Ricardo - Building international recruitment teams from Brazil to now growing a global agency.

Welcome to the Recruitment Rollercoaster podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz, and today I have a very special guest who's flown all the way from Brazil, the most traveled Recruitment Rollercoaster guest to date. I'm joined by Ricardo Bevilacqua. That was okay, wasn't it? The pronunciation?

Okay, perfect.

Been practicing that for about 2 minutes before I did that. Who is the global CEO of a recruitment business called G4 Global Partners. And really excited to have you, Ricardo. And I think where a great place to start would be, I think you do it justice in terms of an introductory to you and your business. So let's start there.

Yeah, thank you very much, Hishem, for being part of this very interesting— we heard a lot of good things about you through our team in Miami. So this is a pretty well-known program in the US.

That's exciting.

Hopefully we can add value here for all the recruiters that are listening to it, to this. Quick info about G4. So we are an international search firm. We operate right now in 50 countries.

50.

50, 5-0. We have hired in more than 180 cities worldwide. 80 people working for us right now. And the interesting thing is that we have approximately 350 active clients. Wow. Out of these 350 active clients, we work a lot on the private equity industry and their portfolio companies. Yeah. And the interesting thing is that we do the specialized recruitments.

Yeah.

We also do the market mappings.

Yeah.

We do assessments.

Yeah.

And we now started to do some of the temp services.

OK. So more contract, temp.

More contract.

Yeah. And just to finalize that then, and then how many— so you're located in different parts of the world. So where do you— how many offices do you have and in what locations?

Perfect. So the majority of our offices right now are in Latin America.

Okay.

Simply because when we decided to expand, this was the region where there was less competition.

Yeah.

Easier to build up the business at the time. So we have 2 offices in Brazil, São Paulo and Rio. We have an office in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Yeah.

One office in Santiago, Chile.

Okay.

One office in Lima, Peru.

Yeah.

One office in Bogotá, Colombia. Um, one office in Mexico City.

Yeah.

And then North America, we have an office in Miami, Florida, and in Vancouver, Canada.

Okay.

Uh, we have an office in London.

Yeah.

The UK. Uh, and we are about to open in Milan, Italy, and New York City.

Wow. So safe to say you have a lot going on.

Pretty busy. Pretty busy.

Exactly.

Very busy. Very busy.

Yeah. Okay. Um, so just to sort of finalize that then, and this business you started by yourself, like, are you the sole owner of this business, or did you start with another person?

Yeah, so that's, that's a really good question. We started this business 8 years ago, approximately. As I was telling you, I don't count the years.

I prefer not to put pressure.

Exactly. I don't put pressure on this. And we built this business when we started with actually 3 or 4 other partners at the time.

Okay.

And when we decided the name, I actually thought about G due to the fact that we were going to be global.

Yeah.

And 4, as you know, 4, 4, 4 places of the world, you know.

Yeah, yeah, G4.

Exactly.

So that's why we started with how many other partners?

Uh, so we had actually 1 partner in São Paulo, and we actually had 2 partners in Rio. So we were a total of 4. Okay. But when we opened the business, we started at the same time in São Paulo Rio, Santiago, Chile, and Miami, Florida.

Okay.

I was living in Miami at the time.

And you're now the global CEO of this enterprise.

Exactly.

Okay, so before we go into that, because I'm really excited to go into that journey, where I always like to start on this show is how did, uh, Ricardo enter the, the lovely world of recruitment? How did that happen?

That's, that's quite an interesting story because I've been in this business now for 19 years and a half.

Wow, I've been alive for 26.

Yeah, so yeah, uh, can I say my age?

Yeah, of course you can.

I don't know, you know, like in the US sometimes you cannot speak about this, but like I'm 45 years old when I started in this business.

Definitely don't look 45, by the way.

Well, thank you, thank you. It's the suntan, it's the suntan. Uh, but basically I started when I was 26 years old, and I've been in this business, uh, for 19 years.

Yeah.

The interesting thing that I always like to say is that since I'm 26, I've never worked again. Wow. Because I have passion for what I do.

Really?

So I don't consider this work. And the, um, the best part of this is that I started my career, my professional career, in São Paulo.

Okay.

Uh, in a really nice job.

And is that where you're— sorry, sorry to cut in there. That's where you grew up? Yeah.

So basically I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. My parents are Brazilian. My father, he's half Brazilian, half Italian. But I was— I studied in American school, so I had a, like, maybe a lot of the American culture since I was young. Yeah. And I had a chance to live in the US for 6 months. I lived in Portland, Oregon.

Oh wow.

But my first dream was I wanted to be a football player.

Really?

And I was actually pretty good.

And we're talking American football here? Yeah, just—

No, no, no, we're talking about like Soccer? I would probably be playing like Man City or Liverpool, something like that.

Really? Would you be good?

Yeah, I was pretty good.

What position would you play?

I was forward.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, I was forward. Yeah, pretty good.

So that was your first goal?

That was my first goal.

Really?

So the thing is that I had to stop playing football to work. Really? I had to work. And I got a pretty good job at Citibank in São Paulo. It was a pretty nice job because first I started— and that's the interesting piece— I did an internship, yeah, in the HR department recruiting people.

Okay, for Citibank. So for corporate, in your world, a corporate recruiter, right? You work in one business.

Exactly. But as an intern.

Yeah.

And this was not expected. This was not what I thought I would do, but I loved it. Uh, and it was quite interesting because in, uh, The person that hired me at the time in the city, uh, this lady, I think she was simply, you know, she had too many things to do, so she was simply letting me do my job.

Yeah.

And but I didn't have any training.

Wow. Um, shot in the deep end.

Exactly. So I stayed there for 6 months.

Yeah.

And, uh, it was interesting because one day— and this is a nice story to say— because one day I sat down in a table in Citibank to have lunch, and there was this director sitting down by my side, and I was just speaking to my friends that were other interns about, you know, my career, what I was doing, and the fact that I spoke English. I wanted more. So this guy approaches me and he starts speaking to me and asking me about like, hey, what do you do? I heard you study in American school, blah blah blah. Bottom line, this guy was the head of the audit team for Latin America, and he invited me during this lunch to move from HR and to work in audit. And I said, I'm moving forward. So I went to audit.

Was this recruitment?

No, it was literally working in the audit team.

Oh wow, okay.

So it was quite funny because I didn't have any type of experience.

Yeah.

But I was, uh, you Pretty good communicator.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, with a lot of energy, willing to learn, um, very— if I could say, maybe I had maybe this sympathetic approach, and he thought it would be good to have this, uh, in the audit team. Okay. So I worked with, uh, with them for basically 2 years of my life.

Okay.

Uh, until I said, you know what, I want to move to a sales position, and I went to work in the private banking business.

Okay.

And this was very nice because the private banking business in Citibank at the time was, I would say, considered one of the best jobs to have, to have.

Yeah, so what, you know, in the industry, are you dealing with high net worth individuals and helping them?

Okay, so this is where the doors opened to me and I started to understand like the business reality. Exactly. Uh, and I was not in the front completely because I was supporting the banker.

Oh, okay, okay.

So I was not running the show. But it was a pretty nice opportunity to start understanding, you know, like how to sell, how to position yourself, how to communicate with these high net worth individuals that can be very, very tough, you know, in a conversation. But the problem was that I hated the job because I was not running the show and I wanted to be on the front line. So—

Did you meet a lot of high net worth recruiters?

Uh, not really.

Well, that would have been the perfect story.

Not really. Not really.

Met this recruitment business owner, came in.

Exactly, exactly. So the interesting piece of all this, before talking about how I got in, is that I honestly was not a successful, uh, uh, person from a professional standpoint. I had worked in HR for a short period of time, then I worked in audits, but not with a bright future. And then I moved to private banking where I also was not having a bright future there. I was an assistant, being part of the meetings but not running the show. So when I look back today, I really think that I had 3 years of my life, 3 years and a half, which were okay. Yeah, but that helped me a lot to understand what I didn't want to do.

Yeah, what you didn't want to do. Yeah, it's important, right, when you're that age.

Exactly. And especially when I look back today, I would never work in a bank again.

Really?

Like, it was not for me.

It just wasn't for you.

I think it's like great, uh, I think there's a lot of qualified people that can do the job much better than I did there, for sure.

Um, so how did you get into recruitment after that?

So the interesting thing is that I was working for Citibank on the private banking team, and one day a friend of mine that was an intern with me in the audits team, yeah, he moved to a cards business, okay, like a Visa, MasterCard in Brazil.

Yeah.

And he applied to a job, uh, through monster.com. This was year 2000.

Yeah.

And this job was to work for Michael Page. Michael Page, the big British, uh, the white sharks. Yeah, you know, the white shark of the UK. They were, they were, uh, starting their business in Latin America. They didn't have anything in Latin America, really. So this friend of mine, he joined the business.

Yeah.

He went to be trained in France for a period of time.

Yeah.

And when he got back, they said, hey, we want to hire somebody to build up the banking business for us. And he thought about me and he said, hey, come and meet—

what's the industry?

Uh, yeah, he was in the finance and accounting team.

Yeah.

And, and, and basically there was nobody in banking. Yeah. So he called me in, he said, hey, you know, I have this opportunity with, uh with this company, and it was interesting. There was nothing about the company. There was not an office. I was going to meet two French guys, very nice guys by the way, and I said, you know what, I want to talk to those guys. So I went for the first meeting. I never forgot this because, and we can speak about this later, you know, like the dress code. I always use blue suits, you know, red ties, blue ties, you know, like much more like of a McKinsey environment. I think that the recruiters need to you transmit the credibility. And I remember going to this first meeting with like a light brown suit. I was like completely dressed like if I was, I don't know, like an accountant or doing something that was not really the recruiting business. But I did pretty well. I was approved.

[Speaker] Yeah, so you got the job?

[Speaker] I got the job.

How long did you stay at Michael Page for?

So I stayed at Michael Page for 4 years. I need to say it was very exciting.

Yeah. Because you're building it from scratch, basically.

Basically from scratch.

Yeah, yeah.

But it was quite interesting to say that Page is probably one of the best companies for you to learn and understand how to sell.

Yeah. A lot of people say that. Great training.

Great training. If you have the right managers, it could be a great culture.

Yeah. Great brand as well. Great brand. Obviously, although it's starting from scratch, you've got a big brand to lean on. Exactly.

I always say, like, I have— I like to talk about the good things about my former employers.

Yeah, for sure.

So I learned a lot. The head of Page that today manages, you know, Latin America and, I believe, Africa.

Yeah.

He's still a friend of mine.

Awesome.

Um, so I learned a lot.

Yeah. So how, so how many, how many years did you— was you a recruiter before you started, uh, G4?

Yeah, so interesting question. So I stayed in Page for 4 years.

Yeah.

In Page, I was, if I could say, clever to work in, uh, the banking business, and then I went to their core business, which, which was the finance and accounting business, and then I decided to launch the marketing and sales business. Okay, so basically in a question of 4 years, I had a pretty good overview of different, of different markets that I could hire.

Yeah.

Um, one day I was out on vacation and this big known entrepreneur from, uh, from another company, he calls me. He had the, the largest, uh, if I could say, uh, job website in Brazil. And he was a code, uh, Cato at the time.

Okay.

And he sold this website to a, to a New York, uh, private equity fund for $50 million.

Oh wow.

So this guy calls me in one day.

You met him before? Do you know who he was?

No, no, no, he didn't know me, but he was very clever. He would go to the clients and say, hey, who are the sharpest, uh, recruiters from Michael Page?

Yeah.

And, uh, 4 or 5 clients talked about my name and he said, you know what, I want you to join. So he made me an offer and I said no. And then he made me a second offer. I said, no, no, I don't think it's the right time. And then on the third offer, I said, you know what, I'm going to move. I want to give it a try. I was 30 years old at the time.

And what, so what was it, was you selling the job board for people to use the job site?

No, basically I was opening a recruitment firm to compete with Michael Page.

Oh, really?

Yes. So he had the money. Yeah, I had the stamina, you know, I had the energy. So basically he said, look, I'm going to give you 10% of the business. I'm going to have 90% in the beginning. As you grow, I give you more. So bottom line, I built a business from scratch. In 2 years, we have— we had 70 people.

Wow.

We were billing figures of today, probably like $15 to $20 million.

Really?

And we sold the business.

Oh, wow. Okay. What markets did you do?

Uh, so we were focused in São Paulo and Rio.

Yeah.

And we were basically focused in engineering.

Yeah.

Finance and accounting.

Yeah.

HR and tech.

Wow.

So it was interesting because we were getting pretty good volumes of business. Brazil was, was growing at the time. So when Tiger Global came in to buy his online business, he sold it together with our business.

With the recruitment business.

Exactly. I didn't want to sell it at the time.

Yeah.

But it was the best thing that happened to me because I had a chance to, with all the knowledge that I had, I had 6 to 7 years of experience, I went to the United States with a business plan and I sold it to Robert Half.

Oh, wow, okay.

So, exactly, so Robert Half.

Yeah, yeah, another huge global recruitment business.

Exactly, and the interesting piece of this story is that I was a 32-year-old guy, uh, with no fear. Yeah, I simply built up a business plan. I had met somebody from Robert Half in, um, uh, recruiters events in Washington. Yeah, actually, sorry, in New York City. Yeah, um, because I was making a lot of questions in this event, you know, it was a small event like 50 recruiters. Yeah, I was asking questions trying to understand global perspectives, and then during a coffee break, this guy approached me and says, hey, so where are you from? Brazil, blah, blah, blah. He says, hey, I'm from Robert Half. Give me your card. So we kept the card, and when we sold the business in São Paulo, I approached this guy and said, look, I have a business plan. Would you guys be interested in doing business? He said, come to Washington. I took a flight, went to Washington, explained what I was doing. So he said, well, I'm going to speak to the guys. I come back to Brazil. The next day he sends me an email saying, could you now go to California? Wow. And speak to the global CEO?

Yeah.

And I said, you know what, I'm doing that. So I build up a business plan, sit down with the global CEO, sell him the idea of Brazil.

Yeah.

Uh, 3 months later we were building the business in Brazil.

Really?

And we built the business.

You're not talking about G4?

No, no, no. This is already Robert Half.

So this is the Brazilian arm of Robert Half, and you put together business plans to launch? Exactly. Okay, okay.

Exactly.

So you did that how long for?

So I was the LATAM managing director based out of the US for 4 years.

Wow.

So we built the business from scratch.

And how did that go?

Really well.

Really?

The business— was running really well. Robert Half is a powerhouse.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. How many people did you grow it to?

Oh, we had probably 60, 70, 70 employees.

Yeah, the same sort of size, and then was it similar sort of markets to the previous company?

No.

Really?

The interesting piece is, so if I make a quick comparison, I would say Michael Page is where I learned how to sell and to market. Robert Half is the place where you know how to manage a business.

Manage a business.

So Michael Page is by far the best for sales.

Yeah.

And marketing.

Yeah, yeah.

But Robert Half is extremely good in policies, procedures.

Yeah.

KPIs. So that's amazing.

Yeah.

Um, but, but in my opinion, Robert Half is maybe too big.

Yeah.

And I was too small. Yeah. In the company. And this is one of the factors I decided to leave. They are probably a $5 billion business.

Yeah, that's huge.

Uh, probably out of the $5 billion, they're like $400 million in the recruitment business, and the rest is temp.

Yeah.

Um, and that's not exactly where I believe I'm, I'm situated. I'm more of a, of the consulting type of profile that wants to sit down and, and less, less maybe transactional and more of a, of a global recruiter, if I could say. Okay, so after that, after that, G4 was born. So when, uh, when I left Robert Half, yeah, uh, I had to, to stick to, uh, the non-compete. That was— and, and that's something that everybody wants to know. Always make sure you, you read the contract and you sign the contract.

You had a year.

So I had one full year. So that was very interesting. Uh, it was good because I had a chance to build up a business plan.

Yeah, really think this, because with a lot of people, uh, find investors. So did you— when you get invested?

Oh yeah, so we got, uh, private investors.

Yeah.

Um, and that was the interesting piece because I had the courage, I had the money to do it on my own, but I wanted to be backed up if necessary.

Why? Why would that be?

Simply because, you know, at the end of the day, I always understood that, you know, it's, uh, it's the same amount of energy if you want to think big or if you want to think small.

Yeah.

And I wanted to think big, and I wanted to make sure that we could do something very different Yeah. From what most of the people want to do.

Yeah, from your experience, yeah. OK. What an amazing story. So from what we just heard there, I feel like you've had this sort of perfect grounding and experience to get you to the point of starting your own recruitment business. I think that's fair to say, right?

Far from being perfect.

But in terms of— because a lot of people, particularly in the UK market, typically will— they'll be a recruiter under someone. So let's say I'm a recruiter for Ricardo at Robert Half. Typically a lot of people will start their own business from that experience. But obviously you had the experience of putting a business plan together, launching a complete new part of the business. So from what you just shared there, I just feel like that must have been a great experience to help you understand how to and how not to approach G4 and the business that you're obviously building now. So that's now what, 8 years on now from that, from you deciding to start that?

Yeah, exactly. Uh, what I can say is I'm humble enough to, to know and understand that we need to learn every day.

Yeah, for sure.

And I even, I would say I force myself to learn new things every day.

Yeah.

Um, the recruiting business, and I admire a lot the recruiters because the recruiting business is very tough. Yeah, we have hard days, we have Long days. We have a lot of nos. I think especially in the UK, we have a lot of positive things and a lot of negative things. Positive things is most of the companies are used to using recruiters.

Yeah, definitely.

So you don't need to educate a market.

Yeah.

And, you know, like when I think about like Latin America, we need to educate the markets.

Really?

Oh my God.

Yeah.

You need to educate the market. It's not easy. But at the same time, you know, when I look into the UK, people are very straightforward here with the recruiters. Sometimes, you know, like many, being a recruiter here is tough. Some— sometimes people, they simply don't want to speak to you due to past experiences.

Doesn't have the best reputation.

Exactly. Uh, which does not happen in LATAM. Usually people are very open to speak to a recruiter. They're very open for a phone conversation to start. So, you know, we need a balance and we need to understand the differences of each one of the markets.

So what I'd really like to do, Ricardo, is just let's— there's loads of questions I want to ask you, but I think let's just sort of just break down the business journey just for everyone's benefit. So you put together this business plan, you get investment to start this business. You launch at the same time as you said. So you launched in— where was you, sorry, when you launched this business?

So when we started the business, we started in São Paulo, in Rio, in Brazil, Santiago in Chile, and Miami in the US.

So let's just talk about— so the first— let's break it. So the first year in G4, what was that like? How difficult was that?

Uh, tough. Yeah, we had to rebuild a brand actually build up a brand. Uh, I had my credibility, yeah, to use because I had worked and hired in these 4 different cities. But it was tough, you know. You need to build this from scratch. You need to go to the clients and use your name and your credibility to bring business for you. And remember, I was 1 year out of the market. Yeah, without doing—

you had to take— you had to try and rekindle your network and connections after a year.

Exactly, exactly. So it was a lot on my energy and what I had to do, uh, in the first year. I would even say there was maybe the first 3 or 4 years, and now the business has changed. Yeah, quite dramatically.

So the first 3 or 4 years, it was a lot of building relationships again, building your credibility under the new G4 brand.

Exactly.

A lot of that was being driven by you.

Exactly. And we need to remember as recruiters that, you know, you need to open new doors every day.

Yeah.

But you need to make sure that you keep the ones that you opened—

yeah, yeah—

uh, still open for you to do business, you know.

I think there's a fine balance there, right? I had someone on not too long ago that— yeah, because in, in the UK, business development, so winning new business, can be a really challenging part for a lot of recruiters. Right, so picking up the phone, the cold calling, opening doors, right?

This is the most difficult, it's the most difficult.

But as you quite rightly said, I think if you have— but you also want to be aware of, you don't want to be complacent, right, in terms of the relationships you have. One client that spent $100,000 with you last year may end up spending 50, only $50,000 this year, right? Um, that's interesting. So you— so those 3, 4 years, you was always focusing on your existing relationships and opening new doors.

Exactly. Yeah, I think it interesting to mention, if I may, is that, you know, like, as we have opened our global business, yeah, I could say that half of what we did was planned.

Okay.

And half of what we did was not planned.

Okay.

So what do I mean by that? That's, that's quite interesting. So we've decided to open in Italy, for example, in Milan, without having this plant. But we have 3 or 4 clients that have turned out to be global clients, yeah, with solid operations in Milan.

Yeah.

And that's how we got in Milan.

Okay.

Now, when we decided to move to London, yeah, or we decided to now move aggressively to New York, it's simply because there's a lot of opportunities in the financial markets or in specific industries which we believe we can add value. So you have some, some parts of our expansion which are unplanned.

Yeah, yeah. Or you don't think about opportunity, but the opportunities show up.

And we have, in other cases, you know, cities and, and in markets that we want to really do business, because we know about it.

So when did you start the global expansion? How long into the G4 journey? Was it 2, 3 years in? Was it still in the beginning places that you started the business? When did you start expanding globally?

I think we had the global mindset since the beginning.

OK, so you had the mindset. That's great.

Always the mindset. And important to mention, the global mindset starts on— who we hire. So just to give you a quick example, every recruiter that we hire, we look into a few key things. One is speaking more than one language.

Wow, okay.

This is the first thing.

Yeah.

So we always look for that. The second key thing is international exposure. So what do I mean by this? If I'm hiring somebody based out of London, I either want to make sure that this person has lived in a different country or has been exposed to multiple countries to understand multiple cultures. So this has been very important for us since the beginning. And as we built our business, just to give you some thought, we have today people from probably 15 different countries.

Yeah, that's amazing.

And we probably speak 10 or 12 different languages.

Yeah, so that's really interesting. So from day one, your, your global mindset has meant that you've— when you're hiring people for your business, you've had those things in mind. That's really interesting. When— so when do you actually start opening other offices? At what point? What did you have? If this was part of your plan. But what I think would be really good to sort of get your thoughts on is, if I'm listening right now and I'm thinking of growing my business internationally? What are some of the sort of— obviously it can't always be planned, as you just said, but I think what are some of the sort of key maybe metrics or key sort of milestones that you hit as a business to go, right, we're ready to expand globally or whatever? Do you get what I mean? What are some of the things that you ensured that you got to, or the milestones that you got to, that sort of gave you real confidence in growing your recruitment business globally? And if in that, so yeah, so there's a few, a few key things. Okay.

I think that if I'm gonna probably say about what is my mindset if I open businesses today, uh, because I've, I've learned a lot. Yeah. I had, uh, and I think I can say this here, I had some really dis— big disappointments.

Yeah.

I had a big disappointment when, uh, we opened, uh, Germany.

Okay.

We opened an office in Berlin. Yeah, it was a disaster. Yeah, I hired a recruiter there, uh, which was a really good recruiter. Yeah, um, but then we discovered that he didn't really speak German. He was living there with his fiancée. He was a recruiter with a lot of experience in the UK. Yeah, he had some German but not as fluent as we needed. Yeah, and we didn't check that. Yeah, so this type of mistake happens. Yeah, but it was an opportunistic hire at the time. Uh, we also had a really bad experience, uh, the first time we got in Mexico. We hired, uh, the wrong recruiter, uh, which didn't show up for work. Yeah, so it's interesting to mention this because, you know, these things will happen.

Yeah, yeah, you know, it doesn't be failures.

Yeah, and honestly, I've heard worse stories than this. Yeah. Okay, now we had some really great experiences. We hired somebody in Colombia, somebody in, in Peru, people that do great jobs. We have a really good job, a good team right now in, um, in Miami. Um, we found some really good people in London, uh, but this takes time, you know. So important, if you think about expansion, you need to take a few things into account. From a financial perspective, understand how much money you need to invest and make sure you have money to keep the business moving, if not growing, for at least 1 year.

So yeah, so before you think about opening another office, have you got the funds and cash flow to fund it for at least a year?

For at least—

so give yourself at least a year runway.

Exactly. The second thing, don't think you're gonna make money in the short term. Don't think you're going to bring in dividends to your HQ first year. Just think about like making money and reinvesting this money in the business. So from a financial aspect, I would say this. The second important thing, from a location standpoint, make sure you can be there and that you can be there at least 3 or 4 times a year. Okay, you know, this is a common mistake. People say, oh, you know what, I'm going to expand to, you know, a different city, but maybe it's too far for you. Maybe you don't really have the time or the availability to visit and stay there for a full week and to get to understand the culture, to visit the clients. So you need to make sure you have this. Um, the third thing And which I consider is the most important piece is make sure you interview and have a really good process of bringing talent for your team. Make sure you understand the culture. Make sure you ask the questions. Visit the person more than once. You know, like, we've already hired people through Skype. Big mistake.

Really?

Exactly. Um, I'm going to give an example. Today I've regrouped with a candidate that I've interviewed 3 months ago in London.

Yeah.

And I regrouped with this person again. It was excellent because I had a few things that I needed to check in, and I actually had a different perception of this person after 3 months. This is important to take decisions.

Yeah.

So we, even though the pace of our industry is super, you know, aggressive, we're fast-paced, we need to make sure that we hire slowly. When we're hiring for us, we need to make sure exactly that we're taking the right decisions, because then you're adding a headcount and opening an office, uh, you know, in a different country where sometimes Sometimes you are 3 hours, 10 hours away.

Yeah.

And you need to make sure that you're able to manage this.

Yeah. You know, really, that's really interesting. So is it fair to say then a lot of your sort of global expansion strategy has been finding and cultivating really relationships with recruiters that can open offices in, in obviously different countries, right? Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah. Has that been— so has that been the majority of the time where You've identified someone or you've ended up speaking to someone, and then you've cultivated that relationship for them to go, right, we're going to start a G4 recruitment business here in London or whatever it may be. Yeah.

If I could say, for those of you that are listening to this and want to expand your businesses, understand that hiring internally is one of the most important activities that you will have. Yeah, I invest personally 30% of my time really interviewing candidates.

Wow.

And I interview for open jobs that we have.

Yeah.

Or also on a proactive basis.

Yeah.

So quick example, um, in the next 2 days here in London, I'm, I'm interviewing 2, 3 candidates for us. Yeah, we don't have the open headcounts. But I want to interview because maybe we can open if the people are good. Yeah, you know, in Milan, uh, Thursday and Friday I'm interviewing 8 candidates. Next week in Rio I'm interviewing another 4 or 5 candidates.

So you've always had the mindset of always hiring?

Exactly.

You're not being reactive?

You never— exactly, because, you know, finding the best people takes a lot of time.

Yeah.

So we established a culture that we don't wait to have an open position.

Yeah.

To then start hiring people.

Yeah.

We are actively looking for good people, and we have the ability today— we've grown the business to a size that we have the ability to, as we find good people, you know, open the jobs and bring them in. So this is a good thing. So that our first 4 years as you asked, were very tough. You know, like we had to, you know, personally go visit the clients, build up a brand, build up a credibility. And now we have this, and this helps us to bring new talent. So we're gaining a momentum, which is very important for us.

What I'd love to get your thoughts on is like, how difficult is it to trust someone that obviously, especially if you're hiring them as a brand new hire, obviously you would have met them a couple of times, interview, these sorts of things. But then, so if you, you met with me and we recognized together that I'm, I'm, I think I'm someone that can open a London part of your business, how hard is it to— how difficult is it to trust that person? Yeah, how have you dealt with that? Because that must be hard, right? Because a lot of people in the UK, the conversation I had has been Obviously, um, the challenges or the things that they're worried about is, so if I'm a— like, like you started in Brazil, if I started in London and I want to take my business to Brazil, I'm worried that the culture that I've worked so hard to build in the UK may not be taken to Brazil if I don't hire someone that fully gets what we are and what business is.

Yeah.

So how have you, how have you managed, or how have you sort of enabled to trust people to sort of live and breathe the business that you've built, that— which ultimately you're just hiring them. Do you get what I mean? Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So how— yeah, how's that?

So I'm going to put it in a— in, in, in, in— from maybe an interesting perspective here. So while we had lunch today, I was speaking to the team about, you know, the difference from the Brits. Yeah. And the Italians.

Okay.

They're very different.

Yeah.

And they're so close and so far. Yeah, you know, uh, you know, like close in, in a sense of like, you know, from here to Milan it's a 2-hour flight, but they're— they have completely different perspectives of, uh, you know, work and careers and so on. So I think the first thing that we need to understand is that if you want to build up an international business, yeah, not necessarily a global business, you need to respect cultures.

Yeah.

You need to make sure that you don't implement what you think is right or what you think is, uh, uh, uh, you know, your style.

Yeah.

Um, you know, like, uh, if I, I always say to people, you know, like, sometimes the, the definition of speed or of quality of life is completely different if you ask a Brit or if you ask, you know, an Asian. Yeah. Or a Latin.

Couldn't agree more.

Exactly. Now, of course, you need to make sure that you have similar values. Yeah, that was in a similar culture here. So, and then this comes to the trust piece of it. So what we learned is that to build trust, we need to make sure that we speak and interact a lot. Yeah, especially in the beginning. And that's why when we need to hire people today, we make sure that we have multiple conversations. So it starts in the beginning with multiple conversations, and we're very transparent in what we do. I always say that I prefer to be extremely transparent and you don't like me than not being transparent.

Yeah.

And then you discover who I am and then you don't like me. I prefer to have a no in the beginning by you saying, look, you know what, after what we spoke, I don't feel comfortable. Like, I don't hire you, you don't waste your time, I don't waste my time. Then hiring you and then suddenly you discover something that you didn't like.

Yeah.

So we are very transparent in the beginning, and, and as I am transparent with you and I set up what we consider are our standards of communication, our KPIs, how you will work. I want to make sure that you're good with that and that it makes sense for your career also.

Yeah.

So I think with this we start building the team.

Yeah, no, I really like that. So just to make it clear then, from your experience, I think it's really interesting. So the sort of non-negotiables of— put, obviously, obviously respecting the culture, you have to understand, yeah, what work-life balance might be for an Italian compared to a Brazilian sort of thing. What are the sort of non-negotiables that you sort of now have if you're expanding with people globally? So you said make sure the values are aligned, and then was there anything else, like the sort of non-negotiables?

Great question. So what I would say today, you want to think about trust. Um, everything starts with communication.

Yeah.

So there's always one thing I tell to everybody.

Yeah.

You want to work with us? Be transparent.

Yeah.

Be honest.

Yeah.

So I will never— or actually, I will— I can be unhappy with, you know, bad news.

Yeah.

Bad results.

Yeah.

But I don't want to be surprised.

Yeah, sure.

So I prefer to have the bad news coming from you.

Yeah.

Or you know, uh, something is wrong with the clients, or I didn't do my job in the best way, that is fine. But I don't want to be surprised.

Yeah, so the first thing is complete trust and transparency.

Exactly. You need to make sure that if you're being surprised by the person you've hired, then you've had the trust— is—

yeah, yeah, is, is, is a non-negotiable trust and honesty from the get-go.

Exactly. So, so I would say this is definitely the first thing. Okay, you need to communicate in the best way. I think also, you know, in, in, in the day-to-day, you need to make sure that the results are showing up, you know. So I speak a lot about results. We have weekly meetings with everybody globally. We operate, and they know what their, their KPIs are. And we go through the KPIs, and, um, I always give an honest feedback. Yeah, on a weekly basis.

Weekly basis. So you have those weekly calls?

Weekly calls.

So how do you communicate as a global business? Is it through like Zoom? Is it through—

yeah, so, so, so we have, uh, a system pretty similar to Zoom. Yeah, uh, but, but we also use Hangouts a lot.

Yeah, yeah. So on those— so on a weekly basis, everyone Regardless of time differences, everyone—

we have a specific time of the day that every— like, for example, every business developer, for example, gets into this specific call. Yeah, uh, it's every Friday and we discuss results and we also cross-sell. So it's talking about results and cross-selling.

So let's say opportunities to transfer business to each other.

So let's say somebody visited, you know, HSBC in the UK, and there's HSBC in New York City. So the business developer will say, look, I've been to HSBC, this, this, and this happened. And by the way, hey, New York team, yeah, there's an opportunity here. I visited this guy, this guy gave me this name in New York, and boom.

And how long have you had that process? Because I feel like that must be paramount to—

yeah, this has been, uh, going strongly in the last 3 months.

Oh wow, exactly.

It's quite new and it's amazing, the level of success. It's amazing.

Really?

How did I, how did I learn this? Yeah, so there's an interesting story. So I'm a very good, a very good friend of mine, he was the global COO of Western Union. Oh wow, the money transfer business. And he told me once that they transformed the financial and sales and analysis of Western Union by implementing the weekly meetings.

The weekly meetings.

So they said, look, we have 52 weekly meetings in a year.

Yeah.

And we go, you know, 1 of 52, 2 of 52, and so on. So they started doing that and it completely transformed the business.

What, what's the, what's the structure of the meeting? And I think that'd be really valuable.

So basically we do it, it's like, of course, like in our case we have 15 BDs.

Yeah, so 15 people on the call.

15 people on the call, and we need to be very straightforward in the call. So it's a 1 hour and a half call.

Yeah.

So we start by, for example, we say, Chilean team, let's go one by one. So basically what they say is, they go, volume of meeting. So yeah, you got a number of meetings in the week, how many jobs in, yeah, how many terms and conditions that were sent to discuss other jobs in, and then how many meetings you have for next week.

So the first thing they start with is the metrics that you've identified that give you the best possible chance of hitting the results, so they start there.

Exactly. So they go through these metrics. When they end these metrics, and then it's open for anybody in the globe to ask questions. So maybe somebody in, You know, Canada might say, okay, good. So you visited this mining company in Chile, which is a Canadian company. Do you have a connection or could you ask a name? And you start the crossover.

Awesome. So everyone starts with, these are our results this week. And then after everyone going through that, there's an opportunity for everyone to collaborate and share.

Exactly.

Okay. 3 months in, and that's had a big impact?

Huge impact.

Really?

Like, just to give an idea, we get just from these weekly calls, we've increased probably 50% the volume of jobs in.

Really?

On a weekly basis.

Wow. And that's just by having clear communication on where everyone is?

Clear communication on KPIs.

Yeah.

And strongly working on cross-sell.

Yeah, yeah. So what I'd love to just maybe talk a bit about So you shared a bit about around the sort of failures in some of the countries. But so you said the first 3, 4 years were really challenging. You're in what, year 8, 9 now?

8, 9.

Yeah. So how, as you've sort of grown internationally, how has this impacted revenues and actual profitability of a business? So you're clearly someone that— obviously, it's really interesting that you said that if you open an international office, then you need to give yourself at least 1 year runway. Way of this business. Like, don't think you're going to be taking loads of dividends and these sorts of things. That's great. But how— what's been your— yeah, what's been the sort of balancing out with that, and what's been the experience of that? So just talk a bit about that. So it'd be good to just talk a bit about that and that you're experiencing, I guess, ensuring the profitability doesn't take a massive hit every time you're growing the business. Because you're playing the long game here, right?

Yeah. So last year, our revenues were up— 35%. Yeah, uh, we project a minimum of 40% for this year.

Really?

But I honestly think we could double the revenue.

What revenue did you do last year?

Uh, we can't disclose that.

Really? Yeah, we don't just do that. Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah, no, but, uh, why don't we do that? Um, we had last year 3 different PE firms approaching us.

What, to buy it?

Uh, to buy Wow. One of them wanted to buy 100%, which was quite strange, honestly, because they were like, we want to buy you guys and we're going to manage. Um, it's, um, I can't disclose this all, okay? Simply because I would need to have some approval from—

No, that's fair enough. That's cool.

Okay.

Yeah, that's fine.

Um, but basically, um, so we, we grew Getting back, we grew 35%. We want to grow between 40% and 50% this year. But we clearly think we can double revenues. And we've been profitable, which is the most important thing.

Yeah, of course.

Always. But, you know, if I think about, like, our expansion strategy today is going to markets which the currency, uh, is either stable or strong.

Yeah.

So why am I saying this? Because like we have an experience of being in a market like Argentina, which is a super unstable market. I would probably not go to the African markets right now. Yeah. I would be cautious about going to, you know, uh, let's say Eastern Europe, I would be very cautious with that. But I would be very focused in moving to, you know, Germany, where we have a lot to do, getting more into the domestic market of the United States. Yeah. So if I could give a piece of advice, and if you want to start your international expansion, go to solid markets, go to markets where the currency is stable, or at least the economics are there. Yeah, you know, before trying to do or to expand to places which can be extremely tough. And I simply say this because, you know, like, we are hiring right now, for example, for Nigeria. And, um, I spoke to a recruiter that said, hey, you know, like, my strategy here is to, to open in Mozambique, um, Germany, Morocco, like tough, tough, tough markets.

Yeah.

In which, you know, when you think about, you know, like from a revenue perspective in pounds.

Yeah.

Maybe it's irrelevant.

Yeah. So, um, so I know it sounds simple, but okay, that makes— is there any sort of key things then that— I guess it can always change, can't it, these types of things? But any key, any key things you always look for that sort of gives you a really good indication or confidence that it's a strong market? Anything, any key things that you always look for, or— Yeah, not really.

So one of the things I want to always make sure is, are there recruiters there?

Yeah.

And it's interesting because the more recruiters and the more professional the markets, the better for us, because this means that you have well-educated clients.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That are used to using recruiters, so it makes your life easier, you know, your pitch gets better. I need to remember that, you know, most of our competitors are the boutique firms.

Yeah.

In each one of the cities that we operate. Yeah. And we bring in our edge is at the end of the day is that we're a global firm that can bring, you know, many candidates that not necessarily are in London. Or in Rio, and that might be outside of these cities, yeah, willing to come back or willing to work and build their careers, yeah, with the companies in these cities.

Okay, so over the last sort of couple of years then, I think you mentioned a bit around the failures. I think you've been really sort of open and transparent around your approaches and these types of things. But what have been, what have been some of the biggest challenges over the last 4 or so years then? So it seems, yeah, what have been some of the biggest challenges of your as you're really expanding this business globally? What are some of the challenges that—

I would say it's all about the people.

Really?

At the end of the day.

The people for your business.

Exactly. So, and for the clients too. But you know, like, we have, as I mentioned, 80 people today.

Yeah.

We could easily have 120.

Yeah.

Meaning we could be 50% bigger than we are today.

Yeah.

But we learned that finding the right people willing to work in a tough industry like the recruiting industry is not easy. Yeah, so we really take time in finding, uh, this talent. And, uh, quick example, um, we've opened, uh, Bogotá. Um, we could have—

where's that?

In Colombia. Okay, so we could have 10 people in Bogotá. Yeah, we're far from having 10 people. Yeah, because simply we are interviewing and interviewing and interviewing.

So yeah, we have talent, a high, high bar.

Uh, high bar, exactly. So it takes time.

So how have you got better at that? Um, how have you got— how have you improved with your chances?

So important things that we do, first of all, we don't make this a process with too many steps or too many interviews.

Yeah.

But we make sure that the line manager—

yeah, of the—

which is exactly— which is the most interesting— interested part of, of the process, of course— interviews the candidates. Then from this, we take to our talent acquisition team. We have a global—

I was going to say, do you have a dedicated resource?

Exactly.

Okay.

Uh, so we go to HR, yeah, to our local HR, and then we put usually, um, director interviewing this candidate.

Yeah.

And then I interview the candidate.

So you interview everyone?

I interview everybody. So usually we have 4, minimum of 4 people interviewing these candidates. Now what we also do is we do an assessment. So we usually apply a Hogan—

what's that—

to have a personality test.

Oh, like a psychometric test.

Exactly. So based on the report, we take a decision if we can hire a person or not.

How long have you been doing that for?

And that, that's a good question. We've been doing this for the last year.

Yeah, because that's come up quite a lot recently, that people have done that and it's had a big impact on making better decisions.

Exactly, exactly. So our turnover has been going down.

Really?

Uh, exactly. Simply because we want to make sure that we bring in the right personality, that we bring in the people that, that are in line with what we consider are the values and the culture of the business.

And have you, have you got— because I can just clearly— that will definitely be the biggest challenge. I mean, that's the biggest challenge for people just in one country, let alone for a multinational business. So have you got different localized, the right fit type of people? Like, if you know what I mean, if you, if you— so your job openings in Colombia right now compared to your job openings in Miami? Like, how did— like, how different are those people that you're trying to look for? And how, how do you commute— how do you communicate the G4 message effectively? Like, how different is the local message? Do you get what I mean? Or is it, is it different at all? Is it the same?

Well, we, we try to keep it the same. Yeah, but respecting, respecting the culture, you know, the culture. But like, what do we look for? So if I think about personality We're always looking for really good communicators. Yeah, so people that can speak well but that can also listen, listen well, you know. And having good listeners is a big challenge these days. Yeah, you know, everybody knows how to speak, communicate, you know, uh, do the Instagram, but you know, like listening and listening to what the client says or to what a candidate says, this is a big piece of it. The second thing that we always look for is the level of energy, and we also look into how organized is the person, because this is multitask, you know, like recruiters have to speak to candidates, speak to clients, organize the resumes, organize the reports. So we look into these three things every time, a part of the global piece, which is very important for us.

And just quickly on that, before I— before we finish, I'd just love to talk to you a bit about your experience on, um, just, just managing all of this, talking about being organized inside, and just you actually managing this business, which obviously has its own challenges. But, um, what I was going to say, what's the— what's the typical recruitment business model in your offices? Is it this? Because so in the UK, the typical recruitment business has been 360, right? I don't know if that sort of, that context, does that make sense to you in terms of— so if I'm a recruiter right now in a UK firm, typically my job will be multifaceted where I have to pick up the phone to speak to clients and open new doors, and I also have to speak to candidates and do both of those and spin those plates, right? But what's interesting is there's— and I think this has actually come from America— is that a lot of UK businesses now are looking at having teams completely dedicated business developers. So always opening doors, new business, right? And then they have teams that are completely dedicated to sourcing and finding the candidates for these jobs. And then also those two communicating effectively and having a slick process that enables people to have a real focus on these things. —What's the typical? Have you got that in your business? —Yes. —Really?

—Yes.

—Has it always been like that?

—No, actually, I would say that we're very— we're not rigid with this. I think we learned with time that you can have 100% recruiters, 100% PDs, and you can have the 360.

Yeah, yeah, so you're flexible with that.

We're super flexible and we give people the alternatives, opportunity, and, and they decide what they want. Okay, uh, why do we do that? And maybe this is why this is growing in the US. You have a lot of turnover. Yeah, people leave the business, and one of the reasons that people leave this business is because the recruiter does not want to visit. Visiting clients is super tough. Yeah, yeah. Having to sell, doesn't want to do that. Cold calling, this is super tough. And me— and people get scared about this and they say, I was very scared at the beginning. Exactly, really scared. Now on the other hand, sometimes you have the salespeople that they don't want to recruit.

Yeah, they don't want to do the sourcing.

Yeah, exactly. So we keep and give the opportunity for people to do what they really like and they're good to do.

To. Fair enough.

So this is, uh, our modus operandi, if I could say.

So before we finish, yeah, so obviously we're saying, obviously before we started this, you're a family man. Yeah, you've got 4 children— 3. 3, sorry.

Yeah, I would love to have 4, but 3 is a good number.

So let's just like, how, how has growing this business— we always have honest conversations on this podcast, so I guess before we finish, I'd love to just sort of you've been very honest. So I guess, how, how, how has been the sort of the balancing act of Ricardo's actual life with growing this business? Because they're— I mean, I can't even imagine the amount of plates that you're spinning and being really effective at communicating and setting up processes where you can communicate with all the different businesses and these types of things. So I guess, yeah, what's been your journey with that, Ricardo, if you don't mind me asking? What's been your sort of experiencing work-life balance growing this business. What's that been like for you in your journey with that?

I would say that, you know, it's, uh, it's that learning, growing, changing every day. Um, I would say that I've been more effective now than I've been in the last 6 months, and hopefully I'm going to be better in the following 6 months. Things that I learned: I work by the hour, so every hour of my day I need to accomplish specific things. So you're really—

so that's blocked out in your diary every hour? Exactly.

So I'm very focused on what I have to do by the hour. This is something I learned. And can I just say, sorry to butt in.

Yeah. So obviously I've been engaging with your lovely colleagues and to book in this podcast. How involved was you in that? Not at all. In terms of like, so these people really— you've got people dedicated to managing your diary? Exactly. Yes. That's why I have like, really efficient—

I have like a PA Yeah, that takes care of my, uh, business life and also even about my personal life. Really? So quick, how long have you had that? Uh, I had that for a year and a half. Wow. Which includes my, my personal life. Really? A year and a half now.

And how much of an impact does that have? Uh, huge.

Yeah, I'm gonna give you an example. You know, like, uh, I manage a global business. Yeah, I don't work on weekends. Yeah. Like, I don't know, literally like 7 PM Friday night until, you know, like 5 AM Monday morning. Yeah, like, I don't need a— yeah, I'm completely off. I don't look to my emails. I can have time with my kids, can have time for me, which is important. Yeah, of course. Um, but that, that's something that made, made a pretty big change. And just think about this, I literally fly 45 weeks of the year. Fly? Fly. You're in a plane? On a plane. 45 weeks? Of the year, yeah. I spend at the most 7 weeks of the year in my base. All the rest I'm flying out. Really? Yeah, all the time.

So how do you maximize that time?

One important thing I learned a lot, you know, while I'm in the plane, this is when I can usually relax and watch my Netflix or my Amazon Prime.

Yeah, um, to use it to relax.

Yes. This is when I send many WhatsApp messages.

Yeah, that's the best thing about WhatsApp. Yeah, yeah, that's incredible about WhatsApp.

So like, I— and I learned Very important, I don't text, I send the voice messages. So like, I literally spend sometimes like 1 hour preparing the WhatsApp messages for everybody. And when I land, you know, I just send, click send, or just get online and it's done. It's, it's amazing how my life has been, uh, easier now using, you know, the WhatsApp for everything. I have to do.

So it's blocking out each hour of your time, knowing what you need to focus on. Exactly. Yeah, obviously doing the smart things on— obviously, yeah, time if you're flying a lot. Anything else that sort of really impacted you personally in terms of sort of keeping on top of everything and managing this business?

Yeah, there's, there's one thing that I've changed in my management style. Every time I sit down with a direct report, we the direct report will write down everybody we discuss, that everything that we discussed, some right minutes. Exactly. And send it to me and to everybody that was in the meeting. Oh, okay. So this keeps me— instead of me having to write down or take notes during a meeting, someone else gives me the context of— exactly. I can concentrate my time in making an effective meeting, and then I get all, you know, that everything that happened to like maybe rethink. And if something is missing, then connect again. And what about, um, what about your mindset?

Where does mindset fit into this? I've got a couple of questions that I definitely want to speak to you about. Resilience. Okay. And, and how important that is. But where— I mean, you, from— you seem someone that's quite grounded and sort calm? And like, what— where did— where does mindset— like, what's been your journey of mindset? I mean, in the UK, mental health and talking about your sort of— yeah, talking about your mental health and managing this and these types of things is huge, and a lot of people struggle with it in the UK particularly. So I guess mindset, where does this fit in for you, and what have you done personally to work on your mindset to help you manage all of this?

Yeah, so there's a few things. First, when I think about mindset I think about, you know, me being a global, uh, person. Yeah. So, uh, you know, I'm always, uh, interested about people. Okay. And, and always trying to learn new things. Now, answering your question, a few things are, are very important for me today. So even though I work by the hour, I always try to put a few things into my day. Yeah. So the first thing I learned, and I've been exercising, is that I wake up early. Yeah. So usually I try to wake up at 5:00 AM. Yeah. I try to read. Mm-hmm. I try to exercise. Yeah. And I always look into what are my personal goals. Nice. And then I, and then I go to work.

Then you, but then you start looking at it, and then I start my day.

Exactly. So this is something that it's almost like I have 1 hour, and that's, that's Ricardo time.

Yeah, that's my— exactly.

So that's not my family, this is, this is me. Yeah, so important, you know. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, the second thing that I always make sure on my mindset is that I've not— I'm not influenced by social media. Okay. So I always make sure and understand that, you know, like if you look into and Instagram and you see, you know, this person, you know, like looking really good, really healthy, or in a yacht or in the private jet, you know, I always understand that, you know, uh, great for them. I don't feel bad about me if I'm not—

yeah, you're not comparing this style of life.

I don't compare with anybody. And I need to be honest, I compared myself a lot. Did you? A lot. And you know, like, with time you stop comparing yourself. You're just you and you're building your story. Yeah. So I learned that I need to build my story. Yeah. Some people will love it, some people may— maybe will not love it.

You become more and more comfortable with that.

Exactly. But I would say that at the end of the day, what I'm building here is a story that I want to make sure that my family, my friends are proud of, uh, having me as family or friends and building like such an interesting story.

That's awesome. And would you say then, before I ask you a couple of questions on resilience, would you say sort of ensuring that you give yourself that sort of time for self-care in the morning and, and, and have those habits, that's enabled you to, yeah, be more present with your staff, family Exactly. Yeah, I feel like that's, yeah, it's a great anchor. That's what— is that part of why you do it? So then you, you know that you've made that time for yourself. So then when you are with whoever the different people are you are in your day, you can really be there because, you know, yeah, that's definitely— yeah, that's, that's had an impact on, on me as well, making sure I have time for myself on in the morning. Um, a couple of questions on resilience. So the reason why I'm asking this is because in, um, in March, um uh, we're having— so in, in November I hosted the very first live podcast event, um, so hosting another one in March in London, and the topic is, uh, cultivating resilience and going the distance in recruitment. So I'd love to just get your thoughts and experience on resilience, and then I'll ask you the, um, final question and what you're excited about, because I know there's a few things that you have planned and going on this year. So What does resilience in recruitment mean to you, Ricardo? What does it mean to you?

Firstly, understanding that you're going to have a lot of nos, more nos than yeses. Understanding that it will be tough. Yeah, it's not an easy, easy path. Yeah, um, understanding that it's long hours, uh, understanding that it's difficult. But at the same time, having fun. Yeah, yeah.

So being comfortable with the fact that it's not always going to work out. Exactly.

But yeah, I love that. I, I always say that, you know, we need to understand that there will be a no, and we need to expect that there will be a no and that there will be difficulties. But if you do your job, the yeses will show up, the doors will be open.

That's awesome. So how has the importance or need for resilience changed as the industry has evolved?

That's a really good question. That's a really good question. I would say that, uh, you know, we need to be patient. Um, I think there's more competition. I think there's more and more lack of talent. This is a candidate's market. This is not just a client's market. Yeah. So, you know, like, when you think about this— and help me if I'm not answering your question here— but, uh, you know, in the beginning we were like, wow, you know, tough to find clients. And actually, everybody needs to hire good people.

So, so is that— exactly, you're not finding the right people.

Candidates are resistant to make the right move. Actually, not to make the right move, resistant to move.

To move, yeah. People move around a lot less.

Exactly. So you have picky clients, and you have picky candidates. So the job of a recruiter has been tougher. It's required more knowledge.

It's going to— es, yeah, more knowledge. Exactly. Exactly. So just got more challenging, basically, which requires more rejection, more nos. I think so. Yeah. Last one on resilience. So I guess more so from you as a business owner, what can people do to instill more resilience in their teams?

I think there's— you need to educate the teams, and you need to educate the teams by telling each one of your staff members that it's a tough job.

Yeah, be transparent.

You need to be transparent. Yeah. You cannot tell, you know, like, uh, that, that they will expect roses. Yeah. Uh, on the way, you actually need to, uh, create the tough environment. Yeah. And maybe they will see it's not as tough as you're creating it, but if you don't say and go through and walk them through since the beginning, they will fall apart.

Yeah, yeah.

Because, you know, it's pretty hard to deal with tough clients. Yeah. It's pretty hard to deal with candidates that will tell you one thing and then do a different thing. Yeah. You know, so being resilient is, you know, overcoming all this. Yeah, yeah. But especially in the beginning with people that do not have this experience and do not understand where where this will come from, you need to be playing your part.

Yeah, yeah, no, I like that. So before I ask you the last question, really enjoyed this, Ricardo, I think you've been great. What are you excited about? I always ask people what are they excited about? What are you excited about in your world? What's going on in the G4 empire in 2020? What's going on?

Well, I'm first of all excited about the future. Simply because, you know, when you look back, LinkedIn came and people thought, wow, you know, the recruiters are out of business, it's over. Far from being over. I think the industry is well positioned. We never had so many opportunities to excel. We need more recruiters. Honestly, we need more people to find talent. So I think the future is bright. Every single country in the world needs to have recruiting agencies. Yeah. The labor market is transforming itself. Governments are understanding the importance of, you know, having talented people to generate more business. You know, like when you see to what happened in New York with Amazon and Google, you know, New York fighting to have these companies there, understanding that they will generate more jobs, more revenue. So just think about this impact in other cities in the world and what can be done. So it's, uh, I would say the future is bright for everybody.

Yeah, I think a big part, a big mission with this podcast, Ricardo, is sort of helping make recruitment a career of choice. A lot of people fall into it, right? And I think that's, that's a huge thing. I think there's so many great opportunities recruitment can offer a lot of people, but it's— hopefully this can play a part in helping people actually pick recruitment because I think it can do a lot for people. Um, but I know that your colleagues will hate me, but you've got, you've got some exciting announcements in the pipeline, right?

I think this— you know, I always say the pizza is big. Everybody can get his or her slice. So just make sure that you keep doing your job, you know. And my marketing team here is telling me that I need to remember everybody. Exactly, exactly. With our global expansion, soon we will have a different brand. So G4 will evolve, change names, and Yes, this is coming, this is coming actually for a really good reason, but we're going to announce this soon.

Yeah, yeah. Last question, Ricardo, I ask everyone on this show is, so you cannot, you can answer this question with a word, a phrase, sentence, whatever comes to mind. So the question is, if Ricardo could communicate to every single recruiter out there or recruitment business owner, they take on your advice, they'd listen, they'd implement your advice tomorrow, what would you say to these people if they're all listening?

First of all, focus in your business. Don't focus on the competitors. Don't envy the competitors. Just look at them if you want to learn something new and get better, but focus on your business. The second thing, don't have paradigms, uh, you can build something which is maybe much bigger than what you have today, or that is much more profitable than what you have today. So you just need to believe in yourself and don't put any paradigms on what you have to do.

Okay, Dad, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you.