Josh White - Cracking the USA, from winning clients to creating a sustainable recruitment desk

Welcome to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz, I'm your host, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Josh White. And, um, I've done an introduction already, so we're going to get straight into it. And Josh, I want to ask you the million-dollar question, uh, to start with, which is— and I'm sure you thought a lot about it since you've been growing your team— but I really want to hear your take on like What characteristics and traits do you believe make up a highly successful recruiter in, in today's market? Let's, let's start there.

Yeah, love it. So for me, I think, I think there's, I think there's 100 sort of interchangeable things, right, that like one person has that one person doesn't have, because everyone's, you know, an authentic version of themselves. But what, what it comes down to, especially in the early days, is Someone who has a growth mindset before anything else. Someone who is people or customer focused. And someone who is really at their core very coachable. I think for you to go from knowing nothing about recruitment to being a recruitment superstar, those 3 things will really get you there.

I love that. That's a great— I love those. I love those points. Growth mindset, coachability, and then the other one was like being like really passionate about customer service, did you say?

Yeah, it's, it's people focus or customer focus. It's about when you're talking to someone that you're actually listening to them. When you're talking to someone, you are taking in what they say and making them feel heard. And that you're actually putting them first, right? So, you know, there's loads of little things that go into that. Integrity, um, they're critical to relationship building, which is what we're all trying to do.

Love it. So today, I know what people are really excited about, and obviously this is what I've been speaking about, right? I think there's a real trend of UK recruitment firms going to the US. They want it all. They want to take over America, right? So we are going to talk about your entire journey, but obviously today we're going to really hone in on like what has Josh's journey been like over the last 3 or so years in taking your life, your career to, uh, Chicago and, and to the States. So I guess just before we go into that, where I always like to start, obviously you've worked at Stanton House for over 5 years, you've progressed your recruitment career, you've got a track record there. Like, who was Josh before recruitment?

You know what, it's really— I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. Not only because you asked me about it, but because it's Mental Health Awareness Week, Month. I actually think I was a bit of a lonely soul. I think, you know, anyone who knew me when I was at school, you know, anywhere from sort of 14 to 16, I used to walk around the place telling everyone that I wanted to be a millionaire, which was quite frankly— Really? Yeah, quite frankly, a little bit ludicrous. I always had my little entrepreneurial moments, you know, selling headphones. I was always talking about big projects and big things I wanted to do, but I never really clicked into gear. And when it comes to going to sixth form college, I got about 3 weeks in and I was like, this ain't for me, I'm going to go work full-time. And my first job was selling suitcases in a House of Fraser, which I actually did for about a year or so. And then I got into furniture sales, I started selling high-end furniture. But that whole sort of, you know, retail thing, it just weren't for me. Like, I think I enjoyed it because I was quite passionate about it. And I mean, I got passionate about suitcases, right? But for me, I really wanted to be in control of my own destiny, and when someone told me about recruitment, I saw that as an opportunity to, you know, be in control of my own destiny, right? Rather than waiting for people to come in and buy something, I could go out there and get them to come to me.

I love that. Yes, like, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I mean, I even did a plumbing course at college, but the only reason why I did that, right, was— I don't know how old you are, but was you around when you got EMA? For college. Remember that?

I don't. Well, I didn't really. I made it into week 3 of college.

So EMA was basically for attending college, you got 30 quid a week.

Wow.

Back then, that was a— that was an Xbox game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, so, but like, I had, I had no idea what I wanted to do. But it seems like you had a similar thing where, like, set— when I sort of stumbled into sales That's like, I couldn't resonate, that really resonates with me. Like I know you didn't quite have it from, yeah, you're right, relying on people walking into the shop, but I'm assuming what did resonate with you about it was like, Josh couldn't show up to work, suitcases, furniture, whatever. But like, you know, if you work harder than the person next to you, like you will get rewarded for that. And that's when I stumbled across sales, I was like, oh my, yeah, this is exactly what I want to do.

Yeah, I think I felt quite lonely until I found sales. Like, I was, it wasn't that I wasn't necessarily academic. I definitely didn't apply myself. I'm sure we've all heard that before. But when I found sales, I was like, hold on, I can earn money just by chatting to people and helping them find something, right? Like helping them buy something. This is amazing.

Yeah, no, but I mean, my first sales job wasn't, selling furniture, was selling bar crawl tickets in Magaluf, commission only.

Wow.

So a bit more exciting than suitcases. Well, at least tried to make it sound exciting anyway.

Um, you saw a bit more action.

Oh, absolutely. What, um, so what I guess what I always like to ask as well, so I love you sharing that, what, what has a career in recruitment given you then that maybe you least expected?

You know what? I think it's given me the ability to learn and be challenged every day. That is a little bit philosophical. A practical answer would be, you know, it's definitely helped me out. It's given me a lot of financial stability and security, and that's amazing. But I think the philosophical piece is definitely around sort of being able to learn, grow, be challenged every single day. I think when you— and I see this with people that come through the ranks at Stanton House, and I was probably exactly the same. You kind of think, okay, I'll do this training thing, and then a couple of months in, I've got it, right? Training wheels are off, I know how to do it. I mean, it's a bit of a rude awakening when you realize that actually the learning curve is completely continuous.

I love that. So just given you— yeah, no, I think that's great. So just continue to challenge yourself, obviously giving you the financial stability. But yeah, it's obviously ended up giving you a lot more in terms of like just being able to control your own destiny from a sales standpoint.

Exactly. I mean, it's also moved me out to the States and I met my amazing fiancée. So I've got to be very grateful for those things too. But yeah, absolutely.

Okay, cool. So I guess final question on the early days and then we'll get into the American stuff, which I know everyone wants to to learn about. Just obviously, yeah, quite a common question, but I think sometimes it brings out interesting questions. I, I'm sure you can agree, but like, there's probably never been more young people entering the recruitment industry than there ever has been before with this sort of recruitment boom. The amount of vacancies, the amount of jobs that new people can get working on right away. Like, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to Josh starting out in, in recruitment and starting his career again, do you think?

I would say, I would say prepare to work, prepare to be humbled, and prepare to work with intensity and focus and discipline. I think especially, you know, having worked before, and perhaps this would have been different if I'd come straight from university, having worked before, I had a bit of a baseline of like, right, what's it like to turn up to work every day? And recruitment was certainly, from my perspective, significantly harder than anything I've done before. And I was, you know, very humbled in the early days by, you know, by trying new things and failing at them. You've got to prepare to be failed, to prepare to fail and not let it, not let it throw you off. Like, stay focused with it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's tough at the beginning.

Yeah.

How long did it take to do your first deal?

Oh, remember, longer, probably longer than it should have. I reckon it was, I reckon it was, uh, 4 or 5 months. It was a, it was a part-time, uh, part-time contractor or interim who was like a, uh, you know, non-qual, uh, financial controller.

You always remember it, don't you?

Yeah, you can't, you can't, can't forget it.

Yeah, mine was decent. It was an old colleague, so he sorted me out.

That's good. That's very memorable. Mine was pretty scrappy.

Love it. So obviously, just to give people context, obviously worked in the UK for a number of years and then obviously within the finance space. So you just mentioned then sort of a finance professional. But obviously from what I can see on LinkedIn, you can help me out with the timeline, but I see 2019. Is that when you went to the States or was you already working and building? Like, cause you hear a lot of people, right? They try and get traction before they go over there. So from what I can see online from October 2019, it says senior consultant cybersecurity sales in Chicago.

Yeah.

When did this start?

Yeah. October 2019.

So, so you didn't do, so you didn't do any building, talking to people before you went there?

No, we didn't at all, actually. I mean, my colleague James Warren potentially did a little bit, but I mean, how much did that have an impact? I mean, it was a couple of months. I think, you know, I know lots of people that do do that model where they kind of incubate the business in the UK and then and then, you know, take it over and they've already got a few clients and so on and so forth. And I think if we had done that, maybe that would have been a good thing. But to be honest, I literally, I rocked up in Chicago. I went to meet the team, you know, which was two people who were already there.

Two people.

Yeah, I was the last person to arrive. I mean, they all arrived about a week before for me. Um, went to meet them both, and, uh, then the next day rocked up, and like, I was like, right, what is, what is this new market I'm doing?

Wow. So, so just to frame it up for people, because this is important, so you was doing it with two other people?

Yeah.

Was there a similar level for you as you experience-wise?

Yeah, so you had, you've got, uh, Henry Yeomans, who's, uh, VP of North America. So Henry's, uh, yeah, a few, few more years experience than than me. He's been with Stanton House a bit longer, so he joined to sort of run the whole thing. And then you have myself and a guy called James who were pretty much, yeah, same level.

Same level. Okay, cool. So then, like, so you said they got there a couple of weeks before you, but so like, did Stanton House have a presence in the US at all? Like, just so we understand that, right? Okay, so right, let's break this down then because that's nuts, right? So what, why, so obviously you said there this market, this new market that I'm doing, just talk to us a bit about cybersecurity and why that ended up being the market that you wanted to focus on, because that would be helpful for people.

So when we, when we set the business up in North America, we wanted to have a really niche focus. We all know, you know, inch, inch wide, mile deep is the way to go. And we decided to— we landed on cybersecurity. We thought, right, that's going to be the right market for us to go into. So we sort of split it up. We said, right, James is going to do the sort of technical cyber piece. And Josh is going to do pre-sales, which at the time we didn't really know what that meant. Um, but so today what that looks like is we've got a team that recruit for, um, the— recruit for corporate America, right? So they place technical cybersecurity folk to help protect and defend, uh, corporate businesses in the States. And then we've got my lot, which has expanded slightly outside of cyber now, but What we do is we predominantly place sales, marketing, and customer success people into cybersecurity startups.

Love it. Okay. And that you've— so have you— how long have you been doing that for then? That whole time?

Yeah. I mean, I've been doing that since October, October 2019 now.

Okay.

So yeah, it was— I mean, it was fascinating on day one trying to work out what it was. I remember I moved out there and the first thing I did was change my LinkedIn. So I was in Chicago and I put cyber pre-sales. Like, I didn't even really know what it meant, to be honest. And I'm happy to admit that. And so, my first, you know, I mean, it's amazing building out, building out market.

Yeah. Well, okay, cool. I'm excited to get into this. So just the last bit of context for people then. So that's what it looked like when you were there. What does it look like today in terms of team? What you did last year or whatever? Like, let's just get that out of the way as well for people.

Yeah. So last year we, I mean, we started 2021 with 3 of us. The same 3 because we didn't, we didn't grow much in, in 2020 for obvious reasons. And today we are coming up to 18 people.

Oh, wow.

So last—

what you're trying to do, what you're trying to— is it— what's your financial year? Is it January to December or—

yeah, yeah. So I mean, we are, we are on track as an office to do Well over, I mean, we're at target for the year is 3.5 as an office.

Yeah.

And already, I mean, you know, both teams did over 200% in quarter one.

Yeah, on that target.

We had our first sort of two teams worth doing, you know, a million dollars each, which is a good start to the year when you're, you know, when each team's target is 1.75.

1.7, yeah, that's mega. So what did you, just quickly then, final bit, what did you end on last year then, billings-wise?

So personally, yeah, me personally, I ended up on somewhere, somewhere between 600 and 700.

Yeah, okay, nice. So let's break this down. So I guess the first thing that I have to ask you, because I think it's, it's really normal for people and it could be helpful for people that are, are going into the States that aren't, but just really quickly like, because I'm sure you help people with this now, what are the— what, what's the advice, or what are the principles to like upskilling yourself in the, in the new market that you're in? I think a lot of people can overthink this, be worried about it. So knowing what you know now, these things, like if I rock into your Chicago office tomorrow and I'm like, I know fuck all about cybersecurity, what are you telling me to do that can help me get there quicker so then I'm— I don't feel really unconfident speaking to people, I don't feel like they're better than me because I don't have the information or knowledge Like, just talk to me a bit about that quickly, because I think people can— that's helpful for people.

Yeah. So I think, I think the market, the market itself, in terms of recruitment, right, recruitment's recruitment. So whether you're doing recruitment in the UK or you're doing recruitment in the US, fundamentally, like, in my opinion, the sort of the principles of the things that you need to do to be successful are the same. Now there are naturally nuances. So nuances would be, you know, you're not going to work a job with a client unless you've signed a contract with them. Because contract law in the US is everything. So we measure success when we're not doing, you know, when we're not doing deals with how many clients are we signing up, right? It is a—

And that's because if they haven't got a contract signed, they don't have to pay you. is what you said.

Yeah, basically. Yeah, basically. So, you know, we measure our success, you know, it's a leading indicator for us as to whether or not we're winning. You know, there are all sorts of little things. I mean, we don't— we're a completely perm business at Stanton House. I don't know. I can't really offer much of an opinion on the contract business. I'll probably say it looks scary, scarier, complicated, but We're not, we're not in a position.

Well, I guess, sorry, mate. Well, sorry, mate, maybe I didn't, I wasn't clear. So like, what I wanted to get your advice on was for anyone listening that like is going into like a brand new market that they don't know much about, because you know, you said like you didn't have a clue about cybersecurity. I was just curious, like, what, how, how can, what's your advice to people to like upskill themselves in their niche that's been helpful?

Yeah, okay. So for me, I think if you're a podcast person, listen to podcasts, right? You can always find podcasts on your— I mean, if you're listening to this, you're a podcast person, right? You can always find a podcast on your specialism, on your market. Go and listen to it, right? Like try and absorb some of that information. But I think the biggest thing and the thing that you need to do before you do anything else is just go and talk to some candidates. And I was pretty open with a lot of people. I said to people, look, I'm a recruiter, I just moved here from the UK, I've just started this new market, I'd love to have a chat with you and just understand a bit about, you know, ask you a couple of questions about the market. The best way to learn is getting on the phone, in my opinion. You can do all the reading you want. And I used to be a big procrastinator, right? My first boss, Kevin Culverhouse, openly told our entire company once that he watched me read a FTSE 100 annual report before I tried to cold call someone.

You compensate for your fear, don't you? Because I've definitely done that. You're like, because you're shitting yourself. You're like, you are. Yeah.

And it doesn't help, right? I mean, it's not a good use of time. So for me, I think the best thing to do is like be vulnerable, be open to learning and just be honest with people. There will come a point where, you know, you need to, you know, not fake it till you make it, but, you know, you need to start, you know, you ask questions in the right way, right? So we teach people how to have a good first conversation with someone without having to know everything about the market. And by them saying, hey, you know, tell me, tell me a bit about what your biggest challenge is day to day, that, that person who asked that question learned something not only about the candidate but about their industry.

No, thanks for sharing that. So let's break this down then. So like, it sounds like obviously you went, you told us what you ended up in last year, which is pretty much your whole first year, right? And obviously that was during COVID vibes as well. So like, what— did you have a plan then at all when I got out there? Yeah, because like you said you finished nearly north of like 700K in that 2020. So that's like October 2019 you land. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I always get confused at years. Like, it's just, it's, it's a crazy— but okay, so let's break this down then. So basically Talk to us about people, like, talk to us a bit about that first year then, firstly, before we then go into the last two. That first year, did you have a plan? How long did it take to get traction? Let's just talk a bit about that as to what it looked like and what you experienced.

It took, it took a couple of months to start, to start getting traction. You know, my, my strategy was about meeting senior people and making friends with them. My strategy was about speccing, and my strategy was about, you know, just meeting and talking to as many people generally as I could. So I did a lot of that in the sort of first few months. I started to get some really good traction probably December, January. I was— I did my— I think I did my first two deals in the US. In sort of January, February of 2020.

Okay, yeah, it's like 2 to 4 months.

Yeah, yeah, about that. So that was pretty, that was pretty, pretty lucky. We actually, you know, we had this massive gong. We had a budget to buy furniture for the office and it was assigned to me and I don't know, say it was $500 and I spent 95% of it on the biggest gong you've ever seen. Why? We were all so excited and I mean, look, The day that Chicago went into lockdown, March 16th, my birthday, I had like 3 or 4 offers pulled. I mean, it was devastating. I just moved my life over here. I've been building out this market for 5 months. I'm about to do some amazing couple of deals, like way quicker than I thought. And now suddenly this has happened. Like, what did I do? And that year was rough. Do you know what? It was a great opportunity to build great relationships with great people because I literally, like, I had no jobs to work, right? So I was proactively reaching out to senior people and making a ton of friends, right? I was meeting them, putting them through, putting them through a sort of full sort of interview, giving them feedback, adding loads of value, keeping in touch with them. I've built some amazing relationships, and the relationships I built in 2020 are the ones that enabled me to come to fruition. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, I had one quarter last year where I billed about $450K, which is, I mean, way more than I ever thought I would do in one quarter, right?

It's possible. Yeah, yeah.

And every single one of those deals you can track to those relationships built in 2020.

So relationships then, is that important in the American market?

Yeah, I think so. Um, I mean this with— it's different, it's definitely different. So my perspective on this, having worked the US market and the UK market In the UK, it's really, really hard to even get a seat at the table sometimes with a senior stakeholder. Like, I remember spending 12 months trying to get hold of a CFO. Like, it was an absolute grind to get sat around the table with them. But once you did, you had something that you could really trust in. In the US, I find that, you know, people are nicer to a degree, right? Like, in the US, people are, you know, sales is a more prestigious career than it is in the UK. People are less skeptical of salespeople. And what that means is it's quite easy to get a seat around the table with someone. It's easy to get a, you know, to get a sort of engaged customer as such, or someone who you think wants to work with you. What's really hard is getting that loyal state. It's getting a customer who sort of won't pick up the phone to anyone else but you. That takes a long time.

What are the principles to get into that point?

I think the principles to get into that point for me are about talking to someone not because you've got something, not because you need something, but just because you care about that person. I have, I have so many customers now, you know, I mean so many. I mean, you can only have so many relationships that are this strong, but I've probably got, I don't know, 20, 20 relationships with people that I would genuinely say are almost, you know, professional friends, right? I know, I know they're I know, I know what they like to do at the weekends. That stuff takes a lot of time to get there. You've got to, you've got to add value to them professionally. You've got to show an interest in who they are, both professionally and personally. And you've got, you've got to keep in touch with them.

How can, how can recruiters listen to this, add value to— because I'm sure everyone listening to this wants to have those types of relationships. Well, you'd like to think so. Yeah, but like, how, how can recruiters listen to this, Josh? Like, when you say add value, I, I understand that. No, I have some ideas that come up for me, but like, just to go a bit granular here, like, what does that value actually look like beyond talking to them about jobs or candidates?

Yeah, so every senior person I meet, every person I meet, I try and give them feedback. There is, there is feedback you can give absolutely everyone. Feedback's a gift, but it's something that a lot of the time we feel a bit uncomfortable about giving. So, you know, I'll meet someone, I'll say, are you open to some feedback? Yeah, it's quite a critical part because someone has to acknowledge that they are happy to receive it. Most of the time people say, yeah, sure. I'll always find something to give to them. I say, right, you know, I really enjoyed meeting you. "Here's what I think, you know, you did really well. Here's a couple of things," and I'll, you know, give some examples. "Here are a couple of things I think, you know, if you tweaked, you'd get a better outcome." And I'll give an example. I'll say, "Right, you said this, and if you said this, you would have, you know, people would perceive it much better, right?" So I'm giving someone something which is, you know, could be life-changing for them. Hmm, because at their, you know, next interview, whether it's through, through, you know, Josh or not, if they bring a technique or if they utilize some feedback that came from me, you know, they'll remember that.

What does that look like for clients?

That is, that's really fascinating. I've got a great story to tell you about that. I had a customer, a client who was introduced to me and he said, right, I'm sick of recruiters telling me they're different. Like, what makes you different? And I'm talking about customer experience and all the stuff that I really believe in. And he's pretty direct. He said, Josh, I'm not buying it.

I've heard it before. He said that. He said, I'm not buying it, Josh.

I'm not buying it. He said, what makes you really different? And I said, our interview process, when we meet candidates and we vet them, is more thorough than any experience you will ever have. And he said, okay, can you do it tomorrow at 9 AM with me?

Wow.

Set up and I interviewed this potential client and it got to feedback and I was thinking in my head, I was thinking, I don't really know this guy that well. If I give him feedback and he doesn't like it, he's not going to work with me. But I thought, you know what, the right thing to do here is to give him feedback. And I'm not saying I tore into him, but I gave him very honest objective feedback that he could work on. And I mean, I think they, I think they spent about $200 grand with us last year.

Love that.

And they probably—

and what did that end up being? Did that end up being the thing that like he picked up on that was like unique or different? Probably you even showing up to do it was probably unique and different. How many people would then bottle it if he said that?

Yeah, yeah. He was like, he was like, this is the most thorough experience I've ever had. And he's like, you know, if, if you're gonna put every candidate through this before they meet me, then you're my guy.

You're gonna save me a lot of time.

Yeah.

Love that story. Thanks for sharing that.

It's all right.

So, okay, cool. So we've got really doubling down on relationships, giving value, not being transactional. Uh, okay, so let's just talk about a few other things here then. So you mentioned then, so there's definitely— because this has been a nuance that we picked up on, but You sort of said there that in terms of just being a recruiter and calling someone, that's actually been, that's something that's sort of perceived better and differently in the US. So that's fair to say. How about competition? How have you found that as you've been growing the market? Because obviously we all, you all hear, right, recruitment in the UK is so fucking saturated. Like how did you find that on that journey? Did you find that you did end up competing with agencies a lot, or what was the competition like?

Yeah, I mean, look, there's definitely— there is the competition landscape is definitely less saturated, right? Like you just need to look at the numbers to see that. But it doesn't mean there isn't any competition. Like there's still absolutely some really key players in the market. You know, a couple of them are, a couple of them are US recruiters that have been operating for a long time. A couple of them are some of the big British firms that have moved out there. The difference is, especially with a lot of the US recruiters that I see, is they're a bit like a one-stop shop, right? They do a lot of different things, whereas a lot of the British recruiters that move over there, they tend to be quite focused in niches. I mean, I would say, Every person I work with says to me, you know, I'm getting 10, 12 calls a day from recruiters, or I'm getting 10, 12 messages a day from recruiters. Because yeah, maybe it's, you know, maybe there's less recruiters here, but you've got, you know, hundreds of them sat in the UK that work in the US market.

Hmm.

Okay.

So that's interesting. So what, so obviously you've ended up obviously building traction, building a reputation.

Yeah.

Like, what do you think has been like the number— you've probably spoken about it, but I just wanted to ask and clarify, like, what has been the number one thing do you think that has really enabled you to like build a reputation?

I think, I think it really comes down to being absolutely committed to building great relationships with great people. I just don't think there's anything that— I don't think there's anything that tops that. And it's leveraging those too, right? Like, I let people leverage my network as much as I leverage theirs. So I'm happy to introduce any of my customers to any of my customers, not expecting— not maybe not because they want— like, we get a lot of like, you know, cyber vendors that want to work with other cyber vendors. On like alliances, and I very, very happily will introduce them, not to make any money out of it, but just because, you know, I'm introducing two great people to do, you know, great things.

Hmm. Okay, nice. I've got some specific questions for you.

Okay.

So I put a post out there and a couple of people asked some really good questions. I just want to make sure we get them asked. I think this is a good moment because of what we've been speaking about. So I guess to maybe wrap up then, because we've been speaking a bit about, and you've done a really good job of sharing what you've learned and these things, but one of the questions was, and I think a lot of people are thinking this, right, is like, what would you say are the main differences then in recruiting in the US to the UK?

Yeah, so the point around relationships, I think you have to, you don't have to work as hard to get someone on the phone, but I think you have to work a bit harder to really build a, you know, a great relationship with them. The second point is the point around nuances with contracts. You want to agree things up front. You want to get a contract in place before you start working on jobs. It's a commitment thing. It's also contractually, you're not as well covered in the UK as you would be in the UK. I think those for me are probably the two main things.

Okay. Yeah. Nice. Few other granular things. How, actually, wait, let me ask you this first. So how, how have your recruitment skills developed since being in the US? I like that question.

I would say I've become way more intense in how I operate. I think in the UK I was all right. Like, I never really achieved exceptional things in the UK. I never really clicked into gear. I think there was a lot of potential there, which hopefully is why they moved me out here. But I never really had an amazing quarter, right? I did all right. And when I moved to the US, I just like, I was so, I mean, this was like my chance, right? I wanted this so bad. I still want it so bad. I want I want us to build something exceptional so much, and I'm so driven to do that. And I think it's enabled me to work with more intensity, to work with more focus, maybe a degree of structure. And the other thing is I've really transitioned from being an individual contributor to leading people. And that's been, that's been hard, right? Like, I'm sure, I hope my team will listen to this. And there's been pain points, right? It's really hard. I was probably, I was probably a nightmare to begin with.

Yeah, that's quite common. So what, what's, what's ended up surprising you the most then about the US that maybe you weren't prepared for?

I think this might be a controversial point. I don't necessarily think, I think there's a lot of hype around it.

What, going to the US?

Yeah, I think people are like, you know, you go to the US, it's the, you know, you're going to, you know, I heard someone say once, if you can bill £200K in the UK, then you can bill $1 million in the US.

Yeah, I might have heard that before.

I don't necessarily agree with that. Look, the market, the market is like, if you look at it statistically, if you look at the facts, right, then you have got higher salaries, you can probably get higher fees in a lot of scenarios. And obviously that, you know, those two things mean that that does set you up for a bit more success in a way. But I think it's got its other challenges. You can probably bill 30% more, but depending on where you live, it might cost you 30% more to live there, right?

Yeah.

So I think, I think, yeah, there's amazing opportunity. Yeah, you can, you can do, you know, you can achieve amazing, amazing things out here. I think there is this, there is this view that if you go and do recruitment in America, then you're, you know, you're going to make millions, right? And I don't necessarily agree with that.

Yeah, fair enough. No, I appreciate you being honest with that. So a couple of granular things then, because there's— I know there's a few more things you want to talk about, but I'm actually really keen to get your take on your experience of actually Josh the human being taking his life to the US, because I think that's something that's really important for people to consider and factor as well. So just a couple of granular things I know people always want to, want to know, right? So first one is, and we don't— maybe don't have to go into as much detail, but like, what, what does like a— I think again, people interested in this— what does like a typical What's the average interview process look like in the US? Is it shorter? Is it the same sort of thing? I know it depends on role, but all in all, like, is it a bit more of a quicker turnaround?

Yeah, probably not. It's probably exactly the same, to be honest. I mean, I used to, I used to recruit contracts in the UK. I recruit perm now, so I've not really done perm before. And based on people I knew in perm, I'd say it's probably about the same on average.

Also, are permanent candidates actually available more quickly? Do they all have 1-week notice periods? Is it— is that a thing as well?

The— yeah, the average, the average notice period is 2 weeks.

2 weeks?

Yeah.

And that's definitely the case that you've experienced?

Yeah, yeah. I would say 99% of people we've placed have been on 2-week notice periods.

Okay, cool. Bit more candidate stuff then. So like, interesting one, because I've spoke to a few people about this before, and this was actually more from an internal angle, but like, from your perspective as well, candidates in the US, do you think, uh, the question was like, do people in the US put more emphasis on like the company benefits? Uh, is it like the 401k? I don't know, I can't remember what it is. Or are they more engaged on the base salary?

I think, to be honest, I think it's pretty holistic. Like, you know, healthcare obviously is like quite a big thing because unlike the UK, we don't have the NHS in the US. Um, you don't have public healthcare, so I think healthcare is a big thing. Yeah, 401(k) is a big thing. I think broadly speaking though, people always look quite holistically at the package, quite a pragmatic way to look at it. But yeah, I'd say you definitely talk about these things, but there is, I guess, a classic— there's an expectation that the healthcare will be broadly in line with what the market will be and the 401(k) will be broadly in line with the market. Anything above that is a bonus. Anything down from that, you probably want to flag early on.

How have you found COVID impact the remoteness that companies are willing to hire from? Because obviously America is so big.

Yeah.

So like, so like, has that— and has, has it ended up open? Like, have you ended up— because I guess, yeah, I have now. I guess it depends what market you're in, but has it really ended up sort of opening up talent pools where people may not have been able to commute in previously? I don't know, how's that? Yeah, no, what does that landscape look like?

Definitely, I think, you know, with a lot of the roles that we recruited anyway were, you know, a lot of it was moving towards remote, but I would say a ton more of it is now. I mean, the US is, you know, you frequently hear people talk about, you know, well, it's easy just to sort of hop on a plane, right? Like a lot of people are quite used to doing one or two you know, a lot of professional people are quite used to doing one or two domestic flights a week.

Really?

Yeah, yeah. I remember early on, like, people saying, you know, when we were setting the business up, they're like, oh yeah, get used to sort of like, you know, hopping all over the place, going to New York for a meeting, going to San Francisco for a meeting and stuff like that. I mean, that hasn't really materialized because of COVID and because there's one or two conferences a year which we can go to and kind of see most of our customers. But yeah, that's probably the biggest shift is I think people definitely aren't traveling as much as they did a couple of years ago.

Yeah, that's interesting. And then one that obviously people always hear about, so we've spoken about higher salaries, which can mean like bigger fees, but like what about, you don't have to give me like the average at Stanton House, but like has, has like what, what's the sort of typical percentage that you end up working with customers on? Is it ended up being higher because people said like 30% in the US? Like what's ended up being, what's quite normal?

I mean, I think, I think the, you know, you get, you get companies a bit like the UK, right? You get companies like that are, I guess the bottom rate that you kind of see companies go, right, is this or nothing, which is a bit like resonates from my experience in the UK is probably 20%. Whereas in the UK, say that's 15%, right? That you might get on like a big account. There are definitely instances where you can get, you know, 28 to 32, which is pretty decent. I heard about someone getting 40% once. I don't know if that's a little bit unethical.

Depends what they're doing. What's like the average that you're aiming with your team that you feel is like achievable? Like if you were to say to your team, right, by the end of the year, I really want us to be aiming for our average fee percentage to be around this.

I think somewhere, you know, 28%, 30%, I'd be really happy with. I'm confident that what we provide, that provides great value for our customers too, and means that I can sleep easy at night knowing that our customers are getting great value. I never want anyone to be getting ripped off by it, right?

Yeah, for sure.

Especially because it's quite a vulnerable thing. You know, you're signing a contract with a recruiter you've never worked with before. That's quite an interesting point. I mean, whereas in the UK you typically give them, give them the, you know, you bring the product to them and then you sign the contract in a lot of scenarios.

But they're signing it before.

Yeah, yeah. So when you're, when you're agreeing, you know, you're agreeing a rate before you've delivered anything, it's quite an interesting thing to navigate because there's no there's no product to go, well, you know, here's, here's proof of the value, right?

Yeah, that is interesting. So is that when you then had to double down on obviously showcasing the way you work, experience, those things?

Yeah, I mean, one of the, one of the big things I do is I'll just, I'll just send a list of people that they can call. So I'll be like, right, any of these 10 people, here are their email addresses and phone numbers, they will act as a reference for us.

Yeah. So before, before I ask you about your own personal journey, then, like, she's spoken about a few different things. I know this will be really helpful for people, but like, what if you were to start all over again? How would you do it differently?

I think I don't know whether I would do anything differently. I think I learned so much doing it the way I did it. And, you know, maybe I would have— okay, here's one. I think my business development strategy was probably a little bit like too many eggs in one basket to start with. I don't think I did enough sort of speccing and stuff like that. I mostly focused on building senior relationships, which is kind of naturally what I'm good at. So I think I could have, you know, I was uncomfortable in a new market, in a new city, and I think I probably was a little bit, I wanted to stay in my comfort zone to a degree with the way that I worked. I wanted to, you know, I was attracted to working in the way that I felt was best for me, whereas actually you know, my colleague James, he, you know, got there and started doing a lot more spec in, and I think he had a few sort of earlier wins, and it probably put his market a few months ahead of mine.

Yeah, fair. So what— so people in the thick of it now, right now then, or on the journey, like, or people that maybe are at the very beginning of the journey, like, what, what would your advice be to them to sort of wrap this all up?

I would say Reach out to loads of people and ask for a ton of advice, right? And put it into, put it into action. I would say keep your, keep your strategy quite broad, like, you know, decide on, work out what your operating model is really quickly. I think I'm not trying to overcomplicate recruitment, but I think when you're building a market, you need to fundamentally understand What are the things that you need to do on a weekly basis that are going to get you to where you are? Right. Because when you're sat in a mature UK business, you've got people who are telling you what that is. When you're building a new market in a new country, you're kind of in the driving seat on that. So it's something I always push myself on. And when we expand into new markets, it's a big focus is what are the, you know, 3 things, the 5 things that you need to do on a weekly basis to say, John, I've had a great week.

I'm going in the right direction.

Yeah.

Well, and we'll just give an example of one of those things. Is it like, uh, have X number of candidate reggies per week? Those types of things.

Spot on. So like mine would have been like, get a spec out every weekend, every week. So spec a senior person out every week. Um, meet 3 senior people, line up 4 senior meetings. You know, it's stuff like that. It's the, it's about measuring that meaningful input. So that you can really benchmark whether or not you're on track.

Yeah. And if you're— yeah, because then you can look at leading indicators that you are.

Yeah, exactly.

So, so as we come to the end here, like last 5 minutes or so, I want to make sure I ask you, like, because I think whenever I speak to people that have made the move, I think sometimes this can be overlooked. So like, what, what did— I guess what was maybe challenging for you personally? When you first— obviously it helped that you were with two other guys.

Yeah.

Then if you lived together or whatever, but like, what, like personally, what was that journey like for you in terms of like actually building social circles there, all those types of things, like the stuff that, yeah, isn't work, right? Because you're not, you're not fucking working 24 hours, like you're living in Chicago. So like, what was that actually like?

Well, that's one of the hardest things, right, is to not work 24 hours because you've just moved somewhere to build a business. And you don't know that many people, it's really, really easy to just be plugged in all the time. And I was definitely a bit like that. Look, I mean, I was— I'll say this, and my friends and family know this— I was really ready for the move. I personally, as soon as I got there, I was like, I feel happy. I didn't know I was a bit miserable in the UK. I don't know what it was. It was like something clicked in me. So I was really ready for it. But Look, it's really vulnerable. It feels like you're on holiday, feels like you're on a vacation for the first few months. And that is a bit mental because it means that you eat out every night, you spend loads of money. Big advice that I'll give to anyone moving to the States, move here with a load of money saved up. I didn't, and I ran dry pretty quickly. But yeah, you just live like you're on holiday. It's great fun. And the first time I didn't, it didn't really resonate with me until the first time I went home. You know, I went, I went, I flew back for Christmas. I moved end of October, so I went back for Christmas. And when I left my family after Christmas, that's when it suddenly, like, I sat on the plane and I was like, oh, I live somewhere else. Like, that's the moment that it really, that it really hit me. Whereas before, the previous couple of months, I was like, this is amazing. I'm on holiday, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

I think, you know, put yourself out there. I went on a lot of man dates. You know, I'd like, you know, I don't know, like maybe I'd be at a bar or something and, you know, you get chatting, having a laugh and I go, look, I promise I'm not coming on to you, but do you want to ever go for a beer? And I made quite a lot of friends by doing stuff like that. Like, I just think you need to— it's quite a weird thing to make friends as an adult, right? Yeah.

Yeah. As you get older. Yeah. Because by then you sort of got your circle of friends, haven't you? Yeah. Was it— is there like— is there— obviously you're in Chicago. Is there an expat, um, expat culture or like community there? Or—

yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a Facebook page called Brits in Chicago, which is really—

there's probably one for every state, to be fair.

Yeah, yeah, there probably is, which is mostly like middle-aged people who live in like right in the suburbs, right? Like, um, but you do find, you do find like there's probably now a group of like, you know, we've got a Brits in Chicago WhatsApp group and there's probably 20, 30 of us, something like that. So we've built up quite a good little—

How did you end up meeting each other? Just on like seeing each other on like LinkedIn and stuff like that?

Yeah, on that Facebook page, Brits in Chicago, we found a couple of people, found people, you know, just going down to like the Irish bars, like when the Euros was on, you know, you'd see someone sat by yourself. There's a lad that moved here last year that we saw sat by himself at the Euros. Bless him.

Oh, wow. That's mega. Yeah, that's class.

I mean, there's a lot of—

I think the cool thing about that is you've instantly got something in common. Yeah, because you, you've moved your, like, life over there, so like you've instantly got common ground of like, how have you found it? What, like, what's been the weirdest thing so far? What visa are you on? Do you know what I mean? All that. So like, yeah, that's cool.

Yeah.

So overall then, I guess— I'm sure there's been some challenging times, but overall it's been like a really— it seemed like a real sort of you as a human being, like a growth Just you've really grown as a person, which is really cool.

Yeah, dead happy.

Yeah, I love that. Josh, absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing. Thanks for being so honest, transparent. I know that'd be really helpful for people and I know that you're someone that's always keen to help. So if anyone wants more advice or thoughts, then definitely make sure you connect with Josh on LinkedIn. But yeah, Josh, really excited to see where you take the business in the next couple of years. Thanks so much for joining me. Cool.

Thanks, Hishem.