The SUB1000 Recruitment Podcast

COVID-19 changed everything and things are still far from normal. Everyone is talking about a “new normal” but what does this really mean for recruitment? What lessons have we learnt from the lockdown that we will want to continue? What will recruitment look like with 3m people unemployed? How will your organisation adapt to this new normal?

In this episode Adrian shares the recording from his recent Recruiter Roundtable event where he spoke with 3 experienced recruiters on their expectations of what like will be like recruiting in this “new normal”

If you want to connect to any of the recruiters featured in this episode please use the links below:

• Raph Frascogna – Head of Talent Acquisition, Loveholidays - https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphf/
• Oli Cavaliero – Head of Talent Management, Honest Burgers - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivercavaliero/
• Natasha Nagra – Talent Resourcing Manager, Kew Green Hotels - https://www.linkedin.com/in/natashanagra/

This episode is an interview with Michael Gilbertson, Recruitment Manager for the Air Ambulance Service (c.350 staff). They are an innovative charity with a great culture who recently signed up for our help100 programme (https://hireful.co.uk/help100-programme/)

This episode was recorded remotely during lockdown and we discussed: 

• Why he left a good role with Barclays to join a relatively small charity who had no dedicated resourcing function whatsoever.
• How his CEO for his current job reversed the tables on him at interview and asked him to interview her in order for her to decide if he was good enough to be their new recruitment manager.
• Some of the misconceptions people have about working for a charity and how Michael thinks the Air Ambulance’s culture is more similar to an entrepreneurial SME.
• How in past companies corporate values have been “words on the walls” but at the Air Ambulance Service they are at the heart of everything they do.
• How Michael went about broadening hiring manager perspectives so that they could be more open to people coming from other industries with transferable skills.
• Why recruitment is essentially “disappointment management” so the candidate experience is really crucial to protecting the charity’s reputation.
• How he has made a conscious effort to connect with other recruiters on LinkedIn

You can connect with Michael on LinkedIn , and information on The Air Ambulance careers can be found here: https://theairambulanceservice.org.uk/our-work/work-with-us/

This episode is an interview with Max Encke, Talent Acquisition Lead for Eigen Technologies (c.150 staff). They are a fast growing tech company working in the machine learning sector. 

This episode was recorded remotely during lockdown and we discussed: 

• Some of the sustainable changes that Eigen are looking to make to their business to increase diversity and inclusivity. 
• How they are partnering with Tech Returners a company who helps people who have taken a career break, perhaps to look after children or a relative, get their career back on track.
• How by networking and building out his personal brand on LinkedIn and beyond, he was able to secure a new role in the UK whilst still being based in Australia.
• How being hired remotely from Australia reinforces for him, how important the consistent communication is important to provide the “vibe check” to candidates who are thinking of joining your but have met anyone from your company or visited your offices.
• Eigen’s nine company values and why this is mathematically the right number of values for the business.
• How to cut through the noise and ensure that candidates you are approaching are willing to talk with you.

You can connect with Max on LinkedIn, and information on Eigen Technologies careers can be found here: https://eigentech.com/careers

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Tech Returners: https://www.techreturners.com/
• Cooper Pedy (town were Max visited in Australia): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/oceania/australia/articles/Welcome-to-Coober-Pedy-the-worlds-quirkiest-town/
• How Eigen have presented their values on their website, see: https://eigentech.com/careers
• Google Keep: https://www.google.com/keep/
• Evernote: https://evernote.com/
• Enboarder: https://enboarder.com/
• Talk talent to me podcast: https://talktalenttome.com/
• Stephen King, Dark Tower Series: https://stephenking.com/darktower/book/

This episode is an interview with Julia Seymour, the Group Resourcing Manager for Sigma Financial Group (c.500 staff). Most of their recruitment is based around customer service/call centre staff to work on client campaigns.

This episode was recorded remotely during lockdown and we discussed:  

• How she loves designing new recruitment processes for each different client they work and how she has to motivate herself to document these same processes (Julia is like me, someone who struggles with high detail admin tasks).
• Her approach to recruiting for her team and how she looks for a range of different skill sets.
• How she needs to be recruiting in a “proactively reactive” manner so that she is always ready to respond to the recruitment needs of the business once a new client is won and a new campaign would start within weeks.
• Building the recruitment function with scratch and how she decided on what the priorities were
• Managing the onboarding process now everyone is working remotely.

You can connect with Julia on LinkedIn, and information on Sigma Financial Group careers can be found here: http://www.sigfin.co.uk/work-for-us/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

·      Microsoft Teams: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software

·      Books by Dorothy Koomson: https://www.dorothykoomson.co.uk/

This is the second of Adrian’s solo episodes. With more and more people being made redundant and others feeling that their job might not be secure, we thought we should do an episode to share a few jobseeking tips. This episode is not specifically aimed at recruiters, so feel free to share to anyone who is looking and might need some help.

This session will cover:

• What recruiters want and more importantly don’t want to see when reviewing your CV
• How to upgrade your LinkedIn profile so you are ready to make a great first impression
• The most common mistake that active jobseekers make on LinkedIn
• When and how to follow up with recruiters
• How to network productively on LinkedIn

If you like your jobseeking training more visual, then we would also recommend these training videos, Adrian recorded: https://hireful.co.uk/job-seekers/advice/

Finally, we are running a jobseeker surgery on LinkedIn once a fortnight on Tuesday mornings (9.30am). This is an opportunity to update your skills and come along to a Q&A with other jobseekers. We plan to run this till the end of the Summer of 2020 and then we will review and see what the ongoing demand is. The details of the next upcoming event will be listed on our LinkedIn Company page, see: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hireful/

This episode is an interview with Baljit Kaur, an Equality and Diversity expert and also founder of Innate Consultancy.

This is another of our “expert” interviews and focused on the subject of equality and inclusion which is very prominent in the news at the moment. This episode was recorded in 2020 and one of the main takeaways is that organisations have been talking about this subject for a while and now they need to start taking action. This is very timely given the reaction to the Government’s recent announcement of another inequality review, when it appears most of the country is keen that we enact many of the recommendations of the previous reviews. Anyway, you will be pleased to hear that Baljit kept the conversation away from the politics of the day and focused on practical steps you can take as an organisation to be more inclusive.

Specifically, we discussed:

• Why some organisations feel the need to mimic what others are doing. When they really need to identify their unique challenges and look at 2-3 initiatives they can do to address these.
• How many organisations recruit diverse workforces and then face new issues but not having clear guidelines around subjects like banter.
• Why some organisations are drawn to focus on initiatives around safer protected characteristics such as  gender rather than perhaps taking an approach that would address multiple categories.
• How we all need to understand that we are all flawed by conscious and unconscious bias and we all need to accept but work harder to be “the least biased version of ourselves”

You can connect with Baljit on LinkedIn, and Innate Consultancy’s website can be found here: https://www.innateconsultancy.co.uk/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Chimp Paradox by Prof. Steve Peters: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006WCJ9OS/

This episode is an interview with Matt Birtchnell, Talent Specialist at Xero (c.400 UK staff).

Matt has almost 15 years’ experience in the recruitment sector across a wide range of industries. He joined Xero as their first inhouse dedicated recruiter, as has been heavily involved in building up their resourcing capability. Xero is a young “hyper growth” organisation and this presents lots of challenges to the recruitment function. Matt and his colleagues are challenged to recruit highly talented people at volume (c. 170 hires this year).

This was a wide ranging discussion that includes how:

• COVID-19 lockdown is affecting their working practices and the outlook for their hiring in the near future.
• Xero is promoting their community connect programme even during lockdown (whilst socially distancing).
• They look to create and share content on social media and how they do this whilst staying inline with their employer brand and their organisation’s “tone of voice”.
• Their brand is focused on standing out from other traditional software companies and how this is then reflected in their Employer Brand.
• They outgrew their old ATS (Jobvite) and how they decided on their new ATS (Lever) which is being rolled out globally.

You can connect with Matt on LinkedIn, and take a look at the Xero’s career opportunities on their website, here: https://www.xero.com/uk/about/careers/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Maintaining great communication during the lockdown with tools like Slack, see: https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/
• Creating graphics for social media via Canva, which is free, see: https://www.canva.com/en_gb/
• Xero’s new ATS, which is Lever, see: https://www.lever.co/
• LinkedIn Recruiter, see: https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/recruiter
• Fintech Insider podcast, see: https://11fs.com/digital-insights/podcasts

This episode is an interview with Simon Connell from WebOnboarding.

Simon recently completed a guest webinar for us and as the lockdown has made onboarding an even hotter topic than it already was, I twisted his arm as I was keen to deliver an “expert episode” on the subject of onboarding.

We had a great conversation that started with the revelation that Simon’s passion outside of work is wrestling (hence the title of the episode). The conversation covered lots of interesting ground in the onboarding arena, including:

• Simon’s tips on how to build an onboarding process from scratch
• How some organisations are onboarding their staff completely remotely during the lockdown
• How candidate expectations are changing and what this means for how you onboard new employees
• The growing trend of more and more organisations offering welcome packs to new employees
• New hire surveys and why surveying is key to understanding what is working and what needs improvement

You can connect with Simon here, and see more from WebOnboarding on their website.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The War of Arts: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007A4SDCG/
• Oura ring: https://ouraring.com/

This episode is an interview with Catherine Mayo, Resourcing Manager at Solicitors Regulatory Authority (c.640 staff).

Catherine has worked in a wide variety of industries from Construction, Engineering and Software through to her current role working for a Regulatory Body.

Since joining the SRA in 2015, she has been heavily involved in their diversity and inclusivity efforts. These overall collaborative efforts led to the SRA recently being listed in the Stonewall 100 list of Top Employers who achieve acceptance without exception for all LGBT people.

In addition, to D&I we also discussed the following:

• How the last few years has seen a “seismic shift” in candidate expectations of employer brand and candidate experience.
• Building your diversity and inclusion strategies into your employer brand story and how the SRA managed to achieve a 50% increase in applications.
• How the SRA looks to build employee networks who represent and 
• Advice Catherine would give to organisations starting out on their D&I journey and how to build stakeholder engagement.
• How the SRA has challenged itself to be braver and bolder on when telling their employer story.
• Engaging your employees and their networks to build an authentic social recruiting voice.

You can connect with Catherine on LinkedIn, and take a look at the SRA’s career opportunities on their website.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The SRA’s Company LinkedIn Page with over 53,000 followers: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solicitors-regulation-authority/
• Stonewall 100: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/full-list-top-100-employers-2020
• Malcolm Gladwell’s – Talking to strangers: https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Strangers-Should-about-People-ebook/dp/B07NDKVWZW
• Masaji Ishikawa’s – A river in darkness: https://www.amazon.com/River-Darkness-Escape-North-Korea-ebook/dp/B06XKRKFZL/
• Ocean Vuong’s - On earth we are briefly gorgeous: https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Were-Briefly-Gorgeous-Novel/dp/0525562028/
• Sarah Winman’s – When God was a rabbit: https://www.amazon.com/When-God-was-Rabbit-Bestseller-ebook/dp/B004MPRDZ4/

This episode is an interview with Martin Price, Co-Founder at Secure Screening Services.

This was the first of our “expert” interviews that we also plan to fit into the podcast. Martin’s area of expertise is background checking. This can sound like a slightly dull subject but bear with us, Martin has a very interesting background and operates his business differently to the rest of the market.

Some of the items we discussed in this episode includes:

• Martin’s early career in the Police force, booting in doors with the Drug Squad.
• Transitioning over to an Intelligence focused role within the Police.
• How the Police uses “Open Source Research” techniques to gather intelligence on criminals.
• How Martin’s company delivers “Open Source Research” whilst maintaining a high ethical standard.
• When and where to use background checking, including an interesting story of how Martin hired and then arrested his fraudulent dog walker!

You can connect with Martin on LinkedIn and take a look at the Secure Screening Services website here.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Richard Branson: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Branson/e/B000APPS34
• Elon Musk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elon-Musk-Billionaire-SpaceX-Shaping-ebook/dp/B00SIDCSWY/
• Martin’s dog tracker: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tractive-Lightweight-waterproof-tracking-unlimited/dp/B00F8A1ZBA/