Only 10% of Recruiters Survive What's Coming: The Barbell Theory Reshaping Hiring with Craig Whiting

Craig, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me. Six years employed before you started your recruitment business with your co-founder. A big part of why you wanted to launch your business was you wanted to build recruitment around your lifestyle versus the other way around where it's your entire life. Talk to me a bit about where you was mentally mindset intentions of starting a business in 2015 because we've been in this game for over a decade now with this business and I know it's had different parts which we'll get into but what was the mindset in 2015? What was the intention? I'd have to give Dan a lot of the credit here because Dan was probably the entrepreneurial vision of wanting to build a business and then I was more like just wanting to run away from London and recruitment and I was out of love with everything. I was fed up with the whole thing. I had very young children at the time so my first child when I was 22 so I was sort of like trying to build a career in recruitment and trying to be a dad and my commute was sort of like an hour and a half either way. Moving into London wasn't an option for us because we needed childcare and that sort of thing. I was on a coach's work because it was more cost effective than a train. It meant we didn't need a second car and at the time I was sort of like trying to pay the bills. You was taking the coach to work? Yeah, yeah. So then you're like playing the game of like the A2 and traffic. I'd get the 6am in in the morning because you got to be that early to be the traffic but then trying to get home was like a battle and I just didn't see my kids and I was just fed up and like recruitment offices. Monday morning, tell me what you did last week and you just like, "Fuck off, just leave me alone." I know what I need to do and I was just fed up with it. And then also like I recognised it myself. I'd got too comfortable. The environment I was in was quite laissez-faire. It was quite relaxed and I'd just become a bit comfortably unhappy. Down was the driver of like we should do our own thing, we should do our own thing. I was much more like anything is better than this. And then we did it and then the fear kicks in of like, I got to pay my mortgage. So you start taking it seriously again but I found that once I just tripped away the commute and the office and reporting into people and all this stuff which I just don't like, I became such a better recruiter and then the business obviously grown and we've had out and down and all the rest of it. But I'd love to see here and go, we had a grand plan and a vision and all the rest of it. We did and it was two guys with effectively the back of a fag packet. You know, go in. Both of us aren't really happy with how recruitment is playing out for different reasons but we like each other and we both think we're pretty good. Let's not take over the world. It was more like let's have a lifestyle. Let's let's go and earn some money and structure it around how we want our lives to be. I think most people, if they're honest, there'll be a lot of stories that are similar to that. That wasn't a grand plan, wasn't this big intention. But I do think it's always interesting here people just share the truth on how it started because sometimes a lot of people may think that you need this big grand plan and all everyone has that but the reality is a lot of people don't. You don't need it at all and most of you're right, like most people don't have it. I think there's an element where in recruitment life cycle you get quite good at the job but you like the job. So your options if you work for a bigger business are you become like a billing manager which is a pretty shit job or you stay hands on and then you get frustrated at having to report into a billing manager and those people want to go and just do their own thing because it makes more sense but it's not part of a, because if you were like an arch entrepreneur would you even be in recruitment in the first place? Would you not be in a you know you've built a SaaS product or whatever? I think people fall into recruitment and then they realise they're quite good at it and it's a good industry and then they work out okay how do I change this in a way that just suits me a bit better and then they start their own business and it's not fundamentally it's not hard job to scale where it's not hard to get more clients it's not hard to find candidates so there's a very low bar to if you've got six months of your mortgage saved up why could you not start a recruitment business? If it doesn't work it's not hard to get another job if you're a good recruiter and it's not hard to get another job if you're not a very good recruiter so do I mean like there's not a huge if you really think about it if you've got a mortgage and you know that mortgage is covered for six months you go okay well do I back myself to a placement in the first six or eight weeks? If yes you'll be fine if no you shouldn't run your own business anyway because you don't back yourself to do it. How much success did you have before you went out on your own I've got an idea that we can give people on what this journey's been like your own performance the world you recruiting but how much success did you have before you started? So when I was at Huxley I was very successful so I was a top-biller I was a contract consultant I had very fortunate I had a very very good teacher when I started May they wanted to hire me because I was very very successful I was probably too immature at the time I was too young so I was 24 I was too young to handle how hands off the environment was was relative to Huxley which was very hands on Huxley was very militant and I respond really well to that and I didn't have the maturity to be like militant with myself so starting May I was I was like average at best so I was probably billing like 200 to 58 year not enjoying it didn't put the work in I just resented the whole thing not the business I really understood it but the commute the being away from my family and I just didn't have the maturity and then you know but it played out and then when you know when we did RLS the maturity was coming through I was getting late 20s then and you got the fear factor but you've also got like just that ability to be like militant with yourself and then that springboard in me to be my most successful which was certainly the period of RLS where my performance from a numbers perspective just kept going up and up and up we've had the permeations of the business it's kind of fluctuated a little bit for last few years and then that's going up again because the business is in a really good spot in terms of how it's structured and I can do more recruitment. 2015 to 2021 it was just you and Dan as we said wasn't this like grand plan it was lifestyle and good money build this business around our life you were billing anywhere between across those years 600 K to 1.3 million was that your best year and the period. Yeah yeah we never really religiously tracked it but I would be between that range and down was probably between like 300 and 600 in that period of time but then he also did all the things I didn't want to do business things was I was just doing recruitment it was brilliant it was absolutely brilliant I would walk downstairs sit on my desk at like 7th 8 in the morning recruit till 530 go through gym come home recruit a little bit more go watch the tally and I was with my wife all day and I was with my kids when they're in the house when they went to school and that's all I really wanted so I was super productive in that period you were saying earlier that people can just fall into recruitment but what that enabled you to do then and the lifestyle they had how amazing is that it's amazing I was why I love recruitment like I grew up on building sites I'm not unintelligent but I'm not stupid guy like I'm moderately smart but I don't think I'm necessarily any smart than anyone else I came into an industry that I knew nothing about recruiting for an industry that I knew next and I do absolutely knew nothing about and have managed to then build a business and a lifestyle which is 100% structured about what I want to do and you can earn good money and you can do the right things to be family and everything else it's a hard job of but then what job isn't a hard job I think the recruitment is one of the best industries in the world to take people that aren't qualified up to the eyeballs and like I came for a very low income backgrounds and I didn't have a network and I didn't know people and it doesn't really matter if you work hard and you try you can be very successful in recruitment and your contribution is your currency everything is just how much have you built so if you build everyone wants to hire you everyone wants to give you opportunities if you don't build they don't and who controls how much you build you there's there's no like politics it's not like you've got a jump through certain hoops to get promoted and you you're discriminated against you're not if you build you progress you're in control of that and that's your currency you know I'm very passionate about the industry as a whole no I'm on with you man share a video recently about this I'm sure like I recently become a dad so I feel that these types of thoughts come across more now because of that which is future what's my son gonna do these things and the amount of young people in the UK right now that aren't in work in training these things and I just put a video out there just recruitment is and like I think more people should choose it you know you're saying that people fall into it right and I think for all those reasons that you just outline that what an amazing decision to say I want to be in that industry and so many people don't choose it but recruitment almost does itself down like recruitment almost has an opinion of itself that we're like a pain in the ass and we're always trying to like compensate for that where we're not every year there's a PWC study and it takes the CEOs of the biggest 500 companies on the fortune 500 and it asks them what's your biggest problem and invariably somewhere between 80 and 95 percent of those CEOs say tunnel attraction hiring so of all the problems these companies could have recruitment is their issue every company they all don't like recruitment because they don't understand it and recruitment itself doesn't do a very good job at like shepherding that process but it's not because the industry's flawed it's just because people are trained the wrong way and they look at it the wrong way but I've just come from a toolkit like a big tech summit for AI and cloud this morning and there's me and this guy who's like a CTO of a hedge fund on stage and then when we come off the stage everyone wants talk to me and it's not because I'm smarter than him but it's because I'm talking about recruitment and people want to engage with it and they want to understand how they can get better results that are on in the industries that we serve but it almost feels like we have like a stigma within ourselves where we just we just think it's not a career that people shower about people that aren't in recruitment know nothing about recruitment or they've got a bad opinion of it and the industry should do more to try and capture what an opportunity is because like you say there's so many young people now in the UK that are like struggling to find work and realistically like if you show up with just a modicum of like proactivity and positivity and you go look I just want to learn and I'll work my ass off most recruitment companies will give you a job 100% and if you back that up you're golden yeah and if you don't more for you but so when you started the business so pre starting the business was you in the investment banking world or was that actually when you started the business remind me when I got into recruitment I was doing investment banking bank and technology and hedge funds we were a new business team as me and my team leader and our job was primarily to go and win hedge funds as clients. But when I joined in September of eight, Lehman had just collapsed. So the whole market was in turmoil. There were no jobs. So it became a just find some jobs. They have to be financial services companies, but you can go and get jobs with anyone because we don't have any jobs. So it was always quite generic within FS. RLS, I mean, look at the beginning, like I put posts about this the other day. Dan was placing salespeople in Mexico. And I was placing software engineers with Eastern European consultancies because we're trying to grow the business, right? So we're just leveraging anything we can get. And then we got an in with a big fund. We got like a mega hard role to fill, filled it and then got another one, then got another one. And the goal was always to go after funds because they're just cool and they pay a lot of money for people. So fee size are big, but also they want exceptional humans. So you're not dealing with like banks where it's very big organizations that don't really care. It's very transactional. It plays to our strengths of being like true headhunters and true recruitment consultants, which is what we do as opposed to just like your body shopping CV service. So always financial services, but RLS was always built and driven towards working with hedge funds. And now we only we only work with hedge funds. Okay. So the hedge fund focus came on the business journey then versus like Stoughton, May. So Stoughton, May like hedge funds was a target and we recruited for hedge funds. How can I also start on May? But we also recruited for banks. I don't like recruiting for banks. So the goal is always to just get more and more into funds because they're just cooler people. Yeah. Because I know you're very passionate about this. Should we get into the how? Yeah. Because for anyone that isn't connected to you on LinkedIn and maybe they're listening to this like you actively talk about recruitment, how to get really good at it. You've got some really good stories now in your business, which we'll get into of people that do have that motivation, want to work hard, who then had some really cool success of your business and even people that have been in recruitment. Maybe the biggest fee size was like 20, 30 K or less and now they're doing 100 like they have big goals of that and they've been able to do that. And I know you've really geeked out on this. So why do you talk so much about knowledge and that being so important? We recruit technologists for hedge funds. A role that we might have would be a machine learning engineer that can build tooling that will create polyglot rapidly or easy to reproduce environments for researchers to build research projects so that their portfolio management can run different strategies. Right. So this is like very, very complicated stuff. The people that are doing these jobs are incredibly well educated. They're very deep in these subject matters. They have a lot of opportunity. They have a lot of recruitment chasing after them. So if I turn up on a call and I can't express to that person anything beyond what's written on the job spec about what this opportunity would actually be. Why would someone want to do this job? How does this job differ from every other job that says the same stuff? What value am I providing to that person? Because I'm trying to target passive talent. I'm trying to target people that don't want a new job. So how are you going to convey that? How are you going to be credible in front of them and get their buy-in? The other issue is when you do technology recruitment, especially now because job specs are becoming largely redundant. If you don't understand the mechanics of how the market you recruit for operates, so like me and you can talk about recruitment and I can drop in jargon and nuance and things that someone who understands recruitment will understand. But someone who doesn't understand recruitment won't have the blindest idea of what all of that jargon and nuance means when I start talking about rectilrex and speccing and VD and all this stuff. They're not going to understand really what that means, but you inherently understand it. It's the same in technology where there's so many different ways to describe the same thing and then there's so much nuance and so much jargon that someone might be talking about something that means the thing that you're looking for on your job spec, but they're just expressing it in a different way. If you don't have the knowledge to know that, you're going to be talking to the right person and then disregard them because you don't think they've got the right knowledge. When I started, I was very fortunate that my uncle at the time worked in the industry. He worked in investment banking and was loosely related to technology. He didn't hire her, but was loosely related. He said, "Look, I'm going to give you one bit of advice. Don't ever talk to anyone without knowing stuff about what you actually want to talk to them about because they'll see for it by a mile." When you speak to them, try and learn as much as you can. I looked at my boss who was incredibly hard worker and very, very successful, but he didn't know a huge amount about the markets. He was always on the hamster wheel. Then I looked at our big manager guy and he didn't have a great work ethic. He knew everything. When you put him on a phone, he sounded incredible. I was like, "Okay, we're just going to take that and put them together. Then I'll win essentially. I'll be successful." I just led with knowledge, basically. Every time I speak to anyone, I'm just trying to understand, "Why do you have a job? What are you paid to do? Where does that sit within the ecosystem? Why does it work like that? What happens if you don't do that? How does this contribute to this trading company making money?" I found that my performance and knowledge level are directly correlated. The more knowledgeable I've got, the better I've performed. We see it. You mentioned Ben who's joined our business and is doing these big deals and stuff like that. He would tell you the same thing. When he joined us, everything that we taught him was unlearn everything you've already done. Because he hadn't done your market before. He'd worked in technology in a little bit of financial, I've not with hedge funds. We would say, "Look, just unlearn everything that you think you know." And just dive headfirst into knowledge, just understand the market you recruit for. Because our job's not complicated. We don't make anything. We don't have a product to sell. We're a people and opportunity brokerage. Everyone bangs on a recruitment about understanding needs. We thought, "Okay, fine." But how can you infer need if you don't understand the environment that you recruit for? Because their needs are governed by their environment. The environment of a corporate investment bank is very different from a recruitment company. You've got to understand it. We'll get back to the episode in just a moment. But first, I want to tell you about one of our partners, Atlas. And specifically highlight one of their most anticipated feature drops from their customers to date, Magic Search. We all know that the CV only tells half the story. And now, Atlas can fill in the rest with Magic Search. It helps you find the right people faster than ever. Every word of candidate shares in an interview, every salary mentioned on a call, every skill or experience tucked away in an email, Atlas captures it, enriches it, and makes it searchable by talking to their platform. Ask Atlas who talked about wanting a short commute or who shared that they're planning to move abroad next year. And it's instantly going to find you answers and the right people. It basically means no more filters, no clicking around, only clear results from actual conversations. It's going to be the easiest way to uncover the hitting value in your database and turn every past interaction into future placements. But instead of just hearing it from me about the impact of moving over to Atlas, have a listen to Chris who made the move. Since we've been using Atlas since the start of the year, we've had back to back record quarters and our EBIT does over 40% of the moment, which is pretty unheard of in recruitment, especially in UK. We've just passed down to a lot of what Atlas has created. So yeah, the time back to consultants, the conversations that you can have with your clients now, the detailed feedback of finding information, our click of buttons. Obviously, we've integrated WhatsApp extension as well. So all of the WhatsApp discussions that we have with candidates and clients go straight into the CRM. That was a big game changer for us. So you've just heard from another happy Atlas customer who made the switch. If you really don't want to get left behind and ensure you're partnered with the right platform to fuel your entire business, then make sure you do not miss the future of recruitment. Get started with Atlas today and unlock your exclusive recruitment mentors podcast listener offer at recruitmentvattelus.com/recruitmentmenttoolspogcast or just hit the link. All right, let's get back into the conversation. But if I've just listened to that, I'm completely with you. I want to get that market expertise knowledge. I want to have that. But if I've got a manager who hasn't been on the tools for a while and doesn't know the information and then most of the people around me, maybe just got the work ethic. They're working in a particular way. But I'm listening to his podcast, listen to him going, you know what? I'd love to know more about what the people I work with, what they do, what a day-to-day looks like, all of that. How can I start acquiring that? Is it a candidate? Is it candidate conversation? Yeah, because if you've got a boss over your shoulder and you're on the phone to candidates, you're not going to get any shit with your boss. So he talked to candidates when I was trying to learn all this stuff. I would just say to people, look, I want to get back to my job. Can you just explain to me what you do within the confines of how this company makes money? Why are you there? Why does this trading company pay you as a technologist to be there? What value do you at? And there we go, well, I do this. Okay, well, why is that important? Because it does this. Technologists are the same as us. You ask me what makes give recruiter and why I exist. I'll talk to the cows come home. You ask someone who's passionate about tech, how they add value to a business. They're going to give you the answers. So you just engage with them and you'd be curious. And then you've also got, I had Google and you've now got AI. So if they say something you don't understand, so if you go, well, I work in saw. So I'm in a front office, I'll go business and my focus is saw. And you don't want to look unknowledgeable or go, what does saw mean? Then you can very easily get off after, and go, go, what is saw within algorithmic trading? And it will tell you it's smart or the rooting. It will tell you what it is and why it's important and how it makes money. It's not difficult to learn things. And you can very easily do that in a way where your manager's going to be happy. You just talk to Candace. And guess what? The more you ask some questions, the more engagement you get. The more buy-in you get, the more they trust you, the more they see you as credible, because most recruiters approach candidates from the perspective of themselves. So they only view a candidate within the prism of can you make me money, which is really transactional. It doesn't engender buy-in, good relationships, which is funny enough why so many recruiters can't close candidates at the end of a process, because they've never taken the time to learn what makes that person tick and how to close them. But fundamentally you get it from your candidates, because you're doing that anyway, so like, lead with what you have. If you've got jobs to work, don't not work those jobs to go and learn. Learn by working the job. It's efficiency, right? It's time efficiency. But how do I get better at then using that knowledge? Don't give it to other people. The way I work is I will take something from a conversation with a candidate or a client. And it might be very specific to their technology, it might be more of a sense of what their business is doing at the moment, like I work at JP Morgan, and we are currently being fined, because we've not met our regulatory obligations or whatever. So whatever it is, I want to take something and then I'll talk to someone else, and I will find a way to give them that knowledge in a way that's organic, because then I'll remember it. So I will ask them how things are going and say they work in regulation as well, for example, or I can ask how the culture is and I can say, look, what's going on in it because I've supposed to go over there. And there's a threat of job cuts because apparently they're going to get fined, like how things on your side. So now I'm not seen as a transactional recruiter, I'm seen as like, I'm giving you knowledge. So if you're a candidate and you live in your bubble of your bank, you don't know what's going on in the rest of the street. You don't know what companies are doing well, what companies aren't, what are the trends, who should you try and be talking to about opportunities, et cetera. So now I as a recruiter, I'm adding value to you because I'm giving you knowledge rather than just looking at you like a transaction and a commodity, but also then I can learn it because I'm using it again. So it's like anything, right? If you try to take something in and then you go and speak it, it's much more like to remember it, but also you're getting understanding of the patterns of the market. So you'll start to understand what people care about because they're open up to you more. So you'll start to be able to see the themes of wider people leave jobs. What does good progression look like when someone gets counted with an emotional pool? How can you pull them back to longer term trajectory to make them see the big picture of your offer and all this sort of thing? It all comes down to knowledge. There's a recruiter, fundamentally you only have two things time and reputation. That's it. So how efficient are you with your time at doing the job because this is a time based job right by 40 hours a week and my time to X. So my time to do a deal is 40 hours. I'm going to do one deal a week. If I can be more efficient with my time and get that down to 20 hours now I'm doing two deals a week if nothing else changes. So time efficiency is number one and then reputation is number two because your reputation will do your BD for you. It will get referrals for you. It will take you so much further in the market without you even knowing about it. How do you be efficient with time and further your reputation. There's only one way knowledge you have to be knowledgeable. You have to be credible because if you're not knowledgeable mean you're sitting here now and we start talking about recruitment and I quickly realize you're not knowledgeable about recruitment and you don't know anything about it. You're going to lose all of your credibility in front of me but because you ask intelligent questions and their questions that are pertinent to people in recruitment I go this guy is really credible. So I'm going to want to engage with them. There's no different this credibility is everything you can't be credible unless you're knowledgeable. Yeah, I really love how you're talking about this and a lot of us have probably heard this before right but are you actually doing it day to day and I think there will be some people on the cells for right now that just do this really well. Maybe without even thinking realizing but there's a lot there that that can really fast track your credibility it can help you understand your world where better more quickly if you really double down on this and. Which is make sure life easier I've never understood why most recruitment companies don't care about how many offers they drop they just see it as part of the business. It's like I interviewed a guy the other day and he was like I build 300 K but he dropped 450 so I was like what you do about that. And what do you mean I said well what you doing about that because you could have build more than double what you build like what does that mean to you financially which is the only reason you do this job let's face it how are you addressing it and even for that hadn't even looked at it because it was an accepted part of just what happens is like no people treat candle and processes like transactions so Joe Greg last man is not go I created crossfit okay so sold the business for like a couple of billion after few years whatever and he didn't interview and it was for investors and all this stuff and he was talking about how do you be successful and he said so many people they just focus on money and the more you focus on money the less money you earn the people that focus on process and being exceptional every single part of the process are exceptional and the markets reward you with money look at team GB cycling when British cycling one everything when they want the total for answer the limpics and else did they focus on winning more races all the little bit marginal gains right they took the process of cycling the pedals and the helmets and all the rest of it and they made everything one percent better and then they made everything one percent better again and then they won everything and it's same in recruitment if you sit and focus on deals you treat people like that's all they are is a root to make money and you're always looking at the end goal you're going to miss all the way markers on the way they'll actually get you to the end goal which is you get an offer and you can place it and they actually turn up if you start focusing on like understanding the market and the process and just get really really good at it because everyone follows the same process the end you'll just get rewarded with deals I might be wrong but my results and the results of the guys in our business would seem to suggest that the more they do that the more successful they get obviously got knowledge here as like a real pill and you spoke to that really well but that was another point that I know you're really passionate about clearly that you really make sure that yourself and where you've got better and the team is that you really just focus on process over deals how do you break down that process what is it that we just need to break it down to so number one when you get job what I do is I read I'm only interested in the first paragraph that they write I don't care about skills that they list I'm interested in the paragraph and I read it line by line and I ask myself who is the person is going to get this job not what skills is going to get this job because hiring fundamentally is still human you hire someone for human reasons even though the process is mostly industrial no one gets hired for industrial reasons they get hired on fill still so you've got to have fit you got someone who's going to get this job so that's phase one the process role qualification phase two is sourcing strategy so this is not searching for people this is building a strategy of how are you going to source this role so if I was recruiting a C++ HFT engineer that's going to be a strategy that would be very very different than how I would recruit for like a middle office C sharp developer right both equally valuable within the prison of a hedge fund the C sharp middle office guy be say 400 K comp but the C++ guy's going to be 800 K comp right so it's a big deal but on a grand scheme and things I'm going to invest the same amount of time regardless so I could probably do to C sharp middle office deals in the time I could take to do one C++ deal so what you have to look at is your strategy of how are you going to source this job because they will have to be very very different because you're looking for something that's fundamentally different stage free is then searching so we rely a lot on Boolean right so this is a knowledge comes in if you can't craft very complex Boolean searches that capture enough people that you allow the candidate enough subjectivity in terms of how they write their profile so you can't just be demanding of certain phrases or whatever because then you're going to rule everyone out hasn't written that but equally you don't want to have searches with those of your relevant people because now you're not being efficient with your time so searching is a big block and then candidate qualification so this is what we would call like time to mark this is a time to market issue right the point that you've sent an exceptional candidate for a job you're not in time to market anymore you're at the market so you now in process management candidate qualification is all about hunting every single reason this person is not right so recruitment companies seem to have this thing where it's like if in the end out send it out right which is complete and utter shit because you're not doing a good job for the hiring manager they can easily go and get a load of CVs themselves what they want are people that are right not I didn't think they were right by sent to you anyway because what's the value that we give to hiring companies as recruiters like what are we actually why are we paid fundamentally find the right person because they can find good people themselves what you think is time time okay we can find people for them faster than they could find themselves and do their day job because they're paid to do their day job so they're engaging us to cut through the same way you'd hire an a student say agent so your house you could walk around your local town asking everyone if they wanted to buy a house but it would take a very long time before someone said yes or you could pay in a state agent to do it for you and then you can go and be a podcaster yeah so you have to think about value to hiring managers we're not being valuable if we're giving them people that aren't right also if we're giving them people that aren't right fundamentally it suggests that the role is not going to be right for that person so you're in dropped off a territory later so in our candidate qualification we are relentlessly focused on finding every reason someone is wrong because if we can't find a reason they're wrong they're more likely to be right if we can find a reason they're wrong as non technical people then the client who is technical and do understand their market is definitely going to find a reason that they're wrong so we get very heavy into that and then the other side is we focus religiously on what does good look like for the candidate particularly when you start talking about progression particularly when you start talking about environment because increasingly people move jobs for reasons of the head I don't feel like my current environment is going to support the progression path that I particularly want to go on right so they'll go and engage in a job process with a company that they feel like can but the reason people take counter offers is increasingly of the heart so people don't get countered based on intellectual factors, they get counted based on like emotional, we're going to make you feel a bit guilty, we'll match the money, we're going to take away these material issues, right? And the people stay because fundamentally they don't want to have a tough conversation. So we want to be religiously focused on for this person what is their version of good in a job? And then we have very structured questioning. So we will always go open question and then we'll listen to their response and we'll get the factors. So what they say first is always the thing that's most relevant for them. If you properly give them an open question and you don't lead them, so you might ask them like, when you think about your next role in a utopia, if you could draw it up, how would it look? The first thing that they say is the thing that's most important for them. If you're kind of don't offer that, don't put them in the mix. Because they're not going to take a job, right? Fundamentally, when push comes to shove and they get counted, they're not going to take a job. And then once they give you the roadway in your answer, you've then got their permission to be more direct in your question. So you can start to build very direct questions around why this thing that's important for them is important for them. And you can start to test for flexibility and you can say, what about this and what about that? And when you've exhausted that subject, you go to your next open question and you do the same thing. So you're constantly going to open direct direct direct back, same again, same again. And what you're doing in that is you're showing empathy, right? So you're showing I'm listening to you. What does like people fundamentally want more than anything else? They want to feel like they've been heard. So this is again, reputation building. If you are someone a question and you actually listen to the answer, instead of just waiting for your turn to talk, and then you take what they give you and then you ask some knowledgeable questions, frame within the market, all you're doing is exuding credibility and exuding value. So you're now coming across as the best recruit they've ever spoke to because no one else does this, which in our markets were really important. But also you're building a picture of like a need template of this human. What's actually important to them? How am I going to close them? I don't care about interviews at this point because I'm not in control of that. I care about if I'm high conviction this guy's right for the job, how am I going to fucking close him? How am I going to get him through the counter or get him through his other offers or her other offers so that if I'm going to be willing to invest all of my time in this process, I'm going to get paid for it because we're contingent. I don't like retain. So we are contingent, my choice. And this is again recruiters who go, I look at it and go like, I don't want to spend a minute on a process for a candidate that I already know is not going to take the job because I'm if in, doubt, send it out because you're just throwing your time away. That could be spent if you know your ratios doing deals. Why does having a focus on all of that result in less dropouts then? So when that guy interviewed with you and he said, well, I could have built 400. Where did you go wrong? We'll jump back into the episode in just a moment, but first I want to shine a light on our partners, Ray's. Who in my opinion are one of the most powerful ways to fund and run your contract book. These work with hundreds of agencies across the UK and US from ambitious solar recruiters to fast scaling teams. They ultimately help you unlock cash flow, remove admin headaches and make sure contractors get paid on time every time. So you can stay focused on doing deals and growing your business. Today, I'm joined by Dan Mills from Hire, who's going to share how Ray's has supported his journey and the impact it's had on his growth. There's a few words for Steven, the team at raise as a tight Yorkshireman spending money on anything causes me internal turmoil, but it's one of the few bills I actually don't mind business. But because whenever we watch out, please help at the silly o'clock and whatever time is usually met with a really quick fix. Our laugh from just generally nice people you want to help. The guys have been instrumental in helping hire build our contract book today and the generally can't thank them all enough. So as you just heard, raise aren't just another finance provider. There are genuine growth partner behind some of the most exciting recruitment agencies out there. If you want to scale your contract book with confidence, keep more of your margin and give your contractors a first class experience. I'd really recommend checking them out. You can book a demo with raise and mention recruitment mental podcasts to get 50% off your first month. Hit the link in the show notes or go straight to raise tech.io/RMP. He let someone get to an offer that wasn't going to take the job. When we get to say process management, every process is going to be a series of interviews. So as a recruiter, you're going to do prep feedback. What most recruiter do is when they get feedback, they ask the candidate how they perform in the interview, which is a pretty silly thing to do because it's irrelevant how the candidate thinks they performed in the interview. It's only relevant how the client thinks they performed. So everyone goes, "How do you think it went?" And they go, "Yeah, I smashed it." And then you ring the client and they go, "Fuck, you never used this." But recruiters spend the whole thing. So I get the argument of like you want to maybe learn some questions that get asked you can better prep your candidates. That's fine. But the basis of those conversations, if they happen to talk, most people are too lazy to do it, is to find out how the candidate thinks they performed. And the prep is normally like some bullshit like, "Oh, they're going to go through your CV and they're going to ask you some questions." That's the both of the recruiter's going to give them. So you're not really adding any value, right? So what we do is we'll build a need template of a candidate. What do you mean need template? In candidate qualification. So we want a version of what good looks like to that candidate because it will speak to their needs. Okay. What would be an example of that? One who is deeply passionate about technology, the thing that gets them out of bed is tech. But they also have a wife and therefore they need to earn more money and they need to show progression financially. And the company they're in has a linear progression route which means they have to move away from being hands on. So their need would be, "I need an environment that can give me more money but also continue to give me better compensation and more scope but keep me hands on because that's what I love to do." So that's a professional based need that's underscored by a human based need which is, "I'm a techie and I want to be a techie, I don't want to be a manager but I still want more money because my wife wants me to have it etc. etc. the world we live in." So that's an example of a need. So if your client doesn't offer a route of progression that will keep someone hands on and they're never going to take their job because there's no different than the job they've already got and they will get counted with the same money. So all things being equal they're just going to stay where they are. So say you take that as your need then you get into the interview phase. So when I prep someone what I want is to get as many opportunities as possible for my candidates to close me on why they're right for the job and why the job's right for them. I don't ever want to be telling someone why something's right for them because I don't know. I want them to be telling me why something's right for them. And what this gives me is way markers through the process. I can always go back to and go, "Well you said this." Okay, they've counted you but remember when you said this. So my prep will be mostly giving the candidate well crafted open questions and they must be open because they're going to get the true answer. They can ask the interviewer when they get their turn to ask a question that will directly address the issue of progression and whether you can stay hands on because that's their need or it would be whatever the need is right. So I'll give them questions and I'll say it's really important you ask these questions because we've identified this is the thing that's important to you. I don't want you to spend time on something that's not going to give you what you want. Here's questions you need to ask. It's so super important is one you look intelligent because most people when they get asked what questions have you got make them up on the spot. So you're going to come across better as a candidate if you have well constructed four out questions because it shows that you've done your research, you're taking it seriously and it makes you look good, makes you look more credible. Secondly, listen to the answers and make an assessment of whether this environment actually is going to give you what you want. On my feedback call, I don't give a fuck how they think they performed in the interview. It's not relevant. I'm interested in how the client performed when they answered those questions. So I will say, did you get a chance to ask questions? Yes I did. Okay, what did they say? Yeah, they said this and this and this. Okay, how do you feel about that? That's interesting. And then they're going to go, yeah, I really like it. Why? Well, there is a way where they gave me an example of this guy who's been promoted three times but he still hands on. Yeah, good because that's why I won. Okay, fine. So I'm starting to tell a story to this candidate about why this client's a great opportunity for them. But it's based in reality. It's not based on me bullshin. It's based on them giving honest answers to genuine questions. If I've done my job at the beginning, I already know the answers to those questions because I've qualified the job and I know the client. So I'm never going to put someone in that's going to get bad answers to those questions. But I want the candidate to get the answers from the client, not from me and then I want them to tell me why it's right. And then that gets consistently reinforced through the process. The more stages the better because then you're getting this trail of your candidates telling you what something's right. And it also allows you to draw out objections. So when you do get an objection, you stop and you number one tests for the flexibility. So okay, is this something we can resolve? If we can't resolve it, the next step is to test the client for flexibility. This is going to be something that's going to stop them coming over the line. Are you in a position to do this? If they say yes, the process has to go backstage and you have to redo that stage so the client can address it directly with the candidate because they won't believe me saying it because I'm a salesperson with a dog in the race. And if the client says no, you pull them out. We pull people out all the time. Really? What do you mean? Pulled out process? Yeah. We won't spend a minute on a candidate in a process that's got an objection that can't be handled. Really? What's the point? Why would you do it as a continued recruiter? I would rather spend my time on candidates that don't have objections that can't be handled. How do you deal with that without the other people feeling like it was a waste of time up until that point? Because we're saving them from wasting more time. Okay. So look, in the interview, this came out. This fundamentally means it's not the right thing for them right now. So it's not they don't like you. It's just look, it's not the right fit for these reasons. There's little value you continuing in a process for someone that's not the right fit. It's going to waste your time. It's going to waste the candidates time. It's going to waste my time. What's the point? You better have been honest with everyone. And then that candidate, when you then go back to the team, you're going to be a great to them three weeks later and you go, "I know that one wasn't right, but this one is." I'm going to spell that. You just buy in this credibility, right? Everyone's so focused on, "Deal, you got to do a deal now." No, you don't. No. Focus on your stakeholders. Focus on your clients and your candidates. Forget about yourself, because you can't get what you want unless they all get what they want anyway. So focus on what they want, because you'll win regardless. And it's time. Don't invest time in something that's not going to go anywhere. So if we get objections, we start. We always stop. And then as we get further to the end, we get closer and closer into like mechanics. And what does this need to look like? How does the money need to look? And then we're going to the client. This is what it's going to have to be. So then they haven't gotten off yet, but you start talking about money. You start talking about these. This is the third compensation. These are the RSUs. This is the buyout you'd have to do. Can you do this? Can you go away and talk to comp? Can you work this out? Because what we want to do at the end is if you do decide you want to offer him, not have it sit there for a week while you work all this out, and then he's going to get two of our offers from two other firms, and now you're in a bidding war. So let's do this in the run-up because we both know you're interested and he's interested and there's a fit. So we're saving people time and we're adding value to a process as a talent partner. When I just sat there going, I've got an arbitrary KPI to hit and I care more about my KPI than actually doing my job, which is making money and making placements. So I'm just going to chuck stuff out the door and hope for the best. That stuff's probably not going to survive what's coming anyway. So would you say a lot of what you've really gone into detail there with you being committed to working in this way is the reason why you said to me that you haven't really done or had to do BD in a very long time? Because this feels as the process. We've done BD once. What would you mean by that? So we won our first hedge fund by doing business development. We now work with a bunch, 100% have been referrals. Right. And do you think it's a lot of it is all this we're talking about, yeah? So we work with a fund that engaged us the beginning, Q4 last year. And the reason why is they hired a new CTO and we used to recruit for that same person that their previous company. They moved to become a CTO of this company. The first thing they did is went to the talent team and said, you need to call Craig, I want them to recruit for us. We've got another client, ultra prestigious name in our world, who had a head of reach out to me to say, I'd message the guy that I used to work with at whatever bank who's now at whatever hedge fund to ask, I didn't agency and they gave me you. We've got another client where the talent acquisition guy reached out to a former colleague who's one of our clients and said, I need your best recruiters. She gave them my name. So we now supply to them. So why do you need to do business development? Every candidate you talk to is a hiring manager at some point. Every hiring manager you talk to will be a candidate at some point. Every talent acquisition person, all they want is to find people that can do a seamless job that makes them look good, because they care about looking good in front of their stakeholders. They want it to be seamless. They don't want things to change at the end. They don't want endless back and forwards, because it doesn't make them look good. That's all they want, which is completely true and fair. So the more that you do a good job and be credible and be knowledgeable and add value, in anything that you do, especially in recruitment when those recruiters are not that easy to find. People will just recommend you to their friends, because they wouldn't recommend a bad recruiter. If someone came to you and was like, "Here, Shem, you obviously know loads of recruiters, and I need to recruit from my business." You're not going to recommend someone you think is bad, because I'll make you look bad. Yeah, exactly. You're going to recommend someone who's good. How do you define good? Well, you haven't had anyone who's been in here recruit for you, so you don't have a basis of evidence. So what's your assessment of whether they're good? It's how credible are they? How memorable are they for being credible? How many people have sat in here and you've gone, "That guy really gets it." That's the person you're going to recommend. And it's the same in anything. That's just human nature, right? No one wants to look bad. That's the thing. If you really commit to that process, as you've said, really passionately, then it has a positive experience. It's completely surprising. It's completely surprising, right? You don't know. Reputation is like fitness. It's really, really fucking hard to get, and it's really, really easy to lose. Yes. It's like a building of reputation is like growing an apple tree, or it takes as long as it takes growing apple tree, and losing a reputation is a time it takes from the apple to fall off a tree and hit the floor. And that's true, right? Yes, that's true. It travels. So you as a recruiter have infinite opportunity daily to either further your reputation or damage your reputation, because you spend all day in the market, the use service, and you recruit for. I spend all day talking to people in hedge fund technology. So if I'm showing up as a genuine person who's doing a good job for them and putting them first, or I could show up as a transactional recruiter that's trying to do a good job for me first, who are they going to buy into more, who are they going to recommend more? It's not rocket science. But you need to have faith. That good work will multiply and come back to you. And for us, it has, but again, that maybe is a bit more market specific, right? We're not a business that need 30 clients. We're a business that, with five people, we need about eight. So you have a deal size of solid as well. I have a deal size currently about 70k sterling. That's going up all the time, not for anything we're doing, but because of AI. Where my head goes with what you're just saying there, which is around the faith pieces, I think there'll be a lot of people listening, I really believe that and buy into that. But what can be hard is, if I'm listening to this right now and I'm imploded, I can't tell my managers to have faith. I'm committing to the knowledge, I'm learning, I'm doing these things. Can you not, though? Have grown a team, you've let people go, it's hard to, you can have that faith, you've seen it. But then I'm not talking about stopping doing your job. So learn through your candidates. There's no reason you won't build through that process because you're only going to get better every day anyway. In my experience of recruitment, if you want to do anything, they're only ever going to turn around and go, well, if you don't make any money, then we're going to get rid of you. But if you're successful, then great. No one's ever stopped me. Even when I work, when I work for people building my own markets and doing my own things, I'm going, well, I'm going to do this and they go, you better fucking do still, then. We go, okay, fine. And then you do. And then you're fine. Recruitment's just so material. Who's going to stop anyone doing anything if it makes money? There was a week where everyone decided that there was going to talk about the big PLC recruitment companies, not performing very well and what this means and then everyone had a commentary on that. But a lot of all this stuff that you've spoken about is your belief that this is why if you are a recruiter, commit to the craft and knowledge, all these things you've spoken about that actually in AI tech world, you're going to be very well positioned to be the recruiter that continues to do really well, successful. Why do you believe that then? But first, I want to tell you about one of our long-term partners, SourceWell. Something I hear again and again when I'm speaking to founders and agency leaders is that most teams are not short on effort, they're short on context. When outreach, dialers, notes, follow-ups and data sits across multiple tools, your recruits are always working from a partial picture. Deal slip through the cracks, follow-ups get missed and admin eats the day. That's really where SourceWell comes in. You might already know them as an outreach and automation tool, but over the last year they've built out something much bigger. The AI recruitment platform designed specifically for grown recruitment agencies who want to run a more profitable business, not just manage their desks. They have a really simple idea. One platform that captures everything across the full recruitment motion, every call, every email, note and interview, so your team always works from the full picture. You'll get a faster time to placement, more revenue per head, less time switching between tools. What I really like about it is its modular approach. You don't have to rip out your entire tech stack to get the most out of SourceWell. You can plug in what you need. If you just need sourcing, data validation, inbox automation, an AI note, take a conversation, it all flows back into one place. Or you can run it in there all in one CRM and ATS replacing up to 10 separate subscriptions with a single workflow. Either way, less admin, more conversations, more deals. If you're looking to cut tool costs, get it into one more streamlined platform, increase profitability per head. You'll be able to connect with SourceWell, the link in the show notes and get your hands on an exclusive deal because you listen to this show. Let's get back to the conversation. I would imagine that the impact of AI is going to be the same across any industry that relies on digital work. Obviously, you can say, "Well, AI is not going to have a material impact on if I recruit builders." We're not at a point yet where we're going to employ robots to build houses. Maybe that's coming down the line. I don't know. But in white collar worlds, anyone who's job has a reliance of being online is going to be at risk. Who's going to go? If you take the environment of a technology recruitment company that recruits for investment banks, a lot of recruitment businesses do this. Banks, historically, have had huge teams of hundreds of people and they hire on a thing of like, they don't want anyone who's really not very good. They've got like a budget. They need to make 30 hires. They've got one budget. They don't want to hire anyone who's really not very good, but then they don't want to hire just a few people that's really amazing because you don't have enough bodies. The curve goes like that. Your hiring is largely in the middle. This is a traditional model because you need humans. You need numbers. What's happening now is the thing in the middle, which is the building of technology, is drastically losing its value. I've built technology platforms in the last two months. I'm not software engineer, but I just vibe coded it because it's not hard now because of AI, right? The curve is now going more. Well, if AI can make a software engineer 20 times more than you do, then you can see that more productive, which people that know a lot more about software and during the me seem to believe it does. We've got this one budget. We can now hire instead of hiring like 50 people in the middle, we could hire five people at the top and pay them more money because they can do 20 times to work now. And then we also need a next generation. So then we can hire like five people at the bottom that are just starting their career that they can learn from the people at the top. So it's the curve is now like a barbell and it goes up and then along and then up again. Yeah. So if you're a recruitment company, you recruit for an investment bank and that's your main client and you've had an environment where they've given you 40 jobs a month for the last decade and you've got a team of 10 and their job is to do as many deals as they can per head per month and you're on that PSL with like seven other agencies, right? So it's 40 jobs a month, you've just got to fill your share and then in your team you want your team of 10 to do like one deal a month or whatever and then everyone's happy, right? But if now that 40 jobs a month becomes two jobs and those jobs are like all the way at the top end, they're really fucking hard. And you're on a model where you can put an ad out and get response for jobs that no longer exist. How are you as a recruitment business that needs those big accounts and they need roles from those big accounts to support your big teams? Over night your consultants that have only ever sat in big accounts and they're going to win business. It's not going to happen. You don't need it. Well, of the 10, even if you say, look, this is where we're at, you've all got to win clients. One or two might actually do it successfully. Couple won't even try it. They'll leave straight away. The rest will go through the motions and then and then you're so your team will end up just shrinking to people that can feel the really really really fucking hard roles. Well, how are you going to do that? Because now everything's on the LinkedIn and companies just hire directly and they've got an AI model that does it for them. So how are you going to do that? How are you going to add value above and beyond an AI? Look at like Jack and Jill. How do you as a recruiter add value beyond them if you just put ads out and farm responses? That's what Jack and Jill does. The thing that everyone has said they've been doing for the last 15 years that no fucker does. Head hunting, referrals, coal calling, all that stuff, all the good stuff. You've now actually got to start doing it. You've now got to get like we placed the guy last year. It was a 180 K deal and it was Dan, my business partner, made the placement and the guy who ran recruitment for this company to massive investment business rang him and was like, how did you get this guy? The guy was like a strategist. So he created investment strategies, effectively a fusion of trading and technology. And even how did you get this guy? Because he's not on LinkedIn and Dan was like, who's a referral of a referral of a referral? Which is the job. So Dan deserves that 180 K fee because that guy will generate hundreds of millions for that company. And that guy deserves his comp, which was what he got for us to get what we got. But that guy's not on LinkedIn, right? So why I say the recruiter that can do the real high level stuff is going to have their time in the sun is because all of the established talent metrics, talent, routes to market, LinkedIn advertising, even Jack and Jill, whatever, it relies on active talent. It relies on people to engage. But if you follow the barbell methodology, the top people that everyone's now going to want to hire, they don't need to be active. They don't need to engage because the highly knowledgeable, highly credible best recruiters will go and find them. And the fairly average recruiters that don't actually have much value above Jack and Jill won't be able to find them. Or if they do find them, they'll get on the phone and they won't have the credibility to get them bought in anyway. And that's the problem. So you're going to have 10% of the recruitment industry that are genuinely very good at what they do. And they understand their market and they're specialized. Those people will be able to find passive talent that companies can't find themselves and AI models can't find. And those are the people that every company will want to hire. And if you're not that 10% of recruitment, your other option is go to industries that are traditionally, I don't mean this in a this ingenious way, but industries that are considered more lower skilled higher volume. So you recruit trade to people, for example, and just go headfirst into AI, or make the fuck out of there, drop your margins and go high volume. If you're going to sit in the middle, go in, I place AVP Java developers for Deutsche Bank, you're dead because Deutsche don't hire AVP Java developers anymore. And they're not going to. And any that they do need, they'll off shore them anyway. And that's just a reality of what's coming. Because it's not even just being able to find them. It's been able to then engage these people. Yes, that is not the whole thing that we spoke about. Imagine like you've got business going really well. You've got your podcasts, you've got your platform, you've got great brands, right? So you're not going to go and apply for a job. But there might be a job out there that you're perfect for because of your experience. And that might actually offer you something that's structured in such a way that you would consider it. Maybe you'll know what that would have to be. So it would have to be something really, really, really fucking good. If the recruit, let's say that they get through the initial light, now I'm pretty happy I'm running my own business. I've got a new baby at home, like leave me the fuck alone, which would be your initial response. But let's say someone somehow gets through that to the point where you're willing to give them five minutes on the phone and you get on the phone with them and they're not credible at all. They're not knowledgeable. They can't articulate why this opportunity is worth considering because you're in a really good position. They're done. You're not interested. Right. And then when they ring you again, you're not going to be interested. But imagine that person gets on and they show a real understanding of what you do and they speak to it in a way that's credible. And then they articulate an opportunity for you that's not grounded in like sales talk. It's in like just cold hard facts and you're going, that actually sounds alright. And then they're like appreciative of your situation and they go, look, they can structure it like this and they can do this. And I'm not saying it's perfect. But if you have like a half an hour conversation with you, but these are the things that are on the table. And if they're very credible, you might go, do you know what? I'm willing to have a half hour chat. And if it all falls down at that point and they lie to you, they're dead anyway, like you're never going to talk to them again. But if you speak to that company and then you go, that is actually a really opportunity. It's not quite the right thing for me right now, but that recruiter did a good job. You're going to take that call in the future. You're going to recommend them to someone. You're going to try and help them. And it's the same now with what's going to be left. This is all anyone who's talking about. The middle is gone. Right. In hiring. So what makes a high performing engineer? And the guy I was on the stage with it, that barbell thing was his thing. I've just shamelessly stolen because I thought it was great. But that's how they're hiring now. How they least have their thinking about whether or not. No, it's how they are. This is how we use higher. This is how we now hire. What's the manifestation for us of that in the real world? Compensation for the engineers we place is going through the roof. We get jobs now where they're paying engineers seven figures. Whereas five years ago, they were paying them 500, 600 at the top end. Now it's very normal that you've got seven figure packages that you're on negotiating the skillsets haven't changed. The return on engineering effort has changed. Engineers can now do so much more than they used to be able to do. So therefore you don't need so many of them. So if you're downstream, every recruitment business is a derivative of the market. It serves. We're all downstream of the market, right? So if there's a massive contraction in the market that you serve, there's going to be a massive contraction in the recruitment industry. Look at 2008. Lehman goes down. Banks are going out of business. No one's hiring for any more. What happened to recruitment companies? They shrunk. I joined Huxley in September, 2008 with this big massive team within three or four months. Two first of that team were gone. I didn't understand the reasons why at the time. But it's because the market we recruit for is gone. Well, what's going to happen with AI? The majority of jobs are gone. They are. Like anyone who says they're not is living with a head under a rock. So all that's left. And this is for engineers. This is for CTOs. This is for marketing people. This is for lawyers. This is for us. So everyone, right? Is you've got to prove that you bring more value to the table than a piece of technology? Because if you're that easy to all of them, you're probably not that good at your job anyway. How does this then translate and look like in your business in terms of this is what I'm thinking about what I'm doing in my business to future proof and not be that or not end up dead. So we have to defend the thing that we say is defensible, right? Which is the time on the phone or in front of candidates. That's the thing that if you talk to recruiters about you're going to get all made there. We go no, no, no, because it's a human business, right? So that's the hill that we have to defend at all costs. So I look at it and go, right, how can I lean into AI everywhere so that my guys do nothing but the bit that we want to defend, which is the on the phone or in front of people. So I built a product, which we're also now which now got recruiters paying us to have, which is called rec OS, but we use it every day. And it basically is fully augmented recruitment. So my goal when making this product and I'm constantly changing it every day to make it better is for my team originally and then now these other recruiters that have become our customers is to augment them as far as possible so that they are either finding people they don't know or talking to people and that when they get there, so the finding people they don't know time to market the return on that. So your your speed to X, your speed to placement can just constantly reduce so you can do more and more and more in terms of placements for the same amount of time input. So that's an efficiency thing, right? So how can you use technology to better qualify roles to show up on calls with clients more knowledgeable, more credible to build more of a picture on who is going to get the job? How can you build a source in strategy? How can you go search? How can we use technology to help us with that? And there's so many ways to do it. It has an implicit requirement of you've got to know what you're doing when you go into it. Otherwise what it does will just be a reflection of you and if you're not very good, it will not be very good. So how do you augment time to market as much as possible and then when you put people into the thing that we want to defend, which is the time in front of the customer, whether that's the client or the candidate. How do you put the recruiter there so that they are more credible than anyone that that person has ever spoken to? How do you skill them up with knowledge? How do you help them identify needs? How do you help them ask questions? How do you help them identify where processes are gonna fall out? How do you help them run a SWAT of their desk? You can do all of that with technology. So that's everything we're focused on at the moment is augmentation to protect the thing that we have to protect. And if we don't protect that app, there's no need for recruitment anymore. If you don't protect the time on the phone and you don't show up on the phone as the best recruiter that person's ever spoke to, why should they not just go and do it through Jack and Jill or whoever? Like, where's your value? And it's those are the stakes, I think now. Craig, I love your passion, man. I know we like geeked out on process and stuff, but I know that one will be really valuable for people. And also for some people, maybe a really good reminder to go, you know what, I need to recommit to that. Actually, there's room for me to improve on that. Actually, Craig is right. I need to commit to the knowledge. And really, just good things, then, man. Like, I'm really glad that I've got to know you further. I've seen your content. I know we've had some back and forth on that making this happen. But I think there's so many great things, then. Clearly, you're passionate about this industry. You think so highly of it. And what we spoke about here are all the things that you believe that if you do commit to it, you can future proof your career, still keep having the success even in whatever is around the corner. The crewman's awesome. A lot of people treat like a job. These are, I never understood this. At why does anyone get in recruitment? It's the whole like, change your life. You're going to earn 100K in your first year. That's what everyone gets in with their excited. And then they start doing the job. And then it becomes mundane and it becomes a job. And people settle. They settle to earn 40, 50 grand a year, going through the motions. Frankly, there's easier fucking jobs. If you're going to do it, do it. But understand the mechanics of it. Understand how it works. It's people's jobs. They're important things. Treat them with respect they deserve. Invest the time in being credible and being knowledgeable around the market you claim to be a specialist in. And do a good job for your stakeholders. And funnily enough, good things will happen. And it is a great industry. Like, I look at our guys and I was in London overnight. So I was in the hotel gym this morning at like seven. And I looked at the window. It's near Liverpool Street. And there's people walking to work. And I sent a video, I'll show you it. I sent a video to my team. I was like seven a.m. And these poor fuckers are walking to an office. This is a reminder of why recruitment is the best industry in the world. Because you guys sit at home in your pencil day and you earn fuckload of money and you treat like adults and you're in control of your own destiny. So tell me that's not a great industry. And it's there and available for everyone. Just gotta think about it a little bit. And that seems to be what most people aren't wanting to do. So this is my crusade. And just think about it. Because it can change your life. It changed mine. Craig, I love it, man. Thanks for joining me, bro. Very welcome. That is a wrap for this week's episode. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. And if you've gotten value from this conversation or conversations in the past, we can see in the back end the a lot of you listen but may not yet be subscribed. Hit the subscribe button. It massively helps the show. And you'll be joining a community of recruiters that truly are dedicated to continuous improvement. And one of the ways they do that is by listening to this show every single week. Now you may not know this, but I'm also the founder of a business called Hector. We're an online training platform for growing recruitment businesses. Ultimately, we help you get your new hires building faster. We make your team performance predictable. The cool thing that we're doing at Hector is that all of our training on our platform is delivered by the types of people that you listen to on the show. People that are very much in the trenches today, current top performers, sharing exactly the playbooks and strategies that they're using to succeed in today's market. So your team can take those insights, not have to learn them a hard way and apply them to their own desk. So if ever you are reviewing how you're upscaling your team, we are trying to solve the issues and challenges around inconsistent performance. Maybe worth checking us out. You can drop me a DM directly on LinkedIn. We can go over to our website, thisishector.com and book in a cool with me there. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week. (upbeat music)