The Headhunting Blueprint: Adam's Proven Strategies for Landing Top Talent For Hard To Fill Roles

Adam Jennings, he's an account director at Add Some Zest and he's worked in recruitment for nearly 8 years.

These people are a representation of me, so I need to make sure they are actually representing me and where I want to go.

Over the past 18 months, he has played a pivotal role in ensuring Zest hold 100% fill rate and a 90+ NPS score. Here's what you're going to learn in this week's episode: the process from start to finish Adam uses whenever he is instructed on those challenging, hard-to-fill roles.

When they go to an agency, it They don't tend to go with, here's 3 account managers, no new business, just find us a really good account manager. They go, we need a really good new business person to come in there and target a niche vertical in a niche location, whatever it might be, right?

First principles on all things candidate engagement and candidate attraction.

No one's gonna refer someone if they didn't think they did a good job or didn't like the person, didn't like the engagement of some sort.

So how to effectively sell your job opportunities to passive talent.

Going into the call, what is a win for the recruiter on this call? What is the outcome?

The reality is why Adam is so passionate about delivering an outstanding experience throughout the recruitment process and how he goes about it.

I was very picky and very selective searching candidates, really looking at their profile, really being diligent about it. And yeah, I think naturally it just, it just ended up coming on my plate.

Let's get into this week's episode. Adam, welcome to the pod.

Thanks for having me, Hishem Azzouz.

Uh, a lot that we want to talk about. With this. A couple of things that we're excited to get into is a lot on, on the candidate side, really. I think, uh, when I was speaking to your, your team around, you know, what do they think Adam is world-class at, a lot of them said that they would— if there was a really hard-to-fill role, they'd bet their life on that Adam could fill it, right? So I think what we're gonna, you know, get into here and what we're excited to get into things like candidate experience. How can we, one, uh, really improve that? And what things have you done to, to improve that? Why it's important. Uh, I think also how has Adam got good at engaging passive talent who, uh, may be content in their roles to be willing to speak with you, engage with you about the opportunities that you have. And then also, I think something that a lot of recruiters do that potentially they might overlook, or when did they last think about how can I become even better at doing this activity, which is like selling our clients, selling our— the job opportunities. And I'm sure there's gonna be a few other things that we're gonna get into as well. Yeah, but I guess bit of a— bit of a highlight reel then for people. Let me know if I get any of this wrong, but being in the recruitment industry for nearly 8 years— be 8 years this year.

Yep, correct.

Uh, obviously was one organization for a solid 6, 6 years. Um, went on the classic, uh, progression journey there, and then in Jan 2023 joined, uh, Zest, uh, with Callum. And since then, let me know if any of this is, is wrong, um, but I think the things that I thought was really great— so in that time you've worked with 26 customers, 100% fill rate, um, NPS I've got here 75.

Uh, NPS for last year was 89. 89. And, um, this year I think it's tracking about 92, 93 across.

Yeah, so I've got that totally wrong.

Sorry.

Um, and then, uh, best billing year to date, 215K. Um, and yeah, so like, let— I guess let's sort of dive, dive into this. And your, your world has always been perm, right?

Always perm, other than a very brief 6 months of, um— I started my career before Robertson Sumner doing 6 months of actually bus driver recruitment, so temporary, cutting my teeth. Very much transactional, bums on seats, excuse the pun there. And then since then, yeah, 6, 7 and a half years perm now.

So why don't we just start with like, why when I ask your colleagues like, what do you think they'd say that you're world-class at? Like, why do you think they go to Adam is exceptional at filling hard-to-fill roles? Like, let's start there. Like, why do you think your colleagues describe you that way?

I think, so Aaron and Callum and Charlie have all worked for me for the bulk of that career. Aaron and Charlie, sorry, Aaron and Callum have done 7.5 years, right? And I think naturally at Robertson Sumner, I think a lot of the guys were doing channel sales recruitment. So a lot of them were kind of in the similar market. So distributors, IT resellers, MSPs, and so on. I naturally didn't want to do that. I wanted to do the vendor space. So I joined and did fully new business in my first year. Did pretty well, but again, I was pretty, rough around the edges, to be honest with you, Hishem. So onboarded probably 10 customers that year, but billings-wise maybe 50, 60K. So not, not loads, but I think at the time we had a bit of an engine to win vacancies. And if it was like a distributor, it'd be given to Aaron. If it was a reseller, it'd be given to Jack or Mark or whoever it might have been. And I naturally wanted to move away from that because I just found them a little bit transactional, a little bit kind of samey. So I went after the vendor space. In the vendor space, I think naturally we were picking up quite difficult roles to fill. When they go to an agency They don't tend to go with, here's 3 account managers, no new business, just find us a really good account manager. They go, we need a really good new business person to come in there and target a niche vertical in a niche location, whatever it might be, right? And that naturally kind of fell to me. So I think it's evolved with reputation, um, from probably filling multiple roles in different regions over the years. And I think they've both worked for me for a long period. And, um, I think if I naturally peel that back when I joined recruitment, I think some of the traits that I maybe had weren't your traditional traits of a recruiter. Like, if you did like a psychometric test of me and Aaron, probably very different. He's very erratic, fast-paced, and so on. I was a bit more methodical and process-driven and so on. So I think the two combined, where I looked at the process and thought, let's do this a little bit differently, let's, um, be really stringent about who I speak to, what I speak to them about. And I had the nickname of being super picky, and I still got it right. And I thought particularly at the start, I really cared about— I'm not saying I don't do now, but I think these people are a representation of me, so I need to make sure they are actually representing me and where I want to go. So super picky. That pre-aligns to hard, hard to fill role. We need someone very good at it and we need someone to actually run a process to an adequate level. And that naturally kind of fell to me, I think, during that time.

Yeah, fair. Now I get— yes, it's very easy to not be picky, isn't it, in recruitment?

100%. I think particularly at the beginning, right, you bring on and Robson Sumner did a lot of, um, sort of lower level roles at the time, you know, telesales, SDR sort of thing. So some of that is throwing, throwing people at a wall and see what sticks, right? You know, it could be lower level fees. And I think naturally, as we evolved and as we started doing bigger fees, and me personally starting doing bigger fees, you realize the quality has to be there. You can't just send Joe Bloggs, who's not that good, to go get a £75 grand basic role where you need to be on the top of your game. So those sort of roles naturally came to me coupled with the fact that I was very picky and very selective and stringent on the back end, that kind of searching candidates, really looking at their profile, really being diligent about it. And yeah, I think naturally it just, it just ended up coming on my plate, which fortunately, he said, it's led me pretty well.

Curious to hear your thoughts on, on this then. Uh, I don't know if you found yourself helping people with this who are early on in your, early on in their career, but how, what, what's the line between being like too picky. And because I feel like when you start— casting you back a bit here— I always remember like when you start, you're looking for reasons not to like call someone or tell someone about a position or try and speak to them, right? So I understand the quality piece, but I think the more and more people that I've interviewed, I think, no, when you're early on, you have to really dial up the quantity because that's how you figure out the quality.

Yeah, yeah.

But then the best recruiters that I interviewed, I feel like they dial up the quantity and the quality, right? That's what you're able to do. Like, you were able to do a search, do the reps that you need to, but you're combining that with, with quality, right? Right. How, how do we, how do we think about that for people listening that maybe, I don't know, maybe, yeah, their, their manager's pushing them a bit? It's like, Adam, like, you've only sent one CV to this job, or I don't know. How do you think about, how do we determine the line of like, Adam's being too picky and too focused on that? Do you know what I mean?

If you ask Callum 7 years ago, that was a We used to butt heads about it all the time. 100%, right? Literally won't speak to people, won't send people and so on. And say wouldn't speak to people is the wrong word. And I think it takes a time to know what a good candidate looks like. At the beginning, I remember pushing candidates to other people. Aaron, I've just read this candidate. I think he's really good for your role and he's a bit more experienced than me and saying he's probably not good, but I think he was quite good, right? So there's probably a grace period where if someone is listening and they're in that first year, you do need to speak to the market, right? Because if I went and did finance recruitment, I don't know what makes a good finance candidate within reason, right? If they can articulate themselves and so on. But the actual background, do I know? So my advice would be speak to the market, understand what's good. And then obviously once you start working with customers and I think at the start I used to say to a lot of businesses, you know, the first 3 CVs I might send you might be a bit of a trial and error. You know, I don't know you, Hishem. I don't know the background of your business and so on. I don't really know the people you're looking for. If I send 3 different types of profiles and you say number 2 is bang on and number 1 is nowhere near a number 3, could be a match, and so on. Like, you start to get a bit more of a feel for it. So it does depend on the customers you're working with. But to get a feel for the market, you need to speak to the market. So my advice would be in that instance, don't be too selective about who you're talking to. Be selective about who you're sending.

Who you're sending. Yeah, fair. No, that's good advice. So why don't we just start with that? And I thought what would be really cool is why don't we go on a bit of a journey on like Adam today is instructed in what would be perceived in his team a hard-to-fill role, right? You're— the likelihood of, uh, the person that's gonna get this job is someone that is probably not actively on the job market. Yeah, they are. Yeah, maybe let's just say fairly content. Uh, maybe not like, you know, going home every day going, I absolutely love my job. Yeah, you know, they're, they're fairly happy with where they are. Um, and you know you're gonna have to tap into, you know, people that um, yeah, like I said, might be a bit reluctant to speak about a new opportunity, right? So I guess, like, what— like, let's just break down this process, really. When, when Adam thinks about working on a hard-to-fill role, like, where, where does— you know, you said you're very methodical. Like, where does the process start?

Where does it start?

Yeah, from— I guess if we were to put— let's just, let's just say you've done the good quality job briefing, you've got— you've done all of that, that stuff. And it's now like, right, I've got everything that I need from the client. You've done all the consulting. I don't think the salary is right. I don't think your employee benefits are right. I don't think your process is right. Let's sort of get all that sorted. You're now going to market. Like, where, where does the process start for you? Let's break this down.

Yeah, and as I say, I'll quickly touch on that, that profiling part to start with. I think, and again, you've obviously highlighted there, but that's super key, right? Really finding out why the job's around, why it's a potential hard role to fill, right? Why have they not filled it so far? Where have they struggled before? And so on, you know, what's your what are your absolute must-haves and what's your nice-to-haves and so on. You need to have that information before you start. So when you're doing the candidate piece, you can obviously refer back to that. So I think that's, that's really key. But then I suppose we've done that part, we've done profile one, so we've spoken to the customer, we know exactly what we're doing. Then my process from that point, let's say it's a market I haven't really done before. So we're talking about a really hard field. So we've just landed a new role in pharmaceutical tech, right? And I've never done that before, hypothetically. First up, I would be research, right? So look at, look at the market, whether that's a Gartner Magic Quadrant report, maybe that's a G2 report, whatever it might be, right? So I know where the customer wants me to find these people from. Let's do a bit of research. Let's find out who the leaders are in this space, who are the challengers, and so on. Where are the regions they're at? What's our addressable market of people, right? So now we've lined up what we need to find, and we find out where we're going to find them in theory. So looking at these businesses, my next port of call would be to look if I have any mutual connections, any excuse to speak to someone that will pick up my call or knows Adam Jennings. We'll just say Hishem, I've just called you out of the blue. I know I haven't spoken to you in a year or so. Hopefully we worked on that role a few years back. You might remember me, whatever it might be. I've just picked up this new role. I wonder if I could pick your brains and so on for two reasons. Number one, I'm not in the market, you are. And if I could do a bit of education on the space and so on and see exactly where would be good hunting ground for this. Number two, have you heard of this business? This is my client and so on. If I, you know, if I know this candidate, have they got a good rep in the market? Have they got a bad rep? You know, this is the salary they're paying. Is that completely way off? Like, again, goes back to the point we spoke originally, is, you know, understanding the market is speaking to the market, right? So try and collect as much information as possible. If I have a mutual connection there, see where they will lead you, see if they can ask for any referrals. You know, who was the best salesperson you've worked with in this sort of space? Can they lead me anywhere? Can they just get me somewhat closer to bullseye, I suppose, or at least educating me? So now we've got the job briefing from the customer, I've done my research and I've had a bit of insight, market knowledge from someone that I potentially know or trust or so on. So that's 3 parts there.

Love that. What, just quickly, because I'm sure people will be thinking it like, what if you don't have—

if you don't have one, obviously that, that you can't do that, that step, right? So that, that will be the ideal one if you have someone in there. So I'd think about even if it's friends, colleagues, people in my network, people that I've worked with on someone, just to try and get any inside information. Because like, hypothetically, if I, if I didn't know you, for example, but we were friends and I wasn't in the industry, you would better tell me so much about the recruitment space. Yes, we pals from another industry, right? So anything about that, if you don't have a step 3, you need to eradicate.

Have you found it— have you, have you found— because I'm sure you've done it in moments in your career, but have you actually found it pretty effective? I don't know how many people you've asked for like help, or would you be against like me picking your brain with people that you haven't connected with before? Have you ever tried that or done that?

As in completely cold?

Yeah, as in like that, you know, that part 3. If you don't have any mutual connections, anyone in your network, have you actually ever, um, yeah, reached out to like, oh hey Adam, like haven't spoken before, um, I was hoping you might be able to help. I don't know if you've ever tried that, if that's actually been effective or not.

I think if you haven't got part 3 to start with, I end up doing it in part 4, is the truth. So, so we'll go to part 4 then. So say we haven't got a part 3, part 4 then. So then I would start the search essentially. So you're looking at probably a very— and I go as close as bullseye to the possible on LinkedIn Recruiter to be my number 1, right? So let's do a really in-depth recruiter search to find out, you know, job titles, companies, where they worked, keywords, and so on, starting at bullseye and then kind of letting things go periodically to get it a bit more wider, wider, wider, until eventually we have a certain number— depends on how niche the role is, right? But a decent number of candidates to go after, right? So let's say we end up with 25 candidates. 5 of them look absolutely bang on, 10 of them look decent, 15 could be in the space, but that doesn't mean they're not going to be useful in the research and the search. So now we send out 25 bespoke messages. Let's say we get a response rate of just under 50%. So let's say we have 12 conversations. In that, you're going to get a mix of a couple on the bullseye, couple a bit further down, and a couple of them that could be decent. So I think going back to point 3, definitely while you're on the call, I think if you have a good conversation with someone, and I'm speaking to someone that isn't my direct, um, you know, sort of usual ICP that I'm talking to and so on, but you've had a 15-20 minute briefing call, you've gone through their background, you've explained the opportunity, I'd openly say, look, to be honest with you, Hishem, this isn't really my space, you know. I don't know if you can educate me a little bit more, you know. I'm naturally a tech sales recruiter. My vertical is wellbeing software, for example. We're dealing in a very different market. You might not be quite right, or you might be right, but I don't know if there's anything else you can give me. I think doing that, showing not vulnerability, but showing a little bit of, can you help me out, um, goes a long way. And a live example, probably last month or so, I did my first role in the UAE. So I've never worked in Dubai before, didn't have any network, maybe know a few friends who live there, right, but don't know no one, none in it sales. So did exactly that, that process. So I knew, knew the market, cybersecurity, kind of to a degree. I knew, I knew cybersecurity, but then I had to research Who are the big players in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and so on? Like, who is in this sort of space? Wrote all of that out, found out, you know, who potentially could be a good fit. Didn't have any of number 3, right? Didn't have any, any mutual connections there. So did the search, had, I don't know, maybe 30 people that came up in it. The response rate was really good for whatever reason, right? Ended up probably having 25 conversations. But naturally throughout that, everything I said to them, again, I understand cybersecurity, so I can talk the same language. But I'd openly say, to be honest with you, Hishem, I honestly never work in Dubai. I don't know if you can give me any insight into who's actually doing well out here, who's an emerging vendor, who's your IT distributor that brings emerging vendors to market? Can you give me any insight? And some of the referrals, the guy that I have off the stage was from a referral.

Yeah, that's class. So if you say that to me, what was the typical response that you you got, I'd be interested to hear. Was it like, yeah, of course, Adam, like, happy to help? Or like, actually, yeah, this is what probably says it. Like, what is the typical reception to like when you, when you do that? Because I think that's, that's really smart.

I think it's pretty high, but again, it's using emotional intelligence when to ask that, right? If I have a 5-minute blitz of a candidate and they are not right for the role and I've wasted their time, and then say, can I have 5 minutes of your time, and it's been pointless, right? But if I have a good conversation with a sales manager out there, and I'm also looking for a pre-sales manager. They should be a really good fit for the role. Just out of interest, I'm also looking for your equivalent on the technical side. I don't know if you have any recommendations or someone, anyone you can, you can put forward. That's literally what, what kind of happened, and they gave me a name and they were kind of bang on. So there's two ways of doing it, you know. You've obviously got to give them value, right? It's always a two-way street. If they're not right for the role, have you got any other opportunities? Potentially so. Or Or can I just take a little bit of your time just to kind of pick your brains on something? I think naturally if you're a nice person and you've done it, you've approached it in the correct way and given them some value, I think most people will give you a bit of time or something. And even if it's 2 minutes, right? You get 2 minutes from 24 people, suddenly you've got quite a bit of knowledge and so on.

And what can be value that isn't a job? Because you, I'm assuming, didn't have, you're not leading with like, oh yeah, I've got like loads of jobs and clients in Dubai or whatever, right?

Yeah.

So how did you think about that? Or how is it literally just, advice or like, oh, that's interesting, you're the fourth person that said this, this is what I've heard from the other people I spoke to, you know what I mean? What can that value like? Because I think some recruiters get caught up on that. It's like, how can I give this person value if I haven't got loads of clients? And some people even lie about that, right? Which I just don't really rate that approach. No, like sometimes people are unsure on like, what, what can I give someone if I haven't got live opportunities and, you know, a list of like the best clients in that space?

100%. Yeah, I think, um, in that scenario, I think the more conversations you have, the more value you can kind of give. Conversation 1, if they want loads of value about the current salaries at other vendors in Dubai, I would have been guesstimating. But I think as you do more conversations, the more you can kind of pick up, okay, well, this business are offering this, and they're offering this as a benefit. Oh, actually, in Dubai they're offering a housing benefit and a child benefit because there's no taxation and it's so competitive and so on. So you naturally pick up. So I think to give value to people that aren't a direct fit for the job will be competitive insight or using my knowledge. That could be CV advice, it could be interview tips, it could be a whole host of different things. You know, how are you finding your search? Oh, I've applied for 20 jobs, I'm not getting anywhere. Okay, let's, let's peel that back a little bit. And why, why are you not getting there? What, what is your process when you apply? Do you just hit apply on LinkedIn and don't follow up with a message? Do you, do you do this? Do you do that? Um, okay, well now I've got a few mutual connections and so on, potentially I can maybe introduce you for free. You know, I don't do loads of work in Dubai, but I actually have spoken to someone that could be a good fit from another security vendor, hypothetically, right? So I think connecting those dots, it does come with, with time, the more conversation you have.

But I think that's great, that's great advice. Yeah, because there are things that you should be able to offer at least advice on, right?

100%. And I think recruiters take for granted how much knowledge we can pass on and know just from purely how many Exactly how many people I've interviewed, I wouldn't even want to know.

It's like a good— is a good— this is a great example, by the way. So is it a good tactic then with this example to start with people that are open to work on LinkedIn? Because like surely those people are more likely to have conversations with you where then, yeah, it can be a lot more both ways.

Yeah, probably in that scenario, right? If you're doing a completely new territory that you've never done before, the likelihood you probably want to— unfortunately in that scenario, right, there was quite a few people that were open to work. Yeah. And I think it's competitive space, and I think a lot of cyber companies are wanting to go out there for whatever reason, right? I think, again, I know Microsoft and AWS have just opened data centers out there, right? So it's a really booming market. So more people were probably receptive. Maybe there's less recruiters targeting Dubai versus London. So a whole host of factors. But I suppose the answer to your question, starting with people who are open to work, more receptive ways to get those data points. Exactly, exactly.

And then, um, what I was going to say, so just on the you being smart with the, like, German, if I pick your brains, or the referral piece. Again, people would have heard this, but are you doing it is the thing, right? And then have you found it the best way for that to turn into something? Is that person doing an email intro? Are you like, what are you saying to them? Hey Adam, do you mind? You know, you've just mentioned that person. Are you like against me personally reaching out to them and saying like, hey, Adam mentioned your name, thought you could be great for this role? Like, what have you found to be the best way to like really make sure actually that isn't just a name that someone gives you and then you never actually end up speaking to them?

Of course, yeah, yeah. And I think, um, I think that, you know, there's multiple ways you can do it, and I think the reality is there isn't a one-size-fits-all, right? I think it's a conversation with you and the potential candidate at the time, right? So for example, I'm speaking to a pre-sales manager. Do you know any senior sales reps in Dubai that with a cybersecurity background and so on? Yes, I do. Okay, well, either can I mention your name and just you give me their details and go into inbox, just been referred to you as a top salesperson in the UAE, can I reach out? Or can we just make a quick LinkedIn group as a three to say hello and then you leave so I save your inbox or so on? So like, either be a bit forefront, as in, can you do this for me and will you do this for me now? Or can I reference your name and do you guys— candidate A and candidate B, what's your rep— what's your, um, relationship like? You know, if I mention Callum Lyle to any candidate that he's recommended me and I've worked with Callum, or vice versa, I'm obviously going to take the message, isn't it?

Because I know there's more credibility there.

Exactly, exactly that.

Okay, so step 1, research, try and understand the landscape of, like you said, the competitive landscape, company landscape. That, that's, that's really smart. Then 2, like you said, get close to bullseye as possible, do the, the, uh, nice— yeah, get the recruiter search up. Or is it— no, you're checking your network first?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so network, have you got any mutual connections? Is there anyone that you can speak to to see if they might be able to help?

Yeah.

Um, if you, uh, don't have that, uh, then you obviously get on to the next step, which is, yeah, 3, do your search, but be really stringent with it. Like, get— start with as close to like what your client wants as possible and then build out from there, pretty much. And then, yeah, we can start, uh, approaching these people. Well, should we get into that then? Because like, I'm sure people are gonna be thinking, how does Adam approach 30 people and 25 people come back? Do you know what I mean? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that don't experience that.

Yeah, yeah.

So what— why don't we— what— because I think now we're getting into like how can people get better at selling their opportunities? So why don't we just start with like Adam's perspective on like first principles towards engaging with someone online, right? So I've got my search and I'm gonna— like you said, a personalized message. Like, what are the first principles around that for you? Because I think it'd be very fair to say that that is one of the most noisiest places for these people, right, in terms of like LinkedIn as a whole. Especially if they're open to work as well, right? They're probably going to get even more hounded or their message is going to be, you know, so you're— what I'm saying is your message could very easily get lost in the noise.

Yeah.

So talk, talk to us a bit about before we get into like actually, Adam, I know you might say that you sell the opportunity in this message, you may not, but what are the first principles around turning that 30 people in that search? What can we do to have the best chance of these people actually coming back to us?

I think, I think it really comes down to knowing your market and being able to talk about challenges in the market. So it kind of goes back to if I was targeting finance people, for example, I have no idea the pains they're experiencing, the challenges in their market and so on. So I think starting off knowing the space and knowing the sorts of individuals, if you've interviewed 200 people in cybersecurity and understand that API security is the next big thing, for example, sort of tailoring that. So, um, so I think start, starting with knowing your market, right? So if you're in a specific niche, which most recruiters will be, right, that's going to be key. Thinking about, you know, kind of getting a good response rate. I think people, you know, depends on type of recruitment. If you're sending 100 messages out, it's impossible to do it bespoke, and to a degree, unless you're going to spend all day doing it, right? So I think try and keeping it bullseye to start with and slower on the messages out, even if it takes you a little bit longer, but actually get it a bit more bespoke per message. Someone messaged me direct to rec and they actually took the time to say, I see you at Robertson Sumner for 6 years and now you've joined Zest. Love some of the content you guys are putting up. I would at least respond with something. You know, if they say here's 100K basic and you want to join this and you're a sales manager, it's irrelevant to me. You've never spoken to me and that is clearly a broadline message, right? So I think getting the response rate as high as possible, personalization, knowing the market and knowing the points to sell on. And that's always a difficult one, right? Because you haven't spoken to these individuals. Someone might be purely interested in money, someone might be purely interested in progression and development and so on. So I think if you take a bit of time to look at their career trajectory, for example, some of the customers they work with, or some of the businesses, sorry. So if they've gone from a, I don't know, a 10,000-employee cybersecurity vendor and then they've just joined a startup, for example, like first man on the ground, what's this message going to entail? They're probably looking for that kind of different environment. They're looking for a new challenge. Maybe they're looking to IPO, they're looking to grow. Whatever it might be. So I think research of the profile, not making it too broad, and knowing the market, again, would be 3 things I would start with.

Whilst you take a short break, I wanted to take a moment to chat to you about one of our amazing partners, Sourcewell, the industry-leading recruitment engagement platform. I'm using myself, and I don't know what I would do without it. From building personalized messaging cadences across a variety of channels to automating follow-ups and data tracking straight back into my CRM. It's really made an impact in streamlining my workflow and most importantly, accelerating my sales results. My favourite feature by far is the live feed. By being able to see in real time who's engaging with your campaigns, it enables me to prioritise my outreach with the most engaged prospects, which helps me get way more out of what I put in. So I'm gonna be honest, if you haven't got Sourcewell and you're a recruiter, I really believe you're at a disadvantage. To find out more and see the platform in action, make sure you click the link in the show notes and mention the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. Because you listen to this podcast, you're going to be able to get access to an exclusive offer: free 50 phone credits, 50 email credits, which is at the value of circa £500 per user. So make sure you mention the Recruitment Mentors Podcast and click the link in the show notes. And what's like— what's typically the ask in this message? Is it would you be against exploring further? Like, be happy to jump on for 10-15 minutes? Is it— I don't know, is it a bad idea to have a chat? Like, what, what's your typical, like, ask? Or—

and are we saying these are not open to work candidates? These are—

well, we could, we could do both. Like, you know, let— we can start with, like, not open to work. So out of that, you know, recent example, I'm sure some of them weren't open to work. How would you typically try and close off that message? Because it is, it's an interesting one to approach, isn't it? It's like, yeah, would you be against jumping on I don't know, how have you typically approached it?

Yeah, no, it's an interesting one, like saying, and it's not all foolproof, right? And I've tested this for probably 7 or 8 years and you get different response rates and so on. So I think, um, the ones not open to work and so on, I wouldn't make any assumptions and talk too much about the role. You almost want to make it a bit more intrigue and like make it look like you're more valuable to them, i.e., I can speak to you about, you know, salary insights, I can speak to you about your competitive landscape. I don't know if it's worth having a call because I work with X amount of vendors in your space and so on, you know, making it related to your profile. As I said, hypothetically, that one, you worked at a 10,000 employee, now you've gone to another, you've gone to a startup, for example. I'm representing 3 startups at the minute. They're all looking for first man on the ground. Would it be open to a conversation or at least to discuss how you're comped at the minute in comparison to these other vendors? So again, I think with not open to work, you need to provide the insight, right? What value are they going to have having a conversation with Adam Jennings versus if I'm open to work, realistically, I'm probably going to be coming back to more if it hits the key parameters. But I think more recruiters will just sell on 3 bullet points. This is the salary, this is the location, this is the tech, and so on. Do you want to have a chat? And like I said, there's nothing wrong with that to a degree, because if you hit all 3 of them, you tend to get a call. But if you only hit one of them, you might away straight away. Now, the salary's too low or not interested in that sort of products and so on. And that's the challenge, right? But you need to somehow particularly with the passive candidates and so on, to get them to have a conversation, you need to provide more value than not having a conversation. So that's probably intrigue, value, and knowledge of the market.

Yeah, fair enough. I think that's a really good breakdown. And then open to work, is it like you're just going in more with the job? More, or—

yeah, more with the job to a degree. Um, I think I'd have probably 2 on open to work. So like, out of that, whatever we broke down a minute ago, 25 messages or so, I'd probably have two variations. I think I'd have one that maybe look more aligned to the job, that more in that kind of bullseye to that second tier on someone that's probably a bit more specific, a bit more tailored to them. I think if they're in that kind of bottom tier on someone where they could be a match on someone, you could maybe just do a little bit more about key features of the job and so on. So salary, location, and so on. A bit more in terms of intrigue, but, you know, work around your diary. When's it work to have a quick conversation? And Hopefully we'll have some value from it. Equally, this isn't right for you. We're working with, you know, maybe like a PS. Even if this isn't right for you, we've also got 3 other opportunities in the market. Hopefully they'll be more aligned. Let me know.

Yeah, nice. Love that. Let's get into— really good breakdown. Let's get into, uh, because I think this is also where there could be some good learnings. Uh, I replied to you, we set up a call. What should— from your experience, what should we not do? Because I think it'd be very easy for people to go straight into talking about what they want out of it, which is like, are you interested in my job? These are all the things about it. So how do you typically think about these conversations? I.e., someone's been in that search, they've come back to you, um, they're happy to have a conversation. You might tell me there you do actually approach it slightly differently if it was someone that wasn't open to work compared to was. So let's— yeah, you tell me where you want to start, but like, how do you think about approaching that initial conversation?

So, um, if they're a passive candidate and I've convinced them by a bespoke message to have a conversation, going into the call, what is a win for the recruiter on this call? What is the outcome? The reality is if someone genuinely is passively looking or not looking at all and happy in their work, the chances of them going for an interview for that particular role within the next week or two is very slim. So I would go into that call thinking, what is a win for me, right? Is it a win to think I've got another new connection in the space that knows me, likes me. We've had a good conversation, is a win that I can maybe get a reference from him to be referred to someone else if he's not looking or she's not looking or so on. So I'd go into it thinking, what am I actually going to achieve out of this call? Is it just a new connection? Is it some insights and so on? And I think on the passive one, going in asking them half an hour worth of questions about their background, if they're not looking, the reality is you're just going to annoy them. So if they're passive and they're, they're wanting value from me, right? So I think at the start of that call, I have a few questions, obviously, obviously, you know, establish a little bit of kind of background, so on. But a lot of them will say, what's the opportunity? So I'll get to it a little bit. At that point, I'd probably give a very high-level overview and just say, look, this is, this is currently what I'm working with. However, this is also my background. This is what I do. I take emerging vendors to market in this, this, this, and this. Appreciate this one might not be quite right, but I wanted to jump on and have a conversation with you. For whatever reason, could be to get some insights, could be to make a new connection. You're not looking now, but in 6 months you might be, or in a year's time if this role isn't right. Tell you what, the next role might perfectly come up. I can just give you a call now, I know what you're after. So I think approaching that but on passive, if they're not going to get the direct match for that job, they're going to want to get as much insight of value from me, whatever that looks like, you know, competitors, salaries, benefits, um, you know what other businesses are doing, what the sales reps are doing, what's their quota attainment and so on. Like, what's the market saying, to be fair? Because if someone's been in a role for 5 years, the reality is they don't have a clue really what the market's kind of doing to a degree, as in they might have got friends at other vendors, but have they spoken to as many people as we have? Definitely not, right? So I think passive, going in thinking what is a win, because the likelihood of actually that person getting the job is probably pretty slim. But if you're going tunnel vision Hishem, I've approached you, the role is this. No, I'm not interested. Phone down again. You, you don't look very good. Yeah, the conversation's pretty blunt, and, and, you know, it just kind of stops from there. So I think going in, trying to give as much value as possible to them, and also giving yourself a bit of, um, a bit of a new connection, or a bit of a mini win, I suppose, rather than just, just the placement.

Yeah, right. Just one or two things on this. That, that's, that's really good. So just curious to get your thoughts on that.

Yep.

Just detail on like how you typically— I've been like just experimenting with this over the last few months and it's really helped me. But do you do anything around like at the beginning of that call, will you like frame up like, you know, this is what, you know, this is what I was hoping we'd cover, like from your side, you give me your time, is there anything that you really want to chat through or discuss that's going to make you feel like this wasn't a complete waste of time? I don't know, is there any detail around that? You know, when you frame Because I do think that's quite important. Like, this person's passive, yeah, come back to you, you've maybe made them intrigued. I might jump on that call straight away thinking, 'Gonna add them, what have you got for me?' Yeah, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, we've all had them.

You do need to like defuse that, I feel like, or at least think about how can I take a bit of control at the start and be like, you know, just to be upfront, this is sort of what I was looking to go through. I don't know if you have anything around that or approach or do something like that.

Yeah, I think, um, I think setting the tone in the first couple of 10, 15 seconds isn't a bad thing or so on. You know, Hishem, appreciate you not looking. Thank you for jumping on and so on. What I would like to get out of this call is to get a bit of a background and experience on who you are, what you've done, what you've sold, etc., etc., etc. We can obviously get on to the opportunity in a minute, but as you can appreciate, I'm not an internal recruiter, right? This is not the only role, the only company I work with. So I think if we go into mega tell me the role, if I'm not a fit, move on, How can I properly assess if you're good for a role in 6 months when I don't know anything about you? So if you can give me 5 to 10 minutes of your time, I'm not going to go War and Peace, but just some headline stuff. You know, I'm not going to expect to go back 10 years, but I can, you know, connect the dots and so on. But it's impossible to know if you're a fit for this or a fit in 6 months. And if you don't want to be connected with me and don't want to be, you know, eyes and ears in 6 months' time, if someone may be ringing you saying this is the perfect role that's come in, then we don't have to do that. But if you actually want to invest 10 minutes of your time, I'm in this space, I'm not going anywhere, and you never know what's around the corner, so it'd be worth having quick 10 minutes or so. So something like that is how I'd approach that.

You've obviously said that before. Perfect. Because like, you might, you might think everyone does, you might think everyone says that, right? But they probably don't. So you've, you've, you just touched on a lot of things there, right? Second thing, just curious, I've spoke about this before, how have you got better at— I think about the podcast that I did, um, with Kate from Wiser, who operates in like your world to some degree. Like, how have you got better at actually uncovering what it is that Adam would be interested in? So the example would be, I remember Kate saying where she'd speak to candidates and they'd say, if you got me a job at, you know, this, around this, the salary was around this, it was doing this, um, yeah, like, absolutely, tell me about it. And then she's had plenty of instances. I'm sure you have too. You've those checkboxes are ticked, you speak to them, they're like, nah, like, it's, it's not fully remote, or like this or that, so I'm not interested, right? So sometimes, you know, as we know, people can contradict themselves.

100%.

So how, how do you think about, or how have you got better at really trying to— you're not always, I guess, going to be able to, to nail it and truly get what maybe that person may feel is important to them, because it depends how truthful they're being with you. But how have you got better at actually feeling like, you know what, I do feel like I understand what that person would want, because it's got to be more surely than like money and other things. I don't know how you think about that, because that makes it then really valuable, right? Because then if you actually get good at uncovering that and you have a job that you think really matches up with that, all of a sudden then you're creating even better experiences because you make that person feel listened to. You've— you're presenting something that they should be interested in because it actually matches up with what they're after. So how do you think about that? Because that was a big thing with this passive candidate, sort of uncovering that.

Yeah. And I think like in the ideal scenario, let's say I jump on with a passive candidate and they're willing to give me 15 to 20 minutes of their time and so on. The ideal registration of that candidate is let's talk through your background, right? What are you doing? Who you're selling to? If they're in the market, I'm probably going to know some of the businesses they've worked in, understand some of the technology, understand some of the challenges they've been through and so on. So that's part of it. And then I'll always spend at least 5 minutes of that 15, for example, talking about the next opportunity. So what does that look like for you, Hishem? Is that a— what sort of role, what sort of technology, what sort of size, what sort of location, where do you like working, what risks are you willing to take? All of this sort of stuff makes up that piece. You know, for example, you know, I'm looking for a cybersecurity vendor. I want to be the first person on the floor. I want to earn $200K package and I want to work in API security, for example, would tick those 4 of those boxes. Briefly, but I think on the conversation you need to pick a little bit more. Okay, well, of those 4, these are 3 API vendors I actually work with. None of them recruiting right now. Have you heard of these guys? You know, what, what's their, what's their brand like in the market? Would you be interested if one of them came up? That sort of thing. So try and make that 5 minutes as valuable as possible. And then obviously then it comes down to remembering it, putting it on the CRM and all of this sort of stuff. And, um, the example I have, before I left Robertson Sumner, we brought on quite a niche sort of MSP consultancy type business that only worked in central government. So, you know, people that were security cleared, people that had sold a certain type of service, for example. And, um, I had two names— I said a few names and so on, but both of them were completely passive candidates, and both of them I'd spoken to probably in the last sort of 6 months. Neither of them were looking. And, um, called them both, pitched them, pitched them both of it, and they ended up both getting the job, right? But I think we knew if something came up where they had to be security cleared, the package was very good. What they were offering, they weren't offering a 50/50, they're offering a 70/30. So if you go from a $200K package on 100/100 and suddenly you go to 140/60, you've had a 40% increase, right? So I knew I had a bit of an ace up my sleeve in terms of the package, in terms of the numbers. So I think it's understanding what is going to motivate someone, what's going to be of interest. And equally, when you make these connections, do not call them every single 2 weeks if they're passively looking with something that isn't right. I think they respect you more after the conversation to say, you might not hear from me for a quarter. However, but if that does come in, I will give you a call, or I'll drop you a quick note and say, hi Hishem, I think the perfect role might have come in, or certainly pretty close to bullseye. It might be worth having a quick catch up. Have you got 5 minutes? Something like that. But I think it goes back to qualification of the candidate, then obviously utilizing CRM and having a good memory and putting it all together. So Yeah, something like that.

And how do you think about if I answer those questions for you? Like, are you— again, you might just do this naturally, but I think what would also probably be smart for people to consider is chucking in a question on like, how come that's important to you? Or like, do you know what I mean? Trying to get— because it's so easy to reel those things off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because if you're willing to just not challenge it, but like just trying to understand like, how come that's important to you? Or like, oh, why is that like your next big goal? I think that's going to give you another advantage next time, you know. I mean, I don't know, that might be something you do naturally.

Yeah, I think, yeah, naturally the more you get to know people, you probably will just pick up in those conversations. I've sort of reeled off 4 very basic things, but in conversation, like, say, how come you want to work for a smaller business? How come you— why is money your biggest driver? Oh, I've got another kid on the way, I really need to earn more money. Or how come you need to work remotely? Oh, I'm a carer for my wife, or whatever it is. I think hopefully that does kind of come up. But I think getting to know people on a personal level, or that asking that why is important. But I think you need to have the emotional intelligence to ask when to ask. Yeah, if you've spoken to someone for 5 minutes, why do you need to do that?

Yeah, yeah, that's going to trigger people.

Yeah.

How different are these calls for someone that's open to work then? Is it like, obviously you still might frame up the same way, but are you— do you expect to typically go into— are they like sort of like Yeah, go on, Adam, get to the point then. Like, what's this job? Like, I'm looking. Like, how different is the call around— how much— yeah, how different is a call if I'm someone— speak to someone that's open to work?

I think the reality is the call should be very similar. And if someone is open to work, unless they've got 3 finals, right, and then they just want to cut to the chase of it, but if someone's open to work and doesn't want to give me 20 minutes to go through their background, you're probably not right to work with me. You know, I think that's probably— let's just move on because, as I say, we work, and I'm one of 5, and also I know a lot of recruiters in the space, right? So, um, if someone doesn't want to give me 20 minutes to go through their background and say, this is my target, this is what I've achieved, this is what I've sold, this is who I've sold to, and so on, again, let's not waste each other's time then. For example, if you want to cut to the chase, we're probably not a good match, like, to work together. And obviously our whole thing is on service and NPS and so on. So I think in terms of open-to-work candidates, I'll expect them to give me more time will be happier to give me more time because I'm going to give more value to them. If you've been made redundant and I can potentially open up X amount of doors, plus I've got 4 colleagues who can open X amount of doors, plus I know people in the space, and you won't give me 20 minutes, how serious are you about your job search? Is what I would say to that.

And how do you deliver that? Because we've all been there. I know there'll be people listening where they, you know, I'm sure you've had people say to you before like, look, Adam, I don't think this is important. Like, you can you— we've all been on those calls, haven't we, where it's that person being difficult and it's like, look, why is this important? Why do I have to give you that information? No, I don't want to tell you what this is or what that is, right? So, uh, how— yeah, like, how do you think about that? How have you got better at delivering that, right? You were just saying like maybe how you might say it. There's one thing knowing what to say and then how you say it, right?

Yeah.

But like, how do you sort of stick to your guns on that? And like you just said, frame it in this— in the sense of like, you know what, like, if we you know, if I— if we can't sort of work together on getting this information, this is— these are the reasons why it's important. Yeah, maybe actually, um, we're, we're not— we won't be a good fit in working together. I don't know what that sounds like, but you're almost pushing them away, right?

I think it comes with confidence and time. I think I'm more confident to do it now because I'm 8 years in, right? And I've done a lot more deals and so on, and I believe the value I can bring to someone versus when you're a year in, you want to speak to anyone, right? So If someone says, I don't want to give you my time and I don't want to go through a 20-minute profiling of my background, my answer would be, well, that's fine, but to be honest with you, I'm a free service until I'm successful with you. I work with the customers and candidates are part of that, of course. But if you truly want to get the benefit of working with someone who's 8 years in the space, pretty well networked, and like to think he's pretty good at recruitment now, if you can't give me 20 minutes of your time, then you obviously don't see the value in what we do and what I can potentially bring to you. So that's fine, but, um, I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna throw ideas at you when I have no idea what you're after. You know, if you don't go through the process and I'm just saying here's 5 companies and you say, I don't want to work in HR tech, well, let's go through the background first, and otherwise we're literally just throwing darts in the dark. So like, I think phrasing it is difficult, and I think it does come with time and confidence to back your ability in the job. For newer people, it's a bit more of a difficult conversation, right? But I think the reality is if they're not willing to give you their time, the crux of it is how can we possibly assess you for a job or a customer that's going to be a good fit if I don't know anything about you?

That's totally fair. I think a reasonable person would understand that. Yeah, but a lot of people have had poor experiences and that's fine. This sort of, you know, defensiveness can come from, right? It's like how many people have given Adam the 20 minutes and they've never fucking heard back from them?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean?

You're very right.

So like, we understand why people are defensive, but I think, you know, we haven't even mentioned the fact, like, if they're not willing to give you 20 minutes at this stage, how likely is it going to be that they're going to give you 30 minutes to prep for an interview and go through the things that you know you need to go through with them that's going to really increase their chances of landing that job, right? So we're also disqualifying these people because we know if we were to like just try and push them through it's gonna be— there's gonna be probably a lot of painful things that could come, uh, later on down the line in the process, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So should we just like— I think that'd be really helpful for people. That sort of— that, that was good. I guess all I wanted to ask was, um, how, how do you think about selling opportunities on that? You know, we were talking about different things in terms of how you'd approach it, but like, what have you found I know it's very nuanced, I guess, depending on the industry role, but if I was to say to you, like, what have you found to typically be the biggest, like, pull factors for people to be interested, or at least curious enough to put themselves forward for a role? Like, what have you found those to be? Is it the basics of the money and like that being a big jump for them? Is it the, the company brand and like what they've heard about them in the market? Like, what, what have you found to be the biggest pull factors do you think? Because I do think there's something to be said around— there's obviously a lot to be said around if you have world-class talent, they're going to help you open up doors. But I think also if you've got— if you've got— if you're working with customers that don't have a great brand, don't have a great package, these things, it's always going to be difficult to attract people, right?

Yeah.

So, you know, one of the things that you can do here is like, how good are your jobs? Like, how good are the customers that you're working with and these different things? Because that will massively help you pull people to that, right? It's going to massively help you. So yeah, what have you found to be the sort of— yeah, in your experience, the best pull factors? I think that'd be interesting for people to hear and what you found.

Yeah, and I think you're completely right, right? If you're working with a top tier, tier one, whatever business in your market, of course it makes it easier if you say a name and everyone knows that name, and straight away you're kind of— job's done, to be fair. So I think I think other things other than that, if you're not working with a tier 1 brand, let's say for example, things like, well, particularly in my world, like the technology is a massive thing, right? People want to work in emerging tech that isn't going to be replaced. You know, if you're talking about AI or you're talking about cloud, for example, like these are tech that is on the up. If you're talking about hardware servers, for example, that are a bit of a thing of the past, not too sexy, that's obviously going to be a bit harder to sell. So technology is always going to be one. I think leadership is going to be one. So i.e., if you get to know the customer, CRO actually took their last business from 4 million ARR to 40 million ARR. They sold and now he's going on another journey now and he wants you to be part of the team. You know, that sort of learning development. People want to go on a journey, people want to be developed and so on. And I think it's not all just about the money. And I think a lot more people are moving to like the more purpose-driven sort of businesses, whether that be 30 people and you've got a seat at the table and, you know, your voice is much more heard or something that's even tech-wise a bit more purpose-filled rather than just thinking it's just about the money in tech sales, right? How can we sell a product? You know, we did a deal this week for a wellness product, right? Which is all around kind of mental health, physical health, and so on in the workplace. Lovely topic, huge topic in the market and in the world right now, isn't it? So there's a few things I'd say: product, money, leadership, brand. Obviously it depends on the customer you're working with would be relevant to all of them. But there are 3 or 4 things I say are always going to be important to people.

Yeah. Love that. Let's talk about experience then. You know, we've touched on it in different ways in this conversation so far, but like from your perspective, like why, why is really being conscious about the candidate experience that you're delivering— obviously we have the client experience, just overall experience we're providing our customers and stakeholders is important— but like from your, from your perspective, like why, why is it important, you know, to really be conscious about what, what, what experience are you providing people? Like why is that important?

I think it's massively important in life, to be fair, to be a nice person and get— and give someone whatever you're doing, whether you're going for dinner and there's a good experience from the service, or buying a house and the estate agent's good, whatever it is good, I think it's good to do that in life. But I suppose in terms of recruitment, I think particularly the longer you're in it, the easier it becomes, people say, right? But there's always going to be factors where it is still going to be a slog. You still have to do business development, you still can't— it's going to drop out. However, you make connections, and I'm still speaking to people now that I spoke to 7 years ago that you've placed, and they're suddenly now sales managers, VPs, or whatever. So I think to stand out in a crowded market— and I think with recruitment, like, it does have a bit of a bad name, right? And our vision is to radically change the perception of recruitment, which is not an easy task, particularly— I think there's no barrier to entry, there's very little. So I think the market has maybe a bit of a bad name from a lot of people starting, maybe not knowing the basics, maybe not being trained correctly, and so on. And having that, as you said earlier on, giving 20 minutes to Adam never hear from them again 10 times over, and they think they want to work with recruiters anymore. So I think experience is key and it's memorable. And I think the way our business model works or does continue to work is largely on referrals. So I think referrals happen naturally if you do a good service. You know, obviously you've got to ask the questions, but no one's going to refer someone if they didn't think they did a good job or didn't like the person or didn't like, like the engagement of some sort. So experience is going to be key for driving business, driving customers, driving candidates, and just generally getting a name for yourself in the market.

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. Why don't we— let me ask you this then. What— so if I'm a recruiter listening to this and I am really committed to improving the experience that I give, let's just think about the candidate side and that candidate journey. What have you found to be the biggest, like, levers on improving the overall experience for a candidate? Is it, uh, you know, that initial call and the follow-up that you do? Maybe is something that if you do that, that's going to have a big knock-on effect. I don't know what you think about that, but what, what are some of the, yeah, biggest, um, uh, levers that we can really think about that we think can have a really positive knock-on effect on the overall experience, overall perception of that person working with that recruiter, the experience was good? Like, what are some of the things that you found to be really impactful?

I think, um, and it's a bit of an obvious one, but starting with the basics, right? You've got to nail the basics, and that could just be being punctual, being on the ball, being knowledgeable about your market. So just like, that first call has got to be good. You know, you can't, can't start on a bad, bad foot. So get the basics right, be on the ball, be knowledgeable, give them insights, give them time. I think as that goes, and I think I started this podcast by saying, you know, I didn't have all the maybe stereotypical traits of being a recruiter. Maybe I was a bit more diligent, maybe I was a bit more empathetic. And I think empathy for me has probably been one of the biggest things that has put me apart from other people, in my opinion. Um, I'm not the most salesy, or I haven't been the most salesy through my career. So I think having that kind of empathy and realizing this This is a person, not a product. They're the ones, and I'll openly say, people, you know, this job isn't right, you're the one that's got to turn up on June 1st and start the job. It's not me, right? So if it's not right for you, there's no point in trying to power close someone. There's no point in portraying this message. And so, of course, we're here to get the job done. Of course, we're here to place people, but placing people in genuine roles that they're actually going to enjoy and not trying to be that, that salesperson or so on. Because I hear it all the time, and you probably do as well, where Speak to a candidate, the recruiter wasn't very good, they really tried to pressure me into taking that job or so on, and you know, it just didn't work out for whatever reason. You might lose the fee, but you know, long term, I guarantee if you stick to those kind of principles of being a good person— this is a person, not a product you're selling— and not doing those kind of my opinion is worth more than you because I'm going to get commission out of it and so on, the deal, the deal will happen or it won't, right? But the end of the day long term, if you're in it for long term. And again, I know, I don't know what the tenure is, you might be able to tell me, of the average recruiter in the UK, right? But coming on a decade, and I'm going to be showing my age soon, but, um, the longer you're in it, people remember that. And like I say, now hopefully, you know, you reap the rewards longer term when you work with people you worked with 5 years ago. And, you know, I had a great example last year. I didn't place this VP 5 years ago, remembered my name, had a job, rung me, said, you know, this is what we want to do, this is what we want to hire, and so on. And within 4 weeks, we managed to find the person. But hadn't even heard from this guy in years, and sort of knew who he was, but again, wasn't on the radar massively. And he said, I really enjoyed working with you last time. And again, there's probably examples of that all the time, that you might have impacted someone's career or life without even realizing it. Um, and even the ones you haven't placed as well. Like, I think the longer you're in it, and if you're doing the right things daily, you will see the, the long-term, the long-term play out of it.

Sounds obvious, right? But it's just so easy to cut that corner or sort of try and encourage someone to go for a role where you get more of a fee. Like, but as you've seen, you've, you've obviously got so much evidence now where, you know, when you're starting out, you might not have the evidence to sort of really back up why that isn't the right thing to do. But I think as you— more and more people I sit down with, and the longer you're in this game, the evidence really stacks up. Like that that you just shared with us, that evidence really, evidence really starts to stack up that you know what, I could have really tried to push that VP for this other VP role, but I didn't, and look now what's happened, right? I think that's just— and hopefully you sharing this and I was talking about can help people just because sometimes it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, right? It's like I've just worked my absolute socks off to get this person engaged, and then the role that I really thought they'd be great for isn't right, and they're going to go for a role that I'm not working on. Do you know what I mean? Like, that, that's hard, but Uh, it's, yeah, just trying to build up that evidence. And, and, you know, for those listening, it will pay off. It will.

It's certainly— and look, it always is a difficult pill to swallow. You've worked something for 4 weeks or something and they take something else. I get it, right? And maybe we're in a fortunate position that we work on retained, right? So if we don't fill it with Candidate A, hopefully we're going to fill it with Candidate B. When it's contingent and you've worked for weeks and weeks and they take something else, it is frustrating, right? However, how you deal with that frustration, how you, how you make someone feel about that not taking your job. And if you get annoyed at this candidate and throw your toys at the pram or whatever, then you just kind of fall into stereotype of being a salesperson, being a recruiter and so on. I think genuinely some of the contacts that I will call now who are in senior leadership positions, I've never placed. And again, some of them I have obviously, but some of them who I've got great relationships with, I know when they are hiring they will call me purely because they quite like the approach of not trying to be too salesy and kind of putting their whatever it is first, you know, kind of laying it out. You've got two offers, offer one's from me, offer two's not from me, offer one is 10 grand more and it's probably not as strong. Some recruiters might try and do the full convincer on someone. I think the reality is if you say generally, I think you probably should take offer two, like great working with you and so on, shame it didn't work out, but hopefully we can fill it again, 9 times out of 10 particularly I sell salespeople, right? So I think they're going to appreciate the fact that you've put a lot of work into this. And I think now we drive the NPS score. So everyone who goes through a process at Zest gets an email at the end of it. How was your experience with Adam at Zest? Rate it 1 to 10, give us some constructive feedback. The ones that we— and I think I've received 75 9s and above in the last 18 months or so, which is great with some constructive feedback on it. And I think a lot of the themes are I enjoyed working with Adam, you know, he's on the ball, he's given me some good advice, you know, this sort of thing. And if you're not placing these people, they're some of your best advocates, aren't they? If they're still saying yes and they've been unsuccessful, that, that's gold dust for us.

And those referrals probably feel even better when they come through as well, you know what I mean? So let's just talk about, I think, one of the easiest and quickest ways to give people a poor experience and have people give you 1s and 2s, and that's not giving feedback because it's difficult, because for you it's a challenging conversation to tell someone that they haven't got the job when they're in a position of really needing that job, or they're in a position of feeling they really back themselves and they're like, nah, they'd be lucky to have me, right? We've all been there. This is one of the most difficult parts of the, the role. So I'd love to just hear your take on How— because you would have had to get better at this, otherwise you wouldn't be receiving 9s and 10s from people that you didn't place. How have you got better, and how do we think we can get better at delivering feedback to people who have been successful in their job? Because it's emotional, it's stressful, it's hard. And then it is one of the hardest things of the job, isn't it? Like, you— it's just that you get that feeling in your stomach and like, fuck, I've got to call this person.

Yeah, yeah.

And I really wanted to get it as well, quite invested in them, but they came short? Like, how have we got better into— how have we got better at having those conversations?

My advice for anyone in this scenario that's struggling with this, I think, I think it's always throughout the process. So like, after first interview and second interview, do not rush the feedback you're getting from them. Go through what's the pros, what's the cons, what do you like about it, what didn't you like it, and so on. So you're naturally collating information that potentially could be reason they're not going to get it, a reason they would get it. So like, don't cut corners in terms of the feedback. Someone just saying thumbs up, yeah, it went well, smashed it, then if you tell them they're a no and you've got nothing to bat with, like straight away you're, you're losing a fight in battle. So I think number one, getting a lot of information throughout the process is key because it means you can lean on that the last one. Number two, let's say you're making the call, I always set that call up. So if I'm telling you you're a no, do not call these people out of the blue because they could be in the park with their kids having a great time. By the way, it's a no. It's like, brilliant. Like, say, so tee it up. Okay, going to have, you know, say I'm going to speak to the customer at 12 o'clock. I know I'm going to get feedback then. Hishem, I'm going to give you a call at 2 if that's all right, just to go over the feedback. Should be catching up with them between 12 and 1. Let's go for it then. So they're expecting the call, right? It's not a surprise. I think that's key. And then on the call, I think it goes back to kind of being that empathetic person. And I try and get to the result as quickly as possible, right? So Hey Hishem, how you doing? Yeah, whatever. Look, just spoke to the client as discussed at 1 o'clock. I'm going to be honest with you, it's not the news we were after. These are the reasons why. Get to the reason as soon as possible, kind of to get the elephant out of the room and so on. But then I'd always go through anything constructive about why the reason why is. And then you've also got that ammunition. You did say in the second interview, to be fair, their reservation was I haven't done that much enterprise selling. It did come up in the final round again, which we were kind of expecting. So like there's certain things that you can soften the blow. I think when you lead it to and you're emotionally invested, oh my God, I really want this person to get it, and then you straight away go, you're a no, with no reason, it's sort of off a cliff. I think there's small steps that you can take to make that more bearable. And then I think going back to that empathy point, being empathetic, giving it in a certain way. Don't be too direct with it. If they're really invested in it, it's going to be a bit of a shock, right? So don't hang up the call after 1 minute. Have a conversation with them. How's the rest of the search going? You know, whatever it might be. Hope, you know, is there anything I can do for you to help? You know, it's really close, you came down final two. These are the constructive points. Generally, I wouldn't, I wouldn't feel bad about it. You know, the person that got it absolutely blew them out the park, so you've done very well to get to second round, you know. Sorry, final stage and finish second, I know doesn't help in this scenario, but there's still some confidence to take away from this. So anything constructive, but I think there will be the three things. Use the process to get those information. Definitely tee the call up. I'd say probably get to the no as quickly as possible, within reason. Don't just say hi, yeah, And then obviously give them a bit of time to react to that, because if you give them 5 minutes and the fact you've got a relationship with this person, if I've spoken to them 10 times, I'd like to think that I know a little bit about them and they know that I'm not— this isn't part of the job I like doing, right? You can even bring it up. Horrible call to make. I'm really sorry about this, but this is the reasons why. I know it's a bit of a sucker on a Friday afternoon, but just wanted to give you the answer as soon as possible so you can know before going into the weekend, whatever it looks like. So there'd be the 3 or 4 things you do.

Some really good tips there. I guess this is one of the things that I think working the way that you work and the retaining piece really helps with this experience. Because, and I'm going to ask you because I'm sure you've had to go through this, you may not have, but how— like, it's really difficult for people to do that when they haven't even got a client that is, uh, that gives them reasons. And a lot of people would have had that for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't know how you think about that. I don't know if you had to navigate that in the past. Is it— I don't know. I think that, that's even more tough, right? It's like you've, you've got a no and you're working with a client because you're trying to— yeah, I don't know, you might be early on in your career, you work on a contingent basis, they're not willing to jump on a call with you to tell you exactly why. Like, we've all been there.

Yeah.

How, how can we— that's hard, isn't it? Because like, imagine doing that call and you've got no reasons besides it's a no and it's over email.

Yeah. And look, we've all been there, right? And I think do you like put the—

it's like you don't almost want to pass all the responsibility on to the client and be like, look, I'll be honest with you, I wanted to let you know the information, let you know the result, didn't want you to be waiting. However, I haven't been able to speak to the client and get a full list of reasons why, what their main reservations were. I don't know, like how—

yeah, yeah, I think, look, let's say, let's say they're expecting feedback, it's Friday afternoon, and you've had a brief email at 4 o'clock to say it's a no, but no more information. I would definitely make that call at 5 o'clock or 4:30 and just say, ah, Hishem Azzouz, I know I was going to give you an answer. I'm really sorry to do this on a Friday afternoon. I haven't got all the information, but what I do have, I don't think it's going to be right. But what I don't want to do is leave you on the weekend pondering for 3 days thinking you're going to get it. Equally, I promise to you I'll come back to you Monday, Tuesday with something a bit more concrete that we can actually work on and the reasons why. I'm saying that from a point of 8 years in and working in retained roles. I'm going to get the feedback on Monday, Tuesday, right? So there could be people listening to this, you're never going to get that, and we've been there, right? And it's one of those ones where you don't want to throw your client under the bus by saying they're not giving me feedback, right? Because then you all look a bit silly. So it's a very hard one to navigate. It probably goes back to what I said in the first point. If you collated any points of ammunition in that first and second conversation, feedback after round 1, round 2, whatever it might be, you could probably lean on that and say, look, I think I know after the second round they mentioned maybe that enterprise sales role, you've done more mid-market. So it's probably something to do with that. The honest answer, I don't know anymore though. And I think if you show that honesty and so on, it's not your fault, but I can see why it's a tricky one. So, um, it's just, it's just getting the clients on the phone, isn't it? Yeah.

How would you, how would you feel about— not, uh, not the right way to say it, like not putting it on the client, but sort of like trying to educate the client on like, look, doing my best here to get some concrete feedback that this person's asking for it, and I think it'd be really wise to give them some more concrete information because of how this person then may perceive your brand, your business, which, which I think is really important, you know what I mean? I think surely that'll be part of it. You've got to try and deliver that in the right way. But I think there's also— we want to sort of, you know, part of our role is educating companies on like, you know, because as like companies can be short-sighted as well. It's not just recruiters, right? But companies a short-sighted. So I think also trying to— how can we frame that in a way where it's like, yeah, you know what, actually this person was a good person, they might not be right now, but how many other people could say that we did this, like we didn't give them any feedback or leave a bad experience, right?

Yeah. And look, I think that goes back— you're completely right. If you speak to a reasonable client, right, and you say, look, they're going to be in the market, it's the right thing to do, they know they should be giving feedback. If someone spent 4 hours through 3 interviews, interviewing you, and you just say they're a no That's pretty poor, isn't it? So like, I think the fact that it's going to be constructive for them, you don't want to damage their brand in the market. And then also we would talk about right now, I would talk about Zest and say, look, we, we, we get targeted and NPS on every candidate we, we send and we speak to. And so on the fact that we're just telling them they're a no, how can we possibly do that and represent your brand correctly and our brand without giving them anything constructive to talk about? So we're all talking in theory, right? The client's still got to value their brand. They still got to value the NPS surveys and all this sort of stuff. If they're really difficult, they might not want to do that regardless. But I think if you're speaking to them and saying, look, this person's interviewed with you 3 times, you haven't given them anything, they're out of work at the minute, the market's tough, at least you can do is give me 3 bullets of ammunition how they can improve.

Yeah, I love it. So what's the big goal for the remainder of the year then? You know, we're at nearly 8 years in recruitment. It's a long time.

Long time.

How— what's like big goals for you then as you think about future career? Obviously joined Zest as a startup, a whole different challenge. Um, like, how— yeah, how do you think about what are the big goals for you?

I think, um, the last 18 months has been definitely a big challenge, you know, leaving Robertson Sumner where I had a really good solid stint, you know, I had a book of business, you know, the last 3 years I was second, first, second in terms of top billings, doing some good numbers, had a good portfolio. Made the move, came up to London, joined a startup under an NDA, so couldn't touch any of my own customers in a very challenging market. We couldn't have not picked a worse time, but a challenging time to do it. So I think, um, look, coming in as employee 2 and 3 with Aaron, with Callum, it was a no-brainer for me personally. I think, um, what we wanted to do and what we want to do in the market ongoing just seemed quite refreshing. And I'm going to be biased, right? But I think what we're trying to do and what we're trying to achieve is different. So I suppose there's two parts to this. The ambition for Zest is to keep growing, right? And me to be a pivotal part within that growth. So whatever that looks like, um, but to get to more headcount, more billings, more markets, and so on. And Callum will openly say he wants to be, as per your podcast, wouldn't sell for 50 million and wants to be the number one recruiter in the UK, place to work. So that's the business goal. We're away off from that, right? That's going to be long, long and mid, short, mid, and long-term steps. For me personally, um, look, coming on to 10 years, coming up to 30, I think, you know, taking the career a bit more seriously, maybe managing a team. Um, I want to work on my personal brand more, which if you follow me for the last 2 years, posting a lot more, doing more things like this. Um, I think just getting out of my comfort zone. I think there'll probably be recruiters listening to this where I was 25, I worked 5 minutes from my house with all my friends, and I was earning good money, and I decided to leave to earn probably less money to start with, to travel into London to do something much more difficult. And I was probably a little bit bored, to be fair, a little bit stale, a little bit stagnant. I think coming up here, getting out of my comfort zone doing things like this, working on your personal brand, going to events, building. So Adam is one of the best recruiters in the UK in the tech sales market. It's probably— that's the long-term goal. How we're going to get there, I love it, to be confirmed.

Well, look, I absolutely love your just complete commitment to, yeah, like, just keep improving, doing a great job. And I think, you know, it's people like yourself that slowly but surely are going to move the needle, which is a big thing that I'm passionate about, passionate about, and the mission I'm on is around, you know, radically changing that perception. So kudos to you, mate, and, uh, great job.

Perfect. Thanks very much.