Latest / The Payments Shed / Ep. 35 - From Terminals to Talent: How Ya Doing on changing the Recruitment Conversation in Payments and Fintech

Transcript

Ep. 35 - From Terminals to Talent: How Ya Doing on changing the Recruitment Conversation in Payments and Fintech · The Payments Shed

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  Welcome to the Payment Shed podcast, the weekly podcast that
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  dives into the big topics, trends and people shaping the
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  world's of payments, fintech and business leadership with your
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  two Co hosts, myself Grant Evans and Justin Hannah.
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  Welcome to another episode of the Payment Shed podcast.
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  Today we are joined by Luke Barry and Gary Burns from how
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  you're doing guys, welcome to the show.
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  Please can we get an introduction to yourselves?
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  I'm, I'm very interested in finding out how you met and, and
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  a little bit about the, the foundation of how you're doing
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  and, and what the business does. Yeah.
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  Look, so I'll start. So thank you having us obviously
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  avid listener. So yeah, we are.
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  How you doing? We're a talentless service firm.
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  My kind of background, so I live in London, I'm in Kingston and
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  my background is 15 years in payments and banking.
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  And, but recently 6-7 months ago settled my own business with
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  Gary and we kind of transitioned into, into people and trying to
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  tackle the world of payments and people and kind of one solution.
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  And, and yeah, loving it at the moment.
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  But I think before I dive too much into the business and talk
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  about what we do, it's probably fair because otherwise I do tend
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  to go on tangents. So let Gary here insure himself
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  and maybe explain how we met. Yeah.
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  Thank you for that. Looking great to be, great to
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  be. Here, romantic isn't.
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  It absolutely. Thank you for having us as well.
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  It's great to be here. Yeah, I'm Gary.
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  I've spent over 15 years working in talent acquisition.
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  I actually met Luke when I tried to recruit him, which then led
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  to Luke saying I was the best recruiter he'd ever worked with.
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  And we kept in touch, became friends.
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  Whenever I was in London for business, I would meet, look for
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  for coffee or drink. And so I just spawned the idea
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  of bringing looks experience in terms of delivery around the
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  payment sector and my experience of building successful teams
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  together to go into payments and fintech and and help businesses
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  from a different angle. And then you approach to to
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  really scale and bring in great people.
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  Yeah. And I think it's like when you
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  look at the industry, I saw that a big, a big hole in the market,
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  right, which is even people that say they've been in payments for
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  15 years as a talent acquisition, they've never
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  actually delivered a product. They've never sat in a product
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  team, they've never sat. They've never spoken to the end
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  customer. So when you're a specialist, I
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  always thought, what are you the specialist of what?
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  You're the specialist of the people.
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  I thought there's a big gap in the market here, right?
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  Where actually, if you've got someone that's spoken to, the
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  end customer knows what they want and they've done the
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  day-to-day, not the glitz and glamour, the the grinding out
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  day-to-day. If you combine that knowledge of
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  doing it with the kind of talent, it would be a strong
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  proposition. And kind of, I don't want to
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  call it recruitment 2 point O because it's a bit corny, but
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  it's just doing recruitment in a different way.
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  And I'm sure we'll talk about it later with AI and stuff, but I
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  kind of see it kind of diverging.
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  So yeah. I think it's just an interesting
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  notion of, yeah, I know Gary, you've worked in payments as
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  well, a little bit more time in the talent acquisition world.
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  But having that experience of a sector that you're then actually
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  recruiting into is, is really lacking in the market as far as
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  I'm concerned. I mean, we get that feedback
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  with the podcast. Obviously we work in industry
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  and we're sitting down with people from fintech and
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  payments, but we, we work in fintech and payments.
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  So we know the subject matter and we do get very positive
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  feedback. So I'm interested to see where
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  you guys take the business because I just don't think
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  there's anyone doing what you guys are really where they've
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  got that industry experience. I've definitely had recruiters
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  call me before and so I'm working with an up and coming
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  PF. Tell me what?
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  Tell me what? PFF, they're really like the
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  payments to say they're taking X amount of investment.
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  What does that actually mean? What are they selling and why
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  are they selling it right? As opposed to looking for
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  someone's CV and throwing it, throwing it against 1000 other
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  CVS. So I think from your
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  perspective, you'd be able to weed out a lot of people by
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  having a conversation to understand their knowledge.
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  Yeah. And I think look, the 100% on
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  that, but I also think there's the element of, and you know,
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  I'm sure we've all been approached by recruiters, right,
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  Where actually they also would try and coach you into the role.
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  So they're trying to make, you know, a square fitness circle
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  and then tell the client you are the perfect circle where our
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  kind of views, we take a different approach.
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  So we're very much on the side of the client.
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  We're very transparent with our candidates, but we try to make
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  the perfect square fit the perfect square.
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  And if we can't, we then tell the client it's not about making
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  the wrong person in the wrong role because especially we, we
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  do a lot of founders that are scaling and if you get the wrong
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  person in for six months, that's a lot of cash, but and that's a
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  lot of pain to do it. So it's better just to be
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  honest. So I think our approach to the
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  best of our knowledge, I don't know anyone doing it, you know,
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  there might be someone else there, someone else might
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  comment on it. But, and I think that's probably
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  why we're, we're quite unique and the feedback we get from
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  founders themselves being able to have that similar to you
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  guys, right? That's why we listen to the
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  podcast is, is to have the organic conversation where you
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  actually are both subject matter experts.
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  I think founders that we're dealing with like the fact that
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  first they get the subject matter expert about their
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  product and then we then hand it over to the that maybe they're
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  the subject matter that they don't have, which is hiring the
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  best people. Whether we can then hand it over
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  to Gary and then it adds the extra layer of value instead of
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  being the only layer of value. Does that make sense?
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  And Gary, from from your perspective, how have you seen
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  this differ from maybe your your career and recruitment before
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  around this kind of view on it, I think?
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  The different approach that we take is, is challenge as a
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  stigma that's existed with recruitment for deals.
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  Whereas as you said, C VS been flung and people who don't
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  really understand the client or understand the role.
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  And for me, having worked in payments and worked in fintech,
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  it was all about understanding the hiring manager, the team,
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  the role and the company so that you can make the right connect.
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  And sometimes you have to have difficult conversations and say
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  this may take a week or two longer.
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  But in the long run, that's a drop in the bucket because we'll
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  get the right person and six months down the line you'll
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  forget it took two weeks longer. It's about finding the right
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  people at the right time for the right role.
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  And a lot of recruiters out there in the traditional sense
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  forget that. They just as look said, it's a
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  square peg in a round hole because they just want to get
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  paid. For us, it's about making the
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  right fats for that long lasting success for our clients.
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  So I think for us is how you doing?
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  It's about challenging that and bringing the fresh approach
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  where we understand at a deeper level the payment sector, the
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  companies, the roles. We've got a guy here that's
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  worked in a lot of the roles and delivered success, and then
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  myself, I've built successful teams worldwide to deliver in
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  that space as well. So if you bring that together,
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  we can challenge the status quo. If you ever wanted a product,
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  product capacity previously in payments, what was your role in
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  the payments industry? It was in talent acquisition.
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  It was working, working across roles.
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  So everything from product marketing through to revenue
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  generation as well. And what made you get to that
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  decision of flipping from in house to I'm going to go and do
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  this myself, my way? Other than the opportunity to
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  what was looking at a day-to-day basis, I would say, you know,
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  I've always had that entrepreneurial mindset.
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  I think when you work in talent acquisition and recruitment on
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  an agency side, you cannot run your own desk and it's about
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  running your own business anyway.
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  I worked internal for a number of years, built up a real
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  passion for payments and fintech from that experience.
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  But the thought was always there that I could and wanted to run
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  my own business where we do it my way, you know, where we focus
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  on relationships, we focus on people to a very deep level.
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  And it's about building those connections.
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  So when I spoke to Luke and Luke was thinking about coming out of
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  sales and coming into the placement world, it just seemed
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  like such a natural fact. You know, we knew each other
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  well. We've, we've almost worked
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  together in the past. And it just seemed like bringing
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  Luke's experience alongside Main, we would bring something
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  to the market that's new. You know it's not 2 traditional
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  recruiters setting up their own business.
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  It's a payments expert and a talent acquisition expert coming
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  together and I think it's five months and a powerful
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  proposition and and feeling. What was the kind of the moment
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  you thought I need to get out of this world?
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  I like payments, I like sales, but I really like recruitment.
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  So like an event or? No, there was, there was one
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  thing that happened. So I think there was 2 elements
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  to it, right. I've always been passionate
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  about payments, but more I'm passionate about people.
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  So in all of my jobs, I've had mentoring schemes where I've
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  tried to help people. And so the people development
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  is, is more fun than the payments.
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  Payments is just interesting, right?
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  But I'd probably say that the, the main part, which was the guy
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  doesn't even know this, but I went on a interview that a
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  recruitment put me in with and I was actually speaking to a
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  former managing director that I knew personally.
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  And he was like, the role's not right for you.
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  And I was like, the role is not right for me.
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  And he kind of had a chat with me and said, look, you could do
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  a lot. You just need to work out where
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  it was and then you know when it just hits you.
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  I was like, hang on a minute, I'm speaking to people I
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  shouldn't be because I've been pushed here.
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  There is a issue that I can resolve and all good businesses
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  start by fixing an issue. So I got off that call and
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  literally just called up Gary about two minutes later and said
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  why don't we set up a recruitment firm, talent as a
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  service as I like to call it. But anyway, why don't we set up
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  a firm and do something different?
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  And the different is we actually know what we're talking about
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  from the payment space and how can we lose?
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  If you're a normal recruiter, you can say I've done this for
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  15 years. And then you speak to us and go,
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  I've spoken to your own client, I've launched your product, I've
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  sold your product. Oh, and Gary has been talent for
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  15 years. So when you just look at the two
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  options, I just why would you go with option one when you have
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  option 2? It's so natural.
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  So then create a business. Called him up two hours later.
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  It was all right, Let's let's give this a go.
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  Nice and. How was your payments experience
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  kind of influence the way you now approach your recruitment?
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  Massively, like massively. So I think a lot of recruiters
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  are sprinting. We don't Sprint.
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  One of the things I said to Gary is we're going to split the
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  business in two. So the business is business
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  development, which is me, and then it is talent.
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  So I open door, Gary closes the door and I said I don't want to
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  Sprint, I don't want one term contracts, I want multiple
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  contracts from one person. So we're going to take more of
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  an enterprise level approach to it, which is it might take us
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  three months or six months to get a client, but then we'll
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  keep them for years. So that helped.
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  I also think really importantly, payments and recruitment are
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  actually more simple and more similar than you think and
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  similar to payments. If I sold you a gateway today
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  until payments start going through it and I get my gateway
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  fee, I'm not getting paid. It's a cost for me to run that
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  in recruitment. If I sign you and you don't give
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  me any actual people to recruit, I don't get paid.
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  So it is that secondary reward. So put the enterprise level over
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  it, remove the Sprint, and then kind of put in that secondary
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  reward that it was quite actually easy to transition
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  over. No, I think that many people
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  have had bad experiences with the recruiters, right?
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  And sometimes it does tarnish maybe some businesses that are
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  doing the right things. And on the flip side of that, it
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  can be frustrating for recruiters when you've got
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  people that are applying for 100 million jobs at the same time
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  because they're not happy. Right?
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  Yeah. What do you kind of think are
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  the the biggest pain points out there now right now for for
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  candidates? For candidates, I think as you
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  touched on, it's, it's getting feedback.
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  You know, you shouldn't have to apply for a million jobs.
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  You know, I think if you know your worth and you know what you
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  want to do, and a lot of candidates don't and they need
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  to have that conversation. And that's where we we do that
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  as well. It's almost like, you know,
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  we're a council, come and have a chat with us now, talk to people
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  and say, where do you want to be in the next two to five years?
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  What do you want this step to achieve in your journey so that
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  you're clearing what that looks like.
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  And I'll be honest, if the role with us isn't going to help them
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  get there, we'll say this is this isn't the right thing for
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  you just now. So I think candidates need to be
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  honest with themselves about what they actually want to do
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  and where they want to go to. I think the other big pain point
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  is not getting feedback. There's a lot of recruiters out
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  there that they do. The bad reputation has came from
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  bad practice over the years. Let's be honest.
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  You know, it takes 2 minutes to phone someone, have a connect
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  with them, tell them why they've been unsuccessful, gave them
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  some feedback and watch them well moving forward.
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  But a lot of people, it's a transactional outcome that
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  they're looking at. They want to just again, fill
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  the role and move on. For us, it's not about that look
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  saying about with clients, it's about building a relationship
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  for the long term. Well, for me, it's the same with
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  candidates because it's people, you know, I want to be with
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  someone to place them. And if they move again, we can
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  work with them then and be part of their journey because
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  changing job as part of someone's journey in life as
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  well. And we play a big part in that.
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  So we want to give them the counsel and the support that
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  they need. So I think people need to be
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  securing what they want and then speak to people that they can
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  trust to help them get to where they want to be to.
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  I think that could address a lot of the the issues candidates are
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  seen. I think that's like an issue
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  with the employers, but I think, you know, recruitment companies
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  have certainly been culpable with that in the past as well.
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  I mean, I've had experiences definitely with recruiters
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  where, and I don't know if it's because they were having
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  multiple candidates that they were putting forward for a role
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  and it's like horses that they're backing, right?
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  And one horse is winning the race.
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  But I've certainly had the ghosting from him companies I've
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  applied to directly and from recruiters as well in the
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  middle. Oh, I think that, OK, I think
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  there's two issues, right? One I think is inexperience,
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  right? I think from the recruiter side,
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  like it's short sightedness back to that Sprint, OK.
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  But 2, I guess the the kind of harsh honesty as well is if
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  you've got a recruiter that doesn't understand the job and
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  they don't understand the outcome, it's hard for that
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  recruiter to give you genuine feedback.
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  So it's sometimes even if you're going to get the feedback, all
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  they're going to say is you came really close, you were good.
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  There was just someone picked you.
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  There's no actual valuable feedback there.
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  Yeah, exactly. So it's like, you know, you
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  know, we've rejected someone recently because of their tender
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  experience. They told us that they'd LED
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  tenders when we actually spoke to them, they were part of the
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  tender team. They didn't lead the tender, so
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  when we gave feedback, we said we're actually looking for a
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  lead to someone that's delivered more than it.
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  So that person went great. Now I know in the next couple of
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  ones that I do at work, I will own the process instead of being
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  part of it. Most recruiters aren't going to
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  really know what a tender process goes into.
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  So I think it's exactly as Gary said.
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  I think it's experience, I think it's caring, but I also think
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  there's an element of what feedback can you give if you
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  don't understand it. Where do you think AI has?
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  And I don't talk about AI all the time, right?
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  But the reason why I say it is that a lot of people apply for
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  roles and then they're chucked out of the process immediately
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  because their CV or resume doesn't fit what the business
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  says it's looking for according to some random AI system, right?
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  And I've seen people and I've spoken to said I've applied for
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  that job, it's the job that I do and I've not got through to next
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  round. So look, I've got a bit of a
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  bugbear with AI right, in recruitment.
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  So I think AI has a place at maybe more junior levels where
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  it's less technical and you know, you've got more letterbox
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  recruiters who just CV sifters and it helps them.
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  My biggest issue is, and you guys will know this because
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  you're in industry as well. Before if I had a role, there's
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  probably 5 candidates in London that would, would, would just
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  smash the role. OK.
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  And I had 50 people apply when now because of AI, I've now got
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  five people that would smash the role and 300 people apply.
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  The AI masks the quality, it doesn't improve the quality of
• 15:34
  the actual candidate. And I think that's what we're
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  seeing. And I can imagine for some HR
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  teams, it's an absolute war zone out there.
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  So their next natural thing to do is they're now implementing
• 15:44
  AI. So you now have AI helps with
• 15:46
  the CVAI, helps with the actual application, AI screens it, AI
• 15:52
  shortlists it. And if you think the five people
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  out of the 500 are all going to get through the AI screening,
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  they won't. To your point, right, the person
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  who's doing the role has been screened out.
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  Yeah, yeah, it's it's stupid, but you are seeing more and more
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  of that. I think we even looked at a role
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  the other day. We were going to reach out to a
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  client and I said, wow, they've post up Iran.
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  They've had 384 candidates in 24 hours.
• 16:18
  Now two things can happen from that.
• 16:20
  The business can be arrogant about it and go, well, look how
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  many candidates we have, we don't need your help.
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  Or they can be realistic and go, can I find a needle in a
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  haystack? Because if I can't, I'm going to
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  need somebody else. I can't just post a job advert
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  on LinkedIn. This is a rumour, so no, might
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  not be statistical, but please don't harm me to it, it's only
• 16:39
  my opinion. From what I've heard, Stripe
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  last year had nearly 990,000 applications on their jobs.
• 16:49
  Yeah, it's crazy. But you can believe it as well.
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  I can believe it, but funny enough that I also know people
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  that have got a job at Stripe through the network, right
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  through reaching out via their network.
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  They know a hiring manager they've got out of coffee and
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  they can show that they've delivered the role multiple
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  times in other places. So then they will be maybe
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  shortlisted. They don't get the job, but
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  there's a shortlist that gets them past the initial AI kind
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  of. I don't want to say slop because
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  that's what they all call it, but it is a lot of.
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  But you also now have the some businesses are now bringing in
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  AI Roberts to, to do the first interview, right?
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  So you're literally speaking to a bot?
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  Yeah. And I think the biggest
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  advocates for that are the companies themselves.
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  Yeah, I see a lot of these AI companies using that with the
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  digital face in front of it, and they're the ones going, oh,
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  we've done this, we've done that.
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  Very rarely am I actually seeing clients come out and say, wow,
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  this has really helped our processes.
• 17:44
  You know, we should probably do it more where I just go out and
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  stop patting myself on the back for what I've done.
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  But you know. I think Stripe need the
• 17:50
  screening as well. I mean, they've got from
• 17:52
  experience, that's the last round lost out to an internal
• 17:55
  candidate I lost. That's what they missed out that
• 17:58
  which. Recruiter told.
• 18:01
  You yeah, but yeah, I mean they've got a very long
• 18:03
  recruitment process, right. I think you know, four or five
• 18:06
  rounds and the the last day I had that this is getting back
• 18:08
  for a few years. I had like 7 interviews on the
• 18:10
  final day. Don't get Gary started.
• 18:12
  On some big bugbear, remain OK, I think, you know, putting
• 18:16
  people through that. I don't know how you felt going
• 18:18
  through that, but you lose so much connection in touch.
• 18:21
  It just becomes an arduous process that you feel you need
• 18:25
  to complete because you've started like climbing a
• 18:26
  mountain. The bit I like that they did do
• 18:28
  though, and you know, I've probably taken this into hiring
• 18:31
  in my own teams since then, is they had different people from
• 18:36
  different part departments interview.
• 18:37
  So it wasn't just the commercial team interviewing you in the
• 18:40
  commercial capacity. You had the marketing team, you
• 18:42
  had someone from the product team and that was really driving
• 18:45
  that cultural narrative of you're going to be working with
• 18:48
  these people in these different departments day-to-day, Do they
• 18:50
  see you as a fit for the wider business unit?
• 18:53
  That's good for you as well though, because it gives you the
• 18:55
  opportunity to see the wider business rather than maybe you
• 18:58
  meet two people, you meet the person who's going to be a line
• 19:01
  manager, maybe one person from the team of one person more
• 19:04
  senior. You then meet people from
• 19:06
  product, marketing, finance, and you get to see what the broader
• 19:10
  culture of the business is like. So you're going in more aware of
• 19:13
  what that is rather than just what your team's going to be
• 19:17
  like. And then you get there and
• 19:18
  you're like, actually as a way that business, this doesn't
• 19:21
  align with me. Still still not a big fan of
• 19:23
  like I think you could do that over 2 interviews and in the
• 19:25
  closing interview being the third one you know you have.
• 19:27
  To do role plays and all sorts, yeah, like, yeah, I've had to do
• 19:30
  very accusative stories. I think that these role plays is
• 19:34
  something I would take out of any process personally on on my
• 19:38
  experience in going for roles. One thing as well that that
• 19:40
  still gets used, for example, deliver a PowerPoint
• 19:43
  presentation. And how often do people do that
• 19:46
  day-to-day? Very real, is it?
• 19:48
  OK? So if you take a sales role, for
• 19:50
  example, what's more likely to happen is they'll have to sit
• 19:53
  down in front of a client and speak to them for 15 minutes.
• 19:56
  Why don't you have a round table with a candidate lead to
• 19:58
  discussion? I said I was maybe giving away
• 20:00
  some of our secret sauce. That's something I'm a big
• 20:04
  advocate for and it's worked really well in the two previous
• 20:06
  two or three companies I've worked with.
• 20:08
  We implemented that in sales hiring where there would usually
• 20:11
  be the second stage. They would come in and lead a
• 20:13
  discussion and it's what they're doing day-to-day because they're
• 20:16
  going on a client site and they're sitting down and they're
• 20:19
  raising a subject and they're taking it through to conclusion
• 20:22
  and it's a conversation rather than someone standing up in a
• 20:25
  room pointing at a screen for 20 minutes and going through the
• 20:28
  PowerPoint I'll. Tell you one of the best
• 20:30
  situation and once we are Segway and I think that's a good story.
• 20:32
  And Sarah Savage, my old boss has has been on the show
• 20:35
  recently as well. But when I interviewed A valid
• 20:37
  Irish Bank, they didn't end up getting this job, but they flew
• 20:41
  me over to to Dublin and I was told, I think the day before
• 20:44
  that. In fact, no, I wasn't even told
• 20:46
  the day before I got there and Sarah and the HR manager came
• 20:49
  in. They said, right, we're going to
• 20:51
  give you half an hour. It was going to be a role play
• 20:54
  scenario. And they're very big in
• 20:55
  airlines. All they suddenly were back
• 20:56
  then. They had that kind of airline
• 20:58
  brochure for Allied Irish Bank from the last trade show they'd
• 21:01
  gone to in, in that year. They're like, you can read
• 21:04
  through this. The situation is we're selling
• 21:06
  to Turkish Airlines. You've been stranded in Istanbul
• 21:09
  and the head of payments for Turkish Airlines has given you a
• 21:12
  30 minute meeting slot to go. And pitch So realistic.
• 21:15
  But then they were like, don't make it to like payments detail
• 21:18
  oriented. It's just two people and you've
• 21:21
  got a 30 minute slot to get a follow up meeting off the back
• 21:24
  of it, right? And I literally just, they
• 21:25
  walked out the room and I was like, oh crap, I've got 30
• 21:28
  minutes to do this role play scenario.
• 21:30
  But it really got me thinking and and you're reading about the
• 21:33
  product and you're pulling out, you know, you couldn't be too
• 21:36
  technical from a payment's point of view, But what are the, the
• 21:38
  lures that we're going to interest Turkish Airlines in
• 21:40
  potentially adding allied Irish by merchant services to their
• 21:43
  their ecosystem? So I quite enjoyed.
• 21:45
  That I'll give them a shout out. So Mitch Powers is one of my old
• 21:49
  bosses and me and him were discussing it.
• 21:51
  And to your point about the PowerPoints, right, he had a
• 21:53
  very clearview, which is don't take a PowerPoint straight away
• 21:57
  because what you're doing is you're selling your service.
• 22:00
  That is not important on the start, what is on the call, and
• 22:03
  as he stressed to me more and more is discovery.
• 22:06
  You want to learn as much about not only the client, but the
• 22:09
  person you're speaking with. Take that away.
• 22:13
  And then you create them a pitch which is wholly unique to them
• 22:17
  where too many times you see, especially in large
• 22:19
  organisations, they go, OK, this is marches like pitch external
• 22:24
  and then marketing. I've dealt with it.
• 22:26
  There's not been a lot of input. And before you know it, you're
• 22:28
  telling, you're not, you're not coaching, you're not selling,
• 22:31
  you're telling. And you sit there and I've, I've
• 22:34
  done it with maybe salespeople haven't been as good.
• 22:37
  And you're looking at the client and totally glazed over thinking
• 22:40
  I've no idea what you're talking.
• 22:41
  About it's just a sales pitch, right?
• 22:43
  Exactly. I think that's where we talk
• 22:45
  about consultancy across kind of in the talent world, but
• 22:50
  actually we do it in sales all the time, right?
• 22:52
  You're just asking people question after question so you
• 22:54
  understand exactly what challenges they're having.
• 22:57
  I actually want went for an interview, a huge pot.
• 22:59
  I'm not going to say the name, but a huge provider.
• 23:02
  And during the call, there's like 5 minutes left to look.
• 23:04
  We're just going to do a quick role play.
• 23:05
  I own a shop on the High Street. I want to move to an ecom
• 23:09
  website. Explain to me why I'll do it.
• 23:13
  And I my words were I'm not doing a role play because this
• 23:16
  is a senior enterprise sales role.
• 23:18
  I would never be having conversations with someone on
• 23:21
  High Street who just wanted to open up.
• 23:23
  And so I think it's really powerful.
• 23:26
  I think as as someone applying for a role is don't just say yes
• 23:30
  because you think you want that job.
• 23:33
  And I've interviewed people before and actually someone I've
• 23:35
  hired before, the reason why he was so good, he counted me every
• 23:39
  single time. So every time I asked a question
• 23:41
  he was asked, they said why you asking that question, but in a
• 23:45
  different way. So I was having to explain why I
• 23:47
  was trying to ask get him to come in for the role.
• 23:51
  In an interview that I've had to do.
• 23:52
  So, Sharon, I did a similar thing, maybe not so much
• 23:55
  countering, but the person interviewing me didn't have the
• 23:57
  experience and payments. So they were reading the
• 23:59
  question to me and I said to them, look, this would never
• 24:03
  happen. Let me answer the question in a
• 24:05
  different way. So we'll change the client type,
• 24:08
  we'll change it, but we'll follow the same logic of why
• 24:11
  would they switch to us, what value can we add and let's
• 24:14
  actually make it an actual customer that we want, someone
• 24:18
  that fits in our ICP. Not just to your point.
• 24:21
  I think mine was, mine was a travel provider as well
• 24:25
  actually. But it was a really micro one
• 24:27
  that and we will go like 2 markets and we were like a 28,
• 24:30
  they were a 28 market provider. I was like, why would you even
• 24:33
  pitch to this? Quite normally it's like, no,
• 24:35
  we'd go larger. OK, well give us an example
• 24:37
  then. That's relevant, right?
• 24:39
  So. Do you think there's some
• 24:41
  outdated habits then and attitudes that maybe people
• 24:44
  still hold when they're speaking and and trying to recruit?
• 24:47
  Absolutely. I think people, there's a
• 24:49
  traditional mindset about questions.
• 24:50
  You need to actually need to ask situational questions, you need
• 24:53
  to ask competency questions and you aren't getting to the the
• 24:56
  crux of the matter. You know, you're not looking at
• 24:59
  the scales, you're not looking at experience, you're not
• 25:01
  looking at the knowledge enough. I think, I think it can be lazy
• 25:05
  or it's maybe just a lack of awareness, you know, to keep
• 25:08
  using the same way. We're going to do a A5 stage end
• 25:11
  of your process because we've always done that.
• 25:13
  Like a one out the nighty day plan.
• 25:16
  Yeah, the. Nighty day plan we have sent.
• 25:18
  So many night day plans as well. And I go, we don't share this
• 25:21
  with clients just so you know, right?
• 25:22
  Like if you're going to speak with a founder, the expand
• 25:25
  founder's going to expect you to talk about revenue and revenue
• 25:28
  generation or what you can deliver if your product, not
• 25:31
  what the road map you've delivered, what actual things
• 25:33
  you've created in the market, right?
• 25:35
  I think yeah, yeah, there's a lot of.
• 25:38
  I'm guilty because I've asked people for nice day plans.
• 25:41
  Do you read them? No.
• 25:42
  Well, I, I, I, I, I, maybe I would read them, but it makes no
• 25:46
  impact on my end, on my end decision, yeah.
• 25:50
  What does? I'll tell you exactly what it
• 25:53
  does. And Grant and I have hired
• 25:54
  someone before and during the day we interviewed 3 or 4 people
• 25:58
  and there was one person that had the most experience for that
• 26:02
  role, right? They had the most experience for
• 26:03
  the role on paper. And they come in and we just
• 26:06
  got, can you say a vibe? A vibe.
• 26:09
  But is this person made to fit and culture into this business
• 26:11
  and really get a grip and roll the sleeves of what we're trying
• 26:14
  to? Do the other thing was, would we
• 26:15
  buy from this person? Would we buy some big?
• 26:17
  Fat no. And actually the hiring manager
• 26:19
  was staggered that we hadn't liked the candidate.
• 26:22
  And we were like, you had to be in the room.
• 26:24
  Really, you probably should have been in the room with us.
• 26:25
  But it was very apparent that this person wasn't going to be
• 26:28
  able to sell our product. What that's a really good
• 26:30
  example of is the things that you can't tell from ACV, which
• 26:33
  is why you have to have the conversations and understand the
• 26:35
  person behind the paper because ACV only tells you so much.
• 26:39
  You have to get that feeling from people.
• 26:41
  I've went on calls, screening calls with candidates I've
• 26:44
  approached and on LinkedIn, they look amazing.
• 26:47
  You get a copy of the CV. It's all singing, all dancing.
• 26:50
  You're rubbing your hands like this is a home run, you know, I
• 26:53
  just need to verify that this person is, is what they say.
• 26:56
  And you go in the call and you're like, something's not
• 26:59
  right here. And it's a sensation, you know,
• 27:02
  you get that feeling. Maybe it comes from experience,
• 27:05
  probably does Speaking to so many people, you start to get
• 27:08
  that feeling like this isn't this isn't the right person.
• 27:11
  But again, that comes from experience, but it also comes
• 27:13
  from knowing your client. So if you know your client, you
• 27:16
  know the team, you know the dynamics that work there, you
• 27:18
  can pick up pretty quickly if somebody's not right.
• 27:21
  And you have to go with that feeling because you can't bring
• 27:23
  someone in if you don't believe that they're going to be the
• 27:26
  value adding the right person for you.
• 27:28
  Today's episode is sponsored by ISX Financial.
• 27:32
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  helping your business transact with confidence.
• 28:02
  You can learn more at ISX dot financial.
• 28:05
  That's ISX dot Financial and a big thank you to the team at ISX
• 28:09
  for supporting the show. So for you, what does make a
• 28:13
  great recruiter in 2025 is relationships, data, empathy,
• 28:17
  all of the above. All of the above.
• 28:18
  For me personally, I think the relationships and the empathy
• 28:23
  are a big driver and what you're doing.
• 28:26
  Data is so present. You have to use your data.
• 28:28
  You have to use the data points that come up, but you have to
• 28:31
  understand the person. People tend to forget this is a
• 28:34
  people business. It's matching people with people
• 28:38
  you know, it's companies and candidates is a way to say it.
• 28:40
  But at the end of the day, it's people you know, you're working
• 28:43
  with a hiring manager who has maybe AP and L that they're
• 28:47
  responsible for. And if they've not got that
• 28:48
  salesperson, they may be losing 4050 thousand a month, but the
• 28:52
  person not being in seat. So they're under pressure to
• 28:54
  hire Navy a candidate desperate for a move because they want
• 28:57
  progression. They want a new opportunity,
• 29:00
  whatever that may be. It comes down to people.
• 29:02
  The motivations and the drivers are the underlying, the
• 29:05
  underlying reason for people to move.
• 29:08
  I always say to everyone, look at the end of the day, I'm not
• 29:10
  the one that's going to be doing the job you are.
• 29:12
  You're going to spend 4050 days a week, 4050 hours a week rather
• 29:16
  doing this. You have to be on week, you're
• 29:19
  the one that's going to be doing this every single day for the
• 29:24
  next number of years. You have to be right.
• 29:26
  So you have to understand it from a relationship side, from a
• 29:29
  people side, and you have to empathize with their situation,
• 29:32
  you know, of their parent, have they got responsibilities
• 29:35
  outside of work? You know, what's their
• 29:37
  lifestyle? How far are they going to be
• 29:39
  commuting? Is that sustainable?
• 29:40
  We had someone recently who stayed over towards Bristol.
• 29:44
  The role was in Essex. Like I can do that.
• 29:46
  Like realistically I'll do though, you know, when it gets
• 29:49
  into the dead, I went on, it's snowing.
• 29:50
  Are you going to be going to Essex twice a week?
• 29:53
  Probably not. I think, I think as well as
• 29:55
  passion, right, that's one thing we haven't spoken about is
• 29:58
  passion. That's probably your vibe that
• 29:59
  you were talking about, right? You speak to people and
• 30:02
  sometimes you they actually have a passion for what they're doing
• 30:05
  and you want to buy from that. And I think when we speak to
• 30:08
  people, they're you, you can tell if someone is doing it
• 30:10
  because they just want to move or they want to pay bump or they
• 30:13
  actually see this as a real opportunity for them.
• 30:16
  And it's better sometimes to give it to the person who wants
• 30:19
  the opportunity because they're going to take the opportunity
• 30:22
  than the person who goes, yeah, I've steered the ship 1000
• 30:24
  times. I can steer it, steer it 1000
• 30:26
  more. So I, I think there is a, a
• 30:28
  passion. But then what I'd say is, well,
• 30:30
  there's also sounds awful, but brutality to it, right?
• 30:33
  Our approach is different because Gary goes out and does
• 30:36
  the initial pull unless we pull from our network.
• 30:39
  And we've got quite a strong network.
• 30:40
  So if we actually have to do the head hunting, not the network
• 30:43
  pulling, we take A2 filter approach.
• 30:45
  So Gary will find them, he'll do the first set of interviews and
• 30:49
  then it comes to me and I'm, I try to do much more of a
• 30:53
  technical interview, right? It's less, it's a bit.
• 30:56
  It's not so much an interview, more as a conversation, but you
• 30:59
  can know if the person has been around what you're talking about
• 31:02
  or been in it. That, again, is very unique to
• 31:04
  your experience because you've worked in payments.
• 31:06
  So you can look at a role and be like, I know exactly the sort of
• 31:08
  things this company are going to ask you, not just on paper,
• 31:11
  because I've been there and I've done it.
• 31:12
  Yeah, that is very, very uncommon in payless recruitment.
• 31:15
  And then we go back and that's actually the whole idea is what
• 31:18
  we said is we can find 30 candidates, but we're not going
• 31:20
  to. Most recruiters will go 3012,
• 31:23
  86, OK, we go 5 all pre vetted all through US and and similar
• 31:30
  to payments. Again, I love this as the same,
• 31:32
  but we do AB testing. So whenever we first start with
• 31:35
  a client, we say we're going to give you smaller batches, just
• 31:38
  three and three. One is going to be skilled
• 31:41
  based, the other one is going to be network based.
• 31:43
  So what we think and you're going to give us feedback on
• 31:46
  which ones you like. So then moving forward we can
• 31:49
  make sure the process works for you.
• 31:51
  Yeah. But if we think of a lot of our
• 31:54
  kind of listeners now and in our network, people are looking for
• 31:57
  jobs, right? People are hiring or they're
• 31:59
  looking for jobs. Everyone's getting their 2025
• 32:01
  bonuses, right and right. And they got my pay rise, and
• 32:04
  then we're going to get my bonus.
• 32:05
  And I'm out of here because the pay rise is minimal thanks to
• 32:07
  inflation. What would be kind of your first
• 32:10
  piece of advice to kind of to someone actively looking for a
• 32:13
  job right now? Well, I guess from my
• 32:16
  perspective, OK, is you have to be active online.
• 32:21
  It's not just active online, you also have to be active at
• 32:23
  events, right? And it's not just London,
• 32:25
  there's events in Manchester, Birmingham, Scotland.
• 32:28
  The, the younger generation almost don't get this.
• 32:32
  They go, we have to be active on LinkedIn and then they never
• 32:35
  actually go and meet someone. And it sounds awful, but having
• 32:37
  a beer or coffee with someone helps you build that personal
• 32:40
  bond. They're more likely to vouch for
• 32:41
  you. So I think being active is super
• 32:44
  important. You know, we're quite busy now
• 32:46
  with clients. All of them have come via
• 32:48
  LinkedIn or personal network. So I think that is super
• 32:52
  important. But also on the LinkedIn front,
• 32:55
  please, please stop just posting AI stuff.
• 32:58
  Stop taking like a Marcel's post and going into Google to give me
• 33:02
  a good response for this click. Like people don't really care
• 33:05
  about that. People care about you.
• 33:07
  I post stuff stuff about my nan, about my cats, right about going
• 33:11
  out. People want to know the person
• 33:13
  they're buying from or selling to.
• 33:15
  So for me, that online and event, you've got to do the
• 33:19
  events and just be yourself. Don't be, don't be a robot.
• 33:22
  So that's my view on it, but you.
• 33:24
  I think I agree entirely with that.
• 33:26
  You know, you've got to be networked now if you're looking,
• 33:29
  I think we spoke about applications and the numbers and
• 33:32
  the volume. If you're networked, you'll
• 33:33
  create more opportunities for yourself.
• 33:36
  And the second is something I've already touched on and it's, you
• 33:39
  know, it's knowing your own worth and knowing what you want
• 33:41
  to be and what you want to go for.
• 33:43
  Because you're applying for jobs through vanity or because you
• 33:46
  think it looks good, you're not going to be as successful as if
• 33:49
  you sat down and be honest with yourself where you are, where
• 33:52
  you want to be, and what's going to get you there.
• 33:55
  And how often do we see candidates who are on maybe 70K
• 33:58
  going, oh, can you go and get us 110 and just, and just tell,
• 34:02
  tell them that we're on 80? 23 year old grad.
• 34:04
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me about it.
• 34:06
  But they, but we have people go, I'm on 80, I want 110, can you
• 34:09
  tell them on 95? And that's where we're different
• 34:12
  because like I said, we don't care about the transaction, we
• 34:14
  care about the relationship. So we quite push back and go
• 34:17
  look, just so you know, we're representing the client, not
• 34:19
  you. We think you're a great fit and
• 34:22
  you will love working at this and you will have a great
• 34:25
  career. That's your benefit.
• 34:27
  If you want that higher salary, we won't place you in this role
• 34:31
  because if we burn that bridge with the client, we lose the
• 34:34
  relationship because of greed. It's quite, it's quite
• 34:37
  difficult. Suppose you're, you're playing a
• 34:38
  a very calculated long game, right?
• 34:41
  Because you do get most recruiters do get paid more if
• 34:44
  someone's on a higher base salary, right?
• 34:46
  Certainly is a one off, but what?
• 34:49
  As Luke said earlier, we're building long term
• 34:51
  relationships. You can.
• 34:52
  Go after probation. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:53
  We lose it, Yeah. Yeah, don't, don't sack them in
• 34:56
  the first six months. For us, it's about building
• 35:00
  partnerships. For me, it's never been about
• 35:02
  transactional placements. I don't think there's a place
• 35:05
  for that anymore. I think clients want to have
• 35:08
  someone that they trust, which is why there's a shift from
• 35:11
  traditional bigger agencies to more boutique style like
• 35:15
  ourselves, where it's people who are industry experts and who get
• 35:19
  what you do. And you can pick up the phone
• 35:21
  and say, Gary, I need, you know, two account execs.
• 35:25
  And we know what they want. We know what works for them.
• 35:27
  We've worked with them before. And it's an easy brief.
• 35:30
  We can go to market and find the right people for them.
• 35:32
  Or as I say to my clients, particularly when it's revenue
• 35:35
  generating rules, I know what you want.
• 35:38
  If I find someone who fits your criteria, even though you're not
• 35:41
  hiring, can I bring them to you? And we have the partnership
• 35:44
  agreement in place. So we can, because let's be
• 35:47
  honest, if I can bring a great salesperson to a company,
• 35:49
  they're not, they shouldn't. Be might know.
• 35:51
  That correct because you know they'll add, they'll add
• 35:53
  positively to the P&L. I've said it before to recruits,
• 35:56
  if you've got a good person, let me talk to them and then you
• 36:00
  I'll have to fight internally. Yeah.
• 36:01
  You have to know your client to do that though.
• 36:03
  So that's where the the difference between transactional
• 36:05
  and relationship partnerships and.
• 36:07
  On the transactional, I'll say the name.
• 36:09
  You might have to bleep. I don't know what the rules are.
• 36:10
  But if you think about like Braintree, let's put it into a
• 36:13
  payments terms, right? Braintree went out and all they
• 36:16
  cared about was the transaction. So they priced the market super
• 36:19
  low. They went out and just took
• 36:21
  loads of market share. PayPal get a new CEO in and what
• 36:25
  happens suddenly is we need to reprice everything.
• 36:28
  They lose loads of relationships those so we don't want to play
• 36:32
  the pricing game, which is we get paid more to essentially
• 36:37
  help you, but it's not really helping you because you're now
• 36:40
  in a role that's too senior for you.
• 36:41
  So you might not succeed and go against you.
• 36:43
  It it's much better to go actually I can get 3 roles off
• 36:47
  this if I do a good job. OK, it might be spread over 12
• 36:49
  months instead of now, but it's just a long longer way of
• 36:52
  thinking, more, more enterprise way of thinking, sort of the
• 36:55
  best way of setting it. I think those reprices are
• 36:57
  common across all the payments, so I don't think we need to
• 36:59
  believe that out, to be honest. With you.
• 37:01
  In terms of candidate mistakes, then what are candidates doing
• 37:03
  wrong that you see in interviews with their CVS?
• 37:07
  And I think do you provide them support around structuring so
• 37:10
  you can, I see some shocking CVS land on my desk and I'm like,
• 37:12
  have you looked at that and not even thought about your GCSE
• 37:15
  projects, your A level projects and what looked good, right?
• 37:18
  That looks terrible. So I'll let Gary ask all of it
• 37:20
  apart in the CV. It's the one thing we do in the
• 37:22
  CV is we don't structure the CV because then we are changing the
• 37:26
  person's experience because we have the experience to make it
• 37:29
  sound well. But what we do do is we
• 37:30
  anonymize the CV and we take out what we think is the Gump.
• 37:33
  All right. So we don't add to it, but we
• 37:36
  just strip away from it. So then when we hand it over, we
• 37:39
  go, here's a very cut down version because you know, I had
• 37:42
  a guy, smart guy sent me CVV over.
• 37:44
  There was 5 pages and I ended up having to sit there for about
• 37:48
  1520 minutes and I managed to get it down to one page.
• 37:51
  There's one page of useful information, 5 pages of a lot of
• 37:55
  fluff, but aside from the CV. We've we've looked at doing that
• 37:58
  and we have done that. I think for me a lot of the time
• 38:01
  though, it's like the coach people for interviews.
• 38:04
  I don't think you should because you know, you can tell people
• 38:07
  what is going to be covered. You should help people prepare.
• 38:11
  You can't coach people the CVS and insight into a person's
• 38:14
  mindset. Here's one thing I would do is I
• 38:17
  would never hire someone based on what they got in their GCS
• 38:20
  ES. I don't think I get people to, I
• 38:22
  actually say remove. You're getting through the basic
• 38:26
  interview step because of us. So just strip off the education
• 38:30
  pit. If they ask it, they'll ask it.
• 38:32
  But how often? Like I was a hairdresser, I had
• 38:35
  a motorbike crash and I started driving a call centre and over
• 38:38
  12 years I worked my way up to Citibank.
• 38:40
  Right, that there's no, there's no degree, there's no
• 38:44
  university. Have a thesis on this though,
• 38:46
  right? Because hairdresser, right?
• 38:48
  You're talking to people every day.
• 38:49
  You can't, you're having a conversation.
• 38:50
  Some of the best sales people I've hired, you know, and I've
• 38:52
  worked in bars and nightclubs when I was younger as well.
• 38:54
  I've worked in those bar hospitality roles because you
• 38:57
  have to deal with difficult customers.
• 38:59
  You have to talk to people and it brings you out of your shell
• 39:02
  and you get a bit of the gift of the cab about you, which you
• 39:04
  need in sales roles ultimately. And hairdressing, probably very
• 39:07
  similar. Right, look, I, when I left
• 39:08
  hairdressing, I said I had a motto right when I left, which I
• 39:11
  said people love to come and see me and tell me everything about
• 39:14
  their lives, maybe in things they shouldn't be, right.
• 39:17
  And then the banks would used to call them.
• 39:18
  Now this is going about 15 years.
• 39:20
  So this is when the banks would do all the outbound calling all
• 39:22
  the time. And I remember my mum getting a
• 39:23
  call and she would have actively avoid them because she was all
• 39:26
  they're trying to is sell me stuff.
• 39:27
  And I thought, why can't you take a hairdressing approach to
• 39:30
  banking where people want to come instead of trying to sell
• 39:34
  them a credit card. You understand that they
• 39:35
  actually need an insurance so you can still get a sale, but
• 39:39
  it's a sale that helps them instead.
• 39:41
  So I would I would agree with you and actually one of the
• 39:44
  things that I did in my mentorship before was actually
• 39:47
  helping people that maybe had a non traditional background to
• 39:49
  try and to try and get those junior level roles.
• 39:52
  So I. Think to go back to original
• 39:54
  question about mistakes people are making.
• 39:58
  A big point is they don't put the focus on themselves and what
• 40:01
  they've been doing. You see a lot of talk about
• 40:03
  group work and collaboration, which is great to have.
• 40:06
  Good to know you can work well on a team, but.
• 40:08
  I wanted to know what you've done, you know, what was your
• 40:11
  role in that? Did you lead, did you follow,
• 40:13
  What was your outcome? As Luke said, we spoke to
• 40:15
  someone about tenders. They weren't, they were part of
• 40:18
  the process. They weren't delivering it.
• 40:19
  So I want to know what you've done because that's when you go
• 40:23
  in, it's on you. So people often talk about the
• 40:26
  group rather than the self. I don't know if that's British
• 40:29
  humility or you know, that's maybe a broader cultural issue,
• 40:34
  but certainly when I've done a lot of work in the States in the
• 40:36
  past few years, sales people are there very quick to tell you
• 40:40
  everything great that they've done as an individual you.
• 40:42
  Can use LinkedIn for this, right?
• 40:43
  As well. The CV can be high level and you
• 40:45
  can have projects that you can tag on LinkedIn.
• 40:47
  Now you can go into the more detailed stuff around.
• 40:49
  This is actually what I did here.
• 40:50
  This is an award I won here, right?
• 40:52
  Like I'm always going to go on someone's LinkedIn profile
• 40:54
  because you know that demand generation stuff we're very
• 40:58
  passionate about and it's done very well for us in recent years
• 41:00
  particularly. But if I don't want the LinkedIn
• 41:03
  profile and it's just completely blank, there's none of that
• 41:05
  information, you know, the particularly commercial roles
• 41:08
  where they're going to be using that as a sales tool.
• 41:11
  And then I see they've got 400 connections and I'm like, OK,
• 41:14
  this is concerning. By the way, I love that, right?
• 41:16
  Because like I said, we can be a bit brutal sometimes.
• 41:19
  We're the young guy. He's in a commercial role.
• 41:22
  He refuses to update his LinkedIn.
• 41:24
  And then he's come back to us three Times Now going.
• 41:26
  Have you found us a role yet? And I every time say the same
• 41:28
  thing. I have not looked for a role for
• 41:30
  you and I will not look for a role for you until that count is
• 41:33
  above 500 and you have a profile picture doing an occasional
• 41:38
  reshare and like with no engagement, no activity.
• 41:41
  But how? Like it's 2025, you're going to
• 41:44
  have to sell through LinkedIn. Definitely, I agree.
• 41:47
  So when we move kind of to advice to employers as opposed
• 41:51
  to employees, where do you think the hiring process is going
• 41:54
  wrong when they're trying to find candidates?
• 41:57
  My personal opinion on this is that, and this is no shade
• 42:01
  internal or I think internal does a great job.
• 42:03
  But again, you have quite often you'll have someone internal
• 42:08
  who's disconnected from the actual sales process, who's
• 42:10
  disconnected from the product having to lead the sales.
• 42:14
  So I think there's an element of shifting CVS.
• 42:18
  So I think the there's been a big shift to cost saving moving
• 42:21
  internally. I don't think there is an actual
• 42:24
  cost saving. I think if you actually have to
• 42:26
  factor in that hours spent for your five part interview or your
• 42:30
  seven interviews in one day, it's when you actually have to
• 42:33
  factor in the wages of the people doing that.
• 42:36
  It's cheaper to use an agency. It's a myth to say that it's
• 42:41
  cheaper internally, it's more expensive.
• 42:43
  You have to factor in the staff costs, which no one does.
• 42:46
  So I think that's one issue. I also think we see it a lot.
• 42:50
  Unfortunately for us, good for the recruitment market is people
• 42:53
  go. I've already got a recruiter,
• 42:55
  I've already worked with these people so I now won't move and
• 42:58
  they go, well, have they done a good job for you?
• 43:00
  Well, 75% stays. Well that's a rubbish.
• 43:02
  If I had 75% of my payments fail, my business is going
• 43:06
  under, right, unless I'm in the ultra high risk area.
• 43:08
  So I think over reliance and internal and not being honest
• 43:12
  about the costings of it and the speed to market.
• 43:15
  You know, I've had for I've been hired for all took six months.
• 43:19
  And then I also think the the over reliance of existing
• 43:22
  recruiters, even if they're not doing a good job for you, I
• 43:25
  think they're my two biggest bugbears, but.
• 43:29
  No, I think you've had the nail on the head there.
• 43:31
  I think there's a lot of stole between CBS coming in and, and
• 43:36
  of year rounds and I think it's because they're not
• 43:39
  communicating effectively. You know, you want to maintain
• 43:42
  the process. People should be coming in and
• 43:44
  it should be quick. Even if it is five stages, you
• 43:47
  know, there should, it should be known that there's going to be 5
• 43:49
  stages. It should be known that it's
• 43:51
  going to take X amount of time. And I think that's where a lot
• 43:54
  of candidates get lost and a lot of bad experiences come up
• 43:56
  because there's not a set out standard of this is how we're
• 43:59
  going to do it. You know that should be
• 44:01
  communicated between the recruiter internal or external
• 44:04
  and the hiring team to say we'll get you CVS, we need feedback in
• 44:08
  the CVS within 48 hours. Is that OK?
• 44:10
  Yes, right. Next step and of use, we're
• 44:13
  going to have interviews at this time.
• 44:15
  Is there any reason you can't do that?
• 44:17
  Maybe at a conference, OK, we need to walk around that, but
• 44:20
  it's all about communication. You need to plan it out.
• 44:22
  You know, we spoke to someone the other day who said, but
• 44:24
  probably we need someone in the new year and we've actually
• 44:27
  reverse engineered from the for potential start day.
• 44:30
  They should have started hiring a month earlier.
• 44:32
  You know, and when you start to look at the time skills and
• 44:34
  manage people through that, they can see actually this is we need
• 44:38
  to plan it better. I think if you plan it better,
• 44:41
  people have a better experience and it's a lot more successful.
• 44:43
  You get financing teams, you know, shelving roles and
• 44:47
  impacting stuff there, right? I was going to ask you guys a
• 44:50
  question around, you know, we've both worked in payments for
• 44:54
  15-16 years and you know, we would probably openly say
• 44:57
  there's certain recruiters that we know and trust and we've
• 45:00
  worked with in the past. There's somewhere we've we've
• 45:02
  had bad experiences. We wouldn't go to them.
• 45:04
  But but your point of view as a new entrant, you know, you know
• 45:08
  people, you're very well networked, but you are
• 45:10
  ultimately going after some of these sticky relationships,
• 45:13
  right, Where people they're going to pick up the phone to
• 45:15
  that recruiter that they know and trust.
• 45:17
  How do you tap into that part of the market, which is probably
• 45:20
  that high level like C-Suite, right?
• 45:23
  But that's where you want to be playing as well, I presume?
• 45:25
  I think right, there's, there's two elements to it, right, which
• 45:29
  is I guess fortunately to the level that I've been at, if
• 45:32
  we're going for our kind of target market, I would be
• 45:34
  reporting to SVP or the CEO. So these are relationships I've
• 45:38
  already got. So I'm not really worried about
• 45:40
  it. I also know that they're
• 45:41
  starting a business that I've been at the top of the market
• 45:42
  of. So why wouldn't they want to
• 45:44
  speak to you? So I think there's there's that
• 45:46
  element of it. I'd also say we don't need to
• 45:49
  speak to a lot of people. So I think probably we've spoken
• 45:52
  to in five months, we've actually had full discovery
• 45:55
  conversations with 12 clients and we've won nine of them.
• 45:58
  So our win rate is like exceptional because I think
• 46:01
  people like to your point, when we started, we're the only ones
• 46:04
  doing this right? So you've got a choice.
• 46:06
  You can say, OK, I've worked with these guys for 10 times.
• 46:09
  They've delivered me 8 rolls. That's spectacular.
• 46:11
  But then there's also the fear of doubt of going well, if I had
• 46:14
  you, someone else could, could the person who's delivering me
• 46:16
  300 actually have delivered me 500 K?
• 46:19
  So that's and you just got to be direct.
• 46:21
  I literally write to people going, I have worked with the
• 46:24
  clients that you're looking to service.
• 46:25
  It's worth having a chat. I don't do any recruitment
• 46:28
  patter, anything like that. And before you know it, they
• 46:30
  message back saying let's go on. I said our, our biggest issue is
• 46:33
  actually we reject some clients because we go, we, we had a
• 46:37
  Saspace company. I had no idea.
• 46:40
  I said to we, we would literally be a generic recruiter for you
• 46:42
  here. There's other people that have
• 46:44
  got more experience and that we actually suggested a recruit
• 46:47
  that we knew that did a good job who who kind of had 15 years and
• 46:51
  that experience. So how often do you hear like
• 46:54
  talent, people rejecting a deal they would never happen?
• 46:57
  But I just said to Gary, we're going to waste time on this and
• 47:00
  it's not our speciality. I see a lot of businesses say,
• 47:03
  oh, we're working exclusively for a client.
• 47:05
  It doesn't really mean much in my eyes when I say you're
• 47:08
  working exclusively so. Yeah, but also, how often do you
• 47:11
  see that We see, drives me nuts. But I see recruiters online
• 47:14
  going, I'm phenomenal. I can get you salespeople and
• 47:18
  then the next day they're posting up.
• 47:19
  I have 5 SDR roles. If you want to reach out to me,
• 47:23
  let me know. Like got great head hunting
• 47:25
  there, great business development, a LinkedIn post.
• 47:28
  It's like what is the value you're adding to your client?
• 47:31
  If it's just going to be inbound, like my view is, it
• 47:34
  should be outbound. You should be reaching out to
• 47:36
  your established network. And if you don't have them in
• 47:38
  your established network, then head hunting it.
• 47:42
  That said, I will give credit. I won't say the person's name,
• 47:44
  but there is one girl that does the kind of just post on her
• 47:47
  thing, but she also does a video with it and she explains the
• 47:50
  role. So there is there's kind of that
• 47:52
  happy meet in the middle with our over here on the right.
• 47:55
  She's in the middle. But too often I think I see
• 47:57
  people just posting up or got an FX or they just post the JD and
• 48:01
  just re share. It that video outbound stuff?
• 48:03
  Interesting. Does feel more personable when
• 48:05
  someone's done a video for sure. I'm more likely to probably
• 48:07
  watch that than than a generic message.
• 48:09
  Or the best. This is the secret sauce I'll
• 48:11
  give to everybody is the power of the voice note, because if
• 48:15
  you've got a voice note, the power I was going to say the
• 48:17
  people can't see what it is. It's a natural curiosity.
• 48:20
  So if you can get your message live in 20 seconds, people
• 48:24
  respond to a voice note. Even if they go not interested,
• 48:27
  there's they'll still respond. They don't go at.
• 48:29
  Least you know it's a no. Yeah, Yeah.
• 48:30
  So as we get to the final segment of the show, our
• 48:34
  favorite pick, my favorite bit of the show, Luke Garrett, we'll
• 48:36
  know. Kind of what would you bring
• 48:38
  from a shell for Shane perspective?
• 48:39
  What frustrates you the most in the in the world of recruitment
• 48:42
  and payments that you never want to see again banished forever?
• 48:47
  That's me. We were thinking about this in
• 48:48
  the way and I know you had a you're the strong one that
• 48:51
  you're wanting to share you. Have one each, it's fine.
• 48:53
  Yeah, you got, you have one each.
• 48:54
  Oh, you. Are Christmas, Yeah, it's
• 48:56
  Christmas. Thanks, gents.
• 48:58
  Like I, I think for me it's, it's a lack of passion and
• 49:03
  knowledge, right. So I would, I would shelve 100%
• 49:08
  the generic JD's where the people don't know what they're
• 49:12
  talking about, they don't know what they're doing because it's
• 49:15
  so boring, right? What am I looking at?
• 49:17
  What am I reading? I think JD's need to be targeted
• 49:20
  to the role that you're going for.
• 49:22
  And I don't think it can just be a, a basic LinkedIn share.
• 49:25
  I think there needs to be some passion behind it, some
• 49:27
  knowledge about it. And look, that's why we set up
• 49:29
  the business. So the thing that we're shelving
• 49:31
  is the fact that we don't know what we're talking about.
• 49:34
  The thing that we're, it's almost like what we're shelving
• 49:36
  is the thing that we're also adding, which is we hate the
• 49:38
  fact that people don't know anything.
• 49:41
  How can you have an entire industry where you don't know
• 49:43
  the thing you're hiring for? And we're changing that by
• 49:46
  going, we actually know what we're hiring for.
• 49:48
  You're not going to get me to go and sell a compliance role
• 49:51
  because I don't know it, right? So I'd shelve the lack of
• 49:55
  knowledge and probably in truth, lack of caring.
• 49:57
  It's just job, job, job, job, job, job, job.
• 49:59
  We've moved from a I think what I actually said to you was I
• 50:03
  hate the transactional element of it.
• 50:06
  I hate the fact that I'm going to lie to you, the candidate, to
• 50:09
  try and get you in, and I'm going to lie to you, the
• 50:10
  customer, to try and get them in.
• 50:13
  Not all the time, but sometimes where instead of just going look
• 50:16
  let's just be black and white, you would just get the best
• 50:17
  person for the role. Even if it takes two weeks long,
• 50:19
  it's gone from. Consultative to hard sell.
• 50:22
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 50:23
  So that's mine. OK, then Gary, your turn will be
• 50:25
  nominated for the shelf for showing.
• 50:27
  I think to normally for the shelf for sure it's it's been a
• 50:29
  bugbear for years and it was a bugbear for looks when he was in
• 50:32
  the candidate market as well. And it's a lack of transparency
• 50:34
  when it comes to compensation and benefits.
• 50:37
  You know, how often do you see a great job advertised?
• 50:39
  No mention of salary. Yeah, I think it's, it's quite
• 50:42
  an underhand tactic. You can understand maybe why a
• 50:45
  business does it, but I think you're you're better being
• 50:48
  honest. Just you know, what you want to
• 50:50
  offer. You have an approved budget.
• 50:51
  Let's be honest about it from the outset so people know what
• 50:54
  they're applying for. You'll have to wait till like
• 50:56
  the third round as well to find out what the actual job is
• 50:59
  paying. It's all those cloak and dagger
• 51:00
  conversations that you need to have out what what you're on.
• 51:03
  What would you what would you be looking for?
• 51:05
  Let's do this is what we're this is the budget.
• 51:07
  That's what I can. Sort of creep in in that area is
• 51:10
  the the total comp like this OP, but it includes the comp.
• 51:15
  Yeah, but how much is the basic and how?
• 51:16
  Much there is one provider that is notorious for this and I was
• 51:21
  they saw I had an account manager job come up and I was
• 51:23
  like 210,000 for an account manager job base.
• 51:25
  That's crazy. And only once I actually know
• 51:29
  someone that applied for it, they're like no, it's massively
• 51:32
  inflated. The role is £80,000, it's 100%
• 51:35
  OTA and they've put in like non awarded equity within that as
• 51:40
  well. And I was like in dollars as.
• 51:41
  Well, I was like, how can you advertise that?
• 51:43
  It's like it's it's shameful. And I think you should have no
• 51:46
  shame if you're hiring for BDM and you're only willing to pay
• 51:49
  BDA salary. Advertiser BDA.
• 51:52
  Yeah. It's it's not.
• 51:53
  I think it's a really, really good point.
• 51:55
  Businesses associate. They think they want to attract
• 51:57
  top talent if they don't put in big numbers, so they choose not
• 52:00
  to put in anything. A great example of it is in the
• 52:02
  past three years, I've done a lot of recruitment work in the
• 52:04
  US and it's law and states like New York and California that you
• 52:08
  have to show the salary and you have to show the, you can keep
• 52:12
  the total comp to yourself, but you have to show at least the
• 52:16
  base and the difference in the conversation you have because
• 52:19
  it's transparent. People know what they've applied
• 52:21
  for. So when it comes to actually
• 52:23
  making an offer, you can see, well, the role was 100K, we're
• 52:26
  offering you 100K and this is the package on top.
• 52:29
  Nobody's dancing off, but I wanted 120.
• 52:32
  You've you've known from the outset what it was.
• 52:35
  So it's just so much easier. And I think it means everybody's
• 52:38
  on the same page going into the process.
• 52:40
  People should talk about their benefits more as well though,
• 52:42
  because you know, we come from startups to corporates out
• 52:46
  corporates back in start like the difference in things like
• 52:48
  pension contribution is massive like and it is an appeal if you
• 52:51
  haven't specialization. With I.
• 52:53
  Was about to say, you know. Some banks are there to pay
• 52:56
  1520. Seven people with startups as
• 52:58
  well is equity may be available. Yeah, let's not go down that
• 53:02
  way, yeah. Yeah, we.
• 53:04
  Probably all been back with that.
• 53:05
  Yeah, all. Right guys?
• 53:07
  Well, look, it's been a brilliant conversation.
• 53:09
  Really, really enjoyed this day. Where can people get in touch?
• 53:11
  Find out more about what you guys are doing and how they can
• 53:14
  work with you. So we've got our website how
• 53:16
  you're doing dot IO so nice and simple.
• 53:19
  Find both of us on LinkedIn and then my e-mail is just L Barry
• 53:23
  at How you doing dot IO and yours is.
• 53:25
  G bonds at how you doing dot IO Yeah.
• 53:27
  So just reach out I think. Follow what we're up to in
• 53:30
  LinkedIn as well. There's cat and Nan pictures.
• 53:31
  Yeah, yeah. Aplenty from look.
• 53:33
  And look, I always say to be, if you want to have a chat about
• 53:35
  your business and payments, right?
• 53:36
  We're not tying you to a contract.
• 53:37
  So it's like the amount of people that we just speak with,
• 53:40
  especially from, you know, anything from talent to the
• 53:43
  actual what they're doing with their products.
• 53:44
  So have a conversation. There's nothing more I enjoy
• 53:47
  more. Even better than speaking to
• 53:49
  clients is speaking to payments companies, trying to service
• 53:53
  clients. That's where my passion is.
• 53:55
  So yeah, just reach out. Perfect.
• 53:57
  Thanks guys. Thank you.
• 53:59
  Thank you.