in detail, to talk about what you are actually looking for, and to be a true partner. So the way I work now is massively as an extension of a search and hiring process. It's not as an external supplier, it is as an addition to their process. And I think when you get that customer commitment, when you get that customer that says, I want you to be an extension of us, you know, you're taking my brand message, you're being a representative of my company, that's where the success comes from. That's when you can then bring that mindset of, okay, I have to fill this. I'll find a solution, I'll find talent. When you're in that environment where you're just seen as a transactional supplier by your customers, I found it really demoralizing. It wasn't the business I wanted to do. It was the business I knew I wasn't going to succeed in. So yeah, focusing on getting that level of commitment from your customers, positioning yourself as a trusted partner rather than just a supplier as well, I think is critical.

So I have to ask you, I'm sure most people, uh, would agree in saying like a really common sentence you may hear recruiters say right now is it's a candidate-driven market, there aren't enough candidates, these sorts of things. So I have to just get your perspective on this because I'm sure it's something that you, you're continuing to refine, get better at. What, from your perspective, I know there's nuances here, what does a good headhunting approach look like? In your view? Let's say, I know there's a few different channels here, but what would you, what would you say is the most typical? I don't know, like, are you typically sort of approaching people on the phone? I know there's a nuance here, right? It depends. But like, I don't know, there's people like, it may be different to the phone approach compared to, um, in mail, or I don't know, you tell me. But like, what does good headhunting look like to you?

It varies. By, you know, by the way I do it, I have success the way my colleagues do it can all be very, very different. I think the challenge I have to anyone right now that says, when they talk about the candidate-driven market, yes, it's a candidate-driven market. No, there are— I think it's wrong when people say that there are not enough candidates in the market. I think there are ample numbers of professionals in every discipline to find the roles you're looking for. In some cases, they might be scarce, but they're there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think what's more important is it's a candidate engagement market. And that's the critical part on any headhunt is now focusing on what the candidate wants, not what you want. So whether you are making that contact, that headhunt, that engagement over the phone, through email, through LinkedIn, through carrier pigeon, however you're trying to get hold of that person, it's focused on them as a candidate. Because you need to get more engaged candidates, not have a higher volume of candidates. And so that's something I try and bring into every outreach we possibly do when we're trying to get customers focused on why they should want to speak with us, why they should want to have a conversation, why this is an opportunity they should be interested in, and why it's exciting for them, and not focus on what I'm looking for. 'What I want, what I need from this conversation.' Yeah. And when you have that shift, that's when you start to get the more engaged candidates. That's when you can take that candidate-driven market that know what they want, that are massively being contacted by hundreds of recruiters day in, day out, and make your message shine through as the one that's interesting to them because they're engaged, they're attracted, they're interested, and you're moving forward on that basis.

Let's just talk about this for a bit. I know this would be helpful for people. So as you said, I think how, what we want to avoid, not good practice, I completely agree, is as you said, I end up in on Callum's phone inbox, wherever it may be, and I'm spending most of my time going, hey Callum, I need you to have this skill set. I need you to do this. I need to have that experience. I need you to this. I, I, I, I, I, I, right? So could you just, just unpack just a bit more on like when you say it's like why they should be excited about it, it's about them, like what does that actually look like in context? So I don't know, are you mentioning around, so you're in a leadership position right now, typically people like you want to get to C-suite, so this is why this might be a bit, I don't know, like just give us a bit more context. I think that would be helpful for people if you don't mind.

I'm guilty of still doing that. You know, it still slips in. I send out the message, I need someone that can do this, or I'm looking for this. So I'm not going to say I don't do that because I still do, and it does slip in. I think the focus is trying to pay attention to what your market is looking for and using that as a way of engaging. So, you know, if I think about the markets I approach in human resources, intelligence, and people functions, something that's really attractive is growth. So if I was hiring a TA leader right now, what I wouldn't be saying is, I want someone that can do this. I would be presenting that opportunity of saying, here's an opportunity for you to do this. Here's an opportunity for you to have growth. Here's an opportunity for you to achieve that thing you want.

Right.

So focusing on that external mindset, thinking, if I was this candidate, what would I want to receive? What do I want to see? What do I want to grow?

Yeah.

And then giving them that as the message rather than what do I need to demonstrate. We'll try and pull that as well into the way I advertise. So now it's not, I'm looking for someone that can do this and you must have this as an ability. It is, this opportunity requires someone that can achieve this and this. Here's what you might need to do to succeed.

Yeah.

But again, it's focused on that individual and how that links to them rather than me and what I want from them.

Yeah, no, thanks for sharing that. So as we come to the end here, um, I guess what I'd be keen to just, uh, understand a bit more, I get, or just, just ask you, I guess, like, what, obviously you've been obviously moved to Heybury and sort of COVID vibes, I guess what's sort of exciting in HeyBreeze's world going into next year? Of interest?

Massive ongoing growth. We're looking at doubling our FTE. 3 of the people in our team have just moved into their first people manager roles. So that's really exciting. And seeing that ongoing growth that we have for our team, we are constantly trying to look at how can we do more for our customers? How can we grow? How can we offer more solutions? That's the really exciting things for next year. We're also thinking about, and I think this is the case for a lot of people, but how do we evolve? How do we have the processes we're going to need in 2025? Yeah. And how is that us now rather than how do we have the processes from before? So just a massive time of change, transformation, excitement, and lots of new future opportunity for us to succeed and do well.

I love that. And look, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I know when we spoke before that something that, um, there's like you at Highbury, there's a real sort of solid amount of, um, women in the leadership team, right? I've got that right. Yeah, I guess I just, I'm just always curious, I think, um, what I'd love to just hear your perspective on. I don't know exactly what the B&C makeup, what B&C makeup was, but like, how, how do you feel from your perspective, how do you feel having like a really strong women leadership team in, in a recruitment environment, which isn't typically the case, impacts culture, impacts the way that you do business? Just curious, because I personally, I think there'll be just a ton of benefits personally, but I don't know, just, just interested to hear your take.

I know recruitment, typically think of it, it's, it's a male-heavy industry, but I've never been in that environment. When I worked at B&C, I was, um, On my team doing HR, I was one of four and I was the only guy. So I was always in that environment where I was surrounded by gender balance. Here at Haveri, you know, as you and I have spoken about before, a large amount of our leadership team is female. When I first started in Haveri, I think I was like one of four guys in a team of 30. And I think alongside that is a broader range of diversity when you look at nationalities, when you look at orientation, when you look at interests. I think when you have diversity in recruitment, it can only be a good thing because you remove all the things everyone's trying to remove at the moment. It gets rid of any affinity and unconscious bias. It allows a diversity of thought. It allows an inclusive mindset to happen because if you've got a room that's an echo chamber, you've got 10 people that are exactly the same demographic, exactly the same mindset, you're always going to go in one direction. If you're in an environment that has a completely diverse makeup, both physically and mentally, you're going to be constantly trying to think about things differently and how does that scope, and that can only have a positive manifestation. So I'm quite lucky in that I've always been in an environment that enables and encourages diversity throughout my entire career. If organizations don't do that, I think they're massively missing, missing something they should be doing to be better.

Absolutely. Well, look, Callum, I know there's loads more that we could go into, but I've really enjoyed that conversation. So many great insights for people. Excited to— I obviously always enjoy seeing your content on LinkedIn. And yeah, I think you've been on a great journey from, yeah, being a local councillor to now, yeah, really building out yourself a successful career in recruitment. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing everything that you learned so far.

Thanks so much.

I'm really excited to share the episode with everyone.

I love everything I see coming out of Recruitment Mentors too. I love the community you're trying to build right now. That's one final piece of information I'd say for anyone in recruitment. Never see people in recruitment as competitors. Always see them as industry peers. And I love that's what you're doing right now is building this community of people where we can all learn from each other. No worries.

Absolutely. Love it. Thanks a lot, Callum.