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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

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My one objective with this talk today

Help you discover the key areas to prioritise your ‘on the business’ efforts to help you unlock your recruitment agencies full potential

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555

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The number of hours I have spent interviewing successful recruitment founders + high performing recruiters

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The Point Of View I’m Talking From�Today

Interviewed 500+ Top Performing Recruiters + Recruitment Entrepreneurs

Worked With 100+ Ambitious Recruitment Companies

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2012

Finished college & had no idea what I wanted to do

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2013

Discovered sales when I landed a commission only job doing a season abroad

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2013-2015

Insurance Call Centre Sales…

…Obsessed with learning how to be great at sales

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2016

I chose to get into recruitment…

… After my friend sold me the �£100K first year dream

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2016 - 2019

After a very hard first year I�started to do well & was still�obsessed with learning how to�be great at sales/recruitment

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2018

I started The Recruitment Rollercoaster Podcast from my bedroom that

has now become The Recruitment

Mentors Podcast

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2019

Moved to London to join a startup; Hoxo Media

(Selling Marketing Services For Recruitment Agencies)

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How Did I End Up

Here?

2020

I started my entrepreneurial journey and Founded Hector

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There's a question I've been asking myself since 2016, the year I joined the recruitment industry. That question has driven everything I've done since.

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Why do so few recruiters succeed when so many have?

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I want to make having a successful recruitment career possible for everyone

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How to achieve this shouldn’t be restricted to the knowledge within the four walls of your recruitment business

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Which is why this is my BIG mission:

To positively change the perception of the recruitment industry by making training & education accessible to every recruiter

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How am I going to achieve this mission?

With our weekly podcast

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With Hector our All-In-One Training Platform

We’re helping thousands of recruiters achieve their potential by providing world class training; delivered by today’s top performers.

Hector takes on the heavy lifting of upskilling your team to succeed in

today’s market, so you can work on your business not in it.

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So let’s dive in to how you can succeed with your recruitment business

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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

Let’s First Define ‘Pillars’

Core areas of a business that a company believes maximizes its chances for success

The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

Pillar #1:

They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

Yes, you can achieve this with a sales led culture.

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They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

The best recruiters don’t fill jobs.

The best recruiters do solve problems & provide solutions.

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They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

Amber Penrose�

“The moment I stopped chasing vacancies and I started chasing problems I went from billing £500K a year to billing £800K a year.”

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They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

What does this actually look like?

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They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

Vacancy focused recruiter

  • Have clients spend less ££ with them over 12 months�
  • A lot more spot business and less repeat clients�
  • They struggle to advise and consult clients to improve their success rate�
  • They rely on live vacancies and marketable placeable candidates to win business

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They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

Solution focused recruiter

  • Clients spend more ££ with them over 12 months�
  • They place multiple people with an organisation not 1-2s�
  • They have way more repeat customers�
  • They solve more issues beyond finding the right hire; Market Mapping Of Competition, Culture Fit Tools, Video Interview Process, Recruitment Process Advisory + Employer Brand Assets�
  • They have a different sales process centred around diagnosing problems not selling candidates

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They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

There is a misconception that this can’t be achieved whilst hand in hand being sales focused.

The best sales people solve problems and this got lost with the market being so service/ delivery focused which is why so many suffered.

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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

Pillar #2:

They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

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They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

The most successful recruitment companies do have KPIs.

They don’t just measure outcomes & leave it entirely up to the recruiter to figure it out.

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They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

We don’t work to KPIs isn’t an employee benefit it’s holding your employees back from performing to the best of their ability.

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They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

KPIs have been ruined by sh*t micromanagers & pointless metrics.

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They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

KPIs done correctly encourage positive habits and enable your recruiters to understand how to be successful.

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They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

Here are what I believe should be your North Star Metrics

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They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

North Star Metrics�

  • CV To Interview Ratio
  • Interview To Placement Ratio
  • Job To Fill Ratio
  • Time To Hire
  • Net Promoter Score / Online Customer Reviews
  • Number Of Referrals - Client & Candidate

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They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

Alex�Elliot

“You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”

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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

Pillar #3:

They truly understand what they look for when they hire; it's not guesswork.

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They truly understand what they look for when they hire; it's not guesswork.

The most successful recruitment companies know exactly what there non-negotiables are when hiring.

They don’t just hire someone on potential.

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They truly understand what they look for when they hire; it's not guesswork.

They understand what all of their top performers have in common and they look for this in every single hire they make.

It’s not guess work.

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They truly understand what they look for when they hire; it's not guesswork.

They map their interview process to discover the non-negotiables their looking for in people.

Intentional interview questions not questions that feel right on the day.

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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

Pillar #4:

They over-invest in training & development, not under-invest.

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They over-invest in training & development, not under-invest.

The most successful recruitment companies are able to consistently develop their own talent into top performers.

They view training as one of the most important aspects of the company.

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They over-invest in training & development, not under-invest.

They have built their own methodology which they embed into every single employee.

They don’t have teams of recruiters executing activities in entirely different ways.

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They over-invest in training & development, not under-invest.

What does this actually look like?

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They over-invest in training & development, not under-invest.

Training In A Successful Business

  • Onboarding programme broken down into training modules�
  • Training programmes for every stage of a recruitment career�
  • Leaders in the business are developed not left to figure it out�
  • They have there ‘way’ of doing things which they protect at all costs�
  • They don’t just train recruitment they develop commercial & industry awareness

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They over-invest in training & development, not under-invest.

Jamie�Fraser

“What’s been fundamental to creating multiple £1 million billers is that we have always trained people to pitch correctly. People don’t buy into what we do; they buy into how we do it. Training our team is one of the key reasons we have successfully scaled to 100+ people globally.”

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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

Pillar #5:

They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

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They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

The most successful recruitment companies don’t keep how they do what they do in peoples heads.

They document systems & processes.

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They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

Too many founders say:

“I will worry about that when we’re 10/20/30/50+ people”

This mindset holds so many recruitment founders back from scaling successfully.

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They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

Rebekah Bostan

Operations Director

"In my view, for us to grow successfully, we need to have the processes of a 15- to 50-person company now, and until we do, we won't be able to grow effectively."

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They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

What does this actually look like?

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They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

Infrastructure for scale

  • Documented processes for how you do core activities�
  • You have created systems that your recruiters can follow�
  • Playbooks for Business Development & Candidate Acquisition�
  • You have all of your how tos in a centralised location that can be accessed at any time by your team

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They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

Infrastructure that doesn’t scale

  • How you do things is still mainly in the founders head.�
  • You rely on your high performers to explain how you do things each time you hire someone new.�
  • Your new hires are expected to remember how to do things your way after they have completed their onboarding.

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The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

Pillar #1 They're solution-focused, not vacancy-focused.

Pillar #2 They obsess over the important metrics that drive the correct behaviours.

Pillar #3 They truly understand what they look for when they hire; it's not guesswork.

Pillar #4 They over-invest in training & development, not under-invest.

Pillar #5 They build infrastructure for scale rather than waiting until what they're doing breaks.

The Five Pillars Of A Successful Recruitment Business

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