Industry Expert Interviews Archives - Superfast Recruitment

As recruitment business owners, we’re all too familiar with the challenges of attracting, retaining, and developing talent.

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Howard Greenwood, a seasoned recruitment expert with over 30 years of experience in the industry.

Howard shared invaluable insights on the current state of recruitment, the evolving landscape of business development, and the role of technology in our sector.

Howard identified three primary challenges that recruitment companies are grappling with:

Let’s delve into each of these areas and explore Howard’s advice on tackling them.

Regarding attracting and retaining talent, Howard emphasised the importance of focusing on behaviours and team fit rather than solely on skills. He pointed out a common pitfall in recruitment: “We recruit for a position, and we recruit based on skills. We remove people from those positions because of their behaviours.”

This insight highlights the need to shift our approach when hiring for our own companies. Instead of fixating on finding someone with the perfect skill set, we should prioritise candidates whose behaviours and attributes align with our team’s ethos and values.

Howard suggested a three-pronged approach to hiring:

By prioritising behaviours and motivation over skills, we’re more likely to build a cohesive team that works well together and stays with the company long-term.

One of the most striking points Howard made was about the need for continuous training and development. He challenged the traditional approach of providing minimal training and expecting immediate results:

“We recruit easy and train hard. And I think we’re going to start to change that around. We’ve got to start to train hard so we can make recruitment easier.”

Howard advocated for a comprehensive training programme that extends well beyond the initial onboarding period. He suggested implementing:

This approach helps new recruits become more effective more quickly and contributes to higher retention rates and increased billings in the long run.

Understanding Individual Strengths And Team Dynamics

Another crucial aspect of developing your team is recognising and nurturing individual strengths. Howard shared an example from his own experience:

“I hated the candidate side of the marketplace but loved opening doors, and I started to really excel. And I got a resourcer because that resourcer took that pressure off me of finding candidates, but opened up, you know, I think I doubled the following year the amount of money I was billing because that person was finding candidates, and I could now concentrate on developing my own clients and developing new business clients.”

This illustrates the importance of understanding each team member’s strengths and allowing them to specialise in areas where they excel. By doing so, we can create more effective teams and increase overall productivity.

Howard’s second major challenge was adapting to evolving business development practices. He stressed that buying habits have changed significantly, and recruitment companies need to adjust their approach accordingly.

In today’s digital age, potential clients often research companies online before making any decisions. Howard pointed out:

“The first thing you do is you go on to Google, you know, I want to buy something, I’ll find it on Google, and then you find a plethora of different prices on Google. So, you look at the cheapest, and then the first thing you look at is the reviews.”

This shift in buying behaviour means that recruitment companies must pay close attention to their online presence and reputation.

Howard recommends something we do with our Superfast Circle clients all the time here at Superfast Recruitment!

While digital presence is crucial, Howard emphasised that the human element remains vital in business development, with many clients craving personal interaction.

“Now they get 20 to 30 email campaigns every single day. And when we went and talked to the end clients and said, right, what is it that you want? They go, oh, we want someone to ring us up and talk!”

This observation suggests that we shouldn’t rely solely on digital marketing efforts. Instead, we should strive to balance our online presence with personal outreach, such as phone calls and face-to-face meetings.

Building Deeper Client Relationships

Howard stressed the importance of developing deeper, more meaningful relationships with clients. He suggested moving beyond the traditional “build the pain” approach and instead focusing on how we can make our clients look good:

“If we change that conversation so right, what can I do? Sharon, to make you look good. How can I make you look good? Well, I need to do this in this project. I need to get that done on this. I need to get these people in here. Right. If I can help you do that to make you look good, that gives you a very different thought process of how you’re working with me.”

This approach helps to position us as partners rather than just service providers, leading to stronger, longer-lasting client relationships.

Howard introduced the concept of viewing client relationships as a flywheel rather than a traditional sales funnel. This approach involves continually engaging with clients at different stages:

We can maintain and strengthen relationships over time by constantly moving clients through these stages, even when they’re not actively buying from us.

The third challenge Howard identified was the effective use of technology in recruitment. He pointed out that many companies aren’t fully utilising the tools they already have:

“You speak to all the CRMs. Most companies only use 20 to 25% of our CRM capability.”

Howard advises that we make sure we’re getting the most out of our existing systems before investing in new technology.

This might involve:

When considering new technology, Howard suggests focusing on tools that can automate repetitive tasks. This will free up time for recruiters to focus on building relationships with clients and candidates.

The Role Of AI In Recruitment

While acknowledging the potential of AI in recruitment, Howard cautioned against over-reliance on these tools:

“AI is, I think, a really good thing, but only if it’s used correctly. And so, if you want to, you know, make all your job specs and, you know, adverts written in AI. Fine. But then you use that element, you use your behaviours, and you lose those behaviours because AI isn’t quite good enough.”

This advice underscores the importance of maintaining a human touch in our processes, even as we embrace new technologies.

As I reflect on my conversation with Howard, several key points stand out:

Howard left us with crucial advice: prioritising and tackling one improvement at a time. He suggested:

“Write them down in a list, then prioritise that list. Do one thing at once. Otherwise, if you try to do ten things simultaneously, you’ll fail all those ten things.”

This approach ensures steady progress without becoming overwhelmed by the many areas we want to improve.

In conclusion, while our industry faces significant challenges, there are also numerous opportunities for growth and improvement.

By focusing on our people, adapting our business development practices, and effectively leveraging technology, we can build stronger, more resilient recruitment companies that are well-positioned for future success.

Remember, change doesn’t happen overnight. Take Howard’s advice and start with one area of improvement. With consistent effort and a willingness to adapt, we can all elevate our recruitment practices and achieve greater success in this dynamic industry.

Thanks,

Sharon

Howard Greenwood, co-founder of Jump Advisory Group, is a prominent figure in the UK recruitment industry with over 25 years of experience.

He has a proven track record of driving revenue and profitability growth, notably at Computer People, where he led the North of England to become the most profitable business unit.

Howard’s leadership philosophy emphasizes people first, focusing on motivating, training, and mentoring individuals to exceed their ambitions.

If you want to learn more about Howard and the team at Jump Advisory, go here.

The post The 3 Key Challenges Facing Recruitment Companies Today appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

Today, we are discussing what legal requirements a recruitment company needs to have with our Recruitment Expert, a Solicitor specialising in the recruitment sector and founder of recLAW, Barry Cullen. In this video and podcast, Barry talks about the legal journey from start-up to scaling and the various stages of growth, from how to handle restricted covenants to having your T&Cs work for you as part of your credit control process, the best way to handle legal issues when they arise so you maintain your valued client relationship, and much more.

Below is the full, unedited transcription. Well, we are talking about the law!

Sharon: I know it’s taken a few months, and many people are waiting to hear what you say today.

Barry: As you said, I’m Barry Cullen. I’m a solicitor in the recruitment industry and a founder of a firm called recLAW, and we are lawyers in the recruitment industry. That says who we are. How did I get to this? Wow. I was going to be an engineer; that was the plan.

I went in-house to what was then Lawrence Harvey but became LHi Group. I was their general counsel for four years and then decided, at that point, that the stars had aligned, and it was time to set up my firm. That’s recLAW, which celebrated its third birthday last week.

Sharon: The recruitment industry law enforcers. I like that. Of course, there are undoubtedly many different parts to the legal conversation, aren’t there?

I guess, irrespective of size, every business will have some legal requirements that they need to put in place to protect their business now and as they’re growing.

Barry: Yes, it sounds like a great idea. Much like you, we’ve got clients that are startups, first week, first month. Some haven’t even started yet. Then we’ve got others still in that early startup phase, growth phase, or much more established, from 1 to 2 people in an agency to 100 or 200 people in an agency and everything in between.

Sharon: It’s not. It’s not when we know that, for many companies, contingency is still their main source of income. They’re already regularly doing a lot of work and not getting paid.

Barry: Exactly. When you’re contingent, you don’t get paid on the ones you should get paid on, rather than just the ones you didn’t close. Yes, I completely agree. I think maybe we’ll talk about it from the life cycle of a typical client for us because I think that covers most of those bases. At the starting point, we assume it’s a startup.

It’s the allegation of breach of post-employment restraints. Most of these people don’t come to us saying, “I want to get away with it.” Most of them come to us saying, “I want to know what I’m allowed to do and what I’m not allowed to do. If I agree to anything, I want to ensure I agree to what I should agree to.” It’s that sort of advice that most people want. A massively sensible thing to do. Understand those restraints because there’s this wonderful fallacy within the recruitment industry.

If the employer doesn’t make some of the typical mistakes we see, then they’re enforceable. The fact that everyone thinks they’re not means that people breach them more often.

They’re massively verbose and difficult to understand. The starting point is that you need help understanding what they mean to ensure you’re not tripping up.

In restraints, we could talk about restraints for not just hours; armies of lawyers apply their whole careers from the day they qualify to the day they retire, just dealing with post-employment restraints. It’s a massively contentious area of law that makes lawyers a lot of money. We won’t bore everyone with the full details, but broadly speaking, it’s what I call the mum test.

Those liberal ideals are diluted down by generations of lawyers who came along and went, “Ooh, but what about–” and, “Ooh, what about–” and, “How about–” and, “What about–” and carving away at it.

The state of the law now effectively is that you can’t restrain somebody from their chosen trade and profession, except where the purported restraint goes no further than reasonably required to protect a legitimate business interest. That’s a nice long sentence; everyone understands all the words in that sentence.

Here’s the short layperson’s version.

There are 101 mistakes you can make as an employer. I think of the outgoing employee, that life cycle of someone coming to us for that first bit of advice; that’s often what we’re trying to do: see what’s enforceable and what’s not enforceable.

Certain decisions, such as if somebody wants to hire someone and wants to enter a contract on behalf of the company, what rights do they have to do that? Is there a limit to getting permission from more than one shareholder? That sort of stuff. It also then potentially has its restraints.

One makes it very difficult for a litigator to make much money. As I say, it’s glib. It’s glib because you should get one. I say it with my tongue in my cheek: don’t bother because I get to charge one of you a lot more money in a couple of years when it all falls apart.

Sharon: Also, when you’re setting out in business, you will have certain thoughts about, “We’re okay to have a single person decide on this, but then these are the things that we want to have joint decisions on.” When you’re starting, or even when you’re in the early couple of years of your business, you can’t possibly anticipate what might be individual and collective decision-making further down the line, can you?

Barry: 100%. Also, on day minus one, starting up a business, or Day 1, or Week 1, or whatever it is, when there’s no money available. There’s no money on the table; it’s much easier to negotiate what the business looks like, its structure, how it should work, and what the rules of engagement are at that point.

We often get people coming to us saying, “We set up a company, and there were three of us. We’re all directors; we’re all equal shareholders. One of them is not pulling their weight; how do we get rid of them?”

It’s like, “Well, where’s your shareholder’s agreement?” They go, “We haven’t got one.” I go, “Brilliant. It’s going to cost you a fortune.” Again, tongue in cheek, right?

This is business-as-usual stuff, right? It’s not, “We’re at the beginning, we’re starting up,” it’s “What should I be doing within my business to ensure I get paid and it’s all dealt with fairly?

We normally find nine times out of ten, these two people who set up their own business normally ‘nicked’ their terms from their previous boss or nicked them offline somewhere

They’ve got all this lovely stuff. It looks great, and it all works. Then, on pages 3, 4, or 5, they got bored and stopped remembering to change the old company name to their new company name. Their old employer’s name is still in the terms somewhere; that’s always fun.

Sharon: When there’s a problem.

Barry: Asking us to go and recover some money for them.

Sharon: It’s that classic thing, isn’t it? Whatever area we’re talking about, whether it’s law or marketing, there are always going to be times when you don’t know what you don’t know.

Barry: Yes, it’s the little things. There are some really easy wins for having your terms. For example, most people are going to have conditional fee rebates. If you’re a perm recruiter, if a candidate drops out in the first two weeks, we give you 80% of your money back. Some people even 100%. Then, there’s a tapered-off rebate. That’s all pretty standard.

All of these little conditions that are attached to these rebates are useful for several reasons.

Number one, it can stop you from having to pay a rebate. Number two, it can be a really good credit control lever. You might be on 14-day terms, and your fee rebate might be conditional on payment on time. You’re on day 16, and your bill hasn’t been paid.

What you could do to your client at that point is say, “Hey, look, just so you know, because you’re late on your invoice, that rebate provision, if this doesn’t work out, won’t apply anymore, I’ll tell you what, if you get it paid today, or get it paid by the end of the week, I’ll reinstate that for you.

I’ll still honour it if you get it paid by today, tomorrow, or this week. It’s a credit control lever. You’re showing them the stick but giving them a way out. That’s a nice business-as-usual way of levering these things.

Another one that we don’t see enough of, and I shout about this one from the rooftops, is conditional fee discounts. If you’re in the UK as a contingent recruiter, many people can probably count on one hand the number of times you’ve done a deal at standard rates. With our client coming back and going no, we can’t work at 30, we can’t work at 25, how about 15, how about 16, 17, 18?

Whatever your particular space, you generally won’t be working on full rates. If you have a conditional fee discount provision within your terms, you’re effectively saying, “Our standard terms are 25%; we’ve agreed to discount those to 20% for you on condition that—” much like the rebate—”you pay the bill on time. You tell us when you’re hiring somebody.”

Having those conditions in there means what you can then do is turn around to this guy and go, “I’m sorry about that. That £100,000 placement, £20,000 fee, it’s not £20,000 anymore,” or £15,000 anymore, “it’s back to £25,000 because you didn’t pay on time.”

Sharon: Exactly. That was the thing I was thinking about. It made me think about there rather than getting into tension and friction, which impacts the long-term relationship.

If somebody’s on holiday; I was talking to somebody yesterday, and their finance person who was meant to be covering, something had happened, nobody covered, so of course, their invoices had not been paid. They had to wait another week for said financial person to return from holiday. That will potentially impact contracts and rebates and everything else.

Barry: Imagine their temps. You’ve got a £100,000 invoice on temps, £80,000 of which you’ve got to pass on to somebody else for doing the work. Now that you’ve not been paid on time, you’ve still got to pay those temps. If you’re self-funding it, and some people do self-fund their temps, that’s a lot of money you’ve got to find, right?

For other people, it might cause them VAT reporting challenges. Check with your accountant and finance team whether it’s possible before you do this, but you might be able to put that discount on the invoice itself.

Use my example: £100,000 placement, 25% is your standard, so it’s a £25,000 fee. You do that, placement of Jane Bloggs, and £25,000.

Then you’ve got an accounts payable clerk or whatever their job title might be, going through the invoices and going, “Who should I pay today?”

They’re not going to look at the email; they’re not going to look back at the terms of business; they’re not considering anything other than the invoice in front of them.

They come to expect and understand that you’re doing them a favour by giving them discounted rates.

Sharon: Yes, and the reality is, I think, in our industry—well, not just our industry—people love a discount, don’t they? That’s a great bit of advice.

Barry: I was out in November, and I saw a client. I’d not spoken to you for ages. I said, “Why haven’t we seen you for ages?” Basically, “Where’s my work? Why haven’t you given us any work?” He said, “You know what you said about putting discounts on your invoices?” I went, “Yes.” He said, “Nobody’s not paid since because they see that, and they pay the invoice.” I said, “Hang on, I should stop telling people this. I’m doing myself out of work.”

Thinking about how humans deal with this, what’s their motivation, and what’s their driver? It’s a bit like, you know if you call a call center, it’s a massive, big call center bank, right? You’re calling because you’ve got a problem with your phone and bank account and need it fixed. On the other hand, the human doesn’t care about fixing your problem. Their motivation is to get you off the phone as quickly as possible because that’s another stat of a call answered and got rid of. Do you see what I mean?

Sharon: To implement the terms?

Barry: Well, not just to implement, but to understand them. Understanding them is the starting point. Because, I tell you what, I’m trying to come up with a stat, and I’m not going to be able to come up with it all on the fly.

Let’s say the overwhelming majority of disputes that our team has to deal with when it comes to fee disputes are caused by the humans in the process, not by the contract, not by anything else. Often, that comes about. I love and hate this, but we often say, “Oh, I knew him well, so I didn’t send our terms.” It’s like, “What? What?

Do you want me to sue someone on a contract they’ve never seen?” “Okay, yes, let’s give it a go.” This is going to be fun.

They don’t understand their meaning, so they’re uncomfortable talking about them. They’re not comfortable negotiating them. They’d much rather pretend they didn’t exist.

That would be my next bit: get the terms right, then train your people to use them properly. Then, the next step is to train them on how to resolve and handle disputes.

Then, if they just chilled out for a minute and remembered that resolving disputes is just like sales, it is a sales process, yes? You need to identify the problems and then find solutions. You won’t find out what those problems are by having a go at someone. You need to open your ears.

We were all taught this, Sharon. I imagine you were taught the same. You have two ears and one mouth.

Sharon: Absolutely, yes.

Barry: Use them in that ratio. I would prefer if we had ten ears and one mouth and used them in that ratio.

Sharon: Before you gave the example, I was going to say that this reminds me of what you described right at the beginning when you were talking about shareholder contracts and things.

Barry: For example, I have a client who is a tech recruiter. They’ve placed somebody, and the fee was, I want to say, £19,800 and change. They had been banging their heads against a brick wall trying to get this money paid for nearly six months.

They contact us and ask us to take over. We do. I send a friendly email. One of my colleagues sent it and said, “Our client has instructed us to come and get this money.

It was music to my ears because she turned around, the loveliest woman in the world who’d been fighting tooth and nail with my recruiter for six months, and got on the phone. She was as nice as pie and said, “Do you know what, Barry? I’m quite embarrassed by this situation because I know your client should be paid.

I know we owe this money, but the problem is that my CEO won’t sign it off because he has a problem with them about something else. Because he has a problem with them about something else, he’s not willing to sign off on this invoice.”

I said, “Oh, that’s a shame. Does he have to sign off on all the invoices?” I was surprised because they were quite a big business.

Then I will send you two invoices for half the amount each. Then you can sign those both off, can’t you?” She thought about it briefly and said, “Yes, that works. Can you do me a favour, though?

Sharon: Fantastic.

Barry: It is all about listening.

Sharon: It’s looking to understand.

Barry: Most people jump in and start sending nasty letters.

So, get your terms right. Train your people to understand how to resolve disputes. Knowing when to push things upstairs is equally important because sometimes, you can converse like your consultant can with the hiring manager and get nowhere.

If you hit the big red button of, “I’m going to sue you,” it’s very difficult to de-escalate from there. In contrast, regular contact and escalation, not pressure of sorts, but in a calm way, can get you where you need to be a lot more easily because eventually, you get to the right level of person where they get it. They’re willing to engage and resolve it.

Whereas your manager or associate director and their director care less about right and wrong emotions, they care about the solution and the money.

Sharon: Do you know what, half an hour has flown by? There are some absolute gems in there for everybody that will be listening. Thank you for that. Is there any last little gem that maybe you’ve not mentioned that you think, “Do you know what, there’s just one thing I want to leave people with”? What might be that one extra thing?

Barry: I like that. I like that. Beyond using your ears more and listening and not assuming it all?

Sharon: There was a question that I thought about as you were chatting. We’re seeing increasingly more clients going out into markets outside the UK. I was talking with a client this morning who concentrates on Germany and a particular state in the US.

What’s the general advice if you’ve got a UK-based company that is providing candidates in other markets? They may have a legal entity in another market, or they may not. They may have a UK-based client that’s got an operation in, let’s say, America. Of course, they’re providing a candidate for that business operating in the States.

Barry: No, I get that. The starting point is not to let the legal tail wag the commercial dog.

I’d love to say that’s every dispute under the sun, but it’s not. We get a small sliver of it, meaning most disputes are resolved before a lawyer is involved and anybody even looks at a contract. If the commercial opportunity is brilliant, then you may be willing to take more commercial and legal risks around it because of the return on investment.

Commercials should drive the decision, but then you should get legal to do what it can to mitigate and minimise any risks.

If you don’t, it’s tough enough going to court in England, let alone going to the court in a foreign country in a foreign language, which is often how it will play out.

You’ve got a legal entity in the country, and you might have people in the country. There might be a commercial expectation that you’re holding yourself out as a German entity in a German business; therefore, your client might expect to see German contracts.

That’s the commercial decision, right? The commercial decision is that we will potentially get more business because we’re using German contracts for our German entity. Therefore, you commercially might say, “Therefore, it’s worthwhile doing that.” Just be aware you may have to use German lawyers, a German process as Germany was the example.

Sharon: Listen, thank you so much for your time. Lots of gems that you shared there. It was also a great way to do it in a client’s life journey. People can pick up lots of different things. I’m sure it makes some people think that those who aren’t in the start-up stage have some of those things in the way they need to have.

To learn more about how Barry and his team can help you, visit recLAW.

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Recruitment BD is on most people’s agenda this year.

2022 was an amazing year for many recruitment and search companies. After crazy Covid, everything felt easy; clients approached recruiters, and candidates weren’t hard to find.

2023 wasn’t quite the same, yet companies did the same things.

So why weren’t the same BD strategies working?

It’s a question many business owners and recruiters have found themselves asking.

This week, we chatted with 20-year recruitment expert Ali Braid, the “Recruitment Trainer” who is passionate about business development.

Ali talks about why the same strategies didn’t work last year and why business development is a top priority for owners who want to grow their companies and have a standout service and offers.

In This Week’s Video and Podcast We Shared

Strategies Working Today

Combining this with marketing automation makes many options available to support business development. The question is knowing where to start and what to focus on when it’s easy to be dazzled by the latest bright, shiny new object or piece of tech.

We often send a “how are you” What’s App when it would have been a quick call ten years ago.

As an industry, we talk about being “partners” with clients and looking for long-term relationships.

If we want long-term partnerships, we need to build deeper relationships, which means we need to take time to talk and engage with clients, including getting out and meeting with them.

The challenge for many owners and Directors is how to engage teams in BD when many won’t have experienced a market like today in their careers to date.

Ali shares ideas and strategies that she uses with her clients and their teams that allow them to create a culture where BD is embraced.

This includes having a team focus on 20-minute BD outreach sessions, encouraging people to fail and then learn, And recognizing the importance and value of feedback.

To find out more about Ali, you can visit here website here.

Thanks

Denise

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