The Ultimate Guide to Building a Recruitment Desk in 2024 with Dom Taujanskas

Dom, welcome to the pod.

Thank you very much. Really excited to be on. Yeah, I can't wait to get into this.

We're going to do something slightly different in this conversation, but I think everyone listening will hopefully really enjoy it. But we're going to try and aim for this episode to be the one-stop shop for anyone that wants to build a desk from scratch. You might be in the thick of it right now. You might have built a desk in the past. Um, you might even get some ideas on how you can get more out of your recruitment desk currently. But hopefully our goal here today is that by the end of this, you're going to walk away with hopefully a lot of actionable takeaways that you can apply when building a recruitment desk. So why is Dom someone that is great to be able to talk about this? So you've, just to do the little career highlight reel, um, been in recruitment since 2018. Um, since then you've worked for 3 different businesses. You've always been in the construction space. Obviously you're really passionate about, um, architecture, and you even did— you was also a freelance architect, obviously did that at university as well, right?

Yep.

Um, so the first business that you really built your recruitment career in, um, you spent 7 years there, was an individual contributor that whole time. I think I dropped down here, which I loved. You said going into that that you did 360 but never done it before, and you were just like, just learned on the job, made it happen.

Completely lied, completely lied at interview and said I was selling retainers when I didn't even know how to speak to a client.

So yeah, learned on the job. So you've always, always done perm, and I think in that time your best year there was in, I got here 2017, I might be wrong, but yeah, $285K was your best year. Your average deal size in that year was like £5K. So that was, you know, a lot of placements, a lot of people that you're working with. You switched desks whilst you were there and ended up focusing on a different area. And then over the last 3 years, you've been part of the Quest journey, Quest Personnel. You joined Connor when it was a startup. There's 3 of you, including yourself, Connor, and one other. Your initial plan when you joined there was to focus on project managers and site managers. You gave that a really good go but found it tough. I think got here 6 months where you didn't make a placement. And then last November, so around 9 months, you've had a new focus. So far you've done nearly £160K, average fee size £7K. But over the last 10 years, you've had to build 4 markets from scratch.

Yeah, that's completely correct.

So, You've definitely done it the hard way.

Yeah.

It's never easy doing it, but we thought it'd be really cool in this conversation to really talk about everything that you've learned and the stuff that you've now applied over the last 9 months from, you know, your past experiences.

Yep.

So basically, I think where we wanted to start was when we're thinking about building a desk, and we'll just see where this goes, but I think the first sort of heading that we had You've put here assessing a new desk, and when we prepared for this, I put sort of data mapping the market.

Yeah.

So where do you want to start here? Because I thought you shared something really interesting. Obviously, being within Quest, there was data, there was a database. You shared something really interesting in terms of the key bits that you looked at around the data that you did have. Yeah. Before you then focused in on something. So do you want to start there? And then I might ask you to share, like, if you didn't have that, what would we look at? But why don't we start there in terms of like assessing a desk?

Yeah, so I think it's really crucial and important to look at the data and look at the stats and figures to, to even figure out if the desk is going to work or not. So what you need to do is look at— because essentially, boil it down to the basics. Look at the amount of candidates in a particular area, look at the amount of potential clients in a particular area, and let the data dictate which area that you're going to focus on or which area you're going to work. So for example, the way that I went about doing that is I picked key cities throughout the UK. I looked at any potential candidates on LinkedIn, looked at company websites to see how big the companies were, had the raw data. And then from there, I looked at how many potential connections we may have had in our database, how much crossover there was with the desks that we've got currently. And then I just picked what major cities were, were going to be the best for building the desk from scratch. Because I think all too often people just go in and they just go, right, I'm going to start a desk from scratch. I'm going to go UK-wide. And then all of a sudden, after 6 months, they're not getting any traction because they've just spread themselves too thinly. So let the data do the hard work for you and be led by the data before you even start.

So let's break that down a little bit. Something that I thought was really cool was when you looked at your database, you looked at specifically like how many mobile numbers you had for candidates in that area.

Yeah.

So like, just give us a bit more of that. So it was like on the database, she's looking at the number of candidates for X job title or X skill set that you had in that area to start. Like, how, like, how, how rich is the data? Do we have mobile numbers? Do we have emails? Because that, that's, I guess, give you an indication of like, how much legwork am I going to have to do straight from the beginning? Are there already people that I know I can call straight away to maybe get some advice or help on like the market.

Yep.

Um, so tell us a bit more about that because I thought that, that I really liked that insight. I thought that was really smart.

Yeah, I think it's, um, the words, the odd mobile number on the database, the odd, uh, candidate. But I think before you do that, you've got to figure out what the most high-demand candidate is in, in the whole of the industry that you're going to be recruiting for. Because what you need to do initially is look at what's in most demand in a certain area. See how many candidates with that job title are within that area, and then see how many potential clients there are in that area as well. Because if you focus on high-demand candidates, then you're on to a winner straight away there. But I think it is a case of do the easy work first. So I looked at— there was minimal CVs on the database in terms of areas, but there was a lot of kind of mobile numbers and contact numbers. So just have a complete list of that. Tell, uh, ask yourself how many mobile numbers that you've got, which are the easier calls, And then break that down to how many potential candidates are that maybe aren't mapped on the system, how many potential clients that there are, how many crossover clients that there are as well, where you can leverage relationships from the other desks that we had, and just really build up a picture of what's going to be the, dare I say, easiest for you, but where the most data is that can lead you to a certain area.

Yeah, no, definitely. And what about, so you mentioned there figuring out the high, the the, like, skill sets and people that be high in demand. Yeah, just tell us a bit more about that. Like, how do I, uh, if you was to, let's say, I was joining your team.

Yep.

How would you explain that to me? Or like, what stuff, what sort of data do you see and go, oh, that, that's potentially exciting? Like, are you looking at there being way more job postings for X job title versus how many people there are on LinkedIn with the job title? I don't know, like, what, what are the things that you find or see that go, I think this could be a skill set that is going to be in high, high in demand?

Yeah, I think with this one you do have to put the hard work in and just start speaking to people. So the way that I did it is I asked Connor, you know, out of interest, where is the biggest skill set on your desk? Where's the biggest skill set gap? Then I cross-referenced that just by speaking to some of his clients that not necessarily would give me business, but just said out of interest, is that going to be the same over when I move over to structural engineering? But yeah, you're right. Just look at online, look at where the most job applications are for that certain thing. Look on LinkedIn, look on job sites, see where the most job applications are for that certain point. And again, be led by the data. You know, if you've got 20 jobs at higher level and 2 jobs at lower level, then you know that the higher level stuff is in high demand. And then you can look at where the candidates are least because, you know, it could be different. The higher up the level that you get, the less candidates there are. The lower down, the more candidates there are. So for me, it made complete sense to focus on the more experienced people, but I made sure that I backed that up by actually doing my own research as well. But the easiest way to do that is just by speaking to people.

Yeah, fair. And then to tie that together, then if I'm in your team and I'm— I've joined your business to start a new desk that maybe you might have helped me identify as a starting point, yeah, what should I have as like a minimum? Like, what should my minimum plan consist of? Do you know what I mean? So we've spoken about the data, I'm assuming I should probably have a bit of a plan on like, how am I gonna build this desk or approach it? We're going to get into the detail of things like, um, speaking to candidates, headhunting clients, all of that. But I guess before we get to that point, we probably want to have a bit of a plan, don't we? So like, what, what should be like the minimum viable plan that I should probably at least aim to have?

Yeah, so I think, um, you need to have a strategy in place before you even start a desk because You know, I've heard this term banded about so much where it's like, work smarter, not harder. And I really disagree with that comment because if your manager is telling you to work smarter and they don't tell you how to do that, then that means that they do not have a strategy in place and they don't actually know what they're talking about. So what you need to do— so what I did is I just set up the— what, what does the first 3 months look like? So I do a quarterly 3 months where I do a SWOT analysis. I look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And then I'm just guided by, by that. So at the end of the 3 months, I assess what I've done well, break it all down, and then my weaknesses, I want to work on those for the next 3 months as well. But the first one is always going to be quite basic. So it could just be a case of the first 3 months you want to pick up 2 jobs or the first 3 months you want to get 4 candidates in or whatever it is, is just set yourself a rough target of what you want to achieve. Because again, I think it is being target-led as well. And don't be too hard on yourself because if you are building up a desk from scratch, you've got to be realistic in, in your, in what you want to do because you can't just say, yeah, I'm going to make loads of money instantly on a new desk. You've kind of got to be realistic and then assess it as you go along. So assess it after a month. Assess it after 2 months, assess it after 3 months. But just, just at the beginning part, just keep it basic, like candidates, clients, jobs. Just keep it real, real basic and then work out from there.

Yeah. And then important to have those reflection points that then again we can come back to being led by the data. Yeah. I initially thought this job title is what I really want to focus on, but actually this keeps coming up, so it's slightly different to what I initially focused on, but I'm gonna sort of put energy into that. Okay, cool. Yeah, love that. Um, that's the first part then, but I guess the other bit that you put here, I just wanted to ask, you put the right work environment, time management, time stealers. You want to share anything on that? Because you put that on the assessing a new desk part.

Yeah, so I think, um, I mean, the right work environment is crucial, right? Because, you know, for me personally, I think we lose a lot of good people in this industry because they've joined a company, they've gone to build a desk from scratch, and there's no support or no strategy in place, and they go, this is dead hard. I don't want to do recruitment anymore. And I think the industry loses a lot of good people to that. So I think like you've got to be really honest with yourself as well. If you walk into your office tomorrow and you look around and the people around you don't match your, your energy, your enthusiasm, your passion, your drive, your determination, and even worse, if the people above you don't match that as well, then you are in the wrong place. Like honestly, hand your notice in tomorrow and do yourself a favour. Because there's only so far you're gonna get before you just plateau and then you fall in line with everyone else. So I think you've gotta be in the right work environment in terms of that ambition, drive, and motivation because that's crucial if you wanna succeed. I think secondly to that, I always say the time stealers, you've gotta keep an eye on them. So for me, the first time stealer is your personal phone. That's the one that's always in the corner of your vision going, look at me, look at me, look at me. Go on, go on, look at me. So I put that in, in my bag. It's in my bag. I get it out at lunchtime, but that is in my bag all day. The other one is LinkedIn scrolling. Like, that LinkedIn is designed to get you scrolling and looking at stuff because there's loads of adverts on there. So make sure you're, uh, conscious about if you are LinkedIn scrolling. I mean, I do it all the time, don't get me wrong, but I stop myself and go, come on, this is wasting my time here. And the third one is your emails as well. Like, the way that we structure our day is we've got 4 1-hour sprints where it's emails down, you have your call list ready to go, you're not generating your call list on the sprint, but you just close your emails down. Don't get distracted by your emails because if something pops up, that's it, you've lost 10-15 minutes replying to that email or booking an interview when it can actually wait for an hour. Then you've got like a 10-minute admin sprint there as well.

So I love that.

Yeah, those would be the 3 times.

Good principles to take into just being a better recruiter, productive. Like you said, then the work environment is key. Um, And then just final thing on this then, from your experience, I know there won't be like a, like a perfect answer for everyone. It can be very nuanced. But from your journey, how long, as we're talking about the plan, obviously you're, you reflect a lot, which I absolutely love. How long, like if I was in your team right now and I say, Dom, if I'm doing all these things, I listen to what you say, I do the sprints, I'm productive, like how long do you think it's going to take me to start seeing the the success that we're hoping to get here? Like, what, what's the typical barometer that you give people? And I know it can be very nuanced, but like, how do you feel about that when we think about at the start? Because I'm sure, I'm sure you've been there. It's like, this is where I'm going to be in 12 months' time, but then actually it takes longer. Like, what?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's never an instant fix, really. Um, I would say like, you know, if, if you are assessing it every 3 months, you'll get a good barometer of of how you're actually tracking and how you're actually getting on. I would say, you know, give it 6 to 12 months before you can make a clear and accurate assessment of where the desk is going. But if you do break that down into quarterly assessments, then it's much better than you do 12 months and you go, I wasn't quite where I wanted it to be. You're looking at it every 3 months and going, actually, that was better than the last 3 months. So it's, it like Looking at it in terms of incremental increases rather than 12 months and going, oh, it wasn't, I didn't hit my target, it's so much better and so much more rewarding, really.

Yeah, got you. So we, the next sort of area that we had then to go through this in a bit of an order, we've spoken about assessing a new desk, being led by the data and a few other bits. We then got the, the people/candidate side, right? So, um, I think I'd like to think that most people listen to this would agree that if you've got, like, we've identified a market where we've sort of got a bit of an understanding and feeling of what might be hard skill sets to find or hard to fill jobs. We understand what those are.

Yeah.

So I'd like to think, yeah, everyone listening could probably agree that if you have a couple of these people that you're working with, it's probably going to be one of the best ways to help you start having conversations, getting in front of your target client list. So we want to start with the candidate side. So You broke this down here on headhunting first.

Yep.

And then candidate qualification.

Yeah.

So let's go into basically like how has Dom approached or how do we think we should best approach actually getting candidates to be working with us, which then can lead to then working with them, speccing them out, doing whatever we're doing with them. But we need some, some candidates with great skill sets to hopefully help us start having conversations, open up the door. So where Where do you want to start here?

Yeah, so I think it's a case of there's various ways that you can get kind of names of candidates. Obviously LinkedIn is a great mapping tool as well. Sometimes the names are on company websites. If you're short on both of those, then just speak to existing candidates and try and pick up names that way. But you know, what you've got to do is you make sure you give them a name first of maybe potential hiring manager or give them something first before you get a name back. But in terms of, you know, going out and getting candidates, I think at Quest Personnel we are old school, like we are outbound on the phone sales. You know, we don't use job boards, we don't use LinkedIn Messenger. In fact, like we tell our clients, we are anti-job boards. But the way that we do it, and I am really precious about the title headhunting, but the way that we do it is we call up a switchboard or we call up the receptionist, we get past the gatekeeper. We speak to the target candidate themselves when they're in work. And a lot of the time when we speak to them, they're sat in the middle of the office. We do a quick pitch, get their mobile number, and then get out of there. Now, I think, you know, a load of people are probably gonna be sat there listening and thinking, why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just go for the easier stuff? But for us, like when we crunched the data, it was when we looked at the figures. Don't get me wrong, you get a lot of rejection. And 60% of the people that, that we're dealing with, just, they're not looking at all and they hang the phone up on us, which is absolutely fair enough. 20% of those people are actively looking and we've just caught them when they are on job boards and speaking to other agencies and stuff like that. Um, what I tend to find is they're a lot harder to deal with. Your percentage chance of placing them is a lot slimmer.

Mm-hmm.

But then we try and target the 20% who are not actively looking, but we just piqued their interest and caught them at a really good time.

Mm-hmm.

Because the way I like, I like those candidates is because money is never the main motivation for them. It's always something additional. So, you know, you've caught a little bit of a sweet spot in a candidate there where you can close them for exclusivity to be the only agent dealing with them. So as a business, we're much more scalable because the percentage chance of placing that candidate has increased because a lot of the candidates I speak to have never dealt with an agency before. And that's exactly the position that I want to be in. And as a business, we want to be in as well. But I think, you know, that headhunting approach is, don't get me wrong, it's hard work. But I mean, I only, I did it on Friday, got someone's mobile number, they sent their CV over the weekend. I've got them an interview on the Monday and that's leading to second stage. So it does work, but it's just the harder way of doing things. Yeah.

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Yeah.

And then this is the way that you're then going to start trying to get candidates that you're working with in this new desk that you're, you're building.

Yeah, completely. Yeah, completely. Reach out to those candidates. And I think, you know, the, the getting past the gatekeeper is, is quite easy because I just say, it's Dom from QPL, can I be put through to so-and-so? A lot of the time they just put me through without asking questions. You can bamboozle them a little bit and they say, what's it about? And I just say, oh, it's just following up on an an internal resource meeting, which is true. I have had an internal resource meeting and I'm following up on that. So, you know, they get put through to them. But I think, you know, in terms of the structure of it, you've just— because you're calling them at work, you've got to get to the point straight away and say, I am a headhunter in whatever sector you're working in. I wanted to reach out because I think you're one of the top candidates in the sector in the current area. And then you've just got to get straight to the point. Like, I know I've caught you in the middle of the office. What time do you finish work and what's the best number to catch you on? Just keep it real, real brief.

Is that literally the ask?

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it's as simple as that. But I think, you know, if you start trying to pitch over the phone when they're sat there next to their boss, they're like, who is this person?

Yeah, what's going on?

But like, you've got, you've got to go in there with confidence, and that is just you practice it, practice it, practice it.

And how do you, do you do anything around, because a lot of like, why, why would they, do you do anything in that pitch around like why it's in their interest to like be connected with you or anything like that.

No, just get in, get out. Really? Yeah, get in, get their mobile number, get out. You can do all that when you, when you call them back and you've got a bit more time, but like you've got to realize that you are calling them up at work and you're gonna get their back up.

So, so it's literally, it sounds like sort of strike their ego a bit, like, hey, like, um, so you just call out straight away that I know I've called you like the middle of the work, in the middle of the work or whatever. Like, you're, from what I can see or understand, you're one of the, you know, in the top 10% of people that, etc., etc., looking for in the industry. Yeah. Um, when do you finish work? Would you be against giving me your mobile number or something like that?

Something as simple as that. And then sometimes what you can do is if your client's given you a list of companies that they want you to go after, or even better, a list of names, you can just drop that in there as well and say, one of my, um, clients has asked me to approach you on their behalf because I don't want to be seen headhunting from their competitors. And then, and then, and then you've got a better connection that way because you are, you know, your client has actually asked you to approach them or approach people from that company. So that, that's another way of doing it as well if you want to build that into a certain script.

Love that. And then any— what's, what is, um, what's like a really negative, like, what's a negative experience of that? Is it just like hanging up, or have you had like, oh my God, like, you're called— why are you calling me at work? Do you run into that?

Yeah, yeah, completely. I mean, you've got to have, you've got to have rebuttals against stuff like that. So The most common one is I'm not actively looking at the moment and I just make a joke of it. I was like, I just say, I wasn't calling you expecting you to hand in your notice as soon as you heard my voice. It was just a case of chatting to you after work. If it's for you, great. If not, then fair enough. You'll never hear my voice again. And most people are like, oh yeah, what have I got to lose? Yeah, go on then. You know, a lot of people say, yeah, you have called me in the middle of work. I don't actually get that that often, but you just say like, this is the only way to get hold of the best people in the market. And you just give them a bit of information. So I know you're getting 20 emails every single day, and I know you reply to none of them. And they go, yeah, it's true. I just go, let's, let's have a conversation after work then.

Yeah, okay, nice. So that's the ask. And then before we get into if I'm someone that gives you my mobile and then we have a call after, because I know you've got some good approaches there, are you not doing anything then? When we think about building a desk from scratch, you— I've had a few people, I think even on the Hector platform where obviously with LinkedIn you can see who's open to work. So that can also be a good source of like people to speak to, get information, market intel. So you're doing— obviously you've shared with us what you, in your world, the best way to get the best people, which is then going to enable all the other great stuff to happen. But when we're thinking about building a desk, we're trying to still like really understand the market dynamics, learn things. Are you doing anything on like Are you also speaking to people that maybe are actively working in these things or not?

Yeah. So the answer to that is no.

Okay.

And the reason to that is because everyone is speaking to them, trying to get information off them. So either they will give you the information, but it'll be really in a really short format or they will be like, this is the fifth time I've been asked that question. What I tend to find is that the methods that we use in terms of headhunting you can slow that process down and be like, let's meet up for a Teams meeting, let's meet up for a coffee, because you know you're not in, um, you're not competing against any other agent, and you can have a proper sit-down conversation with them and learn all about the market. And they give you a lot more information than the people who have maybe been speaking to the fifth time that day from an agent. So I tend to find those relationships are built up much quicker and much easier um, because of those methods, because sometimes they haven't heard from, ever spoken to a recruitment agency before, so they don't know that sometimes you are trying to get information out of them. But again, you've got to give them something else back. So let them know about market conditions, let them know about who the top hires are, give them a bit of free CV writing advice, or say, you know, I'll come down to meet you, we'll have a bit of a free CV writing workshop, and I can give you a little bit of advice on the CV. So give them something to get something back as well. But yeah, that information gathering thing is much better if you're one of very few agents speaking to them because they're much more likely to give you the info.

So it sounds like then for you, you'd rather just be laser focused on putting your energy and time into trying to speak to those people. Maybe at the end of the week, you might speak to less people, but the quality could be way higher. Yeah, versus if I do some of that, but then also I'm also spending 50% of my time speaking to people whose CVs are on the job boards, or I can see it open to work. But then, like you just said, you might— you'll probably be one of many. The quality might be less in terms of like the information that you get and that experience. So you would just rather put all your focus on, on that?

Yeah, and since I've been kind of focusing on this and the whole solution selling thing since obviously the Hector Training programme and listen to the podcast, I actually feel really dirty when it comes to speaking to candidates who are on, like, who are actively looking, speaking to multiple agencies, because I can tell I don't have that kind of connection with them from the beginning. They're just treating me as another agency who, yeah, transactional and not adding value at all. And it just doesn't feel nice at all. Now I've gone too far the other way. I can't, I kind of can't go back because it, it just feels dead grubby and dirty, really.

And then just from your experience, obviously you've got people in a business that are less, lesser experienced than you. If we were to— I don't know how you would measure it, but like, what's like the, um, the conversion rate? Like, if, if we were to— if that's like your method. Yeah, like, I don't know how you measure it, but like, how many people would you say, or like, yeah, what's the conversion of like number of people that you've called Yeah. Versus getting their mobile numbers and booking in like a bit of a follow-up call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so if I'm completely honest with you, it's probably about the method that we use when we do actually speak to people. I'd say it's probably about a 60% success rate, something like that, in terms of getting their mobile numbers, because most people are like, it's curiosity more than anything. So, so you do have to make a lot of calls. A lot of the time you don't get put through to people, in which case you just leave your mobile number with reception. They will call you back. But yeah, it's probably about a 60% success rate. But then I think when you're speaking to them after work hours or on a lunch break or whatever, the most important thing to do with any candidate is close them for commitment at the end of speaking to them. So by that I mean, so the method for me would be I just explain to them why it's beneficial to meet me because I just say the reason that I set up this meeting is because I want to know exactly what your responsibilities are, what your strengths are, any career highlights that you've got. So if it does get to an interview stage, I can tell that to the clients and they already know all about everything about you. So the first interview is not a case of them trying to find out about you, and it's a bit of a box-ticking exercise. I've done all those preliminary questions and it's just a much easier and smoother interview process. And once you explain that to candidates, they're like, 'Oh, that makes sense,' rather than just saying, 'Oh, let's meet for a coffee, I think it would be great for me.' You're not adding value there, you're not telling them what the benefit is to actually meet you. So that's what I've found, is that once you do have those conversations, once you've got the mobile number, you have those conversations, as long as they're decent conversations, the conversion rate to actually meeting people is much, much higher after that. Yeah.

So let's talk about— and then how— what about I might not have the data on this, but like, how often do you have people give you a mobile number but then like don't pick up or actually speak to you? Yeah, so after work.

So yeah, it does happen sometimes, you know. I'm not going to say like every single person picks up after work, but then, you know, it's just having a good, um, either CRM system where you can put that in a certain list, um, or, you know, if you don't have a good CRM system, having an Excel spreadsheet where you put that candidate in the list. A lot of the placements that I've made, they did not pick up the first time.

Fair.

And then I've called them either 2 days later after work hours at the same time and they've picked up and just gone, oh, actually I'm really sorry. But I think a lot of people can stick barriers in their heads and the more barriers that you put in your head, and this goes back to the working environment as well, because to give you an example, a lot of people say, oh, never be de on a Monday morning or never be de on a Friday morning or Wednesday or school holidays or anything like that. And then all of a sudden you're getting this external influence and putting more and more barriers up in your head. And it can be crippling. It really can be crippling to a point where you're like, oh, I've put all these things in my head, so I just can't make calls at any time. But with these candidates, you can't second-guess them until you've actually— you can't imagine what's gone on until you actually speak to them. So yeah, some of them do give the mobile number and I never get through to them. That's absolutely fair enough. And I just say, tried a few times, drop them a text, I'll send them a WhatsApp voicemail. If I can't get through to them, fair enough. But a lot of the time they either didn't finish work when they said they were going to, or they're just too busy. Call them back.

And then you were just touching on it there, but I wanted to make sure we understood. So what does a— because I'm sure you help the team get really good at this and you've really tried to perfect this, but it's going to be really important that you leave a great impression in that. Like, you've called them at work, they've given you a mobile number. There's an element of trust there, I guess, that they're, okay, I'm curious, I'm going to give this guy my number. What does a great call sound like when we're calling them after work? Like, what does that— I know you were touching on it, but I just want to make sure we understand that because I'm sure you're really purposeful with that because you want to leave a good impression regardless of what happens. So what does a great call sound like? What's the objective of that call? What we're doing?

Okay, so most importantly, and I've got a feeling that a lot of people don't do that, but you have to have a good introduction. You have to say— it's no good saying, it's Dom calling from Quest Personnel, and just launch into a load of questions. You've got to give yourself credibility behind that. So for me personally, I say I'm the associate at Quest Personnel. I say my background's actually in architecture, and straight away I can hear them like at ease and hear them relax. And I say, you know, I've actually worked with structural engineers in the past before, so I know that each one is completely different in terms of their likes and dislikes. Um, and then I just say to them, you know, what I'm going to do is, while I am here to talk to you about a specific job, I kind of understand that it might not actually be the right fit for you, but there's quite a few other jobs I could talk about. So, um, and then I just say like, tell me a little bit more about yourself, you know. And I think what I teach as well, as I teach iceberg questioning— so what I mean by that is that most people only take the first answer as gospel and don't dig down in terms of the, the uncovering the actual issues or the problems. Um, and I think, you know, if you stop getting away from— it's good to have a sheet of information that you need, but you need to dig to the bottom of the problem, really. But I think with that, the structure should be intro, go straight into the questioning, because what you don't want them to do is just say, who's the client, how much money is it playing? You need to kind of take control of that situation, really. But as they're talking to you about certain stuff, really dig deep on the questions to be able to get an underlying problem. And then once you've got the underlying problem, just make a note of it because then if you've got, um, that you might realize the job that you're about to pitch might not be the right fit, but you could have other jobs that solve that particular problem that they have. So it's just a case of questioning is really, really important. And then what you can do, there's two things you can do there. You can either sell certain companies once you've dug for the problem as you go along. or you can kind of gauge how impatient that they're getting with questioning. Cause obviously you need to keep it quite succinct and, and quick. But if they're getting impatient, you can sell a specific job to that problem, or you can get through the whole thing, have 3 or 4 key problems and go, the reason that I think you'd like this job is because you've said this. But again, what you've gotta do is when you are talking about the company, talk about the solutions that the company has to their problems first. Don't just go, oh, it's a global consultancy. They've got X amount of people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When they haven't said, I want to work in a larger company. So make sure you're specific in terms of the stuff that you're actually selling to them, that it aligns with the problems that you've just discovered.

And what might be an example problem?

So in our sector, it's like not working on interesting projects, quite boring projects, and it doesn't really float their boat. Hybrid working is one as well, not getting enough hybrid working. Support for chartership, which is, um, you know, essentially it's a very long process to become a chartered engineer. So essentially you can command a higher salary and the clients can charge their clients more money because you are chartered. It's a really long process, um, and support not for that. Um, it's the work environment. Sometimes people feel as they're in a bit of a toxic work environment. And then career progression as well. But with all 5 of those, we've got 3 additional questions to ask them after they've said what it is. So for example, with the career development, you just ask open questions in terms of how much support are you getting for your career development currently? And if they say, oh, not, not that much, then you say, okay, well, why do you think that is?

Um, that's the iceberg question.

Yeah, an iceberg question. And then after they say why you think that is, you just go, okay, so what do you think is going to change in the company? And then all of a sudden you've got right to the bottom of the problem because they said Well, nothing's going to change. And then you're like, cool, I've got, I've got the problem there. That's what, that's what I was after.

Love that. And then final thing on this, what if we're building a desk from scratch, we've got no jobs?

Uh, you would, yeah, if you're building a desk from scratch with no jobs, you find the hardest to find candidate and you get that candidate and you send them to market because you know.

But what are we doing in these calls though? Because it seemed quite, you're like uncovering problems and saying, well, I've got this organization. Yeah, yeah. When you're building it out, you might not have, you might not have.

I think what you do there is just leverage relationships on, on companies that you know are hiring. So you could— I mean, a really, um, a really important point here is to not just pick the big name companies and say, I know that so-and-so are hiring at the moment, um, I think your skill sets would be aligned to them. You don't have to say that you're, you're not working with them, but you just say, I think your skill sets will be aligned to them. But you've got to be careful because a lot of people at the beginning go after the huge big name clients who've got PSLs and waste a lot of time trying to knock on the door and get in them when really you should be focusing on the small to medium companies. They're the ones that are going to be able to give you a lot more time a day. But it is just a case of, you know, if you don't have any particular job to sell them to them, just be completely honest with them and say, I know the market's busy. These are the clients that I'm looking at who I know are hiring at the moment. I think your skill sets would align really, really well to them. Like, tell me a little bit more about yourself. And then once you've got that hard-to-find candidate, that is the door opener for you. That's, that's the start of where you build that desk up.

So let's get on the, onto the BD side then.

Yep.

So where, where do, and like, as we're building this, right, let's just say we're in our first 3 months, would you say that it's a sort of even split of my time? Should I be doing like 50% on the candidate side, 50% on the client side? Like, how, how are we approaching that?

No, I'd say the majority of your time in the first 3 months needs to be on the BD side of things.

Really?

Yeah. I'd say like even 70% of BD to pick up that client base first. Um, and I think with me, my approach has always been I don't approach clients trying to pick up a job because that's where I have historically gone wrong a lot in the past before, is I've just gone and asked for jobs, and that's a transactional conversation. It's a yes or a no answer. But the, the way I've built up a lot of my client base at the moment is, is cold calling, so calling them up And I diffuse the situation straight away and go, listen, I'm going to be completely honest with you. This is a cold call because we haven't spoken before. But I just say, I'm not here to get on my hands and knees and beg for jobs like every other agent. And I just hear them laugh because that's kind of what they're expecting, right? Because everyone else is doing transactional. And when you're doing solution selling, you are doing something a little bit differently. So the way that I say it is like, you know, I have just published a salary guide for structural engineers in the London area. It's a salary and a benefits guide as well. It would be really, really handy to be able to come down and drop it off to you. I'm dropping it off to all my other clients. While we're there, it'd be great to have a business discovery meeting as well, um, for when you're next hiring, because I fully understand, uh, we, you might not be looking for someone in 6 months, a year's time, or even 2 years' time. That doesn't really bother me, but I think in this market being candidate short, unless I have all the information, selling points about your business, I then don't know how to pitch your business to candidates. And they're like, okay, well, you're adding value by dropping off a salary guide to you. You're not being transactional because you actually want to understand my business and how to sell it. And you're not kind of squeezing me at the moment and just begging me for jobs. So a lot of the time they've been really open to that. So just get out there and meet people. And I know that's old school in terms of the salary guide, but face to face is better.

And you're doing that in that first interaction.

Yeah.

All of that, all that stuff that you're getting across.

Yeah. Why not?

Yeah, yeah.

Why not? Because then when you actually meet them, you're dropping off a salary guide and then you're having a really good meeting from then on when they're much more open to actually giving you some information. But I think the most important thing there is diffuse the situation by saying, listen, I'm not here to get on my hands and knees and beg for jobs. Because as I say, what I did wrong last time was just, have you got any jobs? No. Have you got any jobs? No. Have you got any jobs? No. And it was a cycle of maybe 100 clients and I'd just do that time and time again, which doesn't work.

And then what about, like you said, you have your sprints and your lists. What, what are you— what are the types of organizations that are going on that list? Are you making sure obviously they're in your space and the market that you're building?

Yeah.

But are there companies that you know might have hired in the last 6 months, or I don't know, like, is there anything?

Yeah, I don't really, um, because again, I think in terms of putting barriers in your head, I don't really, uh, try and target specific people. Or say, oh, I want people who are just hiring at the moment. Some of the best conversations I've had after they've just hired, when I can go down and meet them and drop off a salary guide and really break down about, you know, how was the recruitment process last time. And I think we can go through the pitch deck in a minute, but, you know, solution selling, it doesn't really matter what stage they're at in terms of hiring, whether they've just gone through it, they're doing it at the moment, or they've, they're not doing it for another 6 months. If you are solution selling it doesn't matter when you meet that client because the way that you do it in comparison to transactional, they will always come back to you no matter what, as long as you've done a good job on it.

Yeah. So the big goal with this is your entire objective is, can I get in front of these people that are in my space or in my market that I'm building?

Yeah.

So I can learn about them. Like you said, if I can learn about when they last hired, how that went, what worked, what didn't. But also to make sure that you can walk away with information, key information around the actual business.

Yeah.

Maybe the types of people they like to hire, what they're doing differently, these types of things. Because I'm assuming if you're building all of that data, then the headhunting is going to become a lot more easier because you can start speaking about different organizations when you met them, these things. But the big goal is, is just to get in front of people and start building that information around these different companies.

Yeah, 100%. And I think, you know, it is all about giving them the value back. So You know, I listed 5 points of why candidates are kind of looking at my desk. So what you do is you just inform the clients of those 5 key points and say, listen, these are the main reasons that candidates are looking at the moment. In terms of the— because sometimes if you ask what the selling points for business, sometimes they do struggle a little bit. But if you make it like, these are why the candidates are looking currently, can you tell me what your business does differently to your competitors on each one of these key points? —then there you go. You've got the selling points of a business that you know are the most common problems in the industry. So your job's so much easier because you're matching the most common problems to the selling points of your clients. So yeah, it just makes things 10 times easier.

So should we break down this meeting then? So you've called me, I've gone, Dom, you know what, like, I liked your approach, happy to set up a meeting. Yeah. What happens next? Like, walk us through it. So we get booked in, you're coming by the office. What's going on? Yeah.

So usually jump on the Vespa, uh, I'll zoom over to the office, um, but I'll have my pitch deck with me. Okay. Uh, which until—

this is like a physical copy?

Physical copy. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even know what that was like 9 months ago. It's only because I heard on the podcast someone talk about pitch deck. I was like, what is that? So I did a bit of research and I think I'm on the 25th edition of it. Yeah, keeps tweaking. But having the pitch deck with you, especially with new business, is so much easier because it almost gives us kind of a set agenda or talking points to talk through. But usually it will be a case of I just get them talking about themselves first. I don't say anything about me until right at the very end. And also I don't even talk about recruitment until the very, very end after I've talked about me. But what you're trying to do is find out as much about the company as possible. You know, the company headcount, where they operate, what sectors they operate in. What their company culture is, what their, um, kind of benefits packages are, that kind of thing, um, what their USPs are, who their main competitors are, what they do differently to their main competitors, why they join the business, and just get the general overview and selling points of the business. And then after that, you talk to them about their, their challenges that most people face and ask them for the USPs around that as well.

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 with 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. So let's go through this a bit, because I, I, when we spoke about this, I, I love this. So you you're walking in now, got a meeting with so-and-so, and then you go through, you're in a meeting room. Because I just love the fact you're doing this all face to face, um, for— and it's first time you met them. Yeah. So that can be daunting in itself. Like, you know, it's not— I'm sure you've got better at that over time. So like, how will we— you know, these people are busy if they're decision makers, right? Or they will perceive their time as important. Yeah. So like, how do you initially frame up that meeting, you know? Because they're, they're probably used to speaking to recruiters when they're hiring and being sold to. So I would just love to hear, like, we'll get in the room, like, how are you framing up this meeting? Because I'm sure you're doing it in a way to, again, like, make them feel at ease. I'm not here to try and sell you. I don't know, like, you can tell me, like, how do you like to frame up that meeting so instantly, hopefully, they're going to be a bit more willing to open up and they know what to expect?

Yeah, I think it's a little trick that I've got, but I've got this salary guide in front of me and I keep it by my side. Okay. So I'm almost holding the power until, like, and they can see the salary guide, but I ask, I'd go straight into the questions first because they want the salary guide and I've got it. So I've kind of got the power dynamic in that situation. So they know that they kind of have to answer the questions first before I then release the salary guides to them almost. But it, I think the way that you phrase it, if they start getting a bit shirty or, you know, why are you asking loads of questions, is you just be honest and say, now the reason that I'm asking you all these questions is because I just don't want to waste your time. and then you can ask them about other agencies, either— I mean, we can go into it because it's written on the pitch deck, but you just say, I'm not here to waste your time because I know it's a candidate-short market at the moment, and if I don't know everything about your business, I am just being like everyone else, um, in terms of transactional recruitment. And a lot of the time they're like, yeah, because you say like, my job is to save you time and money in the recruitment process. Unless I've got all this information, then, you know, I'm not gonna be able to sell it. And It's never happened to me before, but if they're not prepared to give you that information, then they're not a good client. Like, don't work with them or work with them and they're a grade C client. You just don't— you've got to match their energy. So if they're not prepared to give you the time of day, then you don't give the time of day to them. That's as simple as it is, really. Okay.

All right, fair. And then how do you incorporate the pitch deck? And obviously that seems quite pivotal then with how you've— Yeah.

Yeah, so I've gone, I've gone through, I've tried and tested this out loads and loads. But so the front page is just Quest Personnel. What I've done on the front page is I've just put all the different disciplines that we work in.

And this is a physical copy, by the way. So you're not like getting there, sharing your screen, getting that all up. It's like physical copy that you literally give to them.

Yeah, physical copy. And again, sometimes it depends. Sometimes I slide the salary guide to them first, talk about that. Sometimes I slide the pitch deck over to them. But the first point is all the different disciplines that we work in, because I think where a lot of recruitment agencies get it wrong is they don't train people up to be able to cross-sell, or people are just too focused on their own desk and that's all they talk about. So the first will have literally just, we work in this sector, this sector, this sector, and this sector, because a lot of the time the clients will say, oh, I didn't realize that you actually worked in that sector. Brilliant, we've got a job for you there. Um, the second page, um, is I just highlight their problems straight away. I don't talk about myself. I just highlight their problems straight away. So I say, I know the problems in the market are it's candidate short at the moment. I know the problems are when you deal with agencies, you're bombarded with irrelevant CVs. I know the problems are a lack of technical skills at interview stage, also personality misfits and counter offers. So I tell them what their problems are before I even ask them the question, helping them understand, like, as if you, like, know them, basically. Yeah, because, because I'm, I'm an expert. I've laid my credibility there on the table, and I've got it printed out in front of them. I know what your problems are, so that's why you should listen to me as an expert. But then I reframe it and say, like, if you think about their hiring process, if you break down what your hourly rate is, let's say you've got 3 people involved in the hiring process, and you calculate your hourly rate by not having a robust system in place, you are actually costing yourself a lot of money here. And if you reframe that situation, that's when they go, I didn't even think about it that way. And then the next page should be a little bit about yourself. So I always say, you know, my name's Dom. They would call me on the recruiter on the scooter because I've usually got my Vespa helmet. And then again, just something a bit personal that's different. So I say, you know, I've got a wife, two young kids, three sausage dogs, and three chickens. And that always gets a laugh. Aren't you chickens? What's that all about? So I always get to laugh. So something a bit personal. And then I talk about the podcast that I run and the community events that I run as well. And then you talk through your process. So I say like, we are headhunters, we are outbound sales, we are anti-job boards, we don't send LinkedIn messages. And a lot of people are like, right, I've never heard that before. And then for me, I think this is really important where I've got people's attention is you The next pitch is describing the difference between contingent, exclusive, and retained as well, because a lot of clients don't even realize that there are different models to be working from. So with the, um, contingent model, I say, you know, if we know we're in comp— because it's candidate short— so if we know, we know we're in competition with other agencies, we will get that client other interviews because we know that our percentage chance of placing them is, is smaller smaller. And then what I say is that with the exclusivity, what we give you is we give you 2 weeks. Um, just give us 2 weeks head start. We know we've got buy-in from you, and with that, what we'll do is we won't market that candidate anywhere else until you give that first refusal. First refusal. And then you get it. They're like, okay, well, you're going to invest time in me, I'll invest time in you and give you that exclusivity. And then what I do on that as well is I say, okay, well, let's record a quick video. So I can record a quick video with my clients as a kind of like a marketing tool. I either record the full podcast or a quick video and I send that to candidates, like a quick 1-minute video that I send to candidates. And then if they— you can pause if you want.

I've got a fire alarm on Wednesdays. No worries, mate. Spanish, Spanish. And we've got personal branding.

Yeah, I'll just finish off. I can talk about the, um, the solutions to each one of the problems if you want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bosh. Nice. Um, yeah, so you're saying about the, um, you also can help them build out like more employer branding stuff that can help them market their, their business?

Yeah, because you've got to do something different because I tell all my clients like it just doesn't work anymore to have an— if you're in a candidate short market Having a generic A4 piece of paper, which is a job description, does not work in this market anymore because you are just the same as everyone else. So again, it's about reframing it and saying, let's do something differently. Why don't we record a video? Or why don't we do this together or collaborate and doing something just different from the transactional piece as well. But I think the final slide, I just go into, I link it back to the first problems. So I'm saying like, candidate short market. I say we headhunt, that's how we find our people. So it's not candidate short for us because we're not reliant on people coming to us and relying on job boards. I say being bombarded with irrelevant CVs. So what I say to my clients is I go, listen, I'll give you £150 credit note for every CV that I send that's blatantly wrong for the job. You know, it's no skin off my nose. It's £150 coming off whatever next placement that we make for them. And they're like, no one's ever backed themselves that much before. So I say it financially pains me to send you irrelevant CVs. So they really, they absolutely love that. And then the lack of technical skills, as I say, just give me 2 or 3 pre-screening questions that I can ask them because my job is to save you time. So if I can ask the questions that you were going to ask at interview stage anyway, just give me a couple of them questions and I'll either dismiss them. I'll tell you the answers if it's a bit of a gray area or I can write the answers on the CV as well. We also have like a skills matrix. So if we partner exclusively, so by the way, all this is if you're working exclusively with the client. If we partner exclusively, we'll have a skills matrix that we have where we get candidates to rate themselves on certain aspects from 1 to 5. So that's the kind of the technical ones. With the personality misfits, we say because of the way that we do things, we know a lot of people in the market, so we can have off-the-record references about what people were actually like in the business, and they absolutely love that. And then the counter-offer was one I just say, listen, we can't mitigate the risk completely, but we have specific training programs in place, mainly due to Hector, but have specific training programs that mitigate the risk of counter-offers being offered to our candidates. I can do that last bit again if you want.

Yeah, I reckon that'll be fine, to be fair. They're probably the next people. They're 5 minutes early. That's why I make coming 5 minutes early wonderful.

Yeah, we just got another recording on at the moment. If you give me, say, like 15, 15, 20 minutes, I'll be able to come out for Jacob. Yeah, sure. Good for time. Sorry, man, I've gone on a bit. We're good. No, no, no, we're fine.

I've got a bit until quarter past 11. It's fine. But like, I'll grab it over. That's mad, 30 minutes earlier, mate. That's wild. Um, no, that'll be fine, that. We can just carry on, um, so then all of this, Dom, how are we— because like you said at the beginning, you're booking in meetings because you want to, you know, understand about their business. Like, you're going to walk away with a lot of information. You're hopefully going to leave a good impression. You're talking about how you work. So then how do you close these meetings? Because again, you're not there just to get jobs. So how do you typically end these meetings, or do actually these meetings turn into like going, you know what, Dom, we've really enjoyed meeting you, love what you covered today. The next time we do hire, we want to have a conversation, or like, I don't know, how do you normally end these?

Yeah, so again, like, it goes back to closing the candidates for commitment and exclusivity. You've got to close the clients for commitment and exclusivity as well. So there's two outcomes really. If they're not hiring at the moment, after you've presented all the solutions that no one else is doing, you say, you know, out of interest, the next time you hire, how would you work? How would you feel about working with me on an exclusive basis? And a lot of the time it's yes, no, maybe. That's all they can say. So the first like 2 or 3 times I did chicken out saying that, but then I swore to myself every meeting I'd do it. So now it's just kind of, it's just natural to me. But what you, the purpose of those meetings is to secure work in the future on an exclusive basis where you know you're the only person going to be working that role. And then obviously you follow up on an email saying thanks for, you know, working with me on an exclusive basis next time you hire. But obviously ask them when's a good time to give you a callback next time. If they do have a job role, then obviously take down a job brief. And the way that I frame it then is I just say, you know, obviously I've got this job brief now and make sure there's no other agencies who have previously worked it or who are currently working it. And you just say, which model do you want to go down? Do you want to go down contingent or do you want to go down exclusive? And you let the client make the decision because the obvious answer is exclusive, but you don't tell the client that. You make them make their own mind up themselves, really.

And are you doing any— are you like reducing the percentage for exclusive or asking anything there? No, the same.

Yeah, no, because I've told them how I'm going to save them time and money in the hiring process.

So I should just continue— is the continued percentage more? No, it's, it's the same thing.

But what I want to do is I want to tell them exactly how I'm going to save them time and money in the hiring process. So if they try and knock me down on fees, I've already told them exactly what I'm doing differently and how it's going to save them time as we've gone along in the process. So for me personally, I, I don't think I should be reducing my fees for a better level of service, but it's, you know, for exclusivity. And with that as well, you can— if you're going in exclusive, it's much easier to negotiate higher fees if you're going in exclusive because of all the additional things that you're doing as well. So sometimes you people get knocked down on contingent because they're like, oh, everyone else is doing that. And there's not much you can do. You're going, well, we're doing this differently. You can get a little bit of a higher fee. But when it's exclusive, you, you're the one with the power there. So you can, you can command whatever fee you like, really.

I love it. And then just to wrap this up, because we've covered all things like BD, how you've gone about it, which I absolutely love, what's a good month for you in terms of a number of these meetings that you're booking? Like, what would be like a good month out of interest? You've told us your approach, how you do it, what would be like a good month in terms of how many meetings you're getting like this?

Yeah, so for me, like, when I started initially, like, the client meetings have gone down a little bit, but when I was building up, it was just meeting, meeting. For me, it was like 2 or 3 client meetings a week max, because if you're doing any more than that, then, then you are taking time off of your, your working day. And I think what's really important here is, is I give up my lunch break for meetings, so I don't book my meetings in my sprint hours. My sprint hours are sacred. They do not get disturbed. So a lot of my meetings are at 12 o'clock on my lunch break. So I sacrifice my lunch break to go and meet these people so I can still have a full-on productive day. Because the amount of people that I've seen that book a meeting in for 10 o'clock, they get in, do absolutely nothing, go to the meeting, come back, they've got an hour till lunch, they do nothing again. You've wasted a whole morning there. So I think going back to the whole time management thing, that's really crucial to book meetings in at a good time as well.

So 2, 3 a week, and then what we're saying on like what— and then if you get like 2 or 3 a week, what's typically happening, happening from these meetings? Or like, you know, what would be a good month there? Like you have, you know, uh, what, 12 to 18 of these meetings in a month? Yeah. How many— I don't know, how many clients are you expecting to like sign terms with or be told like, right, next time we're hiring, Dom, we're definitely going to use you? Like what, what normally plans out there.

Yeah, I think just the more people that you meet, the more you can close for exclusivity, and the more opportunities you open up. It's hard to kind of quantify that exactly, but a lot of the times that, like, they'll meet you because they do actually have a job for you. So I have gone down to meet and actually picked up a job. Um, you know, a lot of the times I have closed for exclusivity. I've even had clients call me back like 3, 4 months later and say, Dom, can we work with you exclusively? Which I've never Even because you had that meeting, because I had that meeting and demonstrated that I am solution selling. And to be in that position after like the first call was 6 months on a desk when I'd never had that on previous desks, I was like, I'm on to something here. But yeah, I do think it's down to time management as well. So again, where I think a lot of people get it wrong is they pick up a load of jobs, get well excited, don't focus on the jobs, and then they just annoy all their candidates, their clients, because They haven't provided any candidates. So I think what I do is I really try and give it a good go to shortlist at least one job a week. Then after that week, I assess it with myself and say, is this really worth working? Have I got all the information? Um, feed that back to the clients and say, actually, I haven't managed to get anywhere with this. Is there anywhere where we can change the job spec? Just because I don't think those candidates actually exist. Or, you know, you just turn around and say to the client, I just don't think I can work this job. But getting back to the client is really, really important because they appreciate that rather than you just ghosting them completely, selling them the dream and then ghosting them. That's one surefire way to burn a bridge with a client completely.

And let's tie this all together then. You've like— have you always leveraged the personal branding piece then when being on your desk or whatever? Has this been like a more recent thing?

No, it's definitely more recent, uh, since I've heard it on the podcast. And I think, you know, having 3 LinkedIn posts a day— again, please stop doing this, recruiters. Please stop just posting jobs on your, on your feed, that is boring to your candidates. They do not want to see that because one job in 50 might actually be relevant to them, but because you've posted 49 that are irrelevant, they're not engaging with your content. So you've got to do something different. Like, it's all about adding value. So if you're adding value from your personal branding in the post that you're doing on LinkedIn, when you do— actually, I don't post jobs personally, but if you do actually post a job, they're much more likely to look at that and engage with that. But just stop posting about jobs. Um, but for me as well, I run— what's really been handy is I've started doing like, um, LinkedIn webinars. So I do like a live webinar. So the first one that I did was like the use of AI in construction. Uh, the second one that I did was salary guides for structural engineers in London and Manchester. The third one that I did was a free CV writing workshop. So it's really easy to focus on the metrics of when it goes live. So To give an example, there was only 3 people that watched it live, this free CV writing workshop. I've had 900 people watch that since I did it like 4, maybe 5 months ago. But what I do is I send that clip of me talking for 10 minutes about what a good CV looks like with a slideshow presentation and send it to candidates who I'm speaking to who maybe don't have a CV or have a really old CV. And then again, that's personal branding. That's a much better connection. Um, because they're looking at you as an expert, so you need to have that credibility. So that's something that can work in the background for you. And the use of AI in construction, I've had people message me saying, I really like that. But that's personal branding that's working away in the background without you even having to do anything. And it's not just about the people who watch it live. All this stuff is, comes about after you've actually put the record out there as well.

So was that part of your plan then to do that from the start when you had this new focus?

No. Well, The personal branding, definitely. The webinar came off listening to another podcast about why you put yourself in uncomfortable positions. The podcast came about just from me thinking— I think Connor had some recording software for the podcast, and I thought, do you know what, let me just push myself, make myself feel uncomfortable. But the podcast has been great. Like, I've had 40 episodes, and I think for me, I was like, this is not going to be a sales podcast where I hope to generate business from it. For me, it was always about, I want to learn about my market and what better way to do that than get people on talking about the market. And I always say in the middle of a podcast, can you just explain to our listeners exactly what that means? And really, I don't have a clue what that means. I'm just trying to get them to talk about that. And I'm learning so much about the industry. And, you know, it was the 40th episode that I recorded where I actually picked up a job off the back of it and made a placement. But it's all those other contacts that I've developed that now I'm, um, I've got, I've just had the first venue booked from creating a community group for structural engineers. Nice. So I've got a load of potential guest speakers that I've developed from the back of the podcast. So, um, I've got a community group that I'm doing now. So we're going to host an event once every 3 months for structural engineers to learn about the industry, learn about, you know, how they can get chartered or learn about all their pain points that I've already questioned them about. So that's going to be the topic of conversation because I know that's the main problem in the industry. So I'll have guest speakers on to talk about that. But it's all about that long-term networking because I think if you go into stuff like a podcast or webinars or anything expecting business straight away and that's your key focus, you're going to screw it up because you're just going to come across as a salesperson. You're not going to get much traction or much buying from people. But that's always been the way that I've done it, is like having multiple avenues of brand building, really. Is that— that's the way I've always tried to do it.

I love that. And I think that, that ties us really nicely, right? So we started with assessing your desk and ways that you can do about that. We've spoken about, like we said, for most of us, for most people listening, I think it would be hard for them to not have hiring managers, clients say it's really hard to find like really great talent. Yep. So I think most people are going to resonate with like it's a candidate short market, probably. It's always going to be hard to find great people with the skill set that the, um, companies need. So we spoke about how you can go about that that isn't just what everyone else is doing, so the headhunting piece. We then spoke about the, um, becoming excellent on the kind of qualification piece, closing for commitment, getting good at really understanding what their problems are, and you can use that in the future or to actually better sell your opportunities. Then spoke about, uh, Actually generating clients the way that you do that. Solution selling has been really key for you. And then we have how can you stand out amongst the rest, right? There's a lot of competition, particularly if you're doing the UK market. And you share different ways that you've done that, which really what I love there is just getting out of your comfort zone, being willing to take action, try things. And then when you do that, things can organically grow, right? You're now building this community, you're potentially putting on events. And this is only in the long term going to enable you to stand out, maybe even bring these things into your pitch deck and say, this is also something that we do to tap into, uh, people. Um, and if you do all of those things, or there's probably all those different pillars there, you should have a pretty good chance of building a recruitment desk.

Yeah, I'm not going to say it's— I'm not going to say it's going to happen overnight, but if you are listening to this podcast, then you are interested in self-improvement. So even if you just target yourself for getting better at one certain aspect and developing that out and fine-tuning it and then moving on to the next one, you can't—

you cannot go wrong. I bet.

Dom, thank you so much. Thanks very much.