Jack Prior - If you're a Tech Recruiter and you only use Linkedin to source, then QUIT.

This is the Recruitment Rollercoaster podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz, and today I'm joined by Jack Pryor, who is a senior consultant at Red Cat Digital Recruitment. And thanks for joining me, mate.

You're welcome. How are you doing?

Thanks for coming in. Yeah, I'm good. It's, uh, 6:30 PM in the Hunted offices. Yeah, late night podcast session. Yeah, good man. I appreciate, uh, your time. So as I was saying, Jack, where I always, always like to start How did, uh, Jack Pryor get into, uh, the wonderful world of recruitment?

Uh, I think it's the, uh, it's not a really, really interesting story. I can be very honest with you. I think it's the same for a lot of people where you naturally, you know, you fall into it. Um, for me it was a case of I left university, I needed a job straight away because my mom was making me pay rent straight away, and I know, uh, and then I stuck my CV on Reed and immediately you get people calling grads you know, do you want to do recruitment, do you want to do sales? And for me it was an issue.

What degree did you do?

English Literature, uh, University of Kent. 2:1, I'll take it for the workload I did. Um, so yeah, it was a case of I need a job, I wanted something quick, I wanted something I can get into, and recruitment and sales are the thing that was just coming through the door. And to be honest, I was being a bit lazy with my search. Um, you know, I always had a bit of a creative streak about me where I was like, oh, it'd be great to be a journalist, it would be great to be a freelance writer. And the aim for me initially was go into sales or recruitment, do a lot of writing in my spare time, and then see if I can enter a career. Yeah, I didn't know about that yet. Uh, once I had a portfolio in front of me, obviously I never started doing that. I just started in recruitment. Um, and what it was was I was just getting all these calls— recruitment, sales, recruitment, sales. My idea, as I say, was just to be quick and easy. And then, uh, it was, it was off my final interview at Redcat actually. Uh, I went to go meet my mates for a beer I'm suited and booted, I'm having a good time. Like, guys, how weird is it that I might actually be in recruitment? Like, I hadn't really assimilated that that could be my career yet. And they were like, no, mate, it fits perfectly. Really? Yeah. And for them, they were like, you're chatty, you always want to be like active, you're a hard worker, it works really well for you.

Okay.

And it wasn't until they said that I was like, oh, this could actually be a job where it's not just something I do for a year and then sack it off.

It's interesting that obviously you thought about it that way, like, quite early on, which I'm assuming has been useful through the peaks and troughs of recruitment, you know what I mean? So that's quite interesting that you had that early on.

Yeah, definitely. I think that's one thing my director Jamie, yeah, he used to say to me all the time, he's like, don't be scared about being a recruiter because you are a recruiter, you can't hide from it. The difference is, is you're trying to be a good one. You're not trying to be sharky, you're not trying to be too salesy and too upfront and rude to people. You're actually trying to do the job well. So don't be scared about being a recruiter because there's nothing wrong with being a good recruiter.

Yeah.

And I think that was a switch for me as well, was like working out, you know, it's, it's positive to do that well.

So does that mean then on your Tinder profile you put recruitment consultant, or do you put headhunter, or do you put search researcher?

Researcher.

I think I was that proud about it.

I think I was scared about telling people as a recruiter at the start. Because you'd say to people like, oh, I'm a recruiter, they're like, especially when— especially every time I went to like a— anytime I met people in tech outside of work.

Yeah.

And you say, oh, I'm a recruiter, they're like, because they have such bad experiences. Uh, so I was worried about it to start with. Again, I think it's more a case of when you think, oh, I'm actually okay at doing this, I don't mind being a recruiter and telling people.

Yeah.

I think it's only when you can be like, yeah, I'm— don't worry, I'm not trying to be awful.

No, we'll definitely dive into that. So I guess Quickly, so interesting that your mate said that, but did you have a perception of recruitment then, or was it—

did you just start?

Oh, you did?

Absolutely.

How come?

And it was—

and what was it from the—

from the people that you interview with?

Really?

And I had so many negative experiences interviewing lots and lots of places.

How many— how many places did you interview at?

Uh, over a dozen.

Really?

And some of them were like full half-day interviews, well, like assessment centers. Yeah, assessment centers.

Tell me this pen, sell me this person standing next to you that you just met.

Yeah, yeah. I remember there was one distinct one where we went to an assessment center, about 30 people. They had one exercise I really liked.

What was it?

And it was speak to the person next to you for 5 minutes, then pitch the person for 30 seconds. I actually liked that because that showed everything you need: attentiveness, ability to speak in front of 30 strangers, yeah, ability to be concise. The rest of it was rubbish.

What did you find out about that person?

Uh, if he's listening, Alex Caresimo, went to the University of Bath, was a DJ in his spare time. I don't know what you're doing now, mate, but I remember. Um, he was very sound, half Italian I believe. Don't I don't know. Um, so you got to know him? I really got to know him. Firm friends by the end. I love that. But by the, by the end they started doing the— so they did the bit where, oh yeah, half of you come with us, half of you staying here. Wow. And then you get cut. Half of you get cut.

Did you get cut?

I stayed.

Oh nice.

And then after you stay, they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna do one-to-one interviews. There's 3 people interviewing about 15 people. I was one of the last people that they interviewed. I'd been in a room for maybe 2 and a half hours, no food, no water, literally in like a gray room in Vauxhall. And then you're like, this is awful, like I wouldn't want to work for your company. And then all that came out of that, of like a successful, yeah, you've done really well, mate, was, do you want to relocate to Wimbledon or can you work in Wimbledon? I was like, I'm not really, I want to be in central. And then never heard from them again.

Bad luck.

Yeah. And then when I started that, when I started recruitment, got a LinkedIn, the cheeky woman tried to add me and I was like, absolutely not, you're horrible.

Yeah. Um, that, that, oh, it's just a shame that I think, because again, if you think about it, firstly recruitment hasn't got the best name, and then graduates straight out of uni who are generally trying to work out what they do, then get obviously, um, have some sort of experience like that. Then like you could have just gone one way, like I'm not doing recruitment, I'm done with it. And then whatever you ended up doing, or whatever grads end up doing who then get approached by recruiters, yeah, all of a sudden have that massive like horrible gray room in Vauxhall, treat like an animal. And do you know what I mean?

Yeah, there was a point when I actually started going back to people, I'm not interested in recruitment or sales anymore, like I'm not interested, don't message me about that anymore. Yeah, um, because I'd sucked it off. And then suddenly, I think that was actually the time that Redcat got in touch, and I was like, oh, this might be different. Um, and Redcat was definitely a complete change in what I perceived.

So what was the perception before Redcat then, just out of curiosity? Sharky? Yeah.

Blunt?

How do they sell it to you then? Because that must have been a big reason as to why you thought that.

Yeah, yeah. So in one of these half-day assessment centers, they were talking about like, oh, 'How are you going to deal with the grind?' Like, I think they really liked me to start with, at least, uh, and then it was more like, 'Oh, how are you going to deal with the grind?' They were like really pushing my buttons.

How are you going to deal with the grind?

Yeah, how are you going to deal with working here till 9 PM every night? And I was like— and they were like— and I was like, they were asking me like, 'Oh yeah, do you like to do any sports?' I was like, 'Yeah, I like sports, I like martial arts.' And they're like, 'How are you going to do that?' I was like, 'It's a gym box across the road, they do jiu-jitsu there.' And they were like, 'No, you won't have the time because of this, this, and this.' And I'm like, 'Do you not get a lunch break?' They're like, 'No, barely ever.' And I was like, geez, they're trying to make you not like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, they immediately wanted to test your resolve from day one. Yeah, you're missing the point, aren't you, if you want people to work for you and you're testing resolve from day one?

Yeah.

And the only thing they talked about with money as well— and the thing is, money is important in recruitment, you know. No one would do it if they were only in 25 grand a year. Yeah, that is the honest truth. But they're also telling people who are going to be jumping on like an 18 grand base salary, like, oh, you could be earning 200 grand your first year. It's like get real. Like, let's be honest with each other.

I got sold out and then I built 24K in my first year. No big bit of lunches, no Ibiza trip.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

Zero.

And they promise you all of that. I remember specifically, uh, looking at their job advert and it was like, uh, because I was still at uni when I applied, and it was like, oh, you can get a limo to work on your first day, and then if you're the best builder on your team, you get a limo to work. I think about this now, actually. If I was getting driven to like Central London from Croydon in a limo, it took me an hour and 45 minutes. Yeah, like, I'll be like, guys, honestly, I'll get the train. Yeah. Um, but they were selling me the whole dream. Like, uh, the internal recruiter, she was like, oh, I only— in my first year, I only earned 55 grand, uh, which is like lower than everyone else on, on my— on the graduate team. So, you know, projected earnings of 60 to 80K in your first year. Yeah, who does that? Like, there will be a few people out there, definitely. There's gonna be a few people saying I must be trash at recruiting if I'm not doing that.

Yeah, but But I think there'll be a lot of people that don't do that. I think that definitely was one of them.

I think the majority of people don't even touch.

No, mate, I absolutely love that story. I haven't had a story like that for a while because I think one of the, the big intentions behind this podcast is actually was part of that because one of my friends said, look, Hishem, I think you'd be good at recruitment, try it. Okay, I looked into it and yeah, that what he told me was £100 grand first year, all that. Yeah, obviously once I got into recruitment and I never got told about being rejected every single day and all these things Um, but one of the intentions behind this was actually to share an actual real perspective of recruitment. Yeah, so I'm glad that, um, you shared that because I haven't had a story like that for a while and it's quite fun to enjoy that. But that's a big reason as to why— so one of the big reasons why I look to start this as well, just to actually allow people to actually have a real insight into what can actually be a brilliant, brilliant career and has every opportunity to, to actually change your life, which I'm sure we'll dive into. But, um, Thanks for sharing that, mate.

Hey, you're welcome.

It's been a journey. So I guess then obviously you got to Red Cat Digital, right? So I'll be interested, just for a contrast, like what do they then dive into that then resonated with, uh, with Jack the, the graduate that was like, nah, recruitment's not for me? What, what, what sort of changed?

I'm gonna sound like a sales pitch right now. So we, we have 3 major values, okay? That's honesty, integrity, and transparency. And I think that genuinely pervades the culture from day 1, as soon as you walk through the door. There's none of this, uh, there's none of this nonsense where you— they try and make you feel like you— I think a lot of the big companies are always like, oh, you've had to earn to be here to get an interview of us, like we're so much better than you, that we earn loads of money. There's none of that. They're just nice people. They're normal people. They're you and I. And I think I didn't see any people like you and I in any of these big companies I was interviewing for. They were all, you know, thought they were big shots. They're not really. They drive an Audi TT, you know. But from day one, it was like just chatting with a mate about like, you know, can you do this job? Why do you want to do this job? Are you actually going to work hard? Yeah, I'm going to work hard. And being very honest, like, you know, some days you will have to stay late and you'll have to put in the hard graft, but it depends about how much you want it. Um, my manager, uh, so it was part of my interview process, I had to do a presentation about why Redcat and why recruitment for me. So, oh wow, I did that in front of my man, my current manager now my current director Jamie now, and the woman who heads up our diversity and inclusivity and also our learning development desk, Sarah. So I did it in front of Bryony, Jamie, Sarah, who all still work with me now. Bryony asked the really cutting question. She was like, I can see all through your presentation, you know, it's good, but I can't see anything that says you care about making money, and I think you need that to be a driver. I saw about to tell her that my choices were, do I do— do I try going into sports for a living Uh, which is jiu-jitsu for me, or do I try going into something where I can have a house? And I said, if you give up the thing you love to try a career, to even give it a shot, you know I'm going to work hard. And that was the sort of, uh, sort of discussions we were having. People do well if they really care about working hard, if they care about earning money, uh, to, to live a proper life for them. And I think Redcat has more of that culture than being sort of flash and in your face and all you know, we go into our B4 on incentives and flying in a white jet. And yeah, you know, I'm not going to name the company that broke down earlier this year, but we think we all saw the report. Yeah, it did not go down very well. Definitely, you know, we're the opposite to that. We're just real people that are all working.

So it's the people that really connects with you then?

Yeah, 100%.

First day you walk in through the door, you know, how many people are in Red Hat?

I'm looking at Simran, who's our internal recruiter over there, and she's gonna mouth at me how many people. 29 right now, which I knew off the top of my head.

Uh, yeah, yeah, okay. So yeah, a nice size where for me, like, I've had my own experience, but, um, I, I always ask, um, people this, but from my own experience, I would personally rather have a work for a business who I— where I did have access to the owner of the business and these things. Like, for me, especially in the sales capacity, especially in recruitment, there's pros and cons obviously to both, but I think for me, obviously recruitment can be, um, a job which is really unforgiving.

Yeah.

And to actually have direct access to the business owner, to the person that's paying your wages and all these things, is, um, it's quite— I found really motivated, really motivating. And I think that's a really unique thing to have access to and actually really valuable early on.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, that makes sense.

I think for me as well, I think we say this to people when we interview them as well, and I mean it genuinely, uh, Tony, who's my MD— we want to work for Tony. He's a really, really good guy who's built a business from the ground up, from, you know, a tiny little, tiny little bedroom with his mates to actually building out a business of 29 people. He cares about the business, it's his baby, and we care about making sure we do well for him. You know, we want to do well for ourselves, but we also want to do well for our team.

Yeah.

And when— if we have a bad month at Redcat and, you know, one team has done exceptionally well, you know, we all still take it on the chin for everyone because it's like we are a team. The whole class, the whole company is a team. It's not just my desk and I'm hiding CVs in my drawer, you know. I want to make sure everyone else can succeed, whether it's junior, senior, manager level. We're all there to help each other. And I think you don't get any of that sort of snarky behavior you would at a bigger firm.

No, of the same. That's, uh, that's you. That's special, man. That's, that's class. So I guess, so, so basically, Jack, just to frame it up for everyone listening, so, so you're— you've only had one recruitment job, that's been with Redcat.

Yeah.

And you've been there coming up to 3 years. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. So, and you've, um, you're saying earlier, so you've always done— it's always been— no perm recruitment now, but you did a bit of dual desking during that time, or—

yeah, yeah, okay.

And then the final thing then, what market do you operate in?

I do software engineering, so general tech.

Okay, general tech, yeah, loads of tech recruiters out there in there. Yeah, yeah, okay, cool. So firstly, let's break down this journey that you, you've been on then. Um, how were your first 12 months in recruitment?

Um, I thought I was really bad when I started.

Okay.

Um, I think there was definitely like— I remember my manager Briony mentioned her again. She said a while ago, she was like, you know, we weren't 100% sure if you're going to start billing yet. Yeah, we were like, you are— you, you have all the right tools in your locker, but when you're actually going to start putting it together? And it took me about 3 months to do my first deal, which isn't awful, but it is longer than most people do, I think.

It took me about 3-4 months. When there's a warm desk, man, I had someone on James Dean the other day, 12 months, mate. 12.

Sorry, James.

12 months. That's not doing too bad, mate.

No, I'll take it.

So was you— was you— how— give me a bit of context. So was you straight sourcing jobs? Was you BDing? What, what was, what was the setup?

So we started, we started sort of one desk, a director, uh, with me and 3 other graduates. Um, we spent the first couple weeks doing pure training, so I think we didn't get on the phone until the end of our second week, and it was all about learning database, learning about how to find what a good CV looks like, all that kind of stuff. And then it was actually trying to get on the phone. I was so nervous about getting on the phone.

Yeah, it's horrible.

I mean, you can probably tell already I'm too chatty. Yeah, but I hated it on the phone. I was scared, and I, I'm also a bit of a perfectionist. Like, I hate the idea of picking up a phone and trying to talk to someone who's worked in tech for 10 years and then try and talk to them about a job that I know nothing about and just go through a tick box. And yeah, I wouldn't— I've never wanted to be that recruiter ever. Yeah, because I couldn't do it for my own sake. Um, I would have— I just would have hated it. And I hated it from day one when I was like— I mean, my colleagues will laugh at me, I'm still scared of the phone. Like, I still barely—

what do you mean by scared of the phone though?

As in, I'm like, as I barely pick it up. I don't do— I'll never— oh, you'll never see me call for a list of people.

Really?

No, because I don't think that's effective recruitment in my— at least in my area. You know, my mates are software engineers, don't pick up the phone when I ring them, let alone people that, you know, and I'm their best mates. They're not going to see it when a stranger's number, especially if I've called them in the past or emailed them and it says maybe Red Cat Digital, they're gonna be like, absolutely don't have the time for this, you know. Yeah, they work with their headphones in all day, they're not going to take it out to take a call from a recruiter, you know. I, I barely pick up the phone, uh, and also I barely use job boards because job boards aren't populated by good engineers most of the time because it's such a competitive market. You'd rarely need to have a CV on a job board. So I never go through those sort of sprinting sessions on the phone.

But you must have to do that earlier.

But I had to do that at the start to even get used to what—

How did you overcome that then?

I think it was sort of a natural progression of my own understanding of how to talk to a candidate about it, and I think that came with learning more about the, the industry.

How did you learn about the industry?

It was my second week and my director said you're going over the weekend, I want you to do one thing by back on Monday. That's do a short presentation just for me and the 3 other grads on the table about your industry. And we all had to do it. And honestly, all I had to do was that, and I started setting the wheels turning about actually understanding. So, you know, I can still remember the exact website was Frontend Handbook, uh, via GitHub. And that was the exact website I've still got pinned on my bookmark now if I ever need a refresher about what I'm understanding. I can go back to it and look at it.

Because that was going to be my question actually, like how did you go about— because look, tech, the tech market is clearly obviously a booming market. There's loads of tech recruiters out there, it's extremely saturated, etc., etc. So might be people listening that are early on in their tech recruitment career and these things. So I guess, so you just obviously shared what you went through there in terms of what you learned.

Yeah.

But what did you then go to then? You just went straight into trying to understand more about the actual job itself as a whole, or did you try and understand a bit more about the industry as a whole? Or what was the— what would be your advice basically to someone to try and upskill themselves in terms of knowledge?

We had this exact same question, uh, a red cat a few years ago, uh, where someone had joined recently onto our team.

Yeah.

And one chap on our team was a very, very experienced recruiter who I think he'd admit that he wasn't, you know, obsessed with domain knowledge, but he really cared about process. Okay. Versus me, who's the complete opposite, where I care about tech and understanding it, but I'm probably not as stringent on process as maybe I should be. And, uh, this girl on our team, she said, you know, I've got two recruiters here who I haven't been learning from yet, can you give me a bit of advice? And I said, look, for me, first thing, learn your industry inside and out because it saves you all the time when something goes bad or you're on a BD call, you're talking to a candidate and you're getting tripped up, that domain knowledge will save you. She went, oh, that's really, really helpful. And then the other chap, he said You don't need any domain knowledge. You just need to know recruitment and it will save you over and over again.

Yeah.

So for me, it's whatever you think your approach is going to be best. If you do think you're naturally quite a salesy person, which I don't think I am, then process is great because it helps drive your natural energy and salesiness into doing the right things, and you eventually pick the right things up. I think if you are like me who thinks they're probably quite creative and, you know, interesting—

English lit, mate.

Yeah, I'm basically, like I said, a poet. If you are an English literature grad, then I think learning your domain knowledge is really important. And to be honest, I would vouch it for anyone because I think there's, as you say, a million tech recruiters out there. It's such a saturated market. If you don't know what you're talking about, how are you going to talk credibly to a candidate or a hiring manager when they ask you the genuine tough questions about is this right on the spec and you say I don't know? Yeah, like you just look like an idiot, but it's what sets you apart.

So just quick, just to round that off. Yeah, think of the people listening, how do they go about starting getting that domain knowledge? Because I think that is more— if I think of the conversations I have with business owners, they want their recruiters to be seen as a go-to person in their market. A big part of that is having the domain knowledge, right? So I guess, um, obviously you did that presentation, so it seemed like that was really useful. Yeah. If you were to go back or whatever, or give yourself advice, what would, what would you do to upskill yourself to to start understanding or get more of that domain knowledge in the tech space?

So I don't think there's an easy short answer, and I think that's the difficulty every business owner will have to face. And I think we have tried to do that before, or at least I have tried to do that before, of trying to do quick easy wins. Um, but for me personally, uh, I not only did, you know, short presentation when I started, you then have to do the very obvious thing, which is actually speak to candidates and not just ask because your director has asked you to ask, but actually taking the answer and write it down and see if you can understand why. Secondly, for me, thirdly even, I do talks for— do you know who the General Assembly are?

No.

So General Assembly are a— they're quite a well-known boot camp for people moving into web developer, UX, or product roles.

Okay.

I do talks, uh, panel talks and presentations to web developer graduates there. I do talks to graduates from university at Skills Matter about how to break into the industry. I write my own content. I follow people on GitHub, which is a place where people store their code. I, uh, I, I have two Twitters. I have a Twitter which is full of all the useless nonsense that most people have and my mates, and then I have a tech Twitter that has all the latest news. Yeah, lots of people, lots of candidates who work at the companies I recruit for, lots of candidates that I might want to headhunt, but I'm, you know it's actually imbibing yourself in the culture rather than just being, I read a website and I understand, because that's not— you don't understand anything by doing it.

So, okay, just to help me then. So then that everything you just said there, yeah, love that. What— and has that been an ongoing process over the 3 years in terms of what you're just sharing there? So you doing talks and all these things, when did you start doing talks, for example? Was that like— I'm sure that— I can't imagine that, like quite early on in your career.

So I went— I basically, it was about 6 months into the job and we started working with the General Assembly for this kind of stuff, and they asked if they could have someone sit on the tech panel. And I got asked to do it, I was too nervous. I was like, I don't think I can do it, like I'm a bit nervous because I've only been doing it 6 months.

And you didn't back yourself?

No, no, no.

Yeah, because that's what I'm thinking. A lot of people listen, go, great, get that, but there's no way I'm going to speak in front of these tech people. I look like an absolute numpty.

So So, so the tech— in fairness, the tech thing was more about how do you break into the industry. So it was more recruitment than tech.

Okay.

Um, but my director did it instead, and I sat and I watched. And afterwards I went, this is just all recruitment.

Like, you can do that.

You think about how much you recruit. Like, you know the 10,000-hour theory, right?

Yeah.

Where you do something 10,000 hours, you're going to be an expert at it. And you think about it, how often are you sat— like, you, from the start, you might be doing a 12-hour day, maybe less, but let's rough it, a 50-hour week. You know, you've already done 100 weeks when— 100 hours by the time you've been there a month. You know, you'd be there 10 months, you've done it 1,000 hours, you're 1/10 of the way to being an expert.

That's really smart way to look at that. Yeah.

And you think about how much time you actually put into it, you will not— if you try and do your best at your job, there is no way you won't be credible to speak about it in 6 months to a year. Yeah. You might not be perfect, but you'll have something there that you can answer.

I really like that. Okay, so, um, but yeah, just to help me then, because I'd really like to go into that because I think that's really valuable in terms of I've actually had over the last couple of episodes actually where people have run events or been involved in doing the things you're talking about, and a lot of it has actually been in the tech market, or the other girls, tech sales. So I think that's really valuable. So I guess while we're on it then, like, what was the— if you continue that, what was the process of you getting to the point of actually, no, I don't like— no, that's a bit too much for me, I'm not going to do it, to go in there seeing what your boss did and thought, actually, nah, I reckon I could talk about that maybe, to then now fully blown— I'm sure you do it quite often, do you? Like, or quarterly, or I don't know.

As much as I can.

Yeah, yeah. Like, what was that whole process?

I think it was— I think it was honestly just seeing it firsthand. Uh, and you, you go in initially being asked to do it and you think, oh, what horrible questions are they gonna ask me? You think they're gonna come up with something so overcomplicated that you've never heard before. Um, but how often do we say the recruitment's simple? You know, it's, it's the, it's the most simple thing in the world in so many ways. Yeah, these people were just asking, you know, how could you help them get a job? And if you've been doing the job 6 months and you can't answer that, then there's something really, really wrong. And it was more about, yeah, just seeing it firsthand and seeing, you know, what kind of questions do these people actually ask. And suddenly you go, I actually know these answers because I do it all day, every day for the last 6 months of my life. Um, and then eventually, yeah, as I say, it becomes a confidence thing of, you know, backing yourself to an extent.

Yeah.

And being like, I can help people. But you have to, you have to own it. You can't just do it because your director tells you, yeah, for sure, bill more money, which I think is the big problem for most people, is they're told, go get yourself a Twitter, and I think you're gonna die when you hear— and all they do is post job ads on it.

Yeah.

And not actually tweet or interact with anyone.

Yeah.

And, you know, that's the big difference, right? You can't just do it for the sake of doing it because you— it won't just work like that. You have to be genuine.

No, honestly, man, I think, I think I absolutely love the way that you've approached that. And again, I know we were laughing and joking before we went on, but I think generally thinking of sort of the age group that you're in, you're slightly younger than me in these things, like I generally think— I'd like to think that there's gonna be more and more recruiters that actually do generally trying to embed themselves in industry, they're creating specifically tech. And I think, um I think the fact— I think to round that off, I think that for any recruiters listening, if you listen, Jack, there, obviously you built more and more confidence in what you do. You're not shy to say, actually, I am a recruiter. But ultimately, the people that you serve in your market, you need to really believe that you, you can serve them.

Yeah.

And I think obviously recruiters are in such a great position to give tons and heaps of value to software engineers or to people, because you will be very well informed of the best projects out there, the best companies out there, the companies that are enabling, um, software engineers to upskill themselves, or wherever it may be. But ultimately, that's, that's what you've got better at, right? Being confident that actually I'm very well informed to let every single know, every single person know in this room that yeah, if they do need help at some point, I can help them. But this is the value I bring. I'm not here because I can write code and I'm better than you at that. It's actually, look, I'm, I'm, I am here and I can add value. And actually back yourself to do that. I think I love that.

The first thing I say, or not the first thing, I normally say hello In a BD call, one of the things I always say to someone is, you know, I'm not a tech specialist, I'm not a front-end specialist, I can't write code, but you're not hiring me for that. What I back myself in is being an expert, a genuine expert in the front-end market. I can tell you what's going on, who's moving where, why people are going, what's the ups, what's the downs. And if you want— and that's the value you get from me. I'm not a CV factory. And also, in tech, if you expect someone to be a CV factory, you're going to be sorely disappointed because there's not enough candidates out there. So you have to add value in the right ways. And it's about saying, look, these amount of people I've reached out to, this is why people are interested, this is why people aren't interested, this is where all your people that you want to hire, this is where they're actually going, this is the 20 grand more they're paying than you are, which is always the case.

I think that's wicked, mate. So the question that everyone's probably thinking right now, mate—

yeah, it's a perm. How does—

huh?

It's a perm. Yeah, well, I—

what I'm thinking, everyone's listening is going, yeah, sounds great. How does that make me more money, Jack? How does it make you more money?

I don't do any BD. Okay, everything is by referral.

Interesting.

Because whether that's people that I—

and that's been just, let's just be honest, that's been over time, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What period would you say whether you really started seeing the traction of everything that you've listed there?

2 years. Last 2 years, maybe.

Last 2 years. You've had, what, a solid consistent amount of referrals? Of what, we're talking jobs, we're talking candidates, both?

I can tell you actually, it was June. So I started in the September before, and it was June, so it'd been 10 months, was when I started getting referrals for jobs, multiple referrals for jobs in the same month.

Really?

Yeah. And that was through, uh, I had a Slack community as well.

Whoa.

I'm really rubbish at it now, so let's not pretend it's a It's not a sell. I did really badly with it. I sort of let it die.

Yeah, it's something that I, I had one that died. I didn't know, called Recruiter Revolution.

Mine was, mine was called Decoding Your Future.

I've got like 40 people in there, and then I was like, fuck, I'm gonna have to message like in this group consistently for this to be, for it to work and live and breathe.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's something that actually, if you're thinking of doing that, don't underestimate that you are going to have you're gonna have to generate the conversation. Yeah, in that early on, otherwise it's gonna die.

Mine was like, mine was okay, I had like 200 people in it, which I thought was decent. But yeah, at that stage of my career, I still was someone who had to resource 80% their time to get any success. So I couldn't then strip 10% of that way to be like saying to my directors, my MD, my manager, don't worry, I'm just messaging my mates on Slack.

Yeah, yeah.

And they'll be like, how does this translate to money? I'm like, because I'm nice. Uh, you're right, how does it make you money? Um, but yeah, so you were saying you get a solid amount of referrals Yeah, so 10 months in. Yeah, because there are so many people out there that don't even bother to try and do the right things, that as long as you show and are genuine about it and you're not just doing it because you've been told to, then good things will come of it. And that's, and that's the thing, you have to be someone who genuinely cares and is genuinely trying and isn't just doing it in a cheesy, smarmy way to try and pick up leads. You know, I never spoke about jobs in that group. Uh, I never, uh, people— but people started being open and being like, oh yeah, I actually interviewed here recently. And I never went and picked up on it and was like, oh, I got a lead from so-and-so. You know, you, you have to be legit, right? You know, it's like if a client gives you information about, you know, people they recently interviewed, uh, to be like, this is the kind of standard we're looking for, you can't then go to those candidates and be like, oh, I know you recently interviewed, I've got a similar job. Because you lose trust with the candidate, trust with the client, you lose all credibility. You know, you're not— if you're only— I'm gonna say again, if you're only in this job to chase money, you're doing it the wrong way. You have to care about the people and you have to care about what you do. Yeah, money is your motivator, but you also have to have another reason to get up in the morning. Yeah, because if the money's not running, you won't come into work, right?

Yeah.

So I think, yeah, in terms of the way it works is, you know—

so what do these people say then? So like, for you to categorically go, that's happened because of this, people calling you or message you going, Jack, I'm— this, this company's recruiting, and they've said, oh, they're reaching out to you and going, Jack, I saw you at the assembly or whatever. Do you get what I mean? What, how, how, what are they saying, saying to you to go, wow, okay, this is working, or whatever?

So there's been times when I've been maybe too harsh and salesy with it. Like, there was someone I met at the General Assembly and I was like, are you free to grab a coffee off? And I was like, oh, how you getting on with hiring? Which I think was maybe a bit too salesy. Okay, you know, other people would absolutely disagree. Yeah, but you know, you can't— I invited them there to help fill a spot. Yeah, they said, oh, if you know anyone to jump in, I said, oh, I'll invite this person. Uh, and afterwards I spoke to them, but maybe I should have left it. Like, you know, there are other jobs out there, you don't have to—

or did they take it the wrong way?

No, no, they go— they helped, they, they gave me a job, but then they never came back to me after that because I think I was too soon with the—

what do you think? Yeah, they're in their shoes, I'm like, oh, Jack just invited me to get me in the corner. Yeah, yeah.

And I hadn't. I'd done it actually to help the General Assembly.

Yeah.

But in the end, I had ended up doing something that sort of went against my general creed because I was like, oh, I should do it rather than I want to do it. Yeah. And I think there's also, uh, there have been times like the Slack group, for example. People were messaging me directly via Slack being like, can you help us out? Or someone that I'd never spoken to before. I basically got people on my Slack by sending a spam through the database to everyone being like 'Hey, sorry, this is a spam. Join this group if you want. I'm not posting jobs, it's just genuine community.' Um, because the aim for it, the angle was sort of putting mentors with juniors. Yeah, mate, no-brainer. Um, and then people I'd never spoken to before that just happened to be on our system, they're messaging me on LinkedIn, being like, 'Oh, can you help me with roles?' Like, that was a direct impact.

Yeah, yeah.

I think the more you do that kind of stuff, the more people realize that you are genuine and you're not just— Yeah, but you have to keep doing it. You can't just stop.

No, it doesn't, it doesn't. Yes, well, it's like building a recruitment desk, isn't it? Yeah, it's not— it's continuous, it's consistency, it's resilience. It's— and I guess just to round that off then, and then we'll sort of track back. But mate, I think that's class. I love the way that you, um, approach that. And I think, um, just to round that off, I think then how— like, because I'm thinking again, people listening, if I— like you said, if I'm, if I'm listening right now and I'm gonna say to my manager tomorrow, right, I listen to this podcast, I'm gonna start a Slack channel or whatever, there is that internal selling that you've got to do to say, well, no, actually this worth money or whatever. So I've got my own opinion on how you can sort of make sure that every single person in that office knows, or on your team knows, that you've got a big win or whatever. Like, what, what did you do to sell internally to sort of make sure that people perceived what you were doing is fruitful and it is, um, generating billing? Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I don't think anyone thinks I do any work. I think that's what it comes to. When I do a deal, they're like, how? Really? When I pick up a client, they're like, how?

Really?

Yeah. And that's—

did you not say— so for me, my advice would be, because I speak— this is one— this is my whole thing, right? Personal branding, right? So, and that's pretty much what, what you're doing through different strategic and smart ways. But for me, my advice is always, if you're a recruiter right now and you're like, right, okay, so I'm going to continue doing what I need to do phone-wise, meetings, building real relationships. Yeah. But I'm now going to build a Slack channel to create content or whatever. If you get a win off that, everyone needs to know about it, in my opinion. That's how I go about it, do you know what I mean?

No, that's the thing, I'm far too egotistical to not let people know about it. Yeah, so they will find out, but like on a day-to-day, they don't see it happening, is what I mean.

Really? That's fast.

They'll be like, oh, what's he been doing all day? He's not picked up the phone once. But I've actually been writing content, and then I'll release the content, and a client will come to me and say, hey, just saw your post about this, can you help us with this role?

Fair enough.

And then I go Haha, everyone, you thought I wasn't doing any work.

Yeah, no, that— no, I appreciate that. I think what all I'd say is, if, if you were listening right now, and you probably could— you may not be able to get away with that because some people may not be able to get away with that. I'm saying if someone— if you did a LinkedIn post and you've got a client come to you and you register jobs, or just even a small win— that's what I used to do in the office. I was in an office of 8 people and I was the weirdo in the office creating content, and I only managed to persuade one other person to do it with me. Yeah. Like, if I made a BD call and I go, oh, and they go, Hishem Azzouz, I saw your video, or I go to a networking event and someone come up to me, I am making every single person know. Because I mean, look, we're competitive, right? Yeah, getting all this stuff and he's doing no work, do you know what I mean? So that would be my advice for people listening, is if you do want to— if you're listening to chat going, wow, okay, that is interesting, maybe I should try stuff, blah blah blah— if you can get— if you do have a, um, a relationship where you can have that communication, when I am doing it, welcome, just doing it slightly differently, blah blah blah. But if you do need to do a bit of selling internally, then make sure everyone— celebrate your wins, basically, is what I'm trying to say in short.

I think the other thing as well, there's two things here, is one is that my director and I have got completely different ideas about how, or at least when I started, about how to do recruitment.

Yeah.

And the different— and he would say, you know, do it the classic way, which is fine, it works. But for me, I didn't get it, it didn't work for me.

Yeah.

And he was less keen to listen to me when I hadn't got any experience or any wins out of it. But eventually, over time, you know, he's fine with it because he knows that it brings success eventually. Yeah, but I think it was also— there had to be the build-up, and then he was like, oh, he actually does pick up clients off doing this. Oh, he actually does get wins out of this. But for me, my actual advice would be, you know, I didn't do it all during working hours. This is like the added extras that get you far, you know. If you— I don't think anyone will get away with between 8:30 and 6 being on Slack just sitting there writing blogs. People will be like 'What are you doing?' Like, some— like, especially if you're not like well over target or whatever, which most people at the early stage of their career won't be. Yeah, you know, you— that's when you do give your extra mile and you stay an hour late and you write a blog and then you post it, see the likes and the views.

Yeah, I mean, as I was saying to you before we went on here, like, it's, it's got to be both for me. I know it seems like you've, you've got your own little lane and it's working, but for me it's got to be, it's got to be combining both. And, and the aim and the intention is the blog, the Slack, the, the day is going to enable the— when you do reach out to that person, when you do ask that person for a coffee, hopefully the stuff that you have been doing does breed trust and credibility that, yeah, absolutely enables you to, um, hopefully have more fruitful conversations before Tom down the road is a tech recruiter who's, um, calling someone for the first time saying, 'Do you want a coffee, mate? And I'm a recruiter, blah blah blah,' as opposed to Jack who's, um, at the assembly. Do you get what I mean? That's the whole game.

I think I meant more when you start doing it, you have to fight that battle internally. Yeah, you know, if you are doing it out of hours and it's getting success and then they can't fight back, if you do then go do it into— in your normal hours and be like, this is more successful for me than sitting there on the phone hitting gatekeepers for an hour. Yeah, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, no, I'll get that. Cool, man, I enjoyed that. Went off on a little tangent, man. That was good. So I guess it's a first year in recruitment, you thought that you wasn't that great No, right. Um, I guess it sort of makes sense that I guess if people around you are, uh, typically, yeah, just using the traditional methods and these things. So I guess first, how did you do in your first year then? Did you build more than $24K?

Yeah.

How much did you build, mate?

I told you I wrote it down here, so I'm gonna talk to me.

What was it?

$56K.

$56K. Okay, cool. And then, um, did you— so then when did you— so 6 months in you were getting— sorry, 10 months and you're getting more referrals, but Just give me a bit of context then. Did you— when was the dual desk? When did you do a bit of that?

I dual desked up until, uh, maybe a year ago.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay, cool. And then what— but have you always done predominantly perm, or is it—

it's predominantly perm. So I suppose just give an idea of where Red Cat's at is we've had more official contract desks in the past. Yeah, past. But when I joined, we didn't really have one. It was mostly people dual desking. Yeah, around a year ago we started building our contract division.

Yeah, properly again.

So it was around a year ago that I started passing my contract roles over to that desk.

Yeah.

Um, and but beforehand we didn't have enough people headhunting and going after those roles specifically.

Yeah.

So it was more like they needed a dedicated resource to it. Yes.

And they shared the resource a lot across.

Oh yeah, one day of my time because you've got one requirement coming in every now and then. Yeah. So that was fine.

Fez.

What—

so what went on in those first 12 months, mate, besides you sort of not backing yourself? And seemed like that was obviously you're building that confidence, but what, what, uh, what went on looking back? Like, what did you learn? What, what went on in those— on those first 12 months? Were they pretty grim?

They were, they were. So people always say that recruit— your first 12 months of recruitment, the hardest thing you ever do. Yeah, I really disagree. Okay, um, because there are so many harder things in life than you'd your day-to-day job, and if it is that hard, then quit, right? Like, it's important to enjoy your job, but like, there are so many more important things in life. Um, and for me, yeah, it was tough, but I also enjoyed it. So it wasn't that tough because I enjoyed getting up and facing the challenge. Um, I don't think it was as hard as I was expecting it to be. I don't think there was as many late nights as I expected there to be. I think you overcome an initial hump And once you overcome that hump and things start clicking, I think it's like anything, you know, every 6 months you're like, huh, what did I know that many months ago? Things have really clicked now. Then another 6 months you go, what did I know then? Things are really— and it happens over and over. Every 6 months you think something new's clicked, and it's just because you're still learning. And I'm still learning now, obviously. I'm not doing it that long.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, but what you're talking about there is mindset. Yeah, perspective. Where did that come from?

I had a sporting background, as I mentioned earlier, so that was quite helpful. Um, because that—

you are right, because I agree. It's like, I think that's some really sound advice, right? Obviously you're 6 months in, 12 months in, year and a half in, or whatever, and you're having a dreadful 3 months in a row or whatever. It's very quick to— it's very quick to forget what— where you— where you was. Do you get what I mean?

Yeah.

So I think that that's really good advice, and, and people gave that advice before, but I guess Yeah, did that— did you naturally cultivate that perspective? Did that just— was it just through your life experiences and background, or—

oh, I can't say without sounding like cheesy.

Go on, give me the cheese, man.

I don't believe in quitting, really. If there's a wall, you've got to try it, right?

And I think you don't believe in quitting.

I just don't know, because what's the point? I think, I think there's been too many times in my life when I've chosen to quit. University is a great example. I was so lazy. Yeah, one of my good mates, he's— we say it all the time, it's so funny how I went from being the laziest fucker at uni. Yeah, I did nothing. Like, I had so few contact hours compared to everyone else that I would— they would just come home and sitting on sofá and Doritos. They'd come back 8 hours later after a whole day at uni and I'd be in the same place with just a new bag.

Um, Jesus Christ.

Whereas now I've got like a really strong work ethic, and I think that had to— that had to be bedded into me a little bit. Um, and I think— but I think eventually you do have to realize that, you know, you're working for yourself to an extent. Yeah, I think once you get over there, oh, I'm being told what to do and I'm being told why I'm doing it— once you get over that, you're just billing money to— so you can stay in a job, rather than I'm billing money to make myself money. I think that's a bit of a switch in your mindset as well, and that's a good thing to— that's a good thing because then you say, why am I doing this task? It's really, really hard. And you go, well, I'm doing it all for me. I'm doing it so that I can benefit and so I can grow and so I can be better as a person.

Yeah, so what you're saying there, you— yeah, you made it bigger than um, oh, this is my target, and okay, yeah, the target's 100, 120K, whatever. But you're saying, well, actually, when you really think about that, yeah, I'm doing this really challenging thing which I'm finding really difficult because it's going to enable me to buy a house, or—

yeah, absolutely.

You anchored it to that.

I think targets are superficial to an extent because some businesses do just make them up, don't they? Just make them up, flash of a pan. Um, Red Cat, we are quite structured with how we do it. But also for me, I'm not— I'm never aiming for target. I'm aiming for 40 grand above target because I'm not ever settling for just what's fine. And I think again, university, another example, I was just settling for 2:1. I was happy with it. I knew I was going to get it, leave it, fine. Um, but I've— in it, I don't ever want to settle for just, you know, what's acceptable. I mean, I know most agencies actually being above 80% or similar, you know, that's still pretty decent for lots of people. No, I don't see it that way. 100% is my base limit. I don't ever want to be below that. If I'm below that, I'm failing. If you're there, then you're not quite high standards for yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you don't have high standards, you don't progress.

Yeah, I agree, I agree. So, um, before we move on then, what would you— if you were to go back first year in recruitment, Jack Pryor, would you do anything differently?

Talk back less. Oh yeah, I talk back so much and I still do it now.

I was about to say, what you're saying there is you ask a question and you answer the question?

No, as in someone gives me advice, I'm like, no.

Oh sorry, oh sorry.

Okay, so as in like I give back chat, I give attitude.

Really?

Which is sometimes—

well, obviously, mate, you got, you got a fucking T1 English lip.

I got a silver tongue. Uh, sometimes, sometimes I think it was sometimes it was necessary from my perspective, as in, you know, I think this works for me, let it work for me. And sometimes those things did work, but 90% of the time I should have just listened and tried it.

And they were from, from more experienced people around, much more experienced people.

And I thought I knew better, and I absolutely did not, because I'm— I wasn't a salesman, I wasn't a good recruiter yet. So what, who was I to talk it? Yeah, but I thought I could.

That's good advice, mate. I appreciate that.

Yeah, listen to the people that are billing 400-500 grand a year, not me who's done 6.

Mate, that— no, I think that's, um, one of the, one of the, um, episodes I asked, um, an agency owner the, the two characteristics that he looks for in a new hire, and he said the two characteristics that he always looks for is humility and having a growth mindset. Yeah, I thought it was wicked. But that's what you're talking about there, is if you had a bit more humility early on there would have been less backchat and less energy on, well, actually, I know what I'm doing, you just need to do one. Yeah. More of, well, actually, let's, let's actually try that. And that might have enabled you to fail a bit more quicker or try the new thing, which would have got you to where you wanted to get to a bit quicker.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that.

How did you cultivate that? How did that— how— where did that— where did that come from, that for you to listen more?

Then when I started doing things my way and sometimes it didn't work, or sometimes— or when it was more like you're doing it or you're in trouble. And I do it and it works, and I'd be like, oh, I made it work, rather than just listening. You know, it's weird because internally I think I'm quite humble because I have high standards for myself. I'm never, I'm never happy with where I'm at, whereas externally I'm like super egotistical and arrogant, whatever. And all my friends are like, yeah, you've got such a big head. But that's because I think it's like an element of I need to talk myself up externally because otherwise I'm like, oh, I'm not doing well enough.

Yeah.

So for me, like I say, you know, 100% is never okay. I have to be high. I've got those high standards. Yeah, which is a great mentality, I suppose. And then internally, and like on a one-to-one basis, I feel like I can be quite humble and accepting where I'm at. But externally, I'm just such a loudmouth that it makes it awful. Yeah, which is my bad, but everyone's got their—

which is useful when you're in a recruitment office.

Yeah, yeah, I'll take it.

Cool, mate. So year 2, talk to me a bit about that then. So obviously Yeah, by this point you're getting a few more referrals. So I guess by this point, are you slowly but surely building your desk? You're getting— you're winning more. So by this point you're building the Jack Pryor recruitment business, right? I'm assuming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, year 2 is— it was good because I think that was the first time I was like, um, I feel like I'm flying a bit. Really? Yeah, I'm like putting away, you know, what I thought were big numbers at least.

Um, So you really start to build some confidence.

Yeah, and I mean, I had the help of a, uh, of a contract book as well. Okay. Which I, which I don't have now because obviously, uh, the, the contract desk moved over.

Yeah, but obviously that's not just— I'm assuming that just didn't land on your lap.

No, no, I had to make the placements.

Um, exactly.

So yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I think there's like an element of, in my head I was like, I'm still a perm recruiter, so I wasn't doing enough perm to justify it, if that makes sense. I still want to do more perm. Um, whereas where I'm at now is like I've done— I'm making up— I'm still doing more numbers but without the contract.

Yeah, okay.

So I've actually grown quite a lot in terms of that per space.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, fair enough. So I guess before we talk about the growth there then, just quickly out of complete curiosity, thinking of people listening— don't know how many people listen do dual desk, don't know how common that is in today's recruitment world. I don't think I hear it too much, but definitely still hear it. Like, what's your advice there then? Now you're just solely on perm, like, how did you get better at the juggling act? I'm assuming because— was you— was you— when you was doing contracts, was it typically working with businesses that you also do perm with?

Yeah, so I mean, so we— I had one specific project. I had a couple other runners that went out through the year by one specific big project that took in a lot of, a lot of billings.

Um, so you had one, what, a couple of key accounts?

It was just one account, really. One.

And did you win that?

So it was a split with my manager. She'd been working with the account for a while, and what happened was they basically had these 3 tech roles that have been out to agencies for a really long time. They couldn't fill any of them. Uh, it was 3 roles. I filled all of them, uh, even though they'd had 2 months head start. And they were like, okay, that's great. Yeah, we, we want more people like that.

Get me on the PSL.

Yeah, that was exactly it. We'd had one-off roles here and there with them. She'd known them for years, uh, but they never were like, we're gonna give you lots of roles. Suddenly they gave us these 3 roles, I filled them all, we were celebrating. Yeah, we've done really, really well. And then suddenly they were like, hey look, we've got a massive big project that needs those exact same people on the contract. We're going to give it to you fully exclusively, managed service, you're going to help us out. Bosch. Yeah, so we worked on that together.

That's fair enough.

Um, and we got a big contract book from that, and that was, that was really helpful for me as like a helping hand because I think the difficulties— one of the big difficulties for all recruiters at any level is consistency, isn't it?

Yeah, of course. Making sure you're only as good as your last deal— um, last month. Yeah, that's it.

Making sure you're running through money each month. So for me, the idea that I've got a contract book that's making me a good amount of money means I'm not blanking a month you know.

Yeah, you've got that locked in for however many months. It's got nothing goes tits up or whatever.

Exactly. It's guaranteed that you're going to pull in circa this amount of money as long as those contractors stay on site, which they did. Uh, and it was just a case of I've got a comfort blanket now. Yeah, you know, the second year was like, okay, you've got an actual real proper target now. How are you going to beat it? And I was like, well, I've got a comfort blanket that's going to help me out. I don't have to sit there and be worried about being like oh, I'm below target, you know, I've got something that's gonna— yeah, yeah, yeah, cover me for a good chunk of that.

So would you say that was a positive or a negative?

Massive positive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was super helpful. I think the difficulty is for lots of people that work dual desk is they're still expected to go pick up contracts and like go actively looking for them, get more projects. And I think that's really difficult to work alongside a perm desk personally.

Yeah, if you've got a resource for the perm jobs, the resource is not the problem, is it?

Because it's contract, you know, you can find people in a day or two.

Yeah.

Um, it's the actual going, going out to find those companies, find those projects, get the roles on. That's really tricky unless you've got either A, a big client that hires contractors you've got a really firm relationship with and you make it quite clear you can do contract, or B, you're actively going out to find them. Most contractors, most contract recruiters will spend like 80% of their time doing BD.

Really?

You can't then take that out and put it on a perm consultant as well and be like, are you BDing for both? They need to have a bit more of a structured goal about are you building up a book or are you putting money on the board. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense.

I think it's really, I think it's really hard to do that.

How did you go about it then?

Like I say, it was more we worked that dual desk as and when the roles were given to us.

Oh, okay, fair, fair.

So we had big accounts that were going to throw us the ruffles, then we worked them, and in that case it was a huge project, so that made sense. But we never went out and looked for it. Okay, fair enough.

And you've identified that actually that is where the challenge would come.

You wouldn't have had the time otherwise.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so then that, that's really interesting, mate. And then I guess, um, obviously in, in this obviously second year, how, how— because obviously now you're just doing perm. So how long have you just done perm for?

Uh, just so— just over a year.

Just over a year. And obviously that's where you're really starting to pick up now, right? So I guess, what— how, how was you slowly but surely building that perm side then? How was you— how was you sort of approaching that?

I don't, I don't think there's anything different than the standard answers of just reaching out to the right candidates, putting in the right time. As I say, I've got a lot of time to do sourcing because I don't spend a lot of time doing BD, and that makes a life, uh, my life a lot easier because I don't think there's much nuance in— I mean, there is a lot of nuance to tech market in about knowing what you're talking about, but I think the rest of it is the same amount of know who you're looking for, approach them in the right way, approach them tactfully and reach out to the right number of people, and then you'll get those good candidates come through the door. Um, and then it helps if you are known, it helps if you do the right things in the background like content and presentations and whatnot. But in the end, I don't think there's any more advice I can give to actually building out the perm desk, you know, other than just be strict with your processes to yourself and keep a firm— or keep firm organization on what you're doing so you have a track of what you've done and when, basically.

Yeah, no, no, I think that's valid, man, and I appreciate that. So I guess just to sort of give some context then, so from, from what you were saying, um, earlier, your, your billings went in the positive direction, right?

They did.

Or they did?

Yeah, they did. Yeah.

And they've continued to?

Yeah.

Yeah. So what, so what's been your best year so far today?

Uh, I mean, it's only 2 full years so far. I started 186 last year.

186? Yeah. And then you— and then you've already like, you're well on the verge to—

hopefully I'm on 150 so far this year.

And what's the financial year, like January to December?

Yeah.

Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, to want to break that 200K mark.

Yeah, that's the aim.

Is that your standard, like, I've got to break that 200K mark?

Uh, yeah, pretty much. Really? Yeah.

So what would you say then? And what, what I'd really want to— what I'll dive into a couple other things. But like, thinking, thinking about that, was there any key elements do you think that really contributed you to absolutely smashing that first year? Besides obviously having a lot more repetition of what you're doing and all those things, like, do you think there's— do you put down— would you put that down to anything in particular, or not really?

No, not really.

I think I just answered your question. I'll just answer the question.

Yeah, no, not really. I think there's, there's a few elements here and there that I find important, I think, set me apart for those kinds of things. I think one is about sourcing properly, and that's being— understanding how to source people. That's not just going for a list on LinkedIn. If you're a tech recruiter and you only use LinkedIn, then quit.

Uh, what else do you use?

Uh, there was a— we went to a Talentful— Talentful do meetups. Yeah, we went to their first one, me and a few of the team. It was in October, I think it was. and they were going over tech sourcing, and they did like a poll on how many people were using certain tools. Uh, GitHub, the one I mentioned earlier, which is— I use it all day, every day. It's my second most important tool after LinkedIn.

So if you don't know GitHub, no GitHub.

They asked, they asked people who are coming— they did like 100 agency recruiters or something, and they asked how many of them use GitHub, and it was 0%. Yeah. And that's the— that's my competition, uh, missing my second most important tool. So when people say, what am I missing to smash it, I think you're missing—

and just, just to give some context for everyone, what is GitHub?

GitHub is basically, uh, where you store your code if you're a company or a developer, side projects, or sometimes big projects that are actually commercially viable, like out there.

Okay, um, so what, what, why is that? You want— so how that— so surely that's a whole different game to approach people in there, surely?

Yeah, but it's more a case of Um, if you put your projects on there, you are— and you're more able to determine, are they right for this role? If someone's like, for, for argument's sake, a JavaScript developer, but they have done a few recent projects in—

oh, so sorry, just help me out here. Yeah, you have access to people's portfolios?

It's basically a portfolio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, that was a much easier way to phrase it. Um, yeah, but it's where, it's where people put their side projects.

It's also where they all so they can showcase their skills, which, which makes them presentable to potential businesses to win, to get jobs.

But for some people, it's like the Notes app on your iPhone. Like, it's just— yeah, it's just like little stupid scribbles they've done on their spare time to see if something works, right? Um, but even so, it's about knowing what someone's interested in. Um, and not in like a stalkerish way, like, I know what you're interested in. It's more like, I've actually gone out my way to see what you're interested in. I don't put a CV forward unless I've looked at their GitHub first to see what's going on.

Really?

Yeah, because Okay, for a start, if someone tells me, oh, I'm not actively looking, I'm putting this CV together for you, and you go on their GitHub and their first thing on there is a thing called CV and it was dated 2 weeks ago and it was what they've just sent you, and I go, hey bud, uh, why are you already on CV? And they're like, oh yeah, there were these other roles that I'm interviewing with, you know. It's like, it's, it's an insight into the candidate, into a bit more detail. Um, there are most recruiters as I said, 0% of agency recruiters that Talentful spoke to don't use it. And for me, it's my number one tool.

Number two, number two.

Yeah, yeah, number two tool. Um, so there's that. There's other things like understanding how to X-ray search properly, uh, so you can get to the bottom of things you need to do. There's like automating your day via LinkedIn with saved searches and stuff like that. So first thing, I'm, I'm normally the first one in the office at 8 every day. I normally open up I come in, go and save searches, flick through people that have new opportunities. By the time people were rolling in at 9, I've already hit 50 candidates that are open to new opportunities.

Yeah, I love that, man.

And you think— so yeah, I guess I'm, I guess I'm saying like there's nothing more you can do, but I think there's loads that you can do, and I'm just being maybe a bit too concise about it. I think maybe it would be— we need another, another hour to talk about.

Yeah, no, no, I think in the night— I'll be honest with you, mate. So one of the— I think I work with two recruiters that operate in the tech market, and that's where I heard of GitHub.

Yeah.

So I guess I know we're sort of really leaning into a real niche here, but I mean, it's a very popular market and might be interesting to people. But in like 2 or 3 points, if I'm a tech recruiter listening right now— don't have to give away all your secrets, but just trying to think of people listening— like, what's like, for an absolute GitHub rookie, how should a recruiter attempt to use this tool instead of just looking like an absolute plonker and using it in the wrong way or whatever? Is there any sort of one or two tips that you go, right, don't do this, or you approach using it this way or whatever?

So they're re— so their repositories, which is where they store their code, it'll list what tech is used for each project. Okay, just have a flick through the most recent ones and you can see what they're using up to date in their most recent roles or their most recent spare time. You know, there are some people that get hit up about really old school tech they haven't used in 5 years, and you can see that on their GitHub.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Right at the bottom there, we touched it.

Now this recruiter is like trying to talk to me about something that I did.

Yeah, yeah. And also, if you have a role that's got a really niche tech and you can find somebody who's played around in their spare time, you can say, hey, I've actually got something that might interest you. They're like, do you know what, thank the Lord someone took the time, because everyone gives you some credibility and some trust. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, secondly, secondly, I'd be giving away too much. Really? No, no, there's not, there's not that much to it.

It's fair enough.

You know, people— the other thing I'd say is people often leave their personal website on there, which is another bit of an insight into the candidate, what they've been up to. You know, they might have, you know, their interests in photography, for example. They might travel in—

again, giving— again, it's giving you that opportunity to have a unique difference when you're reaching out.

When you speak to the candidate, you're not just speaking to them as a, hey, I've got a job for you, you interested? You can ask them about the stuff you saw on their website, and they go, oh, this person actually looked into me and has approached me for a role. Because they think I'm good, not just because I've sent out a spam to 200 people, which is what unfortunately lots of people do, right?

Yeah. No, I really like that, mate. So I guess what, what I love about sort of your approach and everything is 100% from what you're telling me, you do approach in a unique way, and you're saying that approaching people in the right way and these things— talk to me a bit about that because I think a lot of people can get some value out of that. Like, what, in you, from your perspective, from Jack Pryor's recruitment career so far It's clearly quite different, you know what I mean? For you, what, what's the right way?

There's loads of stuff the recruiters do that I hate.

Talk to me.

Not telling them who your client is.

Yeah, that's a bit weird.

Not telling them how much you'll pay.

A bit weird.

Not telling them about the role until you get them on the phone. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much it, mate. Like, yeah, they're adults, right?

Yeah.

If you're sending someone a cold message, you're already on the back foot. Like, accept that. Don't be like, oh yeah, I'm not going to talk to you unless you, unless you speak to me on the phone. So it's gonna be like, mate, piss off. I'm not gonna give you half an hour of my time. Yeah, unless I know it's worth it. Uh, another thing, and you might disagree with me on this one, don't put, I hope you're having a nice day, hope you're well, you're right.

I'll do that with every single message.

See, I don't on a cold message to someone I don't know because I just want them to know why I'm reaching out.

Yeah, get straight to the point.

Yeah, but no foreplay. I used to disagree with that because we had someone who came to, to have we had an external woman who used to come help train us sometimes when we were quite junior. And she was like, when I'm on the phone, I never say like, how are you? She's like, I just get straight to the point. Yeah, on the phone I say, how are you? Because I'm like, yeah, we're having a chat. Yeah, how's your day going? Yeah, not bad. And I normally will tell them what's happening with me, you know. Normally I speak to people on a Thursday, I tell them what's, you know, how we did in 5-a-side at lunchtime.

Yeah, I think you told me that on the phone.

Yeah, see, there you go, I'm not lying. Um, I think, you know, the whole sort of like, oh, I hope you're having a really nice day, from a cold message to like 100 candidates in a day, like, you don't care. Stop pretending you care. Like, how many people actually send that and they're like, oh, do you know what, I really hope Judy is having a nice day? Yeah, you know, no one does. Like, be honest with me.

What are you saying then?

I'm saying be honest with why you're messaging people and then why it's come back to you. If you say, look, I'm recruiting for X company, I think you look really good because they're looking for this and you've— you're a good match. They're going to pay you this much, you know, they're nice people, it's going to be an interesting opportunity if you're open. If you're not, sorry for annoying you, see you later. You know, you have to acknowledge that you're speaking to people coldly and that you are on the back foot because there's also a million other opportunities coming their way from other really cool companies that might pay the same or be more interesting or—

yeah.

And if there's— if I don't know them, you know, if it's fully cold, they might be like, I'm, I'm thinking of moving to another country, or I'm gonna— I'm not interested in this specific industry. Like, you have to be upfront, because do you want to waste your own time speaking to someone 20 minutes and they're like, oh, is this in London?

Get to the point.

Yeah, not interested. Like, be straightforward. Like, we asked— as much as I said I'm not salesy, it is sales to an extent, isn't it?

Yeah, for sure. It's like getting straight to the point, just going straight to the point as to how you're hoping it can help them. Can you solve— like, do they currently have any challenges or problems that you might be able to solve? Just getting straight to the point, basically.

Yeah. And there's another pet peeve I have, and it's, um, people are going to disagree with me on this for sure, is when you send out lots of messages about one role, uh, and then be like— no, that's the wrong way to phrase it. When you're sending out messages to lots of people and you want lots of similar people for lots of different roles, actually putting like 3 or 4 different roles in the same message Wait, well, like, I'm confused. So I'm recruiting for a company ABCD.

Yeah, they all want the same person.

They all want Candidate X. Yeah. And I go to each Candidate X saying, I've got roles at ABCD that you all look good for. Here's each role. Because then they're like, you may as well send them a spam message. Yeah, why would you be like—

you haven't made it like bespoke to that person.

There's an element of making it bespoke and also being like, you're just being lazy. Yeah, like, if they come back and they reject your message, come back and be Hey, no worries, Company A is not good for you. I do actually recruit for B, C, D that would be good. Don't want to waste your time. That's so true, you know. I think that's more important. I think there's an element of laziness just trying to shove everything together. Yeah, and you're like, oh, I'm just trying to reach the same candidates for the same sort of things. It's like, yeah, but you're wasting everyone's time at the same time because they're not going to come back to that message. You've wasted 2 hours of your day. And I think that, like, I always preach quality over quantity all the time. No KPIs are KPIs' The only KPIs that I care about are CVs to interview ratio. Yeah, interview for interview 1 to interview 2, does that turn to offer, is there money on the board? I don't care about, you know, I generally don't care about how many CVs I get out the door as long as I know I've covered enough, um, and I've got good people because I know they'll convert to interview. I think, you know, I think my CV to first interview ratio at the moment is like 1 to 1.2 or something like that. That's far more important to me. Yeah, of course, than just trying to shortcut everything.

And then I think that ties into everything that we were talking about earlier as to the insights you've got into competitors and how they're trying to understand the people that they're hoping to help and these things, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So I guess, does this translate into the business development side then? Like, are you quite— is that how you approach the business development side in terms of the, um, the direct approach, or are you very reliant on what's coming to you and the referrals? If so, that's cool.

I do a bit of both. So like, uh, when I say I do BD, it's more if a candidate I know is looking, or a candidate that I've gotten well from the start is looking actively, and I say, hey, how are you getting on? Do you want actual real help, or are you sort of happy where you are going through recruiters or, or applications? If they want help, then it's a case of let's go get a beer, let's talk about where you want to work and what you want from this role. I'm going to give you 10 options I'm going to go through companies that I think would be good for you. I'm going to give you 10 options because you know what you want, but I know the market. Yeah, I know what companies might be good to—

what you're well informed about.

Give them those companies and say pick 3, and I'll go introduce you to them. And also write me something about each company once you've had a look at it. So when you're actually giving a—

getting to do some work—

when you're given an approach to an internal— I do most of my approaches to internal recruiters as well, really, because I think most people consider an approach to a hiring manager, either A, wasting a hiring manager's time because they don't have— they're not the ones that deal with agencies that aren't on a PSL.

Yeah.

Or they don't care where the CVs come from, they just review the CVs. Um, B, you don't— I think most internal recruiters see it as going behind their back as well.

You, you want to champion the internal recruiters and be on their side?

I'm working that way on a day-to-day. I'd be working with the internal recruiter, not the hiring manager.

Really?

So who do I want the relationship with? Who's got the— who's going to help me open up the business, work on other roles. When I go to meet the company, chances are I'll meet the hiring manager for half an hour and talk about the role and what they need, but I'm going to be chit-chatting with the, the internal recruiter. You know, they're the ones—

do you get to know the hiring manager though, or not?

As much as I can. Yeah, yeah, of course I do. I think that's important too. I think there's lots of companies where, uh, I've got a very open relationship with the hiring managers, but it's never like to go behind the internal— yeah, that isn't— and usurp them.

And you make sure that you're not perceived that way?

Yeah, and that's why I want my first approach to be sort of, hey look, I've gone to you because I don't want to be that, you know, that—

and again, you're being direct about that.

Yeah, and I'm— and it's about being honest from day one so they know what they're getting from me. And I'll say, hey look, I reached out to this candidate, I know them really, really well, they're interested in, uh, in moving on, they're interested in you, this company, and this company. Here's what they said about you, this is what I know about them and what they've been doing. I think it's a really good match for what you've been up to, and I suggested it to him. Do you fancy a chat and speaking to the candidate in more detail, etc.? And it's a very— it's a very different approach from saying, oh, I spoke to a candidate, they're good, I've got a CV, now I'm going to send it to 50 hiring managers in a day and see if I get a bite back. And then how many times do you either A, not get a bite back, B, get told to go away, or C, the candidate in 2 months is working for that company and you go, ah, I wish I hadn't done that. For me, that's like my ideal BD approach other than referrals.

And no, mate, thank you for breaking that down. I think I know in your world you may— that may sound like basic and just like simple, but that, that generally is the most common question I get asked to ask people about business development. And I think that's, that's really interesting how you broke that down. Um, so I guess as we wrap up, mate, I think we need to speak for an hour already.

Yeah, sorry about that.

That's mental. As we wrap up, I guess just a few final things that I wanted to get your perspective of is, I think, yeah, obviously we went in quite early in terms of like how you've approached recruitment differently. Obviously, look, you know that that's something that I'm obviously a huge advocate for. So I guess, how have you continued to make sure that you give that enough time? Because I think a lot of people, the biggest challenges that I hear from people, from recruiters that might be listening to this going, right, okay, heard Hishem bang on about this personal brand thing, and obviously Jack's just talked about how he's got involved and embedded in industry and these things. Most common challenge I hear is, I don't have enough time, Hishem, right? Second one is, I have no idea what to talk about.

So it's interesting you say that because that was going to be my answer. I don't write content unless I have something to talk about, okay? Because how often do you see content from recruiters, recruitment agencies, just trash? You have no interest in reading. Here's my top 10 interview tips, and it's like, dress smart. Yeah, well done, chap. Um, bad. If I see an interesting article that I want to bounce off, if there's, you know, there's one I've done, there's an article I've actually done twice that was about a survey for developers by Stack Overflow, which is a sort of a developer's website where you get answers, questions and answers if you're struggling with something, you know, can you help me out? Yeah, forum. Um, and they do a developer survey every year and I write about insights from that. Or we did one where we did insights on the placements we've done and the candidates and the CVs we've sent So we could talk about what the market is as a talent pool. Yeah, you know, what the diversity split is, what our diversity help is. Um, I write about that. If there's nothing to write about, people disagree with this though, right? Because people like, you should force the content out and keep it regular, and then you get engagement. But for me, I care more about making sure the content I put out is really good for me. Yeah. So someone does ask, I'm not like, oh, that, that was trash. Yes, I don't read that. I want someone to say, oh, that was actually really, really good and really useful. And I do get people say to me, oh, I actually read your article like a year ago. Yeah. And I remember it. Yeah, that was good.

Um, is that an article that sits on your LinkedIn profile?

Yeah. Yeah. So they're all set on my LinkedIn. I've got a Medium as well. I post them on Twitter, I post them on LinkedIn. Um, they get shared on the Red Cat page as well, via Red Cat's Medium page as well.

Nice.

So it helps generate, uh, sort of genuine content that isn't just like, yeah, oh, I think I should put something out now because I think it will generate—

How did you cultivate those ideas then? Was it— did they just come from— so for my whole thing is, um, a lot like a lot of those things you're talking about there, I'm assuming that you've had in normal conversations with candidates and clients in the market a lot of the time.

And sometimes, like, what one thing, for example, uh, it's more about educating yourself to an extent as well. Um, I treat them kind of like an essay, like I've got— this is my source material.

Here he is, English lit student.

These are the 3 things I want to pull from it and talk about, and this is what I'm breaking break it down. One thing was about, uh, I think it was in one of the surveys, it was 52% of developers didn't have even a bachelor's degree. Yeah. And how many times you get a job spec saying, oh, bachelor's in computer science, physics, maths, or similar.

Okay, interesting.

You think, and you speak to a hiring manager, you say, can we take that off? They're like, no, we, we're really academic, or, you know, we're really high bar. I say, okay, if you're missing 48% of the market, what's more important to you?

Yeah, class.

And they say, it's class. They say, oh no, no, it's really important to us. Say, okay, we'll expect half the CVs from because you've put a hard strain on the market.

Now what I really like that you said about that is, one, you've shared your opinion. Two, because I think recruiters do way too much of just sharing articles and then don't add any context. And quite frankly, those types of posts don't reach that many people anyway. Um, so I love the fact that you've done that. And then also, again, yeah, so you're then using market knowledge, using real conversations to sort of formulate what, what you decide to talk about, and if you're happy to talk about it. I like that. And then how have you maintained that in your day, normal week? Do you get what I mean? Because again, time is an issue, right? Because you've got your director going, Jack, get on the phone, mate.

My director knows better than anyone else.

Because like, that's a real challenge, right? I'm going, yeah, Hishem, I get it, Jack's talking some sense, but how do I fit in that, man, in my day? So how have you got— because again, being open, honest, always am with people, like, I— that's constant challenge for me. How do I— and I've, I block out time in my diary, but sometimes I do other stuff and all these things. So it's an ongoing process, which I tell people you get people at. But just to see if there's any practical advice that you have and you've been through, like, how have you maintained that activity that clearly is, um, generating a lot of return for, for you in your normal typical recruitment day?

I think this is probably where you'll kill me because I don't really set aside like a dedicated time. It's more as and when I think is really a good time to do it.

Just act more in the moment.

Yeah. So like I say, when it comes to the doing the content, it's more do I think this is something that's worth writing about.

Yeah. Well, I think, I think that's a good question to ask first and foremost. I think that's a good quality question.

I think in terms of, you know, am I just putting out a post on LinkedIn for the LinkedIn's sake, you know, I think we talked about earlier, just been like, these are the 10 jobs I've got on. No, it doesn't yeah, not worth it, not worth my time. I do a job post, you know, once every few weeks. It goes into a bit more detail about the role, as I mentioned earlier. Um, you know, it's not really content in the same way. I like to spread it across between, uh, an element of doing panels and presentations, uh, you know, uh, doing a bit of writing when I can, and then also as a part of that, going to meet candidates who aren't experienced and giving them advice. Into the market. So that's like paying it forward. Yeah, paying it forward, uh, is definitely a big part of what I do. And I think if you're not paying it forward in tech, like, how can you prove that you actually care? There's nothing more you can do.

I know that I actually really like the fact this has been quite tech-focused, but from what I understand, again, working with a few individuals, like, a lot of people in the tech market— obviously depends, but I've heard this phrase tech for good, and a lot of people that obviously I've heard through other people is that Actually, a lot of people in the industry are actually really motivated by trying to make some sort of positive impact in the world.

Obviously not everyone, but yeah, I think, I think Tech for Good is more about, uh, how many tech companies are there in the world that just glorified ad revenue generators. Yeah, first, so it's more about— and like, oh yeah, I'd love to work for Apple, they're so groundbreaking and innovative, but they also like try and monopolize all your devices, take all your money, like try and take over your whole life. People actually like, I want to give back. Um, and for me it's the same, you know. I want to— I, I don't just— it's like I say, money is my motivator, but I care about the people as well, and it's why I get up in the morning. So when I say I'm going to meet a candidate who hasn't got any experience, and you might go, why are you wasting time? You can't market them out to anyone. I say no, but you know, it's about helping. It's not even a case of, oh, but they might go work for a company and they can help me get a role later on. It's not about that. It's about just genuinely being a person who has a skill to help people who need my help, who, you know, might have been— someone might have given them a good word about me or something. And it's about doing what I can because, yeah, you know, it's— if we're all part of a community as well, you know, you can't claim to be part of the tech community unless you're actually giving back to it as well.

Yeah, otherwise you're gonna get found out.

Yeah, yeah. You can't just claim to be a part of the tech community if you turn up to a meetup in your suit with your messenger bag on and sit at Business cards, pocket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Leaving them on the chairs as soon as someone's sat down. You can't do that, it doesn't work like that. So I think, I think I do a split of each when I can.

Yeah, I like that.

I don't— and I think, you know, it's not an element of I do a bit each day, and that's probably my downfall is I don't do enough of that. Um, I think I'm at a comfortable level right now. Maybe I could do it.

It's working for you, those things. Cool. So I guess to round off, mate, before, um I asked you what's, what you're excited about and what's going on in your world. I think will be quite a nice thing to sort of round off because I know we've spoken about a lot and you might be repeating yourself, but it's fine. I guess advice for people that are 2 years, 3 years in, or obviously maybe a bit, um, in terms of how long they've been in it, maybe a bit less than you, that I'm very confident thinking of the messages I get, a lot of these people do operate in the tech market, right? So I guess just to round off everything that we've spoken about, any sort of go-to advice for someone that maybe is still at that $100K level in the tech market or is really struggling to push on or get their name in the tech market, these things? Any sort of go-to advice to round off, um, this whole sort of conversation?

Does it have to be short?

It doesn't— well, it doesn't have to be. It can be short.

I've got a few— I've got a few thoughts there. One, if you're stuck around the $100K mark if it's because you're not trying, yeah, and you don't care, go do something else.

Yeah.

If you— I mean, assuming if they're listening to a recruitment podcast, they care enough.

Yeah, for sure.

Uh, but yeah, if you're stuck around the 100K mark and you're like happy earning 30, 35 grand a year, go do something else. Yeah, you could do that in sales and it's going to be less stressful and, and whatever.

Recruiting is sales, mate.

You know, like go work for Virgin Media. I think in terms, in terms of Advice for people that are caring and are trying and they're struggling, I think for me again it goes back to that be genuine, like be a real person, um, be human, be human. Don't just be a sales generator and churning things in and out, you know, be human. And people buy off humans. And I think one thing I was going to say earlier was, you know, you look at the graphs of how people move from one company to another in tech, and it's like an overwhelming amount are through friends and referrals from friends, really. And if you stop being that salesy recruiter who is always just hammering you and isn't friendly and isn't nice and you can't get on with, you know, they're not going to go via you. But if you are someone who, you know, you might not have— you don't have to be friends with them, you know, but if you can get on, if you can chat, if you can prove you're worthwhile, you know, people will go to you. People will say, oh, I actually don't mind going to him about a job. You know, there are some people that I speak with on a regular basis where I interact with them more on Twitter about funny stuff that they post. I'm like, haha, that's funny, retweet, than I do actually about jobs. Yeah. And there's times when— and like, there's like a weird thing where it's like, oh yeah, actually, when it goes via email, I'm going to email you a job, but most— but I speak to you like 4 or 5 days of the week on Twitter about other stuff you post. They're more likely to move for someone who they can trust because they're like, oh yeah, we, we like the same stuff. So that's your advice for people in that—

that Makes sense. I like that.

Be genuine, be a person.

No, I really like that. So I guess, um, before we finish, mate, yeah, what's going on, uh, in Jack's world that you're excited about? You're gonna break this 200K mark this year then, or what?

Yeah, yeah, hopefully. That's my aim.

If I don't, then, you know, I'll cry. Yeah, we're gonna find out, mate.

I just have to do it next year. Um, there's nothing to be that excited about.

Okay. Yeah, anything at Red Cat?

Yeah, we're hiring. Oh yeah, yeah, we're hiring loads.

You haven't put that in your LinkedIn name, have you?

No.

We are hiring in big capital letters.

Yeah, maybe. And loads of the stars around it. Yeah, um, yeah, we're hiring, we're hiring across, uh, grad level, we're hiring senior recruiter, we're hiring every level. We're hiring a head of contract at the moment to head up our contract team who've been growing massively over the last year. Um, and those are the things we got excited to be about. Recount, we're also building out an office in New York that my director Jamie is leading at the moment. Um, I think that's pretty— oh, and we're re— and we're rebranding.

Oh nice.

Yeah, we're getting a relaunch of the website which is looking really, really good. Um, hopefully my face passes all over it as everyone deserves. Yeah. Um, yeah, that, that— yes, there's good stuff going on for me. Nothing though.

Nothing.

No, it's all right.

Well, look, Jack, it's been an absolute pleasure, mate.

Yeah, cheers, mate.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.