Sustainability Advantage: How Purpose-Driven Recruitment Drives Business Growth with Josh Huggins

Josh, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here.

Taking a bit of time to get here. Yeah, but we got here in the end.

Bit of furniture moving around and all that.

Cool. You're in London.

Yes.

So how often are you doing this right now? How often are you— because I think it's quite intentional, right? You coming up to London, spending time here, getting in front of people.

Yeah.

How long have you been doing this? Over the last couple of months?

Uh, well, I think it's been a critical part of what I've done since I started the business. Bringing, you know, making sure I see people in person. I don't think it should be, but it seems to be a bit of a differentiator. Not so many people are keen to meet, or not so many recruiters I find are keen to meet their clients in person. So being in front of them and talking to them is helpful. But once a week, once a fortnight minimum.

And where are you coming in from again?

I live in Winchester, Hampshire, but offices in Basingstoke. So it's 45 minutes.

It's not too bad then, is it?

No, I've got friends in North London that takes them longer to get into central than it does for me. Get it from the stick.

So yeah, nice.

Yeah, it's all good.

So a few things that we're going to talk about today, but you've been on a really interesting journey, so I'll just sort of highlight to everyone some of the key parts of this journey so far. If there's anything that I get wrong here, let me know, but we're going to really focus on this entrepreneurial journey that you're 2 and a bit years into in running and building your own recruitment business. But before that, what's worth sharing, you, what, you was employed for pretty much a decade You worked for one business for a year and then you then went on to another business which you worked at for 9 years, health and safety recruitment. You went on the classic journey of becoming a director, progressed the ranks. You actually achieved the— often recruiters, you know, they get that carrot of like, you can be the shareholder, these things. Sometimes that doesn't quite materialise, but you actually became the second largest shareholder in that business and was actually involved in an exit. Like a lot of companies don't actually get to that point. So I think that that's really cool. And I know that was a big part of you then maybe starting to think about, could I do this on my own, having your own business. So that's that part. And then we then got into, um, GS2, which is your own recruitment business. So launched that in May 2022.

Yeah.

Um, so a few highlights here. If any of this is wrong, let me know.

Don't worry.

Um, so I think we put here for like that first year um, in 2022, they ended up being 5 of you. Um, oh no, was that the 2023?

Sorry, yeah.

So for the— from May to December, it was just you head down, um, really trying to focus on generating revenue, um, and just focusing on that. It was like 90% perm, 10% interim. Um, but yeah, then 2023, that ended up being 5 of you, and I think year 1 you did around £435K? Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that roundabout right?

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Perfect. And then your world, which we're going to get into, sustainability, um, and then year 2. So is that— what year is that? So that's this?

Yeah. So we actually changed our accounting year, so it's a little bit tricky. Okay. Having the conversation now, the business started in, um, May '22, uh, and then, uh, so kind of, kind of look at First year being April, although we'd miss a month, April to end of March '23, and then second year's obviously April '23 through to March '24.

Right, so we're just, we're now going into our third year, but technically third year, second year circa £900K. Yeah, revenue-wise, what, just over? Yeah. And then this was around, that's GP, not, um, sorry, yeah, GP, um, around 15— I know you said this slightly increased, but when we prepared for this, um, around 15, now more maybe 25% is contingent, rest is retained. Yeah, team of 12 people.

13, huh? 13.

13. Yeah, we prepped a few weeks ago. Um, and then what also is interesting here is 50— this might have changed— is like non-UK business. So really quite diverse in that sense. And then the big goal now in this third year, you can let me know if it's changed, to get to £1.8 million GP. You really want to kick on the interim part, I've got here.

Yeah.

Really want to have a solid presence globally, so continue that diversification. And yeah, keep obviously really getting the most out of the team and having great people in the right seats. Yeah. Is that right?

Pretty well summarised.

All right, cool. So that hopefully gives people a lot of context, but Some of the things that we really wanted to talk about here that I know that you're passionate about, we're definitely going to cover the sustainability piece. We were saying before we started this, I think quite different for you because you support building communities and work with sustainability professionals, industry. So that's a big part of your journey and your proposition. We're going to talk about how Early on in your business journey, you hired non-billing heads quite early. Why did you do that? The retained recruitment piece that's been pivotal for you guys. How you've diversified in the sense of like being international. How has that happened? How have you managed to do that? And we're going to talk about how you're thinking about setting up the business for success structure. And also, I know you're a big advocate of working with advisors or getting external help. And your journey with that, because I know you started working with Tom, which we'll talk about, and how he's impacted your business. So there are a couple of things that we're hoping to cover.

Looking forward to it.

Right.

So let's get into this sustainability piece. So, do you want to talk to us a bit about, maybe I think it'd be helpful, you know, you worked for one organisation for a long time. When I speak to founders that go on their own, typically it's they want to do things differently. They think there's maybe a bit of a gap or they can do the things they've been doing, maybe they think they can do them better. But like, how did we land on this sustainability as a concept piece? Like, talk to us a bit about that and then we'll go from there.

Sure. So the recruitment business I worked at before, what we marketed ourselves as was health, safety, environment, and quality, or HSEQ, it's known. Because back when I was working for them and up until fairly recently, those functions have always sort of interlinked with each other and been quite— a lot of organizations bolt them all on together. So one person covers all of those areas. Probably from about 2016, I started to see that we were recruiting slightly more strategic roles that were particularly focused on the environment. And that transitioned probably 2018, '19 into this broader sustainability-type role. And post-pandemic, sustainability as a function really grew rapidly. Or, I mean, in the news, everybody, you'd hear about it. If you don't know sustainability, you'd know what it is now because it's become so mainstream. But back when I first started, it was really low priority. But in that journey of us selling the company, we started to do more in sustainability. The company that bought us though were quite keen for us to stay focusing on health and safety, which was the functions that we were good at, that we were developed in. And they didn't really want to invest in us growing this new area of the market. So that was one thing that was kind of prominent to me. Second thing, I always knew I was going to set up my own recruitment business after the exit. I did think I was going to go and work for a company for a couple of years. So my plan was always get into recruitment, Once I knew the deal was on the table back in 2015 to sell it, it was to sell it by the time I was 30, 2 years in a bigger firm, and then at 32, set up my own business.

Why?

Why?

Why was that the plan?

Well, because I wanted to own my own business. That was always something I wanted to do. I wanted to have an exit, but I wanted to learn from a bigger company. My first company was really entrepreneurial. It's built some amazing recruiters, but And they got to a size and scale of about 40, 50 people and they weren't able to push on. So I've sort of learned some of the lessons there. Then in my second business, I was a key person in the business. So I was sort of teaching myself as I went. And so I hadn't ever seen like a big corporate structure. I haven't come from a Michael Page or Robert Walters or—

You wanted to try and get that experience before you got there.

I thought I did anyway. But then I got to the point of doing it and I thought, well, actually, you know, I've built a business here from, you know, when I When I joined my last business, we were 8 staff. We scaled down to 3. We then grew to be about mid-40s on it when we sold. So I think I can do that again. But actually what I want to do is take it to the next level. And the opportunity I thought was to move from a role and a function of health, safety, environment, and quality, which is quite niche, to something that was broader, which was sustainability, because it was gaining so much momentum. I think we'll come onto it, but I think I missed I slightly misread the appetite for those roles. And quite early on, I realised that those roles, although it seems like those functions would grow and grow, actually we're facing the same challenges that we had in health and safety where these teams don't actually become that big. But the concept of sustainability is far more positive than the concept of health and safety, which has such a negative reputation. So that's why I kind of started to pivot into more working with sustainably conscious organisations. And still doing sustainability and safety roles for them, but now we provide wider functional roles to those companies. But the key thing for us is working with companies that are part of the transition to a sustainable future.

That makes sense. And then talk to me about the bit you were just talking about there, because I think when I do speak to a lot of first-time founders, and I'm sure it sounds like you experienced this, like you have a plan, right? And then you need to make money. So like, it's sort of— and it's hard to say no to things, right? But then you're like, oh, this is slightly outside of like what I want to be doing, but you know, we need to be, you know, getting our first deals over the line, etc. So like, like with hindsight, talk me through that. Like, how— where did you know— like, how did you approach being agile? Or like maybe say yes to things that maybe now you wouldn't? Like, just talk to me about that, because I know that can be difficult for founders on like when to say no. Should they say no? Should I actually just lean into saying yes at the beginning? 'Cause it gives them a bit of an opportunity to get stuck into things and get some revenue in the bank. 'Cause you had a plan clearly.

Yeah. I think there's two, well, I think there's different stages you go through starting a business. Like the stage number one, and also it depends on your situation. Like I was very fortunate. I'd had the exit. I had money to start the business. So it didn't mean I was going from earning a salary to the next month starting my business and having to make the same amount of money. Like I knew I could, take some time. So I had a bit of fortune from that perspective. But also when you start a business, you don't want the number, the board to be blank and doing nothing. So I think most people when they first start, they are going to probably take on things outside of the specialism that they're trying to focus on. But I think it gets to a point where you have to be clear about what do you do and what you don't do so that you can grow as a specialist. Otherwise you will become more of a generalist. So early on, like first couple of roles, yeah. Course, take anything that's coming in. Just make sure you get some money on the board. But I think then after a period of time, you want to start specialising. Otherwise, you're just not reusing candidates. It's not a very good use of time. Actually, I'd rather not get that, especially if they're small deals at the beginning, I don't know, £5K, £7K deal, to invest in the time and attention of growing relationships that could pay off with a, you know, £20,000, £30,000 placement in the future. So yeah, I think early on, yeah, first couple of roles, I did, I think I did a management accountant and a couple of other things that I wouldn't probably do now. But after those, then I was really clear about what I wanted to do.

So let's just break that down then for people. So like, what do you have clarity on now then? Like, how has it evolved? Like, what's like the clear goal that you want to be known for that you focused on then? Where have you landed?

Yeah, so our purpose, I think, to start with is that we believe we're on a critical journey to connect the people who believe in leaving the world better than we found it. That's our Stratline and Better Than We Found It is very much core of the business. So I have a podcast I run, which is called Better Than We Found It. I interview purpose-driven leaders. So it's all about working with organisations who have a purpose around creating a future that's positive. But that can sound quite fluffy. So breaking it down, there's 4 main sectors that we focus on. Sustainable finance and responsible investment. So in that, we're working with private equity businesses, investment firms or sustainable investment organisations, sustainable asset managers. Companies where they're putting capital into things that are helping the world be sustainable. That's number one. Number two is what we call sustainable natural and built environment. And that's probably leveraging a lot of my older relationships. So at the more operational end, we're talking like construction and infrastructure, but people that are building things that are again, trying to be more sustainable, and through to more corporate end of real estate, property management, and looking at how we, what's known as decarbonise the built environment. So how do we take, how do we rely on using less to make buildings that we live in? Because basically the built environment is a huge component of the emissions for society. So talk about emissions, carbon dioxide emissions, that's what we try to get down. The buildings account for a lot of it. So if we can work with companies that are making better solutions to that, then that's something that appeals to our mission. The third one that we are about to launch is what we call sustainable energy. So we're working with energy companies already, but that's really the big push into the renewable space that of course a lot of recruiters have done. But for us, I think our, Fundamental part of how we approach that is that because we are sustainability first, it's not like we're jumping on the bandwagon of renewables because it's a hot market, like life sciences was a bit before and whatever else it might be, it, AI. Now we're not just jumping on a hot topic, we're doing it because it's fundamental to the purpose that we serve. And then the final one is sustainable technology. So that's going to be the technology that underpins all of the mainly the energy companies, the finance companies. How do they understand the data that they have? How do they create solutions that can use AI in other areas to help make technology more effective in terms of the fight against climate? So those are the 4 main areas. But in addition to that, we're still placing functional leaders of sustainability and health and safety into a range of corporates that might be manufacturing or logistics or other areas. So that's always like the backdrop of what we do. But those 4 areas are like where we're focusing the majority of our time.

Yeah, I love that. And then do you envision basically having like teams that just focus on each of those different pillars?

Yeah, I mean, we're kind of thinking about it right now, but I think ultimately the goal is that GS2 is the group. And then those different sectors become their own independent brands. So that we have brands that focus on those specific, like a sector-specific brand. And we start to do more in that brand. But all with a link to sustainability. The bit that we're struggling with a little bit is thinking about how do they become non-competing brands? Because obviously a lot of what we do is interlinked, but that's half of the business model is that I see it if we can work with an organisation. Well, exactly. That's the thing. But how do you, you know what recruiters are like, how do you make the lines clear of what you can do and what you can't do so that people don't start going into others' territories? At the moment it's okay because we're small and we're growing, but obviously once you get a lot bigger, you need to have rules in place, otherwise it becomes, you know, fighting against in-house fighting rather than it being something that's positive for the business. But ultimately we want to be able to work with the finance organisations who fund it. We want to work with the renewable companies who are actually owning the asset, want to work with the construction companies who build the asset, and we want to work with the tech companies who actually like facilitate it all. And ultimately, if we can do all of it, then we're in a really good position.

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And I think something— I think this goes into this interesting approach of hiring some of the people who hired at a certain time, because I wanted to ask you, because of that journey that you went on and actually experiencing a sale of a recruitment business, uh, like, what, what were some of the things that were top of mind for you that you knew that you had to implement, invest in, get right, that you knew 2 years from now you're going to benefit from? Because I think that when I speak to founders that do struggle to grow, or they have those experiences of going to 10 heads, really struggle with getting it profitable, and then they're back down, or can be quite reactive to the market— they hire and then they let people go and sort of don't have sustainable growth. Yeah. Like, because I'm sure you would have seen what these— I don't know who it is, I should have asked you before, like, who purchased that company, but you would have seen what they deemed to be really valuable, what really added the enterprise value to this business, and what were they looking at, what they asked you questions about. So like, when you were thinking about growing this, because it sounds like you were thinking about growing it from the very beginning, What were some of those early things that you invested in or thought about that you had to get maybe before you needed them? Because I think that's what I find to be the right mindset is like, okay, we're 5 people now. I know that I do want to grow this business. We need to have systems processes as if we were a 15, 20 person company before we're there.

Yeah.

And I think this all goes into how quite early on you hired, yeah, like an executive assistant and ops person. And I'm sure you won't hear that advice many times in terms of like, God, that's a bit early, Josh, isn't it, to hire people that won't be generating sales. So yeah, just interested to get your mindset there because you would've seen these things, right? So I don't know what some of those aspects were that you really wanted to get right early on, maybe than some people that wouldn't have experienced a sale and those things.

Yeah, I think I feel really privileged to have gone through that journey in my last business because One of the things that I did, and I got some great advice from my uncle who's been a very successful businessman. He said when I went into that business, because it was a smaller one, just learn everything about everything. That was his, you know, sit with accounts, understand what they need to do, sit with marketing, sit with, oh, we didn't have marketing company, but yeah, sit with whoever to learn about the business. And there were a few key things I think that were fundamental to a recruitment business. Number one is without question, the only thing really that matters in a recruitment business is the people. So if you don't have the best people, you're not going to be successful. So thinking very early on, like, what am I going to do to attract and retain and get the best people needs to be probably other than the market sector that you go after. But even that, if you have a great person that has a different viewpoint to you, they might take you to a new market that you're not— you have your specialism, but you know, they might take you there. So people is like the fundamental thing. Anything around that, I think, is the things you need to be considering and thinking about. If you're on a scale journey. Obviously this doesn't apply if you're thinking of doing something which is low headcount, high profit margin to take the money out the business, which there's no right or wrong. But I think if you're trying to scale, I think you need to think about what am I doing to make sure I've got the right things in place to help me attract, retain, and grow the best. They're the things. So yeah, an ops manager for me, an EA, one was to have somebody who could do the things much better than I do. I quite like getting into the detail, but I'm not so good at like some of the ops stuff. So if I could have somebody that could be doing the things like engaging with the suppliers, our suppliers that we have, or dealing with the job boards to sort the license or dealing with LinkedIn or whatever it might be. Now that can take a lot of time up when I could be doing the thing that I'm good at, which is in the early stage, particularly being a salesperson and speaking to clients, speaking to candidates. So That was something that was fundamental. I'd been fortunate in my last business. I had a support team member who was my EA. So I was used to having that support around of things I needed, both personally and in work. So having, again, someone that could help me with that, I felt was quite fundamental. Because I went from having a business and people doing things to going back to square one and selling. I think I needed some support around me to do that. And then what actually happened in terms of that experience is I went through the journey and I found two people that I felt could be right for the role. So Heather, who did join as our operations manager in EA, she came from an estate agency background, and I really liked her organisation, you know, knowing processes, but obviously didn't know recruitment, but very transferable from estate agency to recruitment. But then Kira, who's our talent manager now, was introduced to me by my partner Tara, who's also was one of the co-directors of my, of our last business. She joined another business, was interviewing people for them, and came across Kira, who's an amazing resourcer for the, one of the, I think the second highest biller in La Fosse at the time. But she had had a child, moved out of London, and wanted something different. And I met her and I knew she had something about her. And I was like, well, you know what it's like, great recruiters can be your best internal recruiters as well. And I saw that. So I was kind of going up back and forward about which one, who do I hire? And in the end I was just like, why don't I hire them both? And it was a bit of a strange moment. I tried to talk to Tara about it. She didn't agree. I didn't have Tom then, but I knew when I joined and I talked to him about it, he didn't agree.

But you know, in general, exactly.

Hiring two non-billing people.

Because how many other recruiters were there at that point?

2.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. So 40% of our business of 5 was non-billing. And Tyler who joined, he was a delivery individual or researcher, so he wasn't actually selling. So yeah, it was a bold move, but I think for me it was about having the fundamental principles in place of how do we create a structure that means that when we hit 10 heads or 20 heads, we won't go through those growing pains that I definitely saw in my last business where you're sort of retrospectively having to put things in place like, yeah. Appraisal systems or just structure of the teams or anything that really is going to slow you down, you can get it sorted straight away. And I was billing enough to be able to afford it. I was like, let's just do it. And then we'll get that sorted.

And then just quickly, just to go a bit specific here, my wife's an EA and I'm just a huge advocate of amazing people doing this role. Were, if you could give us an example, and I know it is like a continuous iteration, but if I'm a founder listening right now, what would like a version 1 sort of a job spec look like? What are some of the things that this person can get off your plate, do for you? And I know it's always evolving because I'm, I have an assistant as well. I'm always trying to, I'm always thinking like, what can I delegate, or what can I have someone help me with? But for someone that maybe thinks that's so out —of like where they're anywhere near, or they may not have even considered it. What does like version 1 maybe look like? What are some of the bullet points on that job responsibilities out of interest?

Well, I think there's 2 ways you can do it. You can hire an EA in-house to come and do, and I think you can get more value from that. Or there's loads of outsourcing models as well that you could do. So if it's just purely transactional, like emails, booking meetings, managing your diary, your main inbox management, that type of thing, then I think you can outsource it and you can probably get quite good cost-effective things. For me, it was more about, probably it was more sales support focused. When I mean sales support, I mean like management of our, or not management, but helping to ensure Vincere, which is our CRM, is up to date as possible. So, you know, when candidates are coming in, making sure that they're on the system, they're coded correctly, their email addresses are in the right place, the contacts that we're adding. If I go to an event and I get a 200-person delegate list, and they all get added to the system or coded correctly. So it was more, it's more, I think at the start it's more sales support to help you and to facilitate more sales. What it transitions to then is the more back office stuff, which is non-sales, which will be things like I've said, like managing suppliers. We've had a few office, we, you know, we've had a few office moves now. So managing all of that process and liaising with them, liaising with the council to register for rates relief or, you know, stuff that I, A lot of stuff I don't even know that happens. And it's one of those roles where it's quite difficult because you never really can quantify it. It's not like KPIs. I can't say like, I want you to do 30 calls this week. It's like, these are the projects that we're doing and we use OKRs to sort of try to give accountability now. But you have like major projects and then we just have a once a week Monday morning meeting and we have a Google Doc. And during the week, if I've got stuff that I want Heather to focus on a project, I'm just, well, I should put it on the Google Doc, but I just email it to her. Please add this to the doc. And if we add it through, we have 45 minutes on Monday morning, we run through everything and then she knows what's going on in my mind to be able to prioritise the rest of the stuff. So it sort of transitioned from sales support, which I think is crucial.

Really think it's so important. Yeah, all those bits are like, it's so hard to keep on top of.

Of course. And how can you ensure that you're doing that? Salespeople are not good at administration generally anyway. So if you've got somebody in the background that that's their role, that's what they're bonused on, that's what they're focusing on is how do we grow the candidate database, or how do we grow the client database with good quality coding, and whatever that might be, then I think—

I love that. And like you said, it doesn't have to be like a full-time employee in-house, can be outsourced, UK or different countries, right?

Yeah, for sure. And I got loads of people, different types of approaches, lots of remote people, lots of people that wanted to do 2, 3 days a week. I wanted somebody more in the business, but Heather started 4 days a week. She now does 4 and a half days. She has a daughter, And same with Kiera. So Kiera actually started doing 3 days a week. So when I say I hired 2, I actually hired 70% of it because it was 4 days and 3 days. But it meant that we felt like more of a company. We had more resource, we had more capability, and we could do that. So it works well.

Love that. So I want to speak about something that I think a lot of people have, either who are listening to this, have heard people speak about the retained piece or you know, might want to work more in that way but aren't entirely sure. They've always worked with clients in a certain way, like, would they work in this different way? I know you've run into hiring people that haven't worked in a retained way and there's challenges there. But before, before we do, do you want to talk to me a bit about what you was talking to me about a bit earlier? Because I think it sort of goes hand in hand with this, which is the way that you've tried to position yourselves um, as a business being like an exec firm? I don't know how you, how you would describe it— agency or like— because how would you— I'm always curious to hear this, like, how would you— if I say to you, I run a like exec search firm, and if I said to you, I run a recruitment agency firm, like, what's the difference?

I think it depends who you're talking to.

But how would you define that? How would you define—

if I tell them I run an exec search firm, how would you It's probably the same as someone saying that they're an estate agent or they're a house broker or something, you know, like you just create some, um, no, I think the fundamental difference is an exec search firm, a true executive search firm. And we don't market ourselves as a true executive search firm. A true executive search firm are a firm that basically most people will have heard of the analogy of the Shrek firms, like the Spencer Stuart, Heidrick Struggled, Egon Zender, Russell Reynolds, Korn Ferry. They're the 5 big exec search firms. They do talent development, they do— they're the ones recruiting the CEOs of the FTSE 100, um, and they're the ones that will always get those searches. So that's their— that's what I think a true exec search firm is. They do a lot more than just tactical recruitment. They're doing leadership advisory, they're doing benchmarking, assessment, um, development of teams. What we mark ourselves as, as a specialist search firm. So we don't want to— we're not trying to compete with those firms, albeit we have won searches away from them and It makes me very happy when we do. But what we are not is a tactical operational contingent recruiter. We sit in between. So it's like when some, when an organization wants to hire a leader in the particular area that we cover, then they don't need to go to the search firms because the search firms aren't, one, interested in the search and two, don't have the network. But they don't want to go to an operational recruiter who are just going to do 15, 20%, send a few CVs and hope it works. But if they don't, then they'll walk away and go to another client. Like they want an organization that provides that sort of service in between. That's how we market ourselves. I think search is, true search is extremely high level, um, and hard to do. I think, uh, recruitment agency, if you say that, is probably what you would hear more as like a contingent recruiter where you send some CVs and you hope the client takes somebody on without any commitment. We try to sit in the middle and that's why we call it specialist search.

So what would be some of the things that you would do beyond finding me the right person for my organisation as a specialist search firm then? Like, because like you said, the big search firms, they do all these different things, talent development, market assessment, all that. What are some of the things that you've done then that would also make it a bit different besides just finding the person?

Yeah, so it's actually something that we've been talking about recently because a search firm, with an executive search firm, the success or failure of the search isn't actually like the only thing that matters. In a contingent model it is, because if you don't do it, you don't get paid. That's what it is. But actually with a search business, you're helping the client or you're collaborating with the client to run a process that means that they have an understanding of what the best talent is in the market, and then they can make an informed decision as to whether they want to do that or not. And so taking them on that journey and giving them the choice is is what you're actually, they're actually paying for, which is why you're getting paid in different model, people doing different models, but in most models you're not being paid it purely on a success basis, but you're being paid on it on a service base basis. So it de-risks it from our perspective because we engage with the client to some degree, but it increases the risk because we have to provide a great level of service because the client's paying for it upfront. The main thing from our perspective is we have two, we have two 2 key things that we do with our clients, other than being a specialist in the market that we think helps, or probably 3 things. Number 1 is, we'll come onto it, but the model we operate on. So we have a separate delivery function. We, although some people in the business do 360, it's like a transition from sales to be 360 into having then a delivery team that supports you in your market. So having people who are purely dedicated to talking to candidates, for a particular search and doing the research is something that we do, which is different to probably a contingent business. Secondly, we utilize an assessment process which allows our clients' key stakeholders to analyze what they're looking for from the behavioral characteristics of the person that they want before they go to market. So what I mean by that is we get typically 4, but up to 6 of the key client stakeholders to conduct a really short online assessment. Of what type of person do you want in this role? So we might have the CEO, the CFO, the COO, the CHRO. Sometimes if it's a service-based business, we might even invite them to ask their client to actually put some insight in, or in private equity businesses, sometimes it's the investors put their perspective in. But it means everyone can give their viewpoint on what do they want. We then analyse that and we actually present that back to the client to say, look, these 3 people have really aligned. They want the same thing, but actually these 2 people want something completely different. And even though in our meeting, everybody said they want the same thing, we need to talk to them because otherwise they're looking for one type of person and actually what you want is the others. And that's where sometimes processes fall down. I'm sure you would know.

But these like characteristic things versus skills.

Yeah. These are purely behavioural-based. So they're not, we're not talking skillset at all here because in the roles that we recruit, we're not recruiting a, um, my knowledge is probably not so good of it because it was a long time ago, but, um, you know, C# or ASP.NET or whatever it might be. We're not recruiting technical individuals, whether you either you have the technical skill set or you don't. With us, it's very much about influence, it's about engaging, it's about stakeholder management. So it's much more about softer skills. So if we can see what that looks like up front, then we get a benchmark. We can talk to the client, we can make sure that we're aligned and bring people on the journey. And then every candidate we interview gets assessed by the same profiling tool between our first conversation with them and our second interview with them. And that tool assesses the candidate against the benchmark the client wants, and then it actually uses AI technology to create questions based upon that for us to dive into the things that actually matter and to see whether it would be a good fit or not. So, you know, if a candidate wasn't showcasing through the behavioural process the right leadership traits or the right people skills, we can ask questions on that because we know that's the key thing that they might be lacking. And that's a really important thing for our clients. We can provide them with those questions so that they can interview against it as well. So we're sort of recommending, here's a candidate, these are the positives, but these are the concerns, and this is what we recommend you question further. And then the final thing that we do is we offer a video shortlist tool. So in addition to sharing that CV and the notes and the profiling, the client can actually see and hear from the candidate before they meet them.

What are you doing, like the first stage?

Not us doing the first stage. We've done our interview. So once we get to our shortlist of 4 or 5 candidates that we think are Correct. We work with the client and say, okay, well, of these 5 candidates, we want you to create 2 questions that you want them to answer. And then the candidate online answers those questions. And then those questions are recorded and shared with the client. So those client— the client can actually see and hear from the candidates before they meet them. But that's only at shortlist stage. So we call it a video shortlist platform. And it's had transformative results for our clients. It speeds up the time to hire. It means that they The interview-to-placement ratios are better. From a candidate experience perspective, they can be their authentic self at home and know that if the client says yes, we have the statistics to show you're far more likely to be successful if you get through this round. So you don't have to go to an interview and within 5 minutes the interviewer knows you're not right for the role. You know you're not right for the role. It saves all of that. So it's really, really helpful for clients. And yeah, so they're paying for the service in addition to market mapping and what you'd expect that they see in research.

Yeah, that's such a great breakdown. I really appreciate sharing that. Yeah, so just, just quickly, um, if you don't mind sharing, that assessment piece, is that a white label product? Yes. Um, so we— you mind sharing who it is, or—

yeah, so it's, um, it's called McQuaig, um, and it's a, um, you can, you can purchase it off the shelf. We've adapted it, then you can like white label it, brand it up. Yeah, um, to us. But, um, but there's lots out there.

Yeah, there's so many out there. Well, we actually use— there's one inside Vincere called Vino.

Okay, nice. We We use Vimeo, so it's integrated, but Oddrow is the same. And, uh, I used to use Hinterview as well. Yeah.

So what I think you just described, which this has been like a recent thing that's come up in, um, one of our training sessions on successfully selling retained at Hector, and I think you broke it down really well. So I don't know what you think about— I don't know what you think about this, but, um, the way that the recruiter broke this down was when he went from a lot of the time doing contingent to now 100% only retained. He explained how you need to decide what problem you're solving. Are you solving the talent attraction problem or the talent assessment problem? I think what you just broke down there, all those bits that you've built, and I'm sure there's all— there's loads of little bits that you add that's solving this talent assessment problem. This is a different problem, isn't it? Yeah, that you're solving, because all of those bits that you've just added, I'm assuming here, but you're going to have the data that backs up that when you do make that hire the person being successful in that role still being with you is probably going to be much higher. There's a lot more science around like who you're hiring and why. So I really like that insight that these, all these people that are involved in making a decision, well, firstly, they're not, we're not all on the same page, right? And how often does that happen? I'm sure it happens a lot in organizations. So you're actually really helping them understand how they can be better at hiring, and you're actually, and you're then also helping them create assets. So like you've helped them create that whole recruitment process. That's something that maybe in the long term they're going to use without you, but they're thinking about in a different way, right? Yes. So I think you're solving an entirely different problem. Now on to the, on to the next bit then, which is when we think about recruiters selling a solution like this, the bigger, the, the one main difference bar mindset, which you can get into, that I've seen. So you can tell me what you think about this. Is recruiters that sell this effectively and work in this way have a two-stage sales process, or that they don't just try and get in front of you and say, I've seen that you're hiring, or they don't try and like pitch someone into a live job or whatever. Like they have a stage where they're trying to qualify stroke disqualify. That is the one major difference. I don't know how you feel about that, but that is the most consistent thing where they jump on and, you know, they're actively trying to speak to companies that aren't currently hiring. They're going, hey, just when you did last hire, talk me through it. How did you get on closing the people that you did want? Well, actually, we lost them to our competitors, or I don't know, whatever it may be that you're asking. But there's a bit before they start going, well, this is actually how I think we can help. I don't know how you think about that. That is the one thing that I've consistently seen.

I think it's true. I don't necessarily think it even has to be in two conversations. It could be in one conversation. My point of view with it, whenever I talk to somebody about it and they've not done it before, or they say, I really struggle to sell the retainer, right? Not so much mindset, but just the fact is you're not selling a retainer. Right. And I think that's the fundamental thing that I disagree with that language. If you're, I always think when you're selling someone something, it's probably because they don't want it or they don't understand the benefit. Actually what you are doing and what the best I think the best individuals do is you're not selling the retainer. What you're doing is you are understanding their problems as you've described. You understand what those pain points are and you're asking the right questions, which lead the only solution to those problems to be a retained search. Mm-hmm. So do you see the slight difference in mindset? It's not about, I'm just gonna shove in a retainer here. Mm-hmm. Which, don't get me wrong, first few I did, that was absolutely what it was like. Mm-hmm. But as you, as you learn to develop and you progress, you realize that actually it's about understanding the problem, asking the questions which under— uncover those issues. And because most situations are fairly similar, you know that the issues are because they're not doing a retained search, and therefore the retained search is the solution to the client's problems. But we've productized it, so we've got different levels of retain search. We have 4 different search, or we have 4 different permanent offerings of what we do. We call them set, select, search, and success. They go on a sliding scale from 22.5% up to 35%. And the client gets different things based upon which offering that they would, in which they would like. And based upon the conversation we have, the questions we ask, and the answers they give, we then recommend what the best solution is.

But I think with what you just said, when you're helping someone make that transition, how much of the questions is about the job?

It is about the job, but it's not about the traditional things that you would ask about a job. Where's it based? What it is? It's the questions that come before that. So, what challenges have you had when you've tried to recruit a role at this level in the past? They might not have ever recruited this role in the past. What challenges do you foresee that you're going to have? What would be the issue if, what would be the impact if you weren't to get this hire right? What's the internal appetite for this? Who do you have internally that you want to consider for this role, or at least give the opportunity to apply for this role? You're encouraging clients to think about internal talent and then they probably haven't. So then you sort of build that into your solution. Who's not going to be on board with the hire and why would they not be? Then you can talk about the stakeholder profiling to it. So we have a, we have a We have different, like, uh, cool, not scripts, but, um, uh, kind of, um, templates to take clients through where we're asking the questions, knowing what the likely outcome of the answers will be to be able to highlight why then that's the right solution for them.

We'll get back to the episode in just one minute, but today I'm excited to talk to you about one of our partners, Firefish, the recruitment CRM that accelerates data-driven growth. The problem with most recruitment CRMs is that they are just a database of records, meaning they become just one of the many tools that recruiters use every day. Like all systems, the records are only as good as the data being captured. Our sponsors Firefish know that for agencies to win faster, data needs to be at the heart of their business, making your CRM the single source of truth. With over 10,000 records created and updated every day and 85% of placements from existing candidates, Firefish enables recruiters to enrich and engage their data, equipping you with real-time insights needed to win faster. To learn more about Firefish and take advantage of an exclusive Recruitment Mentors Podcast offer, make sure you click the link in the show notes and mention the Recruitment Mentors Podcast when speaking to the Firefish team.

I mean, these, like, I— you wouldn't have heard me saying any of these questions when I was working in recruitment. That's the point though, but there's so many people in that same position It would be you're pitching someone, you're pitching like a job. Like I've placed like jobs like that with 3 other companies. Like it's all about that. That's what I think is the big unlock for people.

But that is a place in, there is a place in the market for that. Yeah, for sure. And clients and clients, the reason why I think that's become is clients, some clients want that. Some clients want the transactional recruitment. They don't want retained search. And we have, I have lots I talk to where they're like, I would never ever work a retained search. But the question I always ask is, or I don't ask them this directly, but every single company would work in that way. It's just that the need needs to be there and they need to understand the benefits as to why they should do it. And especially if it's a large company, don't tell me there's not a level in the organization that has recruited a retained search before. Of course they have, but it's probably at the level you're talking at hasn't, and they don't have the authority to. So you're probably pitching to the wrong person.

Yeah, no, I think that's— And then most people that I've spoken to, do you, I know it might vary, but typically have you done a third on commencement and the rest on completion?

So I said we have the three different service offerings. So we have, we call Set, which is contingent. We have Select, which is we charge 25% of our fee upfront and 75% on completion.

Yeah, so that'd be like that.

We have Search where we charge a third of the fee upfront and two-thirds on completion. Yeah. And then we have Success, which is our top tier service, which is like executive hiring. We actually do a 4-part fee model for that. And the final part is charged 3 months after the candidate started. Oh, interesting. Higher fee percentage, but the client's not paying actually until 3 months after the candidate's on board. So they've probably gone through their probation period and they're happy. And nobody cares about recruitment fee when it's a successful hire. The only time they care about recruitment fee is when it's unsuccessful. So if there's a return on investment, you can showcase that, then clients are much more willing to pay higher fees for the, I suppose, the kind of, uh, confirmation that they're going to be successful.

Yeah, I mean, there's so— I want to move on to the next bit, but there's so much there. Like, for me, if I was listening to this, I'd be thinking about, like, is your— like, have you productized your service? Like, these are all such, like, helpful things, um, and it may— it can make your life a lot more easier, um, and you can keep evolving them, right? That's the really cool thing about having your own business is, like, actually, this, this is something I think could be really valuable to companies like this because they keep telling us this is a struggle. And then you can add that in there. And yes, it's a consistent thing. But like, I think if I'm a recruiter listening right now and I work in an organization where I've had help having complete clarity on like the different products we have, why they would be more beneficial for someone depending on the circumstances they're in, like these are all things that really help recruiters that can perform better because Again, when I was in recruitment, I know there's still so many people like this, is like you're just trying to get terms signed and like work on that job. And again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I think at the very least it's just so helpful to actually really like package up these things and be able to articulate what your service and product is. Yeah.

But it's also this comfort, I think, for some people in contingent business because you don't have to deliver. The benefit of contingent business is you can walk away from that client at any time. You do have to think about what you actually want. If you go, if you, if you want to work on a retained search basis, which, you know, when I, when I listed out, you think, why would you not? The client wants to work in collaboration with you. They've paid you upfront. They're committing to only working with you. You're going to get access to the key stakeholders that you want to. You're probably going to get them to do some things that help the search process, like the behavioural assessment or whatever it might be. But in return, you can leave no stone unturned and you have to fill that job. Otherwise, your reputation's in tatters. So there's a, there's more, there's risk that gets shared between the client and the recruitment firm or the executive search firm in that one. When it's contingent, okay, a client can say, we're gonna work with you, we're gonna work with you exclusive. But like, do people really like, what are you gonna do, charge the client if they go and work with another agency? Like, of course you can't. So you could walk away anytime, they can walk away anytime. So it's almost like you have a get out of jail card if you work contingent because you don't have to fill it. And I think sometimes some recruiters don't want the pressure, you know, the pressure of having to deliver where your neck's on the line, because if you don't deliver, they're probably never going to work with you.

That's definitely part of it for sure. Yeah. So tell me about Tom then. Why— I really like this— leaders should always have an advisor or someone they can learn from. Like, that's something that he was really passionate about. Yeah. Tell me about, um, your journey of, uh, working with Tom, how you went about that, because I speak to a lot of founders, you know, we— that's— this is part of when we connected, right? Yeah. Like, I'd love to be able to work with someone that has achieved something that I'm trying to achieve, that's been in my shoes. Just talk to me a bit about your mindset around here of like getting advice or being motivated to have that.

Yeah, so, um, I've always, I've always asked for and got advice from people more senior than me, uh, because I've, you know, it's fundamental. Every, every recruiter really on their first day, there's any good anyway I found, that does that. They go and sit with the big billers, find out what they've done, and it's just a of evolution of that, I suppose. So in my first business, I'd always want to spend time with the top billers, understand what they did. When I joined my last business, Simon Bliss, who ran the business, I spent a lot of time with him understanding his mindset and how he wasn't a recruiter, but he had run lots of businesses. And I learned a huge amount from him and respect a lot about his ability to grow a business. So when I set up GS2, I was looking at it and thought, okay, what have I done and what do I have the capability to do. So I've helped grow and scale a business up to 45 people. We've achieved a, you know, an exit of 7 figures at a good multiple. I've grown a business that's got permanent contracts. Like I can do those things. So I think I could do the same again by myself because just naturally, although I wasn't responsible for all of it, I know enough. But if I really want to take this to the next level and I want to grow something that's got value and I want to do it again at a bigger scale, then I need to be able to, and I need to surround myself with people who have done that so that I can learn from them. So I had 3 like main criteria. Number 1, the person needed to have sold their business in the last 2 years. I didn't want someone that sold it 20 years ago and was telling people about what to do now because, you know, it's not so relevant. Although I respect people that have done it, of course. Number 2, I wanted someone that sold it for over 10 million because otherwise, again, although our business sale wasn't 10 million, it wasn't, it is not so much more that would make me think that, okay, well they've done so much more than me. And number 3, I wanted them to be under, I can't remember if it's 45 or 50, because I think Tom's older than 45, but it was under 50. And again, nothing against people that would be older than that. And there's some great recruits out there that of course are, but I wanted someone that had the energy and the enthusiasm for life still and could do that. And I was quite far down the road with somebody who I respect a lot. And I was training for the London Marathon and I listened to the RAG podcast as well. I remember it was one of my long runs and I just put it on and I'd heard of LHI before and I'd heard of the business, but I'd never really understood. I'd never heard about Tom's proper, his story. And I listened to the podcast. I don't know if you listened to it, but it's an amazing episode. And he, I had to stop running and put it back on again to listen to it as I was still on my run. And I was like, I've got to talk to this guy. It sounds incredible. Like from being in the attic with a 10K student loan, playing a tape recorder over and over of him and his mates talking to pretend that he had people in his office to create, living in the office he was in and drilling holes through the wall to be able to expand his office to his actual place he was living in to be able to get more people in. Like he's just really entrepreneurial guy and really funny story. So yeah, I just hounded him basically on LinkedIn. He's terrible on LinkedIn, email. And then one evening on a Monday, he came back to me and said, I'm flying back in. I think it was in Germany. I'm flying back in. Wednesday, do you want to meet me? And I went and met him and pitched him and yeah, just felt that he could add a lot of value to the business. So he's an advisor to me. We meet once a month for a board meeting and then every week we have a call to talk through business performance. And I just think you want to surround yourself with people that have done what you want to do. And even if, you know, I don't take everything he says literally, but there's a lot, there's so many lessons that I learned from just talking to him and being around him that I can apply that help me with the business and grow forward. So I would give that advice to anyone, particularly if you're a solo founder. Yeah. Why wouldn't you want to? And for, you know, the cost of it, or even just going for coffees with people that have done it, you know, people are probably willing to give a lot of time.

It's like just like a monthly fee that you've got set up as an— Yeah. Yeah.

With a view for him to invest, but some parameters for me to achieve as a business to make sure the business is resilient for him to then come and invest and be part of the journey. And what have been some of the—

how long you've been working with him now?

Uh, so it was, I think it was about April last year, so over a year now. What have been—

this is what people want to know, like, what have been— if we were to look at the early period, because you clearly had some expectations, otherwise you wouldn't have been persistent. Yeah. So, you know, when those first few calls and that, I'm sure you was like, right, what, what silver bullets has he got for me? What, like, golden nuggets has he got? What were some of those early things that have stuck with you? Like, what are the stuff that actually stuck with you that he maybe said that might have actually would have been counter your perspective, or maybe things that you maybe—

I think a few key metrics to focus on. Um, so, um, like, how do you, how do you know when it's time to grow? Um, knowing like the parameters of what that looks like. So we're focused, we focus on whiteboard per head per month. So booked business per head per month. And essentially we have a kind of rule. If it's under 10K overall for the company, then it's not growth mode. If it's between 10 and 12.5, then it's— well, 10 and 15, but 10 and 12.5, it's sort of questionable, but if you're the right person, would probably do it. If it's between 12.5 and 15, then we're pretty likely to do it. And if it's over 15, then we're not growing headcount quick enough. So we're monitoring that on a day— on a So on a monthly basis and then assessing on average per head. Average per head. Yeah. Nice. Love that. All heads in the business, not just salespeople. So we look at that. That's a great little dashboard. That's pretty easy metric to look at.

I'm assuming that's off of a lot of failed attempts of hiring too much when maybe they shouldn't have.

I mean, he's, yeah, his story would tell it all, but he's done everything. He tried it, tried, failed.

Yeah. Nice. Love that.

Tried it so many times. I think that's number 1. Number 2, to actively track internal first interviews. Most businesses track client interviews that they're, or CV sent and first interviews for their clients, but they don't track how many internal interviews am I doing? And it's like, for your business, for your own business. And to go back to the point of people are being the number one asset, like that's all that you need. Recruitment. If you've got the best people in recruitment, forget strategy, forget a vision. Like, oh, you need a vision to get the people. But once you've got the people, if you've got the best people, they'll take you to the places that you want to be. So the only thing really as the leader of the business you want to be focusing on is ensuring that you have the right people in the business in the right roles and that you are creating the environment for them to thrive. Because if they do, then their teams will, and that's how it goes.

So what's a good month number of interviews? What's, what is he expecting of you?

Well, it's obviously, it depends on how big you are and what that looks like and also where you are on that growth, on that growth journey. But Like to give you an idea, when we weren't assessing it, it could be as low as like 2. And now we are trying to make sure that we are sort of 15, 20+ every month that we are interviewing people. And that might not be that we are hiring anyone, but we just want to constantly be talking to the market. Who do we, who do they know that might be right? It, understanding what other companies are doing, you know.

And is the tracking of that to help you understand? You're probably like, how do you expect to get the best people if you're nowhere near the amount, you know, you're not meeting nowhere near the amount of people? Yeah. Well, yeah, it's probably not something that many people track at all. It's just like quite ad hoc, maybe a bit reactive. Exactly. I haven't got a TA person.

And everybody says they want to grow in recruitment, but then they spend, okay, I'll spend, I'll spend 30 minutes on a Friday afternoon, like sending a few LinkedIn messages and then stop. Like it's a constant thing. You've got to spend more time on that probably than you are with your clients in order to make sure that you're successful. So I think that's probably number 2. And what would I say is number 3? That's a practical thing that he's Implemented, um, having the mindset of always trying to replace yourself in every role you're in. So knowing the role you're in and knowing it's for a fixed period of time, you're solving some solutions and then you're moving on to get out the way of, to get the other people going through. And I think that's the bit we are, we are at now is trying to create the infrastructure so that we can keep elevating people up. So if I'm the biggest biller right now, then I need, we need to make sure that there's 2 or 3 people that are doing that. And then if it's, I'm running the biggest team right now, well then that team needs to have somebody within it that comes and looks after that. And then it's, if I'm running the country right now, then I need someone to step and run the country. Then if it's, I'm running the region. So you are always put, I'm always pushing into the new role, but then I always want to be thinking about, okay, well who's gonna replace me in that role so that I can move on and hiring better people than you to do the things that they're responsible for.

What I really like about that as well is like, it's, so much easier, I feel like, when that person is in that role to manage and also when you're selling it, if you've done it.

Yeah. Because if you haven't done it, then people can be a bit like, well, what do you, what do you, what do you know about this? But you have to build resilience into your business, otherwise it's not a recruitment business. And I think too many businesses, and I have to admit, like, we're still on this journey, but are relying on one or two big billers to pay everything, pay for everyone else and to do that. And that's not a business really. You might as well not have everybody else. You might just have that and make more money. So how do you build that resilience in? And that's something that he's so focused on and he's not in the detail at all. Probably the fourth thing is to not get so stressed. Like, I don't know if he would say this, but he just doesn't get stressed about things. They could have the worst thing going on in the world, but no one would know. And I think I'm probably somebody who gets quite stressed about little things and I'm trying to learn to like not get so stressed because ultimately it's going to pass and you need to just make sure you're doing the right thing and moving forward. So yeah.

And then if we were to break down like the one thing that you're, you're just sharing it now, but the like with Tom's help this year trying to really break the million mark GP-wise, get close to that 2 million GP, what's like the one thing that you're really doubling down on that you think is one of the highest leverage things that you guys can do as a business that can help you get there? Yeah, I think it's the people.

If you don't have the people to build, then you don't have the people that are going to make the money. So, you know, I can we can try and get, of course we can get 20, 30% out of more of everybody else and that could get you there, but you're still then not scaling up. So it is a fine balance. You need to make sure that you've got, that you're getting as much as you can out of the people that you have. But at the same time, you have to keep talking to the market because you never know when that great person's going to come through. And I think being open-minded to that and having the cash available to be able to make that move at the time you need to. But people come first. And I think that's the thing. Lots of amazing business strategists have amazing strategies of what they want to do or plans of what they want to do. And then something happens, I don't know, COVID, and then that all goes out the window. And if you've got the best people during COVID then I'm sure those businesses are okay. If you've got an amazing strategy, but not the best people, you're going to fail.

I know it's easy to say, isn't it? But best people, these things, but it's like, do your actions match up with really doing everything you can to get the best people? Um, it is like just such an important part of the recipe, isn't it? Yeah.

And it's so competitive, you know, how hard is it to get these people? And no, we haven't spoken about it much, but the 360 model, the reason why I think the 360 model is really tough to replicate is because it's really hard to be great at 360, like be great at sales and to be great at delivery and find the right candidates and to be on top of it all. And you know, you find superstars that can do that, of course, but I think it's easier to find people that are really good at one or the other. And then help them be as good as they can at that. And that's more scalable. You're more likely to find more people like that. So that's why I think that having it separated in the most part should allow you to scale a bit quicker.

Love it. Well, thanks so much for coming on. I think really cool what you're building, the way that you're building it. I just love the mindset you have around— I just love that story around being persistent with Tom and getting help. And then I really like how you've been really smart with how you've positioned things, the service, the product. So I'm really excited to see where you are in another 2 years' time.

Yes, nice one. Well, thanks for having me and good to do it. We'll do it again soon.