Mark Thomas - 15 minutes with a Recruitment Mentor

Welcome to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz, and this is another 15 Minutes with a Mentor episode. And basically, in this series, we're going to ask mentors from inside the community 7 questions in 15 minutes. I'm really excited to be joined by Mark Thomas. And before I ask you the first question, Mark, why don't you introduce yourself for those that may not know who you are? And we'll get into it.

Cool. Yeah, cheers, Hishem. Pleasure to be here. So yeah, I'm Mark Thomas, work for Eames Consulting, which are financial services and insurance predominantly specialist recruitment brand based in London, Hong Kong, Singapore. And I'm in the technology and change business with a colleague of mine in predominantly a business development and sales-focused kind of leadership role.

Amazing. So first question, what was your biggest challenge in 2020? How did you overcome it? And what did you learn from it?

Um, so it'd be very easy to say COVID, which obviously was everyone's biggest challenge, but, um, I think for me, so a bit of context, so before I joined Eames, I worked at like a technology recruiting business for 10 years and ended up running that for a couple of years and then ended up moving on from there just over 2 years ago. So 20— sorry, 2019, January. So, and I joined Eames in order to run technology for them, but also to start up a regional office. So I don't live in London, I live in like a small village out towards Swindon Way. And so we planned to set up an office in Reading, which we did. So we set that up at the start of 2019, so 2 years ago. And over the whole of 2019, I built that office up to the point we had 7, 8 people going. Everything was going really well. We had a really nice devised plan for the next few years. So it started 2020 with a bang. Everything was going really well. And then obviously COVID hit and everyone was working from home. Most of the people I had working for me had only been working for me for 6 to 12 months, some literally a couple of, like a month or so, something, I think a couple, 3 or 4 of them had started in January that year, so they'd literally been with me for no time and suddenly we're all working from home. So really the hardest thing was, I mean, ultimately went through a process to the point where we, me and the leadership team at Eames thought about what we actually needed and given that we were going to be working from home in the future state, probably, I mean, half the time at least, did we need a regional office. So ultimately that meant that very quickly we needed to let some people go. Two people had only been with me for a matter of weeks, so we let them go because they were just going to be a cost. And so that was tough, like having to let people go who'd quit a job to come and work for you. You told them in German and you have to let them go because, not because they're not good, but because they just don't have they're not going to make any money, they're just going to suck money out of the resources for a couple of months. And then latterly, to make the decision to actually close the Reading office. So yeah, pretty tough in light of all the things I've done in recruitment, letting people— we didn't actually let any of those people go, we actually gave them the opportunity to work in London and be based from home part-time, but naturally some of those people didn't want to travel to London. Et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, look, what did I learn from it is no matter how good your plan is, something like COVID can come along and completely ruin it all, right? So I think the most important thing is, yeah, it's great to have a plan and great to have a long-term plan, but you've got to be agile enough to be able to pivot and change and adapt and adapt quickly. And the one thing I can say Eames did brilliantly is they, as a business, we made decisions really quickly and some people thought they were a bit hasty, but actually I think we made good decisions really quickly and it made us in a pretty good state now. We've made a profit every month since, so it's been okay, but I won't say it wasn't tough.

Thank you for sharing that. So next one, interested to hear this from you. So what working from home tip could you share with other recruiters listening to this that has had a massive impact on your productivity?

Yeah, so working from home, I wasn't a work-from-home person at all before this. I probably can count on one hand how many days I've worked from home in the last 12, 13 years. I hated it. I've kind of grown to quite enjoy it. I think the most important thing about working from home for me is having structure, like having a plan. I always get up, shower, get ready for work as though I was going to work in the office. Spend time sat in the office, have lunch breaks. I've just kind of got my— by my wife pestering me, I've managed to start going for a walk every lunchtime. It means I've got some structure to my day, a bit like what I would have if I was in London. I would go out at lunchtime, go for a walk, get some lunch or something like that. So for me, that's the most important part. Like, that's been the change for me. Now I've got structure and structure very similarly to how I am in work. It makes it a bit easier. I think if you don't have that, you can easily just become a bit demotivated and just not focus on what you need to do and activities you need to do each day and stuff like that.

Yeah, absolutely. I definitely agree with you on that. And I know there'll be different sort of channels that you use, but from your own experience, what's been the most effective way for you to win business in the last 12 months, would you say?

So I kind of break the mold a little bit on this. So I am, I am, I am I'm certainly not against cold calling and being on the phone, but I also think that there, I think recruitment people and recruitment get a little bit too bogged down on that. There's multiple ways of winning clients and some people are great at sending brilliant emails and winning clients that way and getting people on the phone that way. I've been quite good at that in the past. But in the last 12 months, the most important thing that's come home to roost for me is the fact that I spent 13 years building relationships with people. And actually, those relationships really come to the forefront when times are tough. So you can pick up the phone and speak to people. There's a lot of recruiters, and I've seen a lot of them, quite a few, some have worked for me, that have a very short-term mindset. So they only really want— and that's partly driven by the way our industry is, like everyone's looking for the next fee. And so therefore, if someone, a senior person who's not relevant for a role that you're working, you don't speak to them because they're not going to provide you with cash in the bank right then, but actually you've kind of got to think of the long-term compound effect of speaking to that many people. Do you know what I mean? So my attitude has always been speak to as many people as possible. They may not pay, give you an invoice or pay any money to you right now, but longer term people remember those kind of relationships and that long-term mindset. So for me, in the last 12 months, that's 100% been what's paid dividends to me. People who I've worked with before, who remember me, you've done good work for, you can go back and revisit. Not always the same, necessarily, if you're new into the job, but start. There's always a good time to start, right?

Yeah, no, I really like that. So interested to hear this from you. What habit or hobby did you start in 2020 that you're going to continue in 2021?

So I probably just answered it. It's walking. Like, if you ask anyone that knows me, I just, I don't walk anywhere. Like, I get there. I spent, apart from around the golf course. So my missus would have asked me about 100 times to go for a walk at lunchtime, stuff like that, and I just didn't do it. I hated it. I hated every minute of it. But I found that in lockdown, one of the things that I was doing when I didn't have structures, I was getting to the end of like a Thursday and I'd not been out the house for like 4 days or something like that. So because I'm working from home, I just like, my commute was about 5 yards from the bedroom to the office. So that's the one thing I've started doing and I've got kind of quite into counting how many steps I do and making sure I do like regular activity and stuff like that. So, so yeah, I probably begrudgingly, I'll probably carry on doing it in fairness. I quite enjoyed it, getting a bit of fresh air and stuff.

Love that. So which do you think is better, the first coffee in the morning or the first pint post-work on a Friday?

I don't drink coffee, so it's an easy, it's very easy. So yeah, I don't, I don't drink coffee. I'm not really allowed, it doesn't really agree with me, caffeine. So, so yeah, even if it was, even if I did drink coffee, it would definitely be the pint. Fair.

Right, so the next one is slightly different. It's more of a scenario and I want to sort of hear how you'd approach it. So a particular business that you've, that you've had on your sort of target, target client list for over a year or a long period of time. You've had a couple of touchpoints with different people, different hiring managers over that time at this business from, I don't know, some of them might have engaged with some of your content on LinkedIn, you might send a couple of emails, but through your candidate network, you managed to get one of their contact numbers, one of the hiring managers, and you call that person, they pick up, they answer, they say, hello, who is this? And I want to hear sort of what you'd say or how you'd approach it.

Right. Okay. So, so I've never spoken to this person before.

No, but they may have seen your name, like they may have engaged with some of your content or like you may have ended up in their inbox at some point. Like there's definitely been touchpoints for sure.

Yeah. So for me, it's funny, I was talking to this about for our head of training this morning, but for me, what I would do and what I've always done in this is try to build some kind of rapport. And actually a lot of people talk about how you do this and I've had consultants ask me before, and it's really hard to teach. But, and actually, I think the thing people mistake, get wrong, is that they try to tell them what things to build rapport on, and that's not the right thing to do. It's what's most important for me is to understand what you're interested in and make that something that someone else could be interested in as well, find common ground. So obviously I would intro with what I was doing. I certainly wouldn't go into some big long spiel about what EAMS do and stuff like that, because frankly, I just don't think Do people really care about that? They ultimately really want to know why they're talking to you, who you are, and if you are going to talk to them, what value they've got spending this time to speak to you. So if they're aware of me, it makes it a bit easier because you therefore can, you hopefully have got some kind of banked rapport already because they know you a bit. But I always try to find some common ground. So I think I just mentioned before we were on, I've got a 9-month-old baby, which is a a pretty good way to build some kind of rapport with someone. If someone else has got a kid, they know what it's like to have a 9-month-old baby. It's not easy, especially if it's your first one. So I think for me, I use things like, I play a lot of golf. I use golf a lot as a way to people to talk about. Blokes who play golf love talking about golf and sport in general. And just try to find common ground. I mean, obviously, even like, I mean, you can use coronavirus and how, I think I said to you, like, how's 'How is lockdown treating you?' or something like that before we went on. That's a pretty good way of building some rapport. So that would always be my starting point to try and break down some barriers. I think then latterly, I then try and turn that into as much of a two-way conversation as possible. So I don't really see client calls and candidate calls as separate. I think that's another mistake recruiters make. Every candidate and every client is potentially the opposite. So, and it's amazing how many times I've got clients off the back of speaking to people who thought they were a candidate. So, I would actually enter the conversation and just try to find out where they're at at the moment. So, are they hiring? Do they do, what are their problems at the moment? And that might be that they're looking for a job. If so, it might mean that the first call that I have with them, I end up talking to them about what they're looking for and what job they might be interested in. I don't actually even get to the point where I even make a sale. Because actually sometimes you're better off leaving that. So it'd be a load of fact-finding. And then at that point you need to make a call. And again, the biggest mistake I think people make is that they go for the close too soon. Like they have a really good call with someone and they turn it into an awkward call by trying to close them when actually you're better off leaving them with a great experience. They've just met a guy who plays golf, who's got kids that they really enjoy speaking to and actually who might help them find a job and actually just leave it as that and revisit it again next week. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, no, that's, yeah, really, you went on some interesting things there, so thank you. So last question, so sort of final question really, is basically I want you to sort of imagine that I'm a recruiter who's, I've set my goals for 2021, I'm hoping to have a more successful 2021, and I've written down my goals, I'm feeling motivated, and I guess what I sort of just want to, I'd be interested to hear from you, is like, what would your advice be to me that you think would give me the best possible chance of actually achieving my goals?

So I think, so I think for me it's, it's, it's about breaking them down. So lots of people at the start of the year focus on this really big kind of goal that they've got for, for, for 2021 or whatever the year would be. And it's, it's, it's kind of, it's good to have, but it's kind of unachievable. So it goes back to a little bit like I like to structure I have kind of daily activities that I absolutely must do no matter what happens, and I structure them into my day. So for example, I always, always, without fail, send 5 business development emails every single day, and they'll normally be identified from leads I've got the previous day or people I've looked at. That's just one example, but I think what you need to come up, whatever that big goal is, work backwards and figure out what you need to do weekly, monthly, and then factor it into that and focus on the work a week, focus on having a 100% achievable week. Because if you focus too much on the goal, you'll either lose track of it and it'll become unrealistic very quickly, or you'll backload it and really not worry about it till you get to the end of the year and then it's too late. So I think you need to break it down. I would suggest weekly and daily is the way to do it and have that, all those numbers figure out, feed into the thing. It's a bit of an old school recruitment method, right? Work backwards if you need to do. Figure out how many sales calls you need to do to get X number and work backwards from that. But it works. It works for me 100%. If I don't have a day plan and a structure, know what good looks like for a day or a week, then you've got no chance of achieving the annual one because it's just too much of a bigger target.

Yeah, great. Mark, that was it. 50 minutes of a mentor.

Nailed it.

Thank you so much.

No worries. Pleasure.