The Rebuild: Turning a £4M Crisis Into a Renewables Powerhouse with Matt Sykes

Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Hishem. Thanks for having me.

Really looking forward to get stuck into this. Uh, we've highlighted a few areas, haven't we, that we feel like the journey that you've been on, it'd be really interesting to dig into. One of those being, we've heard a lot on this podcast this year around the US market. You're someone that has been actively working, leading teams, growing teams, working in European market. So we're going to really have a deep dive into what we've learned there, the nuances. Uh, I've spoke to a few people at Opus who give me a bit of an inside insight into what you're about. One of the things that, uh, a few people said you're really good at is really understanding the nuances of what maybe an Italian business cares about compared to a French business. We're going to talk about that.

Yeah.

And then the other part that we highlighted is you being in a non-billing role for the last how many years? What that's looked like, how you've really developed those skills of coaching others, leading, uh, driving performance through the different methods that you use. So we're going to really drill into that as well. Cool. So, so to give everyone a bit of context, let me know if I get any of this, this wrong, but currently Regional Director for JD Ross Energy, which is one of the, the brands within the Opus Group. So your world really throughout your time there has been renewables.

Mm-hmm.

But then we're just talking about, there's been a bit of a, a pivot, um, and a shift, which we're gonna talk about.

Sure.

And then in terms of like insights here, this is where, if I get any of this wrong, I know we, um, wrote this down 'cause I wanted to make sure I got it right. You have to, to let me know. So I think at the peak, this sort of division was circa 4.6 million net fee income across circa 22 heads. That was in London and Amsterdam.

Yeah, I think the peak was about 25 people, but yeah.

And then currently today we're on track to do 2.9 million net fee income, circa 15 heads. Um, 65% of that is perm, 35% of that is contracts, around about. Um, you've been working with companies, organizations, you've been placing people, working with businesses in France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, some even in Eastern European, but like your world has been mainland Europe. Yeah. Right. Yes. It's fair. Um, yeah, non-billing leader for circa 9 years, although brief stint on the tool 4 or 5 months during the— after COVID.

Yeah, check, I've still got it basically. Yeah.

Um, and then you took— like, you joined from Spencer Ogden.

Yeah.

Um, and then joined Opus, and you've been there for like nearly 8 years or so now, right?

Yeah, almost 8 years. Yeah.

So why don't we— I'll sort of let you share, like, what, what did JD Ross look like when you joined? Obviously you came from this other business where you worked a really good amount of time as well. So just give us the sort of lay of the land of when you joined, what type of markets you were in, because I think what we're going to learn here, when you work in this energy space, sometimes you do have to follow politics, have to follow decisions that are made out of your control. So talk to us a bit about what was the lay of the land when you actually joined Opus JD Ross Energy? And I've just given everyone where you are today, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely. When I joined, it was a really experienced, high-performing team, contract predominantly, although it was a split. Opus actually owned two energy brands within the group, so JDR Energy International and McLean Ross. So it was the merger basically of those two parts of the business. And I came in to reorientate the business out of oil and gas, conventional power mostly, in, in which is what it was, into renewable energy. So we had a lot of business which was basically in countries where it's very difficult to do business. So JD Ross or JDR Energy at least was set up off the back of Spencer Ogden and going into the countries where SO didn't really want to do business. So what did SO mean? Spencer Ogden.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we found out why eventually, which was it was just money tied up in those countries, basically very difficult to get paid for the work that you were doing. So when I joined Jack, who set up JDR, he was really honest with me. All the way through the interview process to say, look, you know, we have a lot on the ledger, you know, millions of pounds on the ledger essentially that needs to be cleared off. Opus was supporting the JD Ross business at that point to go and pivot. The good thing was that they had this previously high-performing team to be repositioned into a new market, into the renewable space. So that decision had already been made to pivot into renewables. You know, both me and Jack, because he was my boss at Spencer Ogden, had seen the renewables division there grow. We'd always been on the other side of it, the dirty stuff basically. So, you know, we thought we'd have a go at the renewables market and I reorientated the business out of those markets where we didn't want to be doing business because they weren't sustainable, literally not sustainable in terms of the markets, but also in terms of getting paid and into sustainable markets. So renewables in Europe where we knew if we were invoicing, then we were good to collect that cash in a, in a reasonable frame of time.

And then just quickly, I know I gave people context at the start, by the time you joined Opus, what was like, was you like leading a team by the time you got there? Was you?

Yeah, so I went from trainee through to senior manager at Spencer Ogden. Um, so, you know, came all the way through the ranks basically. So left as the manager of the power and utilities division. So that was everything that wasn't renewable energy basically, um, in London. So for a year, uh, so I led a team of about 13 people, but that was purely perm. I'd never done contract when I came into the JD Ross business. So it was an interesting dynamic because of course that was, predominantly a contract team, at least from the JDR Energy side of the business, whereas McLean Ross was perm. And that was one of the things that attracted me to the opportunity, was to, you know, cut my teeth a little bit in the contract world as well.

So just to paint a bit of a picture for people, just because there might be a lesson in there, but you know when we say there was like millions of pounds on the ledger, so like just so we all understand that, so you, so just correct me if I'm wrong here, so like you had like contractors or people out at sites in all different countries like North Africa, different places. So was— I don't know if this was a conversational learn about it— was when we did that sort of business and agreed it, like, was we under the impression that we were going to get paid? I'm assuming. What did we think?

Yeah, absolutely. So all of that business was with huge, uh, very reputable, very well-known businesses within the space. And so it wasn't not being paid by the client, it was the money was tied up in those countries, right? Um, which isn't sustainable for very, for a very small business as JD Ross was at the time. So other organizations working in those countries are better prepared for the systems that they need to go through and processes that they need to go to, to recover the cash. Um, but I think it was a lack of awareness about how difficult those processes could potentially be, you know, how to get money out of Angola. So, you know, we, we got there in the end. Um, but I think it took 2 or 3 years to clear everything off the, uh, on the ledger. And, you know, it was a huge sum of money because if you think our average contract margin was, you know, approximately 20%, um, so 80% of that sits as pay with the contractor. We're forking out 100% as the pay rate to the contractor but not getting paid on the back end. You know, really, really quickly you find yourself in trouble.

Yeah, no, I was just curious about that because I think I'm pretty sure you put down one of the countries as, um, Algeria. And like, I'm half Algerian, so I grew up going there. So I've just seen, just as an example, but like firsthand like you can't, you can't get there, you can't go to a cash point and like you can't even use like a, a bank card there. I want to be a good example, but I feel like when I saw that, I was like, I'm not surprised that it was— there's different things you had to go through and learn the hard way. So I, I don't know if people might be listening to this and be like, shit, we've just started building a contract book in Angola. I don't know. Hopefully, hopefully. Um, important to, I guess, really try and understand, okay, if we do start that What are the, like, how can we actually get the money out? How's it all work?

Yeah, exactly.

We're optimists, aren't we? So we probably thought we'd be able to figure it out. Margin that's good, could get loads of contractors there, and then it's like, shit, actually, how do we get the money out?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's all about understanding how it works before you get into it. Um, obviously getting paid is an important part of our job, right?

So just, just interesting to start because I feel like this all get a bit of an insight into how you now lead, how you coach, how you manage people. But like you said, you really like the challenge of like cutting your teeth, but you hadn't done contract before, you hadn't done renewables before, and you said that you was inheriting— although there was these challenges, you were inheriting a really high-performing team. So just take me back to like if, if me and you were to, to meet before you started that role and you're going in as a leader, what's the mindset there? If I said like, how are you going to approach those first few months? Because I'm sure you've had it in your career where people can approach that really in the wrong way.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, how did you think about that? Because like you said, high performing, want to try and earn some respect.

Sure.

How am I going to do that? I don't know, you tell me. Like, how do you think about that first part?

Yeah, that is— it is about the respect. Because, you know, if I think about the dynamic of those people, it wasn't their fault that we couldn't get money out of those countries, but we had no other choice but to put those people onto paid when paid commission. So individuals went from earning, you know, 10, 15k per month in commission on top of their basic salaries to literally nothing until the client had paid, and we had no visibility on when that was going to be. So there were some pretty pissed off people, right? And, and, and rightly so. So, you know, I really needed to understand how I could gain their respect in a really difficult circumstance and show them the way forward and reorientate them into the new markets and, you know, gain their buy-in into me in that they'd lost some of that for the business, you know, given their financial situations. I mean, you know, it was very much going from— I remember one of the guys, I wasn't there at the time, but apparently he bought a Picasso. I think it was a You know, very small one, I think a sketch or something, but you know, that was the level of money that they were earning because, you know, if we look at what we call whiteboard, which was basically, you know, realized revenue prior to billing and being paid, they were the highest performing team in the whole group, you know, so they'd been popping the champagne and celebrating, but on the back end, the cash wasn't being collected. So yeah, it was, it was difficult to reorientate individuals who had gone through such a period of change in a very, very short period of time. And, uh, yeah, but really interesting.

Yeah, no, that definitely sounds like a solid challenge to get stuck into. So should we talk about, like, like I was saying to you before we started this, let's talk about this, like, renewables. Let's just talk about the, the sort of market, and then within that like the European markets. So, so you've, you've got a lot of experience, uh, in this. As I said before we started this, we've spoken a lot on this podcast this year around like the US and the opportunity there. Like, look, looking back, what were some of the initial like approaches or, um, principles around, right, we're reorienting, like, retargeting ourselves at these markets, renewables? How do you think about that? Was it like, right, I know what works, let's speak to candidates, let's get leads, let's do all that good stuff?

Yeah.

But like, looking back, like, what was like version 1 of the game plan of going into renewables? Like, did we do the market map? You did all of that, you looked at it, and then it was just sales strategy, getting into that. Just talk to us a bit about how you initially thought about entering this market, because there'll be a lot of people now that are hearing about data centres, are hearing about offshore wind projects, and they might be in this position where it's like, we've always been in these core markets and actually the spend is massively going down, the legislation is going against these types of projects, we need to reorientate ourselves.

Mm-hmm.

What, how do we approach it then? And then we'll probably hear a bit about how we're approaching it now and how it's different. It might be different. Yeah, it'll be different. But how do we think about in the early days, what was the plan?

Well, I had the context of the other side of the business at Spencer Ogden. Um, so, you know, there was lots of information that that I could take away from that experience to say, okay, I can see what's gone really well there. I can also see mistakes that have been made and, and try and do it in a slightly different way. So for example, within the offshore wind market, Spencer Ogden was very focused on the actual turbines themselves, and I really wanted to harness JD Ross's roots within the subsea oil and gas sector and conventional power sector. So we went for everything that was under the water, the opposite side of those, of those projects basically, and focused on the infrastructure of the projects, and, and that went really well for us because a lot of the skills of the candidates were transferable into a different sector from the one that we'd been working in. So there were little things like that that we did differently to what we'd seen work, um, in, in our previous employer. Um, but at the same time, you know, we made massive mistakes. The biggest mistake for me was that I had this idea that we wanted to copy the structure of our clients. What I didn't consider though was that the clients that we worked with are, you know, huge conglomerate organizations who have critical mass in every single sector that they're in, but they work in many different sectors within the recruit, within the renewable energy industry or energy industry in general. So I ended up in a startup business having one person in each market, and it just didn't work. We spread ourselves far too thin.

So just on, just so I make sure we understand that. So you, you thought it'd be a good idea if we get X client and they work in that space that you just said, we'll have someone that can deal with their Before they're even building, the designing of the infrastructure, building it, like just that whole journey.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, every step of the project lifecycle, but also every technology on which they were working. So it could be wind, it could be solar, it was heat networks, energy management, energy sales and trading. So our idea was that if that client had a requirement, we could service it with someone who specialized in that particular area. But it was just, it was just too much. We needed to choose things that we weren't going to do as well. And that became the most important thing for it was to say, okay, these are the areas that aren't working for us, but these are the ones that are, which became solar and wind basically, which are very similar in their nature. And so eventually we, we picked those two and, and doubled, tripled, quadrupled down into those two areas. And, and that worked far better.

So, so just quickly on this, because I think this is an interesting insight for people. So let me know if this is the wrong way to think about what you just said in terms of one of your biggest mistakes. Because as a concept, as a strategy, that does make sense. Like if we get X client, we can say that we do this, this, and this. And even if they're at this part of the project journey, we can deal with that and help with them that. Or even if they're at the start of it, we can help with that. But what you're saying there is You had JD Ross Energies as like a business unit, but then let's just say you had 5 different people that did the individual parts. The business was called the same, but you ultimately had 5 different businesses within it.

Yeah, essentially, because each of the sectors operated differently.

Yeah.

You know, renewable energy, it isn't a sector or a desk, it's a whole industry. So the different areas of the industry all had their own individual nuances that meant that we couldn't have a single blueprint that fit everything.

So it's quite I think that, that is, that's, that, that's what I was trying to understand as an insight, because I've met, I think that has been one of the, the smart things that companies have done this year, which is these types of decisions of like, actually, sometimes you do have to just learn it the hard way. But actually, like you just said, the decision you made is to double down on those two industries and then build all the niches, build it all within that, versus I've met a lot of companies that struggled this year where they maybe had a bit more of that initial strategy that you said, because it sounded like a good idea, or they brought someone in who's got that experience. And even though they're called the same company, they've ultimately got 4, 5, 3 different entire businesses that are all quite slightly different strategies, they're all going in different directions. And that's just building on extra hard mode. I think, I think one of the real challenging things about that, you can let me know what you saw. Was it's always going to take more work, more time, more resources to win a client and win that partnership. And when that person does that, we can't all benefit from that.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's, uh, I think that's fair to say in, in the early stages of developing the business. I think once you get to a level where you have enough critical mass to go into multiple different sectors, areas, um, where you've blueprint that sits within a wider group. So, you know, you'll see successful brands like Opus, the business I work for, has, you know, 3 core brands. I think that's the point at which you can have a very different working model within each of them because it is, because you have enough critical mass focused on each one of those things that ties it together within itself. Whereas, you know, if you're a startup scale-up business of, you know, 5, 10 people and everyone is doing something different, then then you've got a problem.

Yeah. Yeah. That's trying to highlight, because I think that's what I was highlighting where companies have found it hard. Because then it's like, yeah, everyone does all that hard work, but then that one client relationship doesn't necessarily mean that other people can benefit from that. Split deals are more harder to do and stuff like that. So that was one of the biggest lessons. So what were, because I think this is something that comes with your territory and your type of industry. What signals was it that you really saw consistently that made you go solar? And what was the other one?

So wind as well. Yeah.

What were the signals that you saw there that made you go, let's double down on that?

Yeah, I'd say one was economic. So an economic drivers within those markets that we knew, you know, that's where we needed to put our chips. But also just looking at the performance metrics on those markets versus some of the others that we, that we explored, you know, a key thing for for us was trying to find what we would call a candidate-led market. So candidate short skill sets and work out, you know, dominate the candidate market and work those candidates out to, uh, you know, a broader client base. Um, so we track something that we call CMIs, so candidates with multiple interviews. So what we're always looking for, if we're in a job-led market, we'd look for JMI. So it was about getting the best candidates in the marketplace who have that skill set, which is scarce. And the reason that we knew that existed, of course, was because renewables at that point was, you know, a fairly new concept, companies doing it for the first time. So there weren't a lot of people out there who had the experience at that point. So businesses were fighting over those individuals who did have that exposure from when there was a sort of surge of, of projects, maybe, you know, 5, 10 years prior. But there'd been that real flatline period, sort of the 2015 to 2018 period where the solar, the wind market, you know, weren't as buoyant as they were at that point as we were getting into it. So there was a skills gap there. So we knew it was a candidate-driven market. We knew how to work in candidate-driven markets because that's the way that Opus had always worked. So we stole their blueprint basically for, you know, how they work those markets and drove CMIs.

And Like in terms of, in like your, this is something I just feel like stands out more when I, when I sit down with people that work in your industry, like how much time, like you can bring it into today, like how much time do you spend in your position, like looking at markets and trying to understand the economic drivers or signals? How much time do you spend on that or do you not spend that much time on it?

Yeah, I spend quite a bit of time on it. I think it helps to, to like geek out a little bit in our markets and And that's why the market really suits me, I think, because, you know, I, I like to do that. I'm really, I'm really interested in it and I'm, I'm a bit of a geek. So it's about two things I would say really that it's about the commercial viability of the market first and first and foremost. So what is driving the market? So that flatline period that I spoke about within solar and wind, that was because it really relied on as an industry government subsidies at that time and there was a lot of contention around whether or not governments were going to, to back it as an alternative to fossil fuels. But they did, and that drove some activity within the marketplace. But then there was a shift in the market that meant that actually those projects became viable without the subsidies. So all of a sudden, all of those businesses that had to get the government subsidies for their projects in order to build solar and wind farms didn't need that anymore. More, they could make a profit on it through just doing it off their own back. So there was obviously a huge sort of race and investment into that market. So it's the commercial viability of it. But then also I think is the need for people. You know, there's a lot of areas of our marketplace, like we were speaking about it earlier, where crazy amounts of money get thrown around, you know, insane numbers. We're talking projects worth billions of pounds, but a lot of the time you find that that's sort of conceptual or theoretical. They're talking about a future project, a project that might be. And then when you look at, okay, well, how many people are actually executing on that project at the moment, you know, there may be 5 people. So, you know, you've got to really understand how the market drives the need for professionals and therefore the need for professional services as well, because it's not all connected to the big numbers that you hear about within our market.

How, you know, you said the commercial viability, like in your world, is a big part of that, like to do with governments and things like that. Is that oftentimes where you'd be like, right, that, that looks like in a really good place today, all the signals that I'm seeing, because these projects or these types of companies are getting like incentivized because of the government schemes and the money they can make available there? Is that often like a real big signal?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, the political side of it is big within our space for sure. For instance, our Amsterdam office, you know, went through a really difficult period as a consequence of subsidies that are given to Chinese manufacturers of of renewable energy products, which is the area that, that, uh, that business focused on. So a lot of our clients being European businesses, you know, they, uh, they really struggled in the marketplace against that, um, Chinese competition.

So just give us a context there because I found that interesting. So what the incentive— didn't— just explain it that way.

So the Chinese government were giving subsidies to Chinese manufacturers, um, that meant that they could produce the products, um, very cheaply. Cheaply, right, because it was being subsidized.

European governments were only making at the time.

European companies didn't receive the same subsidies. So for instance, there's a business, famous business, Meyer Burger in Germany, who are a big manufacturer of solar panels, went to the German government and said, look, we can't compete in this market, we need the subsidies that other countries are providing if you want our business to continue. The German government didn't give it to them, so they shut down operations effectively overnight. You know, hundreds of people became, became became redundant.

Wow.

And this is a challenge for a lot of those European, what we call OEMs, original equipment manufacturers, which was our client base in Amsterdam.

And like, was there any like sign of that coming, or was it more of like some murmurs, more and more clients saying this is really difficult to compete because our customers have just got, you know, importing from China?

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Was there definitely signs like that just happened like that?

Definitely signs of it coming, yeah. But, um, it was exacerbated interest rates as well. So inflation, that added a challenge because of course the cost of procuring materials and procuring services was heightened, meant that the margins of these businesses were squeezed even further. So it was a bit of a perfect storm really, and it did happen fairly quickly, but we probably had maybe 3 to 4 months, I would say, where if we looked at the data and we were looking at the data and we could see something different to what we were hearing in the marketplace, but I think we didn't trust ourselves. We didn't trust the data that we had. And I think that's a really powerful thing for recruitment companies that you are at the edge of the market. You know, the first thing that goes is, is the hiring, right? Nervousness starts to come in around these markets on you know, should we hire? Well, sales aren't looking as good. Maybe we shouldn't. Um, and you know, for us it was that trust our, trust our numbers, you know, and to pivot quicker and react quicker when even the marketplace itself wasn't talking about or openly talking about the challenges, uh, at the time, at least not in the media. If you spoke to the candidates, you know, again, we were hearing the same sort of story, a lot of nervousness around the market, a lot of challenges. But, you know, it hadn't hit the, the, the, the wider media.

Talk to us a bit about, because this is also part of it, red herrings. Yeah, in your world. Yeah, talk to us a bit because I know that is something that we brought up and I know we're getting like technical here, but I do feel like if you operate in this space, this is the stuff that when I sit down with people that are leading teams, they're, they're thinking about this stuff and they're looking at it, and oftentimes it's because they've had experiences like you just spoke about. If they looked at just from a recruitment standpoint, the revenue and what you're doing with those, let's just say companies in Germany, that was those types of manufacturers, what you're doing 2 years ago with them before that happened, it's gonna look wildly different. So like, I feel like this stuff does matter in this world. Even more so in looking at getting better understanding, like you said, trusting your data, the signals. Because really, ideally, the ideal scenario is you catch and see these things early. So then when actually it is a segment of the market that's really on the come up, like you, you are already there. Like you've already been meeting the key players, you've already been spending time really networking, understanding, um, what's been going on, why people getting behind it. So then when government grants happen and it does make the mainstream media you position yourself as someone that absolutely companies need to be speaking to if they're going down these routes on the projects, right? That's the ideal, right? Versus, like, I'm sure you'll be aware now, I can't, I can't like not unsee, like, if I speak to a recruitment company, there's a high chance that they're in data centers.

Yeah.

Or that type of ecosystem. Or if there's a new business unit that maybe a company is launching, it might fall under the renewables category. I'm sure you've seen a lot of that, and there's been people that have come and gone. Sure. I think that, that is why this is so important, and that's why we also, when we prepared for this, you've got to be prepared for red herrings. I think you said that you listen briefly to, um, Jack's episode, who they have a renewables brand. Obviously he told us about that hydrogen journey. I don't know if that— yeah, so then translated in your world.

Yeah, absolutely.

Where you put resources, time into it, the signals are and then certain decisions were made and then everything's turned off.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

So just talk to us a bit about your experience with this, 'cause I think this also comes with then the, the game of like making the right bets, investing resources, time, seeing the signals going, let's double down there. Actually, no, not there.

Red herrings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you've gotta understand the fragility of a, of a market. So, you know, hydrogen's a really good example there because it, it is, reliant on those bigger clients within the space driving those markets. Greenwashing is a term that gets thrown around, and that is very real in our space, is that a lot of these big clients who make their revenue within fossil fuels will have parts of their business that focus on other sexier things, basically, in relation to renewables, to the energy transition. But if you look at those business units or separate businesses, and if they do stand on their own two feet commercially, often the answer to that is, is no, they don't. They're supported by the fossil fuel, um, revenue-generating part of these, of these businesses. Um, and I think also the other side of it is if those sectors, like what Jack spoke about in, um, over in the US, I think there was a specific driver which is why they chose hydrogen in the first place in terms of it being backed by the by the government, and then that was removed, and all of a sudden they didn't have a market, you know. So you got to understand that fragility of those markets are based on, okay, if some politician turns around and says, okay, we're not going to do this anymore, all of a sudden, you know, you have to move your whole business. So yeah, I think that's why now we're looking for that commercial viability in the markets that we're in, that it's not so fragile based on, you know, the decisions of individuals who, when they make those decisions, of course, aren't thinking about recruitment.

And, and the, the truth is, like, you, you guys are really well positioned because you've been through a lot of this, right? So hopefully, you'd like to think, gonna be better positioned to make smart decisions, double down on things. So, like, what we can talk about today in the future here, but, like, how are you, like, in your ecosystem now, how are you feeling about this in terms of what you're doubling down on? Are we still in the renewables and wind and focusing on that? Or like, how are you thinking about it today? Because again, anyone that operates in this space, I think if you work in a great company, you're doing well, they've probably got their market strategy dialed, or like they probably feel confident in their leadership team. Because I do feel like that is a top-down responsibility. I feel like, like, I feel like that is on your shoulders if you're leading this team. Time to see these things and make these calls and make these decisions versus, um, like people who are at the coalface thinking about that. They might give you information and you'll have really good people who are curious and saying, hey man, I keep hearing this, what do you think? But I do think if we're going to have a successful renewables division or the companies out there doing really well in the space, I do feel like it's top down.

Yeah.

So how are you thinking about this today? What does that look like for you? Are be all things data centers. I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, no, you, you've got to listen to what's coming back from the team as well. You know, they are the people who are speaking day to day to your candidates, to your clients, and they are always going to be your eyes and ears on the marketplace. So you've got to listen to that stuff. Just like with the example I gave in, in Amsterdam, we should have listened earlier to the things that we were hearing, irrespective of what we were seeing in the, the bigger picture of, you know, media or what's available in the, uh, in the public domain. Um, So that's really important that you do listen to that stuff as a top-down leader, but then it's a case of sanity checking that against those things that you know are important and not building your business in fragile markets. So yeah, I think for me it's, yeah, it's really about can we diversify our business a little bit? So it's called the energy mix or energy transition for a reason is because it will be a mix of different technologies that achieve that. Um, so our USP always being, uh, we focus on renewables, solely renewables, particularly solar and wind. You know, what got our business to, to where it is now is almost its weakness, and we need to diversify a little bit, um, to look at some other areas that are very similar, that carry the same blueprint. Um, so we can take what we're really good at on, you know, how we run recruitment desks day-to-day and how we run our business and go and apply that into other markets. So for us, it's looking at the bottlenecks in the marketplace and how the businesses which we work with are reacting to the challenges that they're facing within the market. So for example, a lot of these businesses still need to achieve net zero, um, but the way that they're going to do that isn't going to be just the deployment of renewable energy. Um, the way that they'll do that is by reducing carbon. One of the ways to do that is to use renewables, but there are a lot of other ways as well to reduce carbon. So it's achieving the same goal, essentially, you know, impacting climate change, etc., but using different technologies to achieve that. And the other side of it is the additional challenges I haven't spoken about within our market are related to the grid. So there's a bottleneck in connecting these projects to the grid itself. So if you find a bottleneck in the marketplace, Usually that's where there's opportunities in recruitment, right? Because if it's a bottleneck, you need to release that a little bit. Means you need to grow that market, or potentially you need to change. And they're the two drivers that drive any recruitment market— growth and change.

Really good breakdown, or like, good, like, interesting way to, like, think through it. That is, that is one thing that I've definitely really seen this year is, like, that intentional diver— that, like, being intentional with your diversification. So it is interesting that sort of where you landed and it sounds like you've been really intentional about it because it like future proofs your team really, doesn't it? And it sort of protects, is the idea, right? In terms of if one segment, something happens, then we've got this team over here that are doing great. Is that the idea essentially? Just to make sure that we can protect ourselves in that way and we haven't got all our eggs in one basket or?

Yeah, and also that we don't need to change the blueprint of who we are as a business. Business overly much. You know, the, the way that we recruit applies to those other markets, that it's not inherently different in the way that we need to approach them. Um, so it's close enough to what we do that we can use the experience that we already have, but just redirect and pivot it into slightly different spaces.

And then, and then just final thing on this, because I think again, this is nuanced to your industry, We might have just lost people because we spoke about renewables so much. I think like people, the people in this ecosystem are going to care about it and there's going to be more and more people entering it. Because this has come into my head actually as a final point, and you would have seen this no doubt, but we've worked with companies in this space and what's happened more often than not is these leaders saying that, oh, so-and-so has had to change their market again, or this team has had to change their market, we've had to pivot slightly. So like if you are in this space as a recruiter cutting your teeth, building your desk, does that come with the territory that you may, you may have to drastically change your market? Like if we're, if we've been doing it for as long as you have, 5 years or 8 years or whatever, is it fairly expected that you will change your quote unquote market?

I think you've got to change with the industry. You know, we're in an industry that is driven by change. That's the whole point of it, right? Is that we know that we haven't solved the world's energy problems, so it's constantly changing, but that's a good thing because that's one of the drivers that drives any recruitment market. So I think, yes, you have to understand that your desk will change, but it might not be that you have to pivot overnight, you know, that it will be a gradual change over time or just a redirection of how you run your desk or, you know, the type of technology that you, or projects that you focus on. So yeah, I think it is inevitable that you will need to change, but hopefully not so drastically that you have to, you know, re— yeah. Yeah, start from zero and reinvent yourself as a recruiter. I think if you speak to any successful leader in any industry, not just in renewable, they will tell you that the big opportunities that they came across, you know, they really stumbled upon them often trying something else. You know, and that's true for us as well. You know, we tried a multitude of different things, as I mentioned, you know, really diverse approach to the market. And we came across solar and wind as the standout ones in you know, basically suck it and see, you know, and there will always be a little bit of that as well. And some of the most successful people who stuck with us and did incredibly well out of their career as a result, the guy who runs our contract division now, Dave Broomfield, he probably moved markets and desks for us maybe 4 or 5 times in the beginning before we found something that really suited him as a recruiter. But also was the market that we wanted to go and build our business within. So yeah, I think for anyone in that position, if you feel you haven't found it yet, you know, kind of be patient a little bit, stick with it, you know, do the basics and keep your eyes and ears open for, you know, what might be slightly to the left or right of what you are focused on today that looks like a good opportunity.

Should we talk about what, what do you think are often the common mistakes British people make who are doing business with people in places like Holland, France, Italy? I'm sure you've had to navigate this. What jumps out at you there?

I think if we're talking about people, individuals, consultants, it's not respecting the differences in, in culture. I was one of those people to begin with, you know, when we started working in the European markets, because my desk as a biller wasn't really a desk. I was doing everything and anything I could get my hands on. My 3 main clients were in South Korea, South Africa, and Florida, which is insane, right? Because, you know, I'm working across every time zone. I just needed a client on the West Coast and I'd like completed the deck basically. But yeah, I I thought people are people, you know, recruitment's recruitment, cookie cutter, you know, go into each of these, uh, into each of these markets with the UK approach to recruitment and they'll love that because we're brilliant at it and we are tenacious and we will outperform and outwork those, uh, those recruiters who work in those local markets. And to some extent that's true. The outwork bit I think is, is, is true a lot of the time. Um, but you You need to respect the differences in culture for sure.

Give some examples. What would be like an example of— I don't know if I'm— I'm going to put you on the spot here. Like, what would be the standout nuance if I'm doing business with someone in France compared to Italy? Let's just say what's like standout France.

Um, if you're trying to get hold of a candidate in France, for example, says you have to have a real respect for lunchtimes and after work. So, you know, as a UK recruiter, right, you would think best time to get hold of your candidates is over lunch, at the end of the day, you know, into the evening. If you call a candidate in France or a lot of candidates in France beyond probably 6 PM their time, which is 5 PM in the UK, it's not going to go down overly well. We're talking about cold calling here, right? You can arrange calls with them within those hours within their load. Calling people out of the blue and disrupting them during their personal time, you know, that's, that's not going to go down well. That's a big no-no. Italy is, is similar, um, just because France is often connected by businesses to Southern Europe, you know, despite its location. So if you think about Spain, Italy, France are all more similar than Germany, for example, which is very different again. The Benelux, which is different again, and then Nordics and Scandinavia, different again. So you can kind of split Europe up, I would say, into into 3 kind of blocks that have similar nuances in terms of the culture, but very different principles when it comes to how you recruit, you know. So although the Netherlands and Germany from a cultural perspective might be reasonably similar to the eyes of a UK recruiter, the way in which you, from a, a process perspective, need to work within those markets is, is very different.

And what's like the best way to learn this? Is it just doing the reps and mucking up, or do you know, what is the best way to figure this out?

It's the way I've learned it. I wouldn't say it's the best way. Um, look, I think in hindsight, the best way now is to really understand how a market operates, how a country operates in Europe in its approach to recruitment, and therefore how that drives certain things. So for example, if you're looking at a contract business, you know, how does contracting work in that country and how does it differ to what you're familiar with? You know, can you compete in the local marketplace? So for instance, you know, one that a lot of people will know about is the AUG license in Germany as opposed to France with the portage processes. You know, if you talk about the Netherlands, BVG accounts, ZZPs, so you really need to know know how these markets work, especially on contract, but also on perm. If you think in the Netherlands, the system over there is contracts, so fixed-term contracts essentially, so what they call definite contracts up to 2 years before individuals would go on to an indefinite contract. So it's a different system to having probation periods, which is really alien to us in the UK, right? Anyone in a perm job is expecting to have an indefinite contract. It doesn't have an end, whereas in the Netherlands, it's very, very common that you would have several definite contracts before you're offered an indefinite contract. But then on the flip side of that, it's really difficult as an employer in the Netherlands to part ways with someone, you know, and that's why they have those distinct ends to the contract and the contract length increases over time, you know, over the time in which you've engaged with the person. So that difference in how the market works drives differences in how you need to recruit within the space.

Yeah, that's really good, like really educational. So like you said there, the advice there is like really make sure you understand, geek out on that stuff, because that's just going to help everything else. Like you said, understand the different terminologies, how things work, because if you understand all of that, and then you can probably start piecing together recruitment processes, what's important, what I need to understand when you're speaking to people. Like, if you start there, then that, that's really helpful. How— obviously you've got an office in Amsterdam. Like, how to, to pull together this European market piece, how important and how impactful is it to have boots on the ground? Or making sure that if I am doing this market from the UK, that I'm over there on a fairly consistent basis. I don't know, does that move the needle? Does it help accelerate partnerships, relationships? How have you found that over the years?

Yeah, it definitely does. You know, clients appreciate that, you know, especially post-Brexit as well, that you still have a, say, boots on the ground in the European country. I think it's more necessary if you're in contracting, contracting business, not so much on the perm side of things. I think similar to what we're seeing with a lot of recruitment businesses focused on the US market at the moment. You know, operating in those markets remotely is more than possible. And there's lots of complexities. You know, the how you employ people is not just prevalent for thinking about how your clients are going to employ people, but if you are going to put boots on the ground in-country, then you need to think about how you're going to employ people as well, because the same applies to you. So yeah, it's Uh, it can be a bit of a minefield if you get into, okay, we're going to employ, open a Berlin office, for instance. Um, you know, it's of course not as easy as that because you need to think about how you're going to employ those people and how they will have inevitably different rights and different expectations from those employees that you have in the UK.

And are you, because we'll get into the the, the approach that you've taken, how you've got better at getting the best out of people and all those elements. But are you like actively— like, do you actively encourage, target people on going out there visiting their clients? I don't know, like, does that go a long way? I'm just— yeah, yeah, it's about that.

I've toyed with the idea of, of targeting people, or rather having it as a KPI, um, or rewarding people on the basis of it. So, you know, I remember it went down really badly when I set a bit of an incentive to say, okay, if someone books, X number of meetings, then you can go to this conference. And the feedback that came back to me, rightly so in hindsight, was, look, it shouldn't be an incentive to go out there and go to a conference, right? That should be part of the job itself. And that's what then drives, you know, the relationships that you're building with clients. So what we try to do, obviously from a cost perspective in working in Europe, is look at exhibitions rather than conferences. So exhibitions where there's an open trade floor means that you can go around and meet lots of clients within your space kind of simultaneously. And of course, if there's a specific reason to go and visit a single client, then, you know, we will do that as well. We target ourselves on client meetings every single week, but most of those are virtual. You know, I would say 80-90% of our client meetings are virtual, the day-to-day ones. But if we've got a new client or we're talking about a solution beyond just success-based transactions, actional recruitment, then, you know, we want to get over and visit that client, see them, learn about their business and, you know, how they operate. So yeah, we definitely drive getting over there.

Do you find that really moves the needle sometimes on accelerating relationships, taking that partnership to the next level? Have you found that typically, or?

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think, you know, it's always a dangerous thing to do to look clients that you've met with versus the revenue generated with those clients. Because of course, if you're generating a lot of revenue with a client, then the likelihood is you will have met them. So you really need to understand kind of which one came first, I suppose, if you are measuring that. Um, but without a shadow of a doubt, you know, everyone who works in recruitment, I'm sure, will tell you, you know, you should go and meet your clients. And I would absolutely agree with that.

Yeah, I just think it's like when you're, when you're in this particular position where you're working with a lot of companies like outside of the country that you work in, I just feel like whenever I'm speaking to people, even then the US example, if you go over to these countries, even then just day to day speaking to people, like you just got more of an understanding the nuances of like, I don't know, the local coffee shop or like just diff— like when you actually meet people and you go to these places where you're speaking to people about working there and what's involved, or you went to a site of one of these things. Like, I just feel like that can absolutely give you an edge, um, versus it's just all through like phone calls and, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. I think, um, it's about partnering with the client, you know, operating as an extension of their business. If you don't go over there and, and meet them, um, take the time to, you know, really understand their organization, how things fit together, then you'll find it more difficult to to sell their business and the opportunity, you know, to be able to say to a candidate, for example, okay, you know, I've met this person several times at different conferences and exhibitions, you know, I've been to their headquarters, you know, carries so much more weight than, you know, I'm a recruiter in the UK who sits behind a desk and behind a screen. So yeah, you got to get out there.

So one thing that I wanted to start on, I'm interested to just get your thoughts on this is like, I'm really of the— you can, you can let me know if you sort of agree with this or not, but I really feel like the, the like knowledge gap from like going from like zero to one in today's market to what it took 3, 4, 5 years ago is like quite different. I think you've been around long enough and been in the game longer than me to probably notice and understand what principles are always going to be there. But I do, I do just believe that like if someone like in your position who's like close to it but not at the coalface, like how do we, how do you feel about that knowledge gap? Like does it exist? Do we feel like— I just always reference the fact that, you know, ChatGPT only came out in like 2022. To. So even like that in the landscape, and that even being something that I'm having to navigate, or speaking to companies where actually they're going, no, we're not speaking to other agencies, we're actually speaking to an AI company that's going to do all the initial screening for us, like that, that's like a different nuance. So I guess where I wanted to start is with you being in this like non-billing role, like how have you— what's been your approach to like really making sure that you are close to it, you understand the nuances. Is that something like— do you— how do you feel about that, that sort of knowledge gap?

Yeah, yeah. Look, you, you've got to stay relevant, right? Because if you don't, if your ideas, you know, your concept, your blueprint for how you work is based on how you did it, you know, you're going to be out of date. You know, I'm a dinosaur. I'm whatever it was, you know, 2015, 2016, the last time I was running, you know, a 360 desk, and the world has changed, never mind the recruitment industry so much. And I think over, you know, over the next few years, it's probably going to change more than it has in the last 10, 20 years. Again, accelerated growth through what you said there around AI and automation of recruitment processes. I think a lot of people are nervous about what does a recruitment consultant agency industry recruitment consultant look like in 2 years' time? Mind 20 years' time. So yeah, you, you've very much got to stay relevant. And for someone like me, that means staying relevant within the industry, all of the stuff that we've spoken about. So geeking out on, on that. But it also means staying relevant within our own industry, within the recruitment industry. So understanding, you know, the big thing for me at the moment is about automation. So everything that I'm speaking to with our consultants day to day and the ideas that I'm putting forward are all about, okay, how can we utilize technology to save time, you know, and get rid of those things which previously would just be, you know, time suckers out of your day. You know, updating notes on a CRM system, for example, is a big one at the moment, and how we can automate those processes so we can spend more time on what actually matters in recruitment and what is going to be more difficult for AI to replace. I'm not saying impossible. Possible, but more difficult, which is, you know, selling, pitching, closing. And even if AI is capable of that, I feel that there will always be a want for people to speak to people about decisions as significant as changing jobs. You know, that there will be a nervousness around just dealing with a bot, hopefully. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it's all about those recruiters, helping those recruiters to focus on what really matters and what's going to make them relevant for the long term rather than the administration stuff, which inevitably is all going to be automated within, you know, probably the next couple of years.

So the way that I see that then is the lens that you're approaching things there is like ultimately how can I deliver as much value as possible to my team? And you're saying currently, obviously in your world, one of those ways is really being able to educate and speak to people about market, what you're seeing the market side. And then, yeah, you're talking about there then actually being valuable in the sense of like, uh, hopefully making people feel more efficient or spending less time on parts of the job they really don't like, and you're helping them do that. But then what, what about like, again, like, like, completely feel free to like disagree with me here, but it's just the conversations that I have with people. And I do think it's— I feel like it'd be something that, I don't know, maybe you'd think about or not. But I know that you've brought in like a BD director, for example. It might be part of this equation, I don't know. But like, do you feel like it's a fair statement for people to be like, I find it really frustrating when my manager or leader tells me to do stuff that they don't do? Is that like a fair state? Like, is that a fair statement?

Yeah, yeah. Look, I think it's, uh, you got to be a coach if you're in my position. You've got to be a coach. You can't be an autocratic leader because if you become autocratic, you know, do this it becomes do as I say, not as I, not as I do. Um, so you got to coach people into making those decisions, and that can take a little bit more time, but you get a lot more buy-in from being a coach and allowing people to make those decisions themselves with your guidance than you would in telling someone just to do it.

Yeah, um, that's the insight there. Yeah, I feel like, because as you can imagine, and I know there'll be plenty of people in this See where Matt's my manager. He hasn't, he hasn't quote unquote done the job since 2015, and every week he's telling me to do more of the things that he's told me works. But how does he know it works if he's— do you know what I mean? Yeah, there's a lot of people in that— see, I'm sure you've interviewed people that have gone, they don't— yeah, like, I'm sure that happened.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what you're saying there, that absolutely probably isn't your approach because you know you're not going to get buy-in, you know that probably isn't going to move the needle, help that person. Like you said, you use the word coach there, so it's actually helping them get to that solution themselves, understanding what, what are the issues here, what, like, and helping them get to that point.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, in that scenario specifically, it's being on top of what everybody within your team and division is doing because they are all doing the job, and then taking parallels from the experience of one person and then applying it to the other. So coaching someone with the experience of somebody else, you know, just this morning I was in a morning meeting talking to the Perm team in London about the importance of what we call spec CVs. So CVs sent speculatively out to the marketplace of candidates, you know, that we're representing, which is, you know, really old school view of recruitment, right? And something that's been around forever and probably will be part of how businesses recruit for the foreseeable future as well. And, One of the ladies in the, in the team, she heard that immediately this morning, got on to sending her best candidate out to the marketplace and got a bite back from a client straight away. So then it's a case of, okay, you know, in that next meeting, make sure that everyone understands that. Like, how did she do that? How did she achieve that? Why did the client come back? What did the email look like? What did the candidate look like? And how can everyone else learn from that so that you reinforce those behaviors? Ideas that, that get us wins.

Yeah, love that. And then how— what does your— like, I'm always curious about this— what does your, like, leader dashboard look like? Like, what is it that you like to look at on a— you might have to report on this upwards, maybe, I don't know— but like, what are you always looking at on a daily, weekly, monthly basis from a performance standpoint?

I'd say everything, because it is everything, but also the one thing that represents what will move the needle, you know, as you've been saying, in an individual biller's desk. So it's about looking at everything and investigating every element of it to understand where is that bottleneck for them? What's the one thing that is going to have the greatest effect on their desk? So, you know, for example, So for example, that might be looking at someone, a performer, and saying, okay, look, they're underperforming. They're not doing the number of deals that we would expect them to. Okay, we look at and then work backwards, reverse engineer it. So are they booking interviews? Are they pulling jobs? What does the activity around business development look like? What does the activity around candidate generation look like? And then through investigating where the problem lies, okay, if they're not getting jobs, what's BD activity like from a volume perspective, but also from a quality perspective as well? You know, so are they getting leads, for example? So they're getting relevant information from the marketplace, they're generating strong reasons for calling, but is it that they can't execute on that? Is it that the calls that they're having are poor even though they have the information to, you know, to go and have meaningful conversations in the market? They're not able to articulate themselves in the right way? Is it the, you know, they're dealing with candidates who are uncommitted, so they've got a huge number of interviews but they're not converting to deals because those candidates are backing out of processes at the, uh, at the 11th hour? So it's looking at everything to then look at one thing.

No, yeah, I got you. But if I was to say like, can you give me a health check of your team, what would be like the What would that be?

What? So, so the way, the way that we split it out, so, um, results first and foremost, so outcomes. Yeah, so deals, interviews, jobs.

Okay.

Um, they're the outcomes. And then we look at many metrics that go into the job generation side of things. So, um, that could be everything from, you know, I mentioned speculative CVs from leads generated. It could be how you're growing your network. It's your levels of engagement with your network, so what we call canvas calls, so client calls, meetings of course as well. And then we look at the candidate generation side, so, you know, how many new candidates registered, conversations with candidates, candidate meetings equally as well, which are, you know, more often than not virtual of course. So, um, yeah, on a daily basis my team receive all of that, everything, um, broken down into those 3 distinct areas. Here's everyone's activity on candidate generation, on job generation, and here's the results off the, uh, off the back of that. Um, what, what would you—

I was just gonna say, yeah, look, how would you— it might depend on the experience, but if we just go someone that I've been in your team for like 18 months, 24 months, like I'm 2, years in, what would you define as like a good week? I think that's important. We're talking standards. So like, you've said everything. Yeah, you like— is that some good insights for people? But like, yeah, how would you— what would be the standards, do you think? Or what have you typically worked? I know it might differ.

Yeah, yeah.

But like, how would you define a— like, what— that person had a great week, what do you reckon that looks like?

Two jobs.

Yeah.

Um, at least one of those two turned 2 interview within the week, 5 interviews. So we count all interviews, so that's not just unique candidates that interview, but 5 interviews actually taking place, and a deal, or a deal every other week, we would say, because we target 2 deals a month. So approximately a deal every other week.

Is that perm?

Yeah, that'd be on the perm side. On contractors as well, you know, if you can grow your contractor book by net 2 contractors per month, so you're probably looking at a third deal given, you know, early finishes or contracts coming to the actual end.

Okay, that's good insight for people because I'm sure you've thought about that, like what does a good— and obviously you've come up with that because, you know, if you do that consistently then everything else takes care of itself.

Yeah, that's always been opus, you know. If you think about how that pulls through to the ratios, um, we operate from a 4:1 job to placement ratio. 2 jobs a week is 8 jobs a month, 2 placements, 4:1. Um, same goes for the, uh, for the, uh, for the interview to placement ratio. And they're the two, you know, two things that we're looking at really is the quantity of what we're doing. Yes, that is important, but the quality also. And the quality is dictated by the ratios and the quantity is of course dictated by the inputs and the results that you get off the back of it.

We're not talking about it here, but one of the things that, uh, when I, uh, spoke to Nigel about you, like, oh, what do you think, like, great at? He said one of the things was like, he said you're, you're really great at using KPIs, getting into the details. Like, what, why do you think he said that? Like, using them in the right way? Because as you know, it's a classic thing to be banded about, hate KPIs, all that.

Yeah, well, the clue's in the name, right? KPI, a lot of people forget that is indicator. It's not KPTs, it's not targets. Um, and I, I think I use them in that way. So, you know, I, I hate it when I hear about these businesses that say, no, we don't have KPIs, means that you only have one KPI, which is, you know, how much money are you making, basically. So for me, for anyone who wants to be high-performing in anything, you know, not just recruitment, if you think about sport, for example, you know, sports people, top performers in anything, all use KPIs, indicators of their level of performance. If it's a 100-meter sprinter and you say someone's trying to break the world record, Okay, well, how fast can you run the 100 meters today? And they're like, well, I don't know. You know, that's not going to happen, right? You know, they know their calorie intake, they know how quickly, you know, they can run today. They know how much they need to shave off that to get to where they want to be. It's exactly the same for a recruiter. You need to know your ratios, you know, and we'll talk about this, I'm sure, but that comes back to how you drive and motivate people as well, is using those KPIs to understand, okay, can I quantify KPI for someone, their goals, their ambitions, their visions for what they want to achieve in life and in their career. If you don't have those KPIs, then you can't make it real.

And what does, like, what does it look in, in practice in terms of, like, if I'm in your team on, like, a weekly basis, are we having a— I don't know, you might have got into a bit of a rhythm with this, like, what is it? Are you sort of doing weekly one-on-ones? Are you— like, you mentioned there that you had like a bit of a session today, you said earlier. Like, what does that coaching part look like? Is it mainly reactive and you're relying on sort of creating a safe space for people to say, hey man, I'm really struggling with this, can you help? Are you then also maybe practicing sometimes and you keep seeing a bit of a trend and you maybe then bring some examples of so-and-so's been doing really great at this, I wanted to show you exactly they're doing it. I'm sure you built a bit of a rhythm here as well.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Like I said to you, for someone in your position, and hopefully it's coming across the right way, but like, there's no way you're sitting in like a non-billing role and like not like providing a lot of value.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm sure you're very aware of that. It's like, right, how can I impact this business, this team that I'm with?

Yeah, yeah.

So what does that look like today? Because I'm sure you refine that and will continue to refine it, but what does that coaching rhythm look like?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. Look, I, I very much understand that I represent pure costs to my employer, right? So yeah, that, that value has to be seen on the sales floor day to day. And there is a cadence of what we call MBRs, so monthly business reviews, which are an in-depth dive into those KPIs, look at those indicators and really understand like, what are they telling us? And what do we need to change? Or what do we need to keep doing based based on the performance, but also in the moment, you know, in the moment coaching, desk-side coaching could be around a deal shot, could be about a phone call, about anything, you know, immediate direct feedback. You know, I really believe in that, you know, in, in the moment on the sales floor. Um, and that's so important because you need both those little kind of snippets of information throughout the course of, uh, of the day, but you also need those bigger conversations stations where you sort of get in a room and really dive into the, uh, into the detail and get, get into the weeds.

Anything that you found to be effective to help people? I guess a bit different if you're instantly sort of being reactive and you're seeing things and you're giving feedback, which I agree that, like, if there's an opportunity to give feedback straight away, like, why would you wait? Um, but something that we, we found in, in the business that I'm in is, like, you can say until you're, like, blue in the face, like, if you need help, ask me. But that requires that person—

yeah, courage.

And maybe looking at you going, oh, is he busy, is he not? Then you got in there like, I don't want to sound stupid, maybe I should know this stuff.

Yeah, how—

I think that's interesting as well.

Yeah, it's got to transition over time, you know, someone's experience, um, because you can't treat someone who's been working for you for 3 years or has, you know, 5 years worth of recruitment experience as someone who's in, in the job on day one. I always think of it in my mind as go, don't go. So what I mean by that is I'm always thinking, can I trust this person to do that activity to the same quality that I can do it myself? Because if I've trained them, it's my responsibility, and coaching, it's my responsibility to ensure that they can do it to a standard as high as I could do it. And hopefully, you know, they can then build on that and go and do it even better. And there's plenty of people in my team at the moment who are better recruiters in certain areas than I ever was as a biller. You know, I take a lot of satisfaction from that. But if it is don't go, as in for them, it's a don't go, they know that there's an expectation that I will inspect around that and try to understand, okay, how, why can't they yet do it to the level that I would expect and to coach them through that. So that's either show them how it should be done or, you know, provide them the feedback and the learns on what they need to change about how they approach that scenario and situation the next time. And then hopefully you get to a point where someone's fully autonomous where, you know, everything is a go and you know that that person then is, you know, is someone that you can trust to get on with the job and then you are looking at just the one KPI that matters, which is the results. So, you know, don't get me wrong in me saying I'm looking at everything. I am looking at everything, but that doesn't always transpire to a conversation about everything. In fact, it never transpires to a conversation about everything by looking at everything, it transpires to a conversation about one thing. And for someone who's really experienced, that will be how much money are they making and how does that link to their why, to their goals, to their ambitions. And someone who's really inexperienced, it could be, you know, how did that phone call go today?

Love that. So let's sort of round this out on this then, because you said how much one of the things you're really looking at is automation automation, just, just to like end on this, like I was speaking to a founder this week, been in the industry a long time. How do you feel about this 360 recruitment setup in this sort of new world of technology automation? We was having this conversation around not like the clickbait way to say it would be like 360 recruitment is dead. But when you're inspecting, like, when we look in terms of automation, we were talking about, I think what will be interesting to do, and there'll be plenty of companies that have already done this or are doing it, and you might be doing this, where it's like, okay, we've got Matt in the team, he's a 360 recruiter. Like, we really need to understand, like, what does he actually do? Like, what are his typical workflows? Like, what are the sort of tasks that he does? We need to understand that first. So if we're saying he's a 360 recruiter, what is he doing? Well, he's market mapping, he's speaking to candidates, adding people to the system is, um, I don't know, yeah, cold calling. Like, you need to understand what is it that Matt does day in, day out. I think a lot of companies where they'll struggle to successfully implement AI and get the most out of automations, they don't understand that first. They don't understand what a typical workflow, what the workflows are. Have you been geeking out on this? So like, because I do almost think then, if you think about it, why are so many products saying, Matt, stop doing admin and do more recruitment. Why is that? I think it's because it's very obvious if you start double-clicking into Matt, the 360 recruiter, what is he doing day in, day out? There is actually quite— depending on what business he's in, he's spending a lot of time searching on LinkedIn, getting names on the database, trying to find relevant people to speak to, quote unquote admin, making notes. So I understand why that is almost like everyone sort positioning. What— so, so it's almost like you need to start there. So then when we think 360 recruiter, I think you're right. If you're paying someone as a 360 recruiter, what we need to understand— what do we need these people to keep becoming world-class at? What do they need to be spending time on day in, day out? It probably isn't market mapping. It probably isn't, um, putting notes on the system. How are you thinking about this? Because I do think like the 360 recruiter when you was climbing the ranks at Spencer Ogden and what you're expected to do day in, day out probably looks a bit different.

Yeah, yeah.

I think a lot of people thinking about this.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I say to my team all the time is, um, listen to what people do, not what people say. Um, and I think AI will always have, or at least my understanding that at the moment is still obviously fairly rudimentary in terms of where it might be in a few years, and, and I might be eating my words, but I think Today it's going to struggle with, from a recruitment sense, listening to what people say, but that's not always a reflection on, on what they will do. So for me, when the penny dropped for me as a recruiter, like, I had a really terrible start to recruitment. You know, my understanding of what a good recruiter was, was that I would fill every single job and I would place every single candidate. Um, and I quickly realized that— well, not so quickly actually, but I eventually realized that that wasn't it at all. It was about finding about who was committed in contingent-based, success-based recruitment businesses. Who are your committed clients? Who are your committed candidates? And understanding who is committed, I think, is a really, really difficult thing to do. If you speak to any experienced recruiter, they'll talk about like the sixth sense, the recruitment sixth sense. You know that feeling that you get as an experienced recruiter when you speak to a candidate on face value? They're saying everything that you would want to hear, but you know that they're not going to take that job. And that could be anything. It could be the tone. It could be something that they've said that, or something that they've said that doesn't relate to what they've done. You know, I also talked to the team about setting what we call false barriers. So things that people need to overcome as a test of that commitment. So it could be something really simple, right? Like sending a right to represent email mail back after a candidate qualification? You know, does that individual actually go and take the time to do that? If they don't, okay, do we start to question that commitment? So I think there'll always be that part of the process, which is understanding, is someone committed, which is what our clients really pay us for, you know, because especially in a technical industry like ours, I think the misconception is that we are finding candidates who can do the job. That's our client's responsibility to understand if that individual can do the job because we aren't engineers, right? I don't know how to build a solar farm or a wind farm. So what they're paying us for is to ensure that they're not having their time wasted, which is to be speaking to candidates who will want to work for their business, who will stay with their business as well. And that's something personally I think AI, for the time being at least, will, you know, will really struggle with. But the flip side of it as well is whether or not people actually want want to interact with AI at that level. You know, something which, so Amy Golding, our ex-CEO, we had a summer conference once and she was talking to us about the advancements in technology and the fact that it existed that you could get a mortgage by speaking to Alexa. This is back in, I don't know, 2018, 2019. And I think it was Nationwide who launched that. So within 5 minutes of speaking to Alexa, you could have a mortgage secured on a property. The technology do that existed, but it fell on its face because nobody wants to get a mortgage by speaking to a speaker. You know, like you want to go into it, it needs to be harder than that. Do you know what I mean? Because it's such a big decision and that's the case here, right? Is it's such a big decision on the perm side, at least to take a new job, to transition and change your career that you need to you kind of want it to feel a little bit more difficult than speaking to a bot.

Well, and then lastly then, give us an example of something you've automated recently.

Yeah, well, look, I know you have connections with Sourceware. So, you know, Sourceware is a good example, which we trialed recently and have pulled the trigger on that. So, you know, we are now using Sourceware for automated outreach. You know, I think another thing is, so we're a Microsoft stack business. So everything that we use across our CRM, of course LinkedIn is now owned by Microsoft, so there's good integration with that. You know, Microsoft Office, Teams, everything is Microsoft. So we're understanding how we can use Copilot, which is Microsoft's AI agent across all of those different elements of the tech stack to, you know, automate every aspect of what we do. So that might be coming from, a client meeting means all of those meeting notes get recorded and everything automatically populated onto the CRM system. So, you know, I think the more that you can spend engaged with your marketplace, which is meeting people and speaking to people, the better, you know, the less that you want to be doing, which is the administration that allows you to engage with people, because that's all it is really. If we think about everything that we do as recruiters that we regard as administration, it is just exercises that allow us to connect with people more efficiently with more appropriate things to say, more relevant things to say.

Yeah. No, for sure. I know we're feeling good about this team where it's at, brought in someone recently, as, as I said, there's a BD director. What we're feeling good about, I'm speaking to a lot of people that are feeling good about— I've always got to take it with a pinch of salt, but what does the sort of the medium, the medium-long-term future look like for this team, do you think? Are you excited about it? What are you doubling down on?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've already spoken about the markets which we're doubling down on and our understanding of those markets, not just from me but from the team, you know, new people that we've brought in as well. And so I'm really excited about the market and the business plan when it comes to the industry and how we're going to transition into that. Um, and you know, I'm really confident in the core foundation of the team. Like I said, we don't want to change who we are or the blueprint of what has made us successful. So I'm excited also that we don't need to change that in order to, uh, to go and execute the plan.

Love it. Well, look, really, like, I'd love— like, can tell how much of an interest you have in the industry that you worked in. I mean, you worked in it for such a long time now, so I'm sure that'd be really educational for people. Definitely, I learned a lot as well. As well, which is always— so makes this more enjoyable. But like, really cool to learn about all of that. But generally, that has been like a consistent insight for me, sitting down with people like you in the industry that you operate in. Like, that, that is important, that is part of the job. Um, so it's been really cool learning about that. And then also really getting into this detail of, yeah, like, how are you getting the most out of your team? How you coach? And I think you really do have to figure that out in today's market. I think you can very easily fall into that trap, and there's going to be plenty of people in our industry now with how much things have changed and how things are going to continue to change, where they could very easily, if they don't do the types of things that you're talking about, how you approach it, or at least have the humility to know like where you need to improve, where you can get better, to not be bounded with, I've got a manager that just tells me to do stuff and I don't understand my market and they don't know what I'm doing. So I think it's been really cool to understand how you've approached that, the European markets, all those insights. So appreciate you coming on the pod.

No worries. No, thanks very much for having me, Hishem. Thank you.