Danielle Rainert - How to retain your best recruiters & ensure your new hires are a success

Welcome back to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. On this week's episode, I was joined by Danielle Reynott, who has worked in the recruitment industry for over 10 years. She's someone that got what she would call the recruitment bug very early on. What's really interesting about Danielle's journey is that over the last 5 years at her company called Eames, she's developed into a head of performance and people role. Before that, she worked for a number of companies as a billing manager, as a biller, and then for the last 4 or 5 years, she's gone into a specific MD and talent acquisition role. So we spoke about everything onboarding, how to get more out of people, how to develop resilience, and so much more. Enjoy the episode. Danielle, welcome to the podcast.

Hishem, thank you, pleased to be here.

Really looking forward to this one. A lot of people I sit down with are top performers, top billers, recruitment entrepreneurs, but I think what I was really excited to speak to you was this journey that you've been on, on being a recruiter and now you're managing a team of talent acquisition, you're now managing a team of learning development performance. Yeah. And obviously, as we were talking before, I just really feel like where the market is right now, there probably has never been more recruiters in the industry that need support, need development, and I think a lot of companies struggle with that. So we're definitely going to touch on who Dani was in recruitment days.

Okay.

But we'll, we'll really focus on the sort of last 4 and a bit years with Eames.

Yeah.

Um, and all those things. So where we always like to start is the million question, which is I'd love to hear your take on what you believe are the characteristics and traits of a modern-day recruiter today that's really successful, that's a top performer. Okay, what are they? What are those traits?

That is the million-dollar question, isn't it? I do get asked quite a lot. Um, look, I think there's the usual stuff that people will talk about, and that's all still really relevant. So drive and credibility in the market and all of those things. Um, I think when I look at the high performers, obviously at Eames as my most recent frame of reference, I suppose, but even when I'm interviewing people for Eames as well, our competitors, the people who are the high performers, probably, um, the things I would pick out, it seems like an odd one, but this level of authenticity around how they do what they do. So they're not hugely necessarily salesy. You know, when I started in recruitment, it was like, pick up the phone and sell to people and tell them why you're the best recruiter and why we're the best agency and what your USPs are and things like that. Whereas I think actually people who are quite comfortable in their own skin, they're very normal, they're quite humble, um, they are also very driven and competitive and all of those but the way, the way they go about it maybe isn't quite as in your face.

That's so interesting. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think that authenticity piece, do you think that it's more common to find that in people that I guess have gone on this journey to become more comfortable in their skin, or do you get that sort of younger person that's really— I don't know, I find, I feel like you have more chance of being more authentic as life goes on, I feel like.

Yeah, quite possibly, when they kind of settle into their own skin, full stop. I think it also depends on the sort of business you work for as well and how they encourage you to work and develop and train you. And, you know, we're always talking about trying to find that kind of authentic sales style. So if you've got a script shoved under your nose on your first day and it's like, right, read that on the phone, very hard to make that authentic. But if people, if agencies, and it's not just Eames that do it, other people do as well, kind of invest in working with people on an individual basis to help them develop their style, then I think it can happen quite quickly. We look at our associate consultants at the moment and they all do the same job, but they all go about it quite differently.

Love that.

And they've all got their own kind of style with it. So as long as we keep encouraging that, as well as all the basics and, you know, the other big things for us, things like accountability, consistency, those are probably the two other big ones. So as long as those are going on in the background as well, I think, yeah, helping people to develop that style. And I think it also helps retain people for longer in recruitment generally as well.

When you're cultivating them to be themselves.

Absolutely.

Yeah, love that. So always, always interested and curious, like, because so many people fall into the industry, like, who— how would you describe Dani before recruitment?

Oh God, Dani before recruitment. So, um, I didn't really know what I wanted. So I always kind of knew I wanted to be good at something.

Okay.

I always wanted to be successful, but I was probably one of those slightly mindless people. It's like, oh, I'm going to be really successful, I'm going to be really good at a job one day. I had no bloody idea what it was going to be, so I did quite a generic degree.

Um, so you went uni?

I did go to uni. Um, I wouldn't necessarily advocate it for everybody now because it was just a massive waste of time and a waste of money for me, but it's not for everybody. Obviously some people get a lot out of it. So went to uni, enjoyed my time in Manchester, probably enjoyed it a bit too much, um, didn't go to many lectures, got my degree, and then it was a business management degree from Manchester. It doesn't really set you up to be anything specifically. Um, so yeah, it was totally like, what am I going to do? And my mum said to me, well, you're not moving home. So you can find yourself a job, and it was 2009, so, you know, it was obviously recession, Lehman's, everything. So I applied for 98 jobs on Monster.

98?

98 jobs on Monster. Marketing, recruitment, didn't even know what recruitment was, no idea. And then I got a phone call from a guy at Premier Group, and he said, do you want to come for an interview? And I was like, oh, okay. And now here I am, kind of 12, 13 years later, still in recruitment.

I love that. So let's just talk a bit about though, because so you've been at Eames for nearly 5 years, right?

Yeah, nearly 5, yeah.

And then before, prior to that, it was all you, you was a recruiter, you progressed and these types of things. So I guess what, what were— a lot of people listen to this that are sort of probably early on in their recruitment career or really in the trenches right now— what were, what was your most difficult year looking back, do you think, in your recruitment career? Is it the first year, which a lot of people say Did you get, did you sort of pick up what you need to do quite quickly? Yeah. I don't know, how, like, how were the early years?

The early years, I've got to say, the early years, the first year in recruitment for me was brilliant.

Was it?

I absolutely loved it. So I learned a lot of premier, like, they trained me and it was very fast-paced and I absolutely got bitten by the recruitment bug, shall we say. My hardest year was probably in my next business when I was predominantly a contract recruiter.

Okay.

I fell into that trap of having one big client.

Right.

Was like 80% of my NFI or billings, you know, on a quarterly and annual basis. And then overnight they had an external consultancy come in and say, you need to get rid of all your contractors and turn it all to perm.

Wow.

So yeah, that was—

I imagine that was difficult.

Yeah, that was difficult. Yeah, trying to pick yourself up from that and kind of refocus and things. Um, and I, you know, it happens, it does. So you just got to be a bit resilient and stick with it really.

And then have you, have you always done a mixture of like contract and perm, or?

Pretty much, yeah. I've always been in quite a fortunate position. I mean, when I was at, um, Premier, I was I was all perm, yeah, but I managed to swing a few things contract, you know, be like, yeah, I'll do that, I'll do that. Oh, it definitely started as a perm job, um, and, uh, and then when I was in my other roles, yeah, it was, it was predominantly dual desk.

What would you, what would you say are the things that you absolutely have to nail and get really good at as a contract recruiter compared to a perm recruiter, for instance?

That's a really interesting question because people are— people, we talk about that at Eames sometimes now and how we train and develop people differently and things like that. I try not to separate them out too much, if I'm completely honest. I think that you can fall into the trap of thinking that contract recruiters have to work with real pace and urgency and that side of things, and on perm you can maybe be a bit slower.

I always hear that people like, yeah, bring the contract agency to perm recruitment, and it's sort of like, yeah, yeah, I think taking the same mindset.

I think with, um, with perm, obviously with contracts, I think it's this element of tracking your contractors and constantly keeping on top of them. So if you make a contract placement and you've placed a contractor with a client and then you don't speak to them for the 6-month contract, you have absolutely missed a trick there.

Sure.

Because you need to be well on top of your contract finishers and your run rate and everything and making sure you're keeping these guys on your books as much as possible. So I think the level of proactivity of replacing your candidates as a contract recruiter is absolutely paramount. Whereas on perm, once you've placed somebody, still need to keep in touch with them, but for different reasons. Yeah, different reasons. For different kind of relationship, yeah.

Do you have a good memory? I always feel like contract recruiters are like, yeah, I've got, like, that's, I'm sure you've heard that.

I do, yeah. I sometimes think I don't have a good memory and then like someone like my husband will be like, you've pulled me up on something I did like 6 years ago. How do you still remember that? That was an argument we had 6 years ago, so I think I probably do.

I'm sure you picked up on that. People like, yeah, like, I just, I remember, like, someone will tell me about someone, they'll be like, yeah, I remember I placed that person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I find that so interesting.

Yeah, you do have to have a good memory.

So when, when did, when did, like, where did you get to in your career then to then be open or consider like a type of role or what the opportunity might look like at Eames? Like, where did you end up in your career to then consider going down the path that you did go down?

Yeah, so I think when I was a recruiter, I mean, anyone can see from my LinkedIn, I was what I would look at as a slightly jumpy profile. So I was never at anywhere for a really long time, um, and I think it's because I was still trying to work out what I wanted to do in recruitment, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And then I joined Aspire and the role was very much, uh, I came in to do one thing and I think the role evolved quite quickly and I ended up doing something quite different, which was heavily involved with hiring a different type of skill set from the market for them and then training those individuals and supporting them with their development.

So it happened quite organically to get into that role?

Yeah, and then I just loved that part of the role, so that's why I—

What do you love about it?

I loved seeing people come in and get really bitten by that recruitment bug, and as I, I mean, I use that phrase all the time, which is really irritating, but do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, so kind of be really enthusiastic about recruitment and see how it could be a long-term career as well, because you do have people come in that admitted it's maybe a bit of a stepping stone, they don't know what else to do, and taking somebody's confidence and skill set and working with them to take it from one level to the next level, and they see the financial rewards from that. Oh God, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Better than your biggest deal or best month, or, um, do you know what, it's different. I think different things get you out of bed in the morning as you get older as well. So I think, you know, first commission checks and stuff like that amazing. Still remember first deal and all that kind of stuff and how exciting it is. But I think, you know, to be able to have that influence on others and to be able to make it happen for other people, I started getting a kick out of that quite early on in my career when I started managing people. So it kind of naturally became, you know, the role I ended up in was around supporting people.

So I guess to round that off then, always curious, like, what do you think a— like you said, you wasn't sure what you wanted to do, but you didn't— you sort of had expectations of yourself, you wanted to be successful. What has a career in the recruitment industry given you that maybe you least expected?

I think it's, well, it's given me my husband and my best friends. My whole life revolves around working in recruitment, so if I hadn't worked in recruitment, I'd be pretty lonely at this point. Although I like to think I probably would have found them somewhere else, but yeah, I mean, I've made some great friends, great network. I've also been able to really advise other people in my life, so family and other friends, obviously I do have a few outside of recruitment, um, on big, those big life-changing moments like looking for a new role, struggling at work, feeling demotivated, not feeling supported, how to have conversations around salaries and pay rises. You know, if I hadn't worked in recruitment and advised people on that as part of my job, I wouldn't have been able to do that.

It's probably useful, isn't it?

Yeah, although I still get people messaging me going, my mum's like, my second cousin's uncle's aunt wants a new CV.

Can you write a CV for her?

I haven't looked at CVs for a really long time.

Yeah, but yeah, it's— yeah, my girlfriend recently been hiring for her team and like, yeah, I'll just catch myself just— it's just information that you always keep.

Yeah.

And it is really useful. And like, when you— it is interesting because like if you never have gotten in that environment, you realize, oh wow, yeah, all that stuff that I learned is really useful in like really potential important moments.

Yeah.

In your career.

Yeah.

So interesting. So So let's sort of unpack this journey then with Eames. So like when you, because I know you were saying upstairs like you joined on a 6-month contract and then you've now been there for nearly 5 years.

Yeah.

So have you always been in the mixture of like tenant acquisition and learning development or has that evolved over time or like how did it, how did it start?

So it has evolved. So I joined Eames on a, yes, you're right, 6-month contract to basically be like a sales trainer.

Okay.

And for me it was going to be a kind of one of multiple clients. Sure. Some things that I was going to do. So I set up my limited company, set up a bank account, you know, business bank account. What's it called?

What's the company called?

Recruitment Trainers Limited. Oh, nice. So super exciting, really creative, really thinking outside the box. I think I still own the website domain. If everyone wants to buy it, then you can start for crap.

Yeah, that's pretty valuable.

Yeah. So joined on a 6-month contract only. It was only going to be sales training and it was only going to be for the 6 months because that's all that was going to be required. And then Eames, through that journey, Matthew Eames and the board decided to make a big investment in learning and development and training and driving performance across the business and sort of building an L&D function out. So they would— started looking for a permanent head of people and performance, and they went to market, which is the right thing to do. And I put my hat in the ring and interviewed for it as well, and got the job. And at that point, I took over the talent acquisition side of things as well.

Because what it would probably be helpful, like, so when— do you remember what the business looked at that period, like, how many people were there, like, roughly?

Good question.

Because I think that would be in— I think that would give some really good context of, like, I know you have big goals, yeah, the next financial year and stuff, but rough idea of what the business looked like when you was at that period.

It was, it was definitely smaller than it is now. It wasn't astronomically smaller, but if in terms of headcount, it was smaller. In terms of, um, look at other factors like, um, NFI or billings per head on a monthly and quarterly basis, was lower. It was definitely different. And just in terms of the kind of the access to training and development stuff like that, it was there, there was someone doing some, but there's only so much one person can do. So yeah, it was quite different.

So how many, and then what would be helpful now is like, so how many people do you have in your people and performance team? Because you were telling me upstairs, so it'd be good to sort of paint a picture of what that looks like today.

Absolutely. So the team, my team today, there's 7 of us in the UK. Me, um, and then there are people in our, um, Hong Kong and Singapore offices as well. Yeah, so we've just made a new hire who's due to start on as an L&D manager in our Singapore office who will cover the Asia region, um, and then someone that supports us with talent acquisition out there for the Asia region as well. So, and in the UK there's, um, yeah, 7 of us now.

7 of you? Cool. So let's just— I really want to dig into this like performance piece basically. So I think what would be really interesting to hear your take on is is like, what are the principles and fundamentals to get to getting onboarding right? More particular around how can I take Dani, who knows absolutely nothing about recruitment but has the, the authenticity, has a curiosity, has, has the right things.

Yeah.

Like, as a, as a culture, as a business, like, what are some of the principles and fundamentals that you've probably really sort of worked hard on getting right now? Yeah. That can really help that person go from like zero to being competent as quickly as possible or getting to that first milestone of doing their deal more quickly. Like, what are the principles in getting that right?

Yeah, cool. So if I break that down, the initial part would be that onboarding piece.

Yeah.

So it's something that we spent a lot of time looking at, reviewing, doing feedback surveys on, tweaking, getting right. I think it all starts with making sure that the hiring process and that talent acquisition piece is intrinsically linked to the onboarding and the L&D piece. So in my case, that's easy because I manage both of those functions. But it means that actually we are setting clear expectations and agreeing on things.

When you're speaking to people about joining the company?

When we're interviewing them. So it starts before someone's even joined the business. So I think you've got to get that bit right first and make sure that you're giving a really honest, transparent account of this is Eames, this is what we're great at, these are the challenges. If you were to join, this is the role, this is how that manager operates, this is how we use things like KPIs. If you were to join the business, we use something called What Good Looks Like, which sets out very clear billing expectations for everybody at every level in the business. So we can provide that to people before they've even started and say, look, are you up for this? Because this, this will be the expectation.

Because we can go into what you've learned and spend a lot of time on, but if you're not bringing the right people in that environment from the first place, then you're setting yourself up to fail, or it's just going to be way more difficult. I'm glad you made that point. Okay, so let's say we've got the right person. What do we have to get right, or like, what are the fundamentals?

I think making sure you put enough time and planning into the onboarding and induction. And what we have is two sort of very different approaches to onboarding depending on the profile of individual we bring in.

Okay.

So we have the AC pod, an academy, whatever you want to call it. We call it the AC pod. So there is a structured process for onboarding and induction for those guys. The way that we train them, develop them, measure it, set expectations, measure performance.

How long is that period?

The AC Pod lasts between 4 to 6 months.

Oh wow, really?

Yeah.

Okay.

So the initial pod is very intense for the first sort of 2. Okay. But then you're in AC Pod in various different phases right up until the point you get promoted to a consultant. So for some people that could be sort of, well, actually more like 5 months. Some people it could be 8 or 9.

8 or 9. Yeah. And like, so like what goes on in that period? Like I'm just really interested in like What goes on in that period?

Yeah, so the AC Pod is structured around our core training modules.

Okay.

So we break that down into working with candidates, job management, and business development broadly.

Okay.

And in the first 2 weeks, we hire in sort of, we train in 3-week periods. So the first 2 weeks, really full-on training.

Yeah.

Every hour is scheduled out, which sounds really intense, but you're never sort of squirreled away in a training room for hours and hours on end. Mix it up, different environments. We go to different WeWorks, different offices, different people involved in facilitating and delivering training. So I could be doing some, my L&D team, the managers and directors get really involved in delivering training firsthand as well. So you're in doing learning theory, you're doing having opportunities to put it into practice, doing things like role plays, which are a lot of fun. You know, I get them to put me through my paces as well to see if I've still got and then you get the opportunity to obviously put it into practice on desk.

You hear those stories, don't you? And I remember my first couple of weeks, obviously I was in a much smaller business, but I was on the phones on the first day. So I was just curious, yeah, like, how long is it until like they go into like the real world? They speak to candidates, like, so on desk, day 3, day 3, day 3.

So what we're trying to find is a balance, and this is a really— I was actually interviewing someone last night and talking to her about it It's a really hard balance to get sometimes between wanting to make sure that juniors have enough confidence, credibility, they know enough to have a valuable conversation with a candidate, not waste a candidate's time, be able to represent our brand effectively.

Yeah.

But at the same time, you don't want to keep them off the phone so long that it kind of builds up into this massive thing and it's like, oh shit, we're going to go on the phones next week. It's like, guys, it's just a phone call. We've done a role play 100 times. So yeah, we just need to find that balance. And from looking at the data, which we try and do as much as possible, we know that people perform better by the end of month 1 if they're on the phone by day 3.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

So why do you think that is then?

Because I think because that is the right balance. Yeah, I think it's important. And with the training, again, we changed it up because I'm proud of where we are now, but it's definitely been a journey to get to where it is. Initially, we were giving them too much information and asking asking them to do too much on that first call. And now we've scaled it back and it's like, actually, in day 3, you're doing more what we would call candidate regen calls. So people who are on our database, we've maybe lost contact with for a while, and they're getting in touch and saying, you know, I'd like to find out if you're open to a new opportunity at the moment, got your details on our system, we're not spoken for a while, you know, having that level of conversation. They're not pitching them a job.

Yeah, making the stakes less higher.

Yeah, exactly. And then it's just just used to picking up the phone, speaking to candidates, getting things like, you know, I'm not, I'm not able to speak right now, or, you know, why are you calling me, take my details off your system, you know, or yes, great, really keen. So it's just putting them through those different real-life scenarios and not leaving it too long, but not expecting them to do too much on that day 3 because they still don't know very well.

That's a really interesting insight, to be fair. So after those 2 weeks that are really intense, like Is it then just a real blended approach of like learning in their teams or are they still in the pod? Like, how does it work?

So in the first 2 weeks, they actually physically sit on a pod together as well. Yeah.

Is that obviously really intentional that you do that?

Yeah. So they all sit together. They're all going through the same experiences. They're all going through the highs and lows or getting on the phone for the first time. Someone is always managing that pod. So it would be myself, one of my L&D team, or one of the managers of those, those ACs that have joined. So someone is always taking responsibility for them on that pod. Pod for listening in on calls, desk coaching, making sure they get into training on time, all that kind of stuff. So that's the first 2 weeks. Week 3 is kind of a bedding-in week. So that's the week where we don't teach them any new theory. It's all about putting it into practice, and that's when they're out sitting amongst the sales teams. I mean, this pod in the first week is on the sales floor, so they're not like away in a room somewhere.

No, but like I said, they're all on the same journey, which is really helpful, isn't it, at the beginning?

Exactly. And they're building that, those relationships and that cohort as well. And we see them kind of go through that cohort for the whole time that they're at EAMS, you know what I mean? I would say to people, if you join a pod of 9, you've got 8 new best friends on day 1. Yeah, great.

I love that. Hey everyone, a real quick one from me. This podcast would not be possible without our amazing podcast partners, Vincere and Sourcebreaker. Because you listen to this podcast, you were able to get your hands on exclusive savings on both of these award-winning products. If you're a growing recruitment business, you have to check out Vincere, who are an all-in-one operating system for your growing recruitment business. With Sourcebreaker, if you want to make sure that all of your recruiters have the best tools on the market to stand out and beat their competition, then you have to check out Sourcebreaker. Use the link in the show notes, in the comments below, and you'll be able to get yourself exclusive savings on these amazing products. So something really specific here, but I'm sure you've like, I feel like you've sort of dealt with it by sort of really talking to them about the fundamentals and getting that in early. But I speak to a lot of companies where one of their biggest challenges is you have people in different teams managed by different people who work different ways.

Yeah.

How have you navigated that? Because I was just thinking like they're going to their managers, then what if they go in No, no, no, we don't do it like that in our team.

Don't listen to Danny, I don't know what he told you.

Have you had to navigate, like, how's that manifested?

That's such a good question, and it's something that makes me smile because it's happened to me in various different ways. So first and foremost, I have to be really careful that I don't constantly default to training people to be a contract tech recruiter because that's what I was. And when I first joined Eames, they talked to me about the actuarial market, which is one of our biggest divisions.

I was like, I was like, what is that? That's completely different.

I don't even know what it is. I don't even know how to spell it. So, um, and they work completely differently. It's incredibly candidate-driven market. You're playing that kind of long game with candidate relationships. Really job-rich. So completely different to any market I'd worked in. So the immediate thing was I needed to learn and I needed to adapt my style to be able to train people for all the different teams at Eames. When we bring them into the pod, what we're trying to do is very consciously explain to people, we are training you on the nuts and bolts of recruitment when it comes to sales, recruitment process, BD, all of those key things. And then we're always trying to bring relevant examples from all the teams across Eames, but we always caveat it with, there are particular things that your manager will want to add in, the kind of nuances of that particular market.

Yeah.

So things like CV formatting and things like that in actuarial versus contract tech looks very different in terms of the expectations. Market mapping, candidate mapping, candidate headhunting and things like that. In actuarial, they're doing it all day, every day. It's a huge part of what they do.

Sure.

Other areas a bit more job board driven or get more responses to adverts and things. So yeah, we've had to work with the managers so that they're really linked in up at all times with what we're training people on. If L&D and the managers and directors that manage those ACs aren't joined up, then there's going to be lots of mixed messages. So the more joined up we are and the better the follow-up and the feedback and agreeing what the application on desk and things looks like after training, the better that is and the better the experience is for the junior.

Yes, if you're in that— if you, if you find yourself in that difficult moment right now listening, it's like, right, what, what are you doing to build those manager relationships? Like, you have to get on the same page, or you at least have to make sure you're communicating together and there's some agreeables. And yeah, okay, that's really interesting because, yeah, I've spoke to— because, because the daily conversations I have now are around learning development. The people obviously— and as you all know, I'm sure you picked up on it, but most people like in the role that you're in, it is typically a team of one, or it is a team of like maybe two people. So it can be really difficult, but that's a That's a challenge that I've heard quite a few times.

Yeah, and it doesn't happen overnight either. Building credibility and relationships with the managers and directors was a big journey for me, you know, and it is, it's, you know, there's somebody coming in that's worked in a different market that isn't in their team that's telling, you know, advising their new starters, this is how you do it, it's how you do a BD call, and it, so it's not going to happen overnight. I don't think there's a silver bullet, but it is about being respectful people, you know, asking questions. I sit with all the different teams a lot so I could get a firsthand insight into how they operate, the language they use, you know, the differences between the teams. And then I can bring that into the training. And that's exactly what my L&D team do. We're out there sitting amongst the teams.

Yeah, I think what I really take from that is, yeah, you've got to really integrate and be proactive and get involved, like you said, if it's not okay. So another specific thing, because I hear it a lot, is people who are early on in their career, a real common challenge— and I would say I definitely had periods of this— but a really common challenge that I hear that sort of prevents people maybe maximizing their potential more quickly is just this idea or feeling of they're not good enough to be speaking to X people that they're now speaking to. So for example, I did like a specific sort of early on in recruitment series on this podcast, and one of the things that I definitely took from that, which is really interesting, because had people like yourself that were in uni, were in a library studying 2 weeks ago, now they're in at Eaves and they're speaking to actuary people, they're speaking to insurance professionals and going, fucking hell, like, what value can I bring to this person? All the time, to get what I mean. So like, how do you, how do you— and there'll be a lot of people listening that are on that journey at the moment.

Yeah.

How do you, how do you help people overcome that? Yeah, roadblock or hurdle.

Yeah. So there we do some specific training around becoming a subject matter expert.

Okay.

Okay. And I think it's especially prevalent, that mindset and that worry, when you work for a business like Eames, which is all about, you know, brand and being a specialist in your market. And why be it, you know, that's the value we add to our candidates.

Yeah, that your niche, your focus is incredibly niche.

You know, you're within a niche, within a niche, within a niche, because that's how we believe we can add value. And we see people being very successful doing it. So it can be really overwhelming for people. But I'll break it down and explain to people that you are first and foremost a recruiter, so don't get away from that. And I think sometimes at Eames we used to a little bit, and it was like, you know, you're not an actuary and you're not expected to be. So the training is very interactive, and I will— and I do it the same with BD as well. When people are worried about ringing clients, I say to them, you know, why do candidates use recruitment agencies, recruitment agents, what do we do, what value do we add to them, what service do we provide? So it's not about being cocky or arrogant, but it's just about helping juniors solidify in their mind the value they can add without all the subject matter expertise, without knowing the inside outs of being an actuary. And what we're basically always getting to is they are the gatekeepers to access to the experts, if you like, to the teams, senior principal consultants who have worked in the market for years and have all that credibility. The ACs are out there speaking to candidates, and essentially they're not saying, I'm an expert, I know all the answers. We never encourage— and I really, I feel strongly about it— ACs to pretend they know more than they do, because you're setting them up to fail. So there is a very credible way to get on the phone on day 3, know very, very, very little about your market, and still provide a service to candidates. So it's about unlocking that with the ACs, right? I call them ACs, that's what we call them.

Yeah, so it's your consultants.

Entry level, yeah, in days 1 and 2, so they can really understand what value they can add. And if they are ever challenged, how they handle that and how they handle that and bring their manager into it and have a valuable conversation with a candidate.

So if people are struggling with that right now, I think that's a really good exercise, isn't it? Because you can get lost and go down the path of like, thinking that you have to be as, like, competent as the tech people you're speaking to or the insurance people, but actually take a step back and think about where can you add the most value as a recruiter. And as you said, if it's the gatekeeper to the experienced people in your business, or it could be, well, I speak to hundreds of people, like, oh, I'm gonna be able to speak to way more people like you in a day, so there's some insight and information that I could share. So yeah, that's probably a good thing to think about if you're struggling with that, right?

And just Just ask questions. Just ask candidates questions. People love talking typically about their career, their job. I'm sitting here doing it with you today. Loving it. So, you know, people like talking about themselves, so be inquisitive. That's what I'd say to candidates. And don't worry about if you get asked a question, don't blag it. I used to try and do that when I started in recruitment, and you tie yourself up in knots. Just say, I don't know the answer, but can I come back to you by the end of the day and let you know?

It's a whole sense of excuse, isn't it?

Absolutely, 100%. It ties back to that.

Okay, so on this performance piece then, beyond— so this is what I've learned as well over the last like year or so. So what I typically find, and I don't know how you feel about this, but most the development investment or time goes into that early period. And then what I found, some of the most underinvested people in recruitment companies are the people that have been doing it for a couple of years. Yeah, the top performers. Yeah, they oftentimes get forgotten about. Yeah, so Dani's earning loads of money, like she— I'm sure she she's fine, like, so like, talk to me about a bit about that. How do you then think about performance development, upskilling, giving people consistent learning opportunities beyond the, the pods and beyond the early period? How do you view that?

So I think it's about making sure you've got a good structure around your performance management framework, if you like. So everybody in the business has weekly one-to-ones with their manager, always. And sometimes that can be a quick check-in, and sometimes those are a bit longer. Um, so understanding things on a regular basis and where somebody's at and having those check-ins for sort of week-to-week performance and things. Then you're looking at your professional development plan meetings, your personal, your PDPs essentially, which are quarterly. So that's the opportunity to be doing those deep dives. And we're not all about form filling and stuff like that, Eames, but we really do get people to think before those meetings, what do you want to be achieving in the next 3 months? What have your blockers been? Okay, you've referenced what could look like what good looks like earlier. Yes, you're performing in excellent, but how do we take it to the next level? And what do you want to achieve? What do you want to achieve? Why do you want to achieve it? You know, what does that look like for you in terms of your life, in work, outside of work? You know, what's the impact of that on you? And how do we help support you get there? So for some people it's earning more money, for some people it's taking on a broader role in the business, this. I've got some senior principal consultants at the moment who couldn't be performing any higher, you know, they're performing exceptionally at Eames, and they are really keen to get involved with L&D. So their managers are like, oh my God, they're not moving into an L&D role. It's like, no, no, but how can we support them to put a plan in place to get them involved in training juniors and mentoring and those things? But it all starts with those regular conversations with those high performers And the PDPs are quarterly a great vehicle to do that, to understand what do they want to achieve.

How can you help them?

And how can we help?

You've got to get that information, otherwise you've got no chance of—

Yeah, and it's got to come from them. They've got to own it, they've got to take accountability for it, and then we as a business support them to make that come true and make that happen.

Yeah, really interesting. So another— it'd be good to get your thoughts on this as well— is a really interesting question I got. So I sort of— I was at a networking event the other week in Manchester, and I sort of shared that, um, because of what we're sort of doing with the learning platform where it's like all top performers, and I'm speaking to these people a lot of the times, and I just find it so interesting that they just feel really underinvested in.

Yeah.

And the, the question I got was, it's really interesting that you shared that, Hishem, but how do I manage or deal with someone that may feel underinvested in but feels like they know it all? But I'm sure sort of had those sort of people, things to deal with. So maybe it seems like you've got the intentional space, which helps on those PDPs and those calls. But like, I guess you might be aware of something and go, you know what, there might be a bit of a flight risk or a bit of a risk, but they— it's, it's hard to get it out of them that they may— to— for them to share that they maybe want some support, extra investment. Have you ever had to— like, I don't know if you've got any insights on that.

I do know— I do broadly know what I think it's about looking at— I think it's about taking, as a manager, as an L&D head of people and performance, you know, L&D, whatever you want to call me, it's about taking the ego out of it and going, am I the best person to engage with this individual on that?

Interesting.

Is there somebody else in the business that actually we could bring in at this point to do, not necessarily formal mentoring, but that could add value to this person that isn't their direct line manager, isn't in L&D? And we, we played that, you know, played that card. We've done that quite a few times. We've got, you know, Mark in our Contract and Tech team who's a director, and he— I think you know Mark— and he's all about business development. So it doesn't matter who you are in the business or which team you sit in, someone's struggling with BD, they need some inspiration, they need to talk to someone that's going to light that BD fire. I can do it from an L&D perspective, but I know the right times when it's top performers to draft marking, and there's no ego involved in that. It's what's going to get the best out of this person and what's going to add value to them.

Yeah, really interesting. So a couple more points that I really want to make sure that we go over before we finish. So retention, talk to me about that. What's been your journey with that? What are some of the— I think this is a lot of companies right now will be worried about losing their best people. Yeah, like how, how have— how do you feel like— because I feel like when I look at EMS, you do have a lot of long-standing people there, including yourself. So what are some of the things that you think really impact retention and keeps people happy, keeps people fulfilled in a recruitment environment? How do you feel about retention? What helps it?

Big question, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. What are the things you think about a lot that you feel really move the needle on that?

Absolutely. So if I think about myself, when I look at our retention, our journey that we've been on, I think that at having, I think, a level of fairness around everything that we do. I talk about fairness a lot, so things like a crystal clear and fair and transparent career path for people. So you can join as an associate consultant and know everything you need to do in order to become a principal consultant in the business, irrespective of which team you're in, which manager you report into. It kind of takes that objectivity out of it, if you like. So there's no favouritism, there's no moving goalposts, which I think really frustrates people. Really, really frustrating. I hear about it in interviews sometimes. I just think, why would a business do that? Why, why have you chosen to make that call? And you look, people make decisions for all various reasons, but I think not moving the goalposts, being fair, being consistent, and catching things early, you know, nobody should be coming to you and saying you know, I'm due a pay rise and I was due it because I hit that target and it hasn't happened. Or nobody should be coming into a PDP meeting or a one-to-one and going and thinking that they've hit their targets and they're going to get promoted or whatever it might be and it doesn't happen.

Yeah, fairness and clarity.

Fairness and clarity, absolutely. And how you communicate with your business, you know, you can't as a business, the business, Matthew Eames, the board, etc., they can't communicate everything that's going on all the time with everybody. Be information overload, Some of it's confidential, it wouldn't be appropriate, but where possible, thinking about how and what you communicate and when you do it, and communicating things sooner rather than later with people gives them a sense of trust with the business as well, I think, and also giving them a voice for feedback and things, and not assuming that because we're senior or we sit on the S&T that we've got all the answers.

Yeah, I really like that. How do you keep your biggest achievers motivated?

Pay them very well.

I think that's an interesting one as well. Yeah, I've had a few people on here share that, like, when they, when they achieved that top biller status, it was like they then ended up having like their worst year or like their most difficult year.

Okay.

Yeah, I just find that really interesting. You hear a lot, don't you, when people like— I listen to a lot of podcasts where that whole sort of gold medal syndrome where you get the gold medal and then you're just absolutely depressed because you've got nothing else to like work towards or whatever. But I think it impacts retention as well because it does. People like Matt has always— is always me thinking, is my top performer going to go and start their own business tomorrow? Because that's always something that could happen.

Okay. Yeah.

So I was just curious, along with that retention piece, you've got a lot of people that have been there for a while, probably doing well. Like, how do you— how do you— it seems like you mentioned the L&D thing earlier that they're getting involved, but how do you— how do you view getting them, um, keeping them motivated?

Yeah. So I think It's part of it, not necessarily de se, but I think part of it is rooted in the fact that we have very strong career paths for people who don't want to manage as much as people who do. So I think part of it for big billers can be, especially the reason behind having their worst year, is because they've got to becoming a really good biller and then the business kind of pushes them down that management route. As an organization, every recruitment company wants great managers that you can build people, build teams underneath. And that would help our growth plans brilliantly if all of our top performers said, you know, I want to bill as much as I am today and I want to manage a team of 4 ACs. That would be a dream. But that's not necessarily the right thing for those individuals. So I think it's creating a career path that aims for people that is suited to the job that they do, the skills they have, their motivations and their career aspirations. So you can become a director of sales like Mark is, for example, We've got ADs of sales, and then we also have the partnership scheme at Eames as well, where you become a partner in the business and you're more involved strategically and working with the board and things like that.

So rather than just, yeah, like just having the management leadership route.

Yeah, rather than just, you know, rather than that kind of fiefdom building of the big— if you've got the biggest team and you've got loads of direct reports, then you've got a bigger seat at the table. Um, and that's absolutely not the case. We have people that don't manage anyone who are AD sales and partners in the business who have a huge amount of influence over day-to-day running of the organization, input, feedback, etc. And they add a huge amount of value beyond just their billings. And I think that's really important.

Yeah, that's right. And then it comes back then to the fairness, clarity again. Absolutely. They know that that's a route they can go down.

Yes.

Again, I know I'm just getting really specific here, but that's all right. And then the other thing that I find really interesting is people listening to this would love their people to be more consistent Mm-hmm. How do you, how, how, how have you, how do you think about unlocking consistency in people? Yeah, consistency.

I can give a really specific answer. There's more to it than this.

Yeah.

But for me, a lot of it comes down to data. Data. So how we use data at Eames. So we don't use data to beat people with, with like a stick or anything. But I think looking at people's things like dashboards in our CRM system, going through that on a kind of a weekly basis in one-to-ones the PDPs, you start to see trends in data. So you start to, you know, really simply be able to say to someone, right, you've had an absolutely cracking month this month. Let's have a look at the 2 months leading up to that and what were the outputs, what were your activities, what were you doing, along with what was your mindset, what did you, you know, was there anything else going on, you know, what kept you particularly motivated, the why behind why that activity was higher. And then if someone has a shit quarter, then the next quarter, guess what, let's have a look at the data again. Oh look, let's compare the two. You sent a third of the number of CVs, you booked half the number of client meetings. So it's not about bringing it back to KPIs all the time, but data is a brilliant tool to use, to be able to use fact along with the context of the person and the individual and, and having a conversation around it.

That's really good. How— and then what, because some smaller companies may think they, they may not have the, the finance, the financials to invest and the best tools and data, like what tools have you, what tools do you use to get to really be able to clearly see those data points?

Yeah, I mean, we purely use Salesforce Lightning CRM.

Oh, really?

So, we've had it customised. We haven't, we don't use any other plugins and stuff like that at the moment. I know there's lots out there, like Cube19s and things like that. Not here to sell anything.

No, of course not. No, but people are interested in that.

Yeah, we don't use anything else at the moment. We just use the CRM religiously. We certainly didn't 4 years ago.

Sure.

It's definitely a journey we've been on, That's a whole other podcast.

Yeah.

But the, you know, making sure that the mentality is if it's not on the system, it didn't happen. But I think it tracks it back to making sure people understand the reason why there's a certain level of activity that needs to happen in order for them to be successful.

Yeah.

So we log stuff on the CRM system. So you can do that on any CRM. And we use sort of dashboard reporting functionality and stuff, which is pretty good on Salesforce, I've got to say. It's excellent.

And really insightful.

And really insightful. And it's very, you know, color-coded and all stuff like that. So it's quite visual for people as well. But I think the most important thing is whatever approach you take to using data, be consistent with it. I think if a manager's going into a one-to-one one week because someone's not billing and they've had a shit week or their attitude's dropped off a cliff and they go, look at this data, why aren't you sent— look at this. And they go, what the fuck's that? I've never seen that before.

Got it.

Then that doesn't work.

And that's oftentimes when the data comes out, isn't it? Yeah.

Absolutely. But the data needs to come out when someone's performing really well as well to go, right?

And then they can see the link. They can, yeah.

Absolutely. And you can look at where you can still make those marginal gains, which is what we're looking for with top performers.

So a couple final things then. How do, this is more specific to like you as an L&D professional and going on a journey.

Okay.

So I was speaking to someone yesterday that made me think about this where obviously he was just telling me how he doesn't want to be another one of those recruitment trainers that just goes in a room and tells people to do it the way that he did it, and that's why you should listen. So he was really, he was, he was, he was one asking me if I knew anyone that he could connect with and these types of things, but also like what sort of things should I look at to him. I want to, I want to be able to bring the, um, the, what's it, the sort of L&D insights and the understanding and education of an L&D professional to recruitment training rather than just being that person and that, look, I was a 300K tech recruiter this year, you get what I mean? So, also I can see that you've invested in the CIPD and you've invested in yourself. So I guess a more specific question on like, why did you do that? How have you found that help you? Because I had that question yesterday. I think that's interesting. I'm sure you can relate to that. You probably was aware that you didn't want to be, yeah, you should listen to me because I was a good recruiter and that's why.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the storytelling element of training can be really powerful still. But it's not about, you know, if I look at that example, it's not about going, you should do this because I built 400K 7 years ago. It's also about going through your war stories and where you fucked up and got it wrong and where you had the terrible months and, you know, being empathetic and being able to kind of share that journey a bit. And anyone that's ever been trained by me knows that I'll share all my war stories and everything, as well as the top tips as well. But, you know, the world moves on. So I think it is about remaining current. So it's making sure that, you know, when I did my CIPD, I invested in that because I wanted— I had a bit of imposter syndrome, in all honesty. I'd moved into this role, Head of People and Performance. I was like, shit, this is—

and that's what this guy probably felt as well.

Yeah, I was like, this isn't what I was expecting. So in part I did it because I thought it would give me a bit of credibility, but at the same time as well, I hadn't been in a structured learning environment myself since uni, so I wanted to experience a bit of that, learning something new, being out of your depth, you know, taking on information, applying it, you know, all of that learning again, because that's what I was asking other people to do and I was in a room doing, but I hadn't done it for ages myself, so I wanted to go through that experience again. Um, can I hand on heart say that I use everything that I got taught in my CIPD? No, but things around key messaging like data and how people, you know, need to be more socially aware now online and brought back personal brand and supporting people develop that, that just wasn't a thing when I was a recruiter. So there were one or two key things I really got from it. But I think, yeah, thinking of new ways that I can add value to people, things like doing my NLP and things like that, it just brings a different dynamic to the training content that we're delivering.

Yeah, really interesting. So as we come to the end here then, I guess what I'd love to just close on is for anyone listening to this that doesn't have the privilege of having someone like you in their business, or a team.

It's always a privilege.

Yeah, but like, yeah, I guess, yeah, a lot of people don't have someone like you or a team in their life. So I guess the sort of question is, and to get your sort of final thoughts on, is like, if I'm listening to this and there's a number of people in my business that I know I should probably be supporting more, um, provide more development opportunities for, like, what would be your advice for those people? Um, like, things that they could do or the how they should be thinking about it it, uh, that doesn't necessarily mean like, oh, makes them feel like I have to have an L&D team and these types of things. Like, if I'm listening to this and yeah, like, what would your advice be to those people that could help get more out of those people, help support those people?

Yeah, I think the, the first thing I would do— it sounds a bit of an odd thing to suggest, but the first thing I would say is people naturally who work in L&D love talking about L&D, and very often other people in the business don't love talking about it as much as we do. So we don't get to natter about it very much. I would reach out to people, even if they are your competitors, people in my sort of role, and ask, what do you guys do? What do you have in place? I'd be very surprised if they get shut down too often, because people approach me all the time. So sharing those ideas and building a network within that kind of L&D space— I think making sure you do have that structured performance framework is so important. It does take time.

Well, those PDPs you're talking about.

Yeah, the onboarding and Making sure there's the onboarding process and make sure that's mapped out and it's consistent for everybody that joins. Um, making sure there are the one-to-ones, the PDPs, you know, if people are underperforming, then the desk reviews to help them get back on track, that it's clear, it's consistent, it's fair, and there is some form of process in place. And knowing who can be in your business to support you as a business owner, if we're talking about kind of smaller businesses, in driving those things forward. Forward and making sure people are educated about the support they get from your business. Um, so I think when businesses are smaller, they maybe assume, I don't need all that process, I don't need that structure, we're not 150, 200 people, we'll wait to that point to, you know, if we get there, we'll worry about that stuff. And it's not assuming that because you catch up with people on the desk every day and you know what jobs they got on and you know what a pipeline looks like, that they don't need that time one-on-one in a room. To talk about their development and their performance and how important that is to employees. So yeah, I hear that a lot when I speak to people sometimes outside of our business and they go, oh well, you know, I know what's going on because we speak all the time, so we don't really need that structure. You do. They need to know that they've got that time with you, that, that, and just sometimes that time and that intentional space, isn't it?

Intentional space to talk about.

It's a great way of putting it, yeah. And it's that time with you as an as their manager. Yeah, that's just as important as going on a training program or sitting in a coaching session with me or one of my team or a workshop that we run at Eames or something. That time, that space, that coaching that you can do one-on-one with someone, even if you're a small business, and making sure it's regular and doesn't just happen when the shit hits the fan and they're underperforming.

Love it. Dan, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it and got value from the conversation. If you did enjoy it, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we'll see you in the next episode.