March 30, 2025 • 41 mins
When Douglas Robertson founded DR Analytics Recruitment, he didn't just create another recruitment agency—he tackled the fundamental isolation problem in the data analytics industry. Having worked as a data analyst himself, Douglas recognized that professionals were trapped in organizational silos, missing crucial knowledge-sharing opportunities in a field that moves faster than most can keep up with.
Beginning with just 22 people gathered in a Perth bar, Douglas' community-building approach has transformed into something remarkable. His quarterly "inner join" events now draw substantial crowds, connecting data specialists, leaders, and businesses across the ecosystem. As Douglas explains with refreshing candor, "The data world is often very siloed... What about someone else who's got the same problem, but they're using different software?" This simple insight drives everything his agency does.
The podcast reveals surprising nuggets about the Perth data landscape—like how 95% of the market uses Power BI rather than Tableau—and practical advice for professionals navigating career development in this rapidly evolving space. We laugh about Douglas' serendipitous entry into data analytics (thanks to a conversation with his barista) and explore the vulnerability even confident networkers feel when entering a room full of strangers.
What sets Douglas' approach apart is his balanced philosophy toward business growth. Maintaining strict boundaries between recruitment activities and community building, he shares specific metrics that keep his business on track while nurturing the wider data community. His distinction between "inner purpose" (finding contentment regardless of circumstances) and "outer purpose" (building his agency) offers wisdom for any entrepreneur.
With a rebrand on the horizon and plans to "uplift data literacy across Australia," Douglas' story demonstrates how authentic community-building creates both business success and meaningful industry impact. Whether you're a data professional, a recruiter, or building your own business, this conversation provides valuable insights into connecting people around shared challenges.
Subscribe to Confessions of a Recruiter for more authentic conversations with industry leaders who are transforming their fields through innovative approaches to talent and community.
· Our Website is: xrecruiter.io
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name's Douglas from DR Analytics Recruitment.
Listen to this pod, hear abouta story from being a data
analyst to becoming a dataanalyst recruiter and the
community.
That's the foundation of ouragency.
Check out the pod.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome back to another episode of Confessions
of a Recruiter.
I'm joined by Doug Robinson, DRAnalytics Recruitment Mate,
we're in the Wild West.
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Mate, welcome.
Welcome to the West Six-hourflight.
It's a long one, but glad youcan be here, mate.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
steak and eggs got me through today, so I'm ready to
rock and roll.
Now, mate, there's a few thingswe're already going to be
chatting about like communitythe hustle of recruitment, how
you've been able to build youragency over the last couple of
years.
So do you just want to chatback at, like, the last 12
(00:51):
months of what it's like beingin your business, at DR
Analytics?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, no awesome.
Last 12 months has been a bitof a transformation.
We've hired first full-time, sothat's been shifting my role
from getting jobs on and thenfilling those jobs to more so
community, the businessdevelopment and also leading
Rach, who's in the team rightnow.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Mate awesome.
And what changed for you to say, hey, I want to bring on,
because one thing you did thatnot many recruiters have done,
you've actually done the job.
You were a data analystyourself into data analytics
before getting into running yourown recruitment agency.
So where did this communitything come from?
Like was it?
What was the moment?
Because there's a lot of buzzaround community, obviously with
(01:33):
XRecruiter, that's theheartbeat of our company and
what our mission and the impact.
Like, what was it for you thatdawned on you and said, hey, I
need to be doing recruitment asopposed to just one-to-one phone
calls all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
For the community aspect.
It honestly started when I wasa data analyst and I thought
what can I do?
That leans towards starting anagency early and it's getting
people together.
Now the data world is oftenvery siloed, so people are in
organizations but they don'tspeak to anyone else.
So I had the first event 2022before I even started the agency
.
So you were just in your roleand then you just started.
(02:10):
The first event we had was hey,dming people on LinkedIn.
I had got a space in a bar, nomoney or anything.
People buy their own drinks,buy their own food if they want.
Gramercy Bar and Kitchen, nice.
22 people showed up andeveryone was like this is great,
this is really cool.
To have everyone come together,that's awesome, but it was
didn't even need to have therecruitment agency there, it was
just bringing people together.
(02:31):
Yeah, now, I didn't have thisnice vision that we're going to
have a hundred people events atone stage.
It was sort of let's figurethis out and we can grow from
there.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And what was your thought process?
Were you nervous about peopleshowing up?
Like what was your DM?
What was your DM message in themoment?
Like what were you saying tothese people?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
It was just highlighting the problem of data
analytics is siloed Like let'sbring people together so you can
learn, collaborate and maybeimprove your career as well, in
terms of someone here is facingthe same problem as another
person at another company.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And what were the biggest problems that data
analysts or data analyticspeople face that you tapped into
, that you found Loneliness isone you've mentioned.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Not loneliness.
Somewhat, I think it's becausethe industry moves so fast.
You're in this sort of silo ofall right.
All I know is this what aboutsomeone else who's got the same
problem, but they're using adifferent software?
Or maybe I need to be learningthis technology as well?
How have they done it as well?
So it's combating thattechnology is moving quicker
than you by meeting more peopleand getting that sort of group
(03:31):
effect.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So more like a hundred minds is more powerful
than one mentality.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, and it's almost like the, especially in data
and analytics.
One of the reasons why I gotout of it is because the
industry is like a treadmillYou've got to be upskilling all
the time.
Now, what you upskill on isvery important, so learning from
other people is the best factorthere.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So what would you suggest to a data analyst or
someone in data analytics aboutupskilling and making sure that
they're running faster than theguy on the treadmill next to
them?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Go on LinkedIn talk to different people Talk to Doug
.
Robinson DM me.
I know what's happening, but Ithink it's talking to other
people and understanding whattechnology is popular, because
10 years ago Oracle was all therage and now in Perth, azure is
all the rage.
So, understanding that dynamicand it's not about being the
best Oracle developer, let's say, but being able to learn the
(04:22):
new thing that's coming in town,for example, and how do you
learn it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Like is it you're going to speak to someone, but
what questions are you going toask them?
Like, how would you approachsomeone so they don't just go oh
look, so they get buy-in?
Because it's all well and goodto ask people questions, but
like, what would you say to themif they're a data analytics
person and they're like reachingout to someone for the first
time?
Traditionally they'reintroverted.
They may be a whiz, obviouslythey're wizards with computers,
(04:46):
but like, the people elementdoesn't always come strong in
that type of environment.
So, like, would you suggestjust a DM message to be like hey
, something humble that you'rewanting to learn and open up a
conversation?
Or would you want to you know,for them to come with certain
resources.
Is there chat, gpt or like?
What would you be doing tocreate the most leverage you
reckon?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
If I'm a data analyst wanting to upskill and learn
what's out there when you'reapproaching people.
When you're approaching people,I think you can start with
either a conversation, whetherit's at, say, an event that you
go to industry and a join andunderstanding what someone
else's challenges are in acompany, because they may be
completely different to whatthey're facing, what you're
(05:29):
facing at, you're facing yourown.
So, and how they're combating.
that might be with python, itmight be with azure, like
learning what they're solvingthe same problem with, and then
you can go to often theseservice providers like
databricks, snowflake you mighthave heard of, and you can
upskill on their websites forfree oh, wow, yeah, so a lot of
free resources.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I Is it like when I got into like, started getting
into gym fitness.
I'd always look on social mediaand be like why is every dude
on my thing jacked as, and everygirl is in like the best shape?
I'd be like I can't even workthis shit out, like it's just a
big blue ocean and I could neverget the right information until
I just paid for a coach, likemy coach Brody.
He just like goes hey, mate,this is the macro breakdown,
(06:05):
these are the foods that youneed to eat.
And then, within you know fourweeks, I'd lost like four kilos
and I was like, why have Istruggled with maintaining
energy, being fit, staying inshape for like so many years,
when I just went to a coach paid, you know, paid the money, got
the answer.
So like is there any you know,once they've reached out to
people for free information ordo that?
Is there anyone within thesphere that you would recommend
(06:27):
like a valuable course that maynot cost tens of thousands of
dollars but could be the firststep to just getting that answer
straight away?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah You're touching on.
One of the biggest challengesin the industry is that you can
get information and learnanywhere.
You can get people that are invery senior roles, that are
self-taught from YouTube, forexample.
So that's there.
Youtube is a resource thatanyone can use to learn, but
what is going to be a specificthing for you as well and
relevant to where you areExactly?
(06:56):
You touched on the coaching,and that's where I see it's
important to see what otherpeople are doing, so that you're
upskilling in areas that aredirectly relevant.
And why do you know it'srelevant?
Someone has that job in maybe amore senior role.
So I'd say, reaching out tosomeone that's where you want to
be and understanding whatthey've learned to get there as
well.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
And how far ahead would you suggest?
One to two years, 10 years, 20years?
It?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
depends how aspirational you are, but I
think you don't want to reachtoo.
Then it's the gap's too big interms of providing relevant
information.
That person's too far ahead.
I think one to two years isperfect, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And then, just because what I've worked out,
man, like success isn't figuredout anymore, it's purchased.
And you look at it from a smallscale, you go from okay, I want
to get you know, I want to beable to get better at BD.
All right, I, I want to be ableto get better at BD.
I'm going to go and learn theskill so I can then bring in
more money, or I can sit thereand figure it out.
I can be like all right, I'mgoing to have to find a coach,
(07:50):
I'm just going to have to figurethis shit out.
I'm just going to keep bashingthe phones until I figure it out
.
That process can take three tofive years.
You can pay for a cheap courseit could even be a free course
and you're going to get the bestinformation from someone at the
top of the advice ladder, sothen they can then just pass
their knowledge on to you in apalatable way.
And then you look at the nextstage, like and then you look at
(08:13):
the nth degree.
So that's just the first way toupskill.
You just pay for a course andget what you want.
And then you look at likecompanies on mass scales.
They're not looking at theircompetitors to be like, hey, how
can we compete against them?
Let's just buy them, becausethey're not spending their time,
money, resources with theirleadership team trying to figure
out what their competitors aredoing.
They're just going hey, how canwe buy them?
And then put them into ourcompany?
And we keep going.
So I think, like what you said,one of the biggest challenges
(08:36):
is like channeling that big blueocean on where to actually get
the best advice.
Like, maybe that could be aleverage point for you to update
your like, level up yourprofile and be like hey, these
are the top one or two peopledata analytics people in the
country to go to, and then theycould structure something.
You could have a referralnetwork together.
I'll put on a few webinars aswell.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, webinars Across Australia, that's where it
starts.
Yeah, yeah, I thinkunderstanding where to upskill
is the hardest part, but thenunderstanding which coach is
going to accelerate you thefastest as well, exactly, yeah,
who do you reckon would?
For data analytics.
It's difficult because it's notreally out there as much, and
it's a challenging space for,like you mentioned, courses.
There's a popular trend ofpeople starting their own boot
(09:19):
camps.
There's some that are extremelyexcellent and there's some that
may not be relevant to thatperson as well.
So, in terms of choosing yourcoach or course, you have to be
Like a niche.
Yeah, you have to decide what'sactually going to be valuable
for you because you could learna technology that's like, for
example, Google Cloud 1% of thePerth market.
There's no one here that usesGoogle Cloud.
(09:41):
I think it's two companies thatI'm aware of.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Is that an advantage?
Google aren't very good, eh,maybe I should chat to them and
we can fill some roles.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Same with business intelligence.
You might have heard of PowerBI and Tableau.
East Coast is what's better?
Depends on the use case.
Objectively that's probably acontentious issue there, but in
Perth it's 95% Power BI becausetheir Tableau rep left five
years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, tableau is Salesforce.
Salesforce is expensive, solike so is Tableau, but it's got
great AI features.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Tableau is good for custom data products.
Yep Power BI is better forenterprise.
So enterprise rollout easier touse for the standard user.
They've got different use cases.
But if you're in Perth, don'tdo a tablet course Like if
you're looking at a boot camp.
You should be doing Power BI atleast.
So there's a few differentniche areas based upon your area
and region and what technologyis currently flavour of the
(10:36):
month.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair.
And then what about you know,rolling over to you, I think,
mate, just in those few comments, you provide a lot of value for
data analysts to take and runwith.
What about you at the moment?
Like what's business like it's,you know, two and a half years
in it's way, different to yourfirst ever job in recruitment,
(10:58):
like doing blue collar, mate,how do you I don't even ask that
how do you go from doing a bluecollar recruitment gig to then
getting into data analytics foralmost four years and then
started in data analyticsrecruitment agency?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, mate, it's a bit of a journey there in terms
of different frame shifts overtime.
But I started in blue-collarrecruitment, which was trades
and labour FIFO workers oncontract mostly.
And I say that's the RockyBalboa moment of you know,
here's a phone, here's adatabase of 100,000 people.
Start calling 100 calls a dayor so.
(11:25):
Whatever you need to do, getsome people out.
Now this was 2020, a bit of arecruitment boom here and the
desk I was put on was a colddesk, so no clients.
So, as a junior, you know, gofind your clients and then go
find the people I was going.
What's going on here?
How am I supposed to do this?
So that was an initialchallenge, sort of a three
(11:45):
six-month hump.
But over time, bringing onclients and then also finding
the candidates on a cold desk,it kind of feels like you're
running your own business,almost.
So that's sort of where I guessthe seed started.
But over time it didn't feellike I was providing as much
value in that transactionalblue-collar space.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Seven-minute call.
Share a CV.
They're up on site thefollowing week, next one.
So I was like I want to getsome more hard skills.
So I did a data analytics bootcamp with UWA.
So I was learning thatpart-time while also doing
recruitment, true.
And then my barista helped meget a job by connecting me with
the head of data at an ASXlisted company Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And that was your entry to the market.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Entry was, honestly, it was a coffee.
I was getting a coffeementioned that I was interested
in it.
She then connected me to the GM, who was the head of data, who
was a regular at that cafe.
He caught up with me Two monthslater.
Here's your junior data analystrole.
Welcome to the team.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wow, yeah, so it was.
Uh, there's recruitmentagencies on every corner.
Hey, just baristas undercoverand that's.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I'll tell that story to people and say but share what
you want to do with otherpeople, because you never know
where that help might come fromas well have you always had that
belief or that confidence to dothat?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
because a lot of people would go oh look, you
know, I don't.
I don't want to chat about it,they're not going to, they won't
be interested in me, I've gotyou know.
No, no, no, like I'm just goingto keep plugging away, being
the dog on the rusty nail, notfully not getting fulfilled.
But I'm just going to work inmy zone of excellence.
I'm pretty good at recruitment.
I'm placing roles.
Like how do you actually makethat move to be like, hey, I'm
(13:22):
going to put myself out there,because even just you mentioning
that to a barista, 99% ofpeople wouldn't Every day.
They just go through lifesaying you know, next month I'll
do it, next year I'll do it,once this happens, I'll do it.
That time never comes.
Like how would you?
How did you?
Was it just a passing comment?
You said, fuck it, I'm justgoing to tell her.
Or like they get it out of you,it's honestly just a
conversation.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, like, what's going on?
What are you doing?
Oh, I'm studying this datacourse as well, doing
recruitment, and then that ledto oh, I know the head of data,
he's a regular here every day,like I can mention that as well.
He happened to be hiring for ajunior.
I think there's a, I think it.
(14:05):
I'm just doing this thing withmy life, I'm studying, so
sharing a little bit about whatyou're doing and then perhaps
that could lead to something, Ithink, for the I guess, quote
networking part of that.
It's not about the ask Like I'mnot going to my barista and
saying, no way, have you got adata job.
That's hiding behind theresomewhere.
But hiding behind theresomewhere, but sharing the
journey.
People may be like you and theymay feel like they can help as
(14:25):
well.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
And I've been terrified of going to networking
events.
Like I laugh.
It was the week I openedBlended and I rock up to a
200-person room and I just gotinvited to this networking event
.
It was at the Hammo, like alocal pub near my house.
I walked down, I'm shit nervous, got no money, just started a
(14:47):
business, not that confident,because as soon as you start a
business you lose all yourconfidence and you're like got
to rebuild now.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, imposter, syndrome.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, big time.
And I'm in a suit, like Ilooked apart, I'm like, and then
I didn't even know how toapproach someone.
I was that nervous to go up tothem Like have you ever felt
stuff like that?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Oh, I still get that Like regularly I'll go to events
and I feel out of place, like Idon't belong here.
What am I going to talk aboutwith people?
Yeah, just a little bit nervous.
There's even been times whereyou're like, should I just pull
the pin and clock off and gohome?
It's a 5.30 networking event.
Oh, I'm not feeling 100%, whichis you know that's a lie.
You can always go to thesethings.
(15:25):
Why do you choose to show upFor me?
I make a massive effort in Perthto go to all the local
technology events and, to behonest, from my perspective,
it's other people for me.
Other people at other agenciesaren't going to do that, and
part of the business for me isbeing part of that community and
attending those.
I think that's also for, say,the data professional who's
(15:47):
looking to upskill and build.
So you're in a competitivemarket.
If you're going to events otherpeople might not be.
All you have to do is show upto that and you'll win Like
you're on the board.
If you don't go, you're noteven on the board.
You can't get to play.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And you're an I personality, right, so you're an
influencer, you love people.
That's what seems to fuel youwhen you're in your zone of
genius, but, like a Cpersonality, that's the last
thing they feel like doing.
Now, what advice would you giveto them to be like hey, this is
what I'll be doing if I washighly introverted, nervous
about going Like, do you justshow up and just don't put any
pressure on yourself to not talkto anyone and just come back,
just be in the room.
Like, just be in the room orwhat would you say Honestly?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I'd say be in the room, talk to one person, that's
the goal.
That's the goal.
Start with the exposure therapy.
So if you can go listen to thetalk, maybe connect with the
speaker after and go home,that's a win.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
The speaker- that's the golden nugget, bro.
Be the speaker.
No, no, no, be the speaker.
That's 10 steps ahead.
But if we're talking about thegolden nugget, when you go to an
event, it's all well and goodto go and meet people, it's
great.
But what I did, that changedthe game for my networking.
When I was too shy to go andtalk to the room, I'd find out
who the speaker was and sendthem a handwritten letter the
(17:01):
next day.
Yeah, wow, yeah.
I love that.
I love the handwritten aspectand say I love this about your
speech.
Ps.
I'm just a young small businessowner wanting to learn.
I'd love to get a coffee.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, wow, the handwritten aspect's awesome, I
love there's 150 people in theroom.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
I didn't have to go around the entire room.
I just had to send one letterthe next day.
Get a photo of me in the roomMm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, and you're there.
You've shown up Like that'senough buying for him to say
yeah, absolutely.
Or them to say, hey, absolutely, I'll get a coffee with you.
You were at the event.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You came and listened to me speak for 30 minutes.
Of course, got impostersyndrome too.
They're about to walk out onthat panel.
They're going fuck.
I hope people show up.
I hope people are there.
Like what happens if they don'tlike my opening pitch and I
lose the audience.
Like what I've learned throughmy business journey is that the
big dogs are just as scared asthe ones coming up.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
A hundred percent and I feel that definitely, whether
it's speaking or you know, I'vegot a networking event tonight
for CICD on AWS.
I'm nervous someone's going tobe like oh, you don't really
know much about this, do youLike a bit of that imposter?
Where is it?
What is it?
Aws has a meetup for CICD.
What's that?
Continuous integration,continuous development.
(18:11):
So that's software for.
Like software speak for.
Let's continue to improve ourprocesses while not disrupting
the existing process over time.
So how can we update thingswithout shit hitting the fan?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
essentially, Mate, that's a technology problem and
a people problem.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, and so I don't know much about it, and some
roles we need someone that hasexperience in CICD Are you going
to speak at it?
No, no, no, Just be there.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I'm just going to be there and say, like what's going
on here, serge?
What are you doing tonight?
Come get some photos of Doug atthe event.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, yeah, mate, I'm just a guest, I'm just
wandering around.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Mate build authority.
Walk around with a videographernext year.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Jump it on the event.
Yeah, we'll go.
I've got my video crew here.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Mate Game changer for us.
Yeah so what were you going tosay?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I was going to say on those events.
There's, I guess, from thecommunity aspect, there's that
public side, but we do a bit inthe private space as well.
So we've got an event.
Can you define that for me?
What does that mean?
So that's invite only for dataand analytics leaders across
Perth.
So there's the public.
You know, 100 person, that'sfor anyone, people that are job
seeking, maybe a few differentleaders as well that might speak
(19:17):
.
Then there's that's great forbuilding data literacy.
Then there's all right, let'sbring all the leaders together
and have a breakfast for an hourand a half and a few talks and
a few coffees to help thatcollaboration across the person
in finance that's having thesame problem as the person at
Commonwealth Bank, for example,in the data space.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Awesome.
Have you met?
Have you heard of StephenFullop, sydney recruiter?
No, I haven't Excel to him.
I'll connect you both, mate.
He's a high performer.
He's got a CIO network inSydney.
Similar thing you guys wouldget along like a house on fire.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
I'd love to hear he's probablygot a few tips on building that
network as well.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, but yeah for sure, like you can see on his
website, like all the showcasesand stuff of what they say about
him, it's pretty moving, yeah,awesome.
And then so can you explain itto us, your community group?
Like, what's it about, what'sthe mission behind it, what's
the reason for the impact.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It started as that 20 people in a bar.
It wasn't this big sort oflet's see what we can build with
this, but over time it'sdeveloped in a bit more meaning
and I feel like it happensactually a lot with things.
If you fuck around and find out, eventually the meaning can
come out to it or you see somethings.
But from the business side,what we want to do is build
(20:32):
people.
So start with the individual,bring those people together,
build community and then buildbusinesses.
So essentially, if we can takethe top 1% from that community
into businesses, then hey,that's perfect for the world.
That sounds like a lot of work,mate, yes, but I get a lot out
of it.
What do you get out of it Interms of it's awesome to meet
(20:55):
with one person for a coffee oryou have an interview with
someone.
You interview someone else andthen they both come to the event
and I point one and go you haveto meet this person.
And then after the event, theygo oh, I met David.
He's a legend, we're going tocatch up and talk about some
projects and I'm like, if thathappens, I'm super happy, that's
awesome.
So I get a lot out of thatpersonally, but as the sort of
(21:15):
macro idea for the communityit's, can we uplift data
literacy across Perth.
So if someone can come to theevent that's siloed in a job at
Rio Tinto doing datavisualization, if they can learn
something and apply it the nextday, then that's a win.
So across the board, can weuplift data literacy as a whole
and I think that as an impact,that's awesome.
(21:36):
Have you read 10x is easier than2x?
No, I haven't.
I've heard the concept beforeand I like the.
I think I've heard the analogyof if you're going to go a
kilometre, you might walk it,but if you're going 10, you
might drive as well.
Is that sort of the whole bookin a nutshell?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
mate.
Yeah, like, just think biggerone-to-one, like.
You've already figured out theone-to-many right.
So if you're going, hey, howcan I place this one data
analytics into one role?
That's what 99% of recruitersdo You're thinking, hey, how can
I get 100 of them in a room andconnect all of them together
and I become the go-to thoughtleader.
(22:10):
And then you think one bigger,like have you monetized your
community yet?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yes, because the agency's there Exactly so.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Like, how do you do that on steroids?
How do you get five people fromthat one conversation to go and
meet another company the nextday based on what they said?
Like there's five send-outs,five potential placements?
Like I think when you startmonetising community in the
wrong way, like getting sponsorsand stuff into your community,
then they can start dictatingterms and it loses the heartbeat
(22:40):
of what it's all about, becausethen they go all right.
Well, we want assets, we wantcontact numbers of everyone in
the community so we can marketto them, and then dilutes it.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
What do you reckon?
Yeah, it gets transactional.
I've seen that happen with runclubs.
I think I forgot which branddid it, but they started a run
club and then it was hey, likethe first 50 people that rock up
, get these new shorts.
That we've just released and youknow you have to take a photo
with it as well.
But it wasn't really thepurpose.
But if they had gone and said,oh, we've got a run club X
(23:10):
sports brand shirt, everyonewould be like shit, yeah, that's
awesome, I'll buy that.
Yeah, rather than forcing it onpeople.
But from the people ask me alot what's the ROI, what do you
get from these events and why doyou do them as well?
I think probably 80% of thespeakers which are potential
clients for the recruitmentbusiness end up being clients
down the line and I think that'sfrom the recruitment side.
(23:32):
They're watching the tangible,basically our tangible database
right in front of them.
It's like, holy, we've got ahundred people here interested
in data.
Oh, there's one guy that knowseveryone here.
If I'm going to look for a rolelike this is right in front of
me.
It's not oh, I've got adatabase of 5,000.
It's, I can see these peopleright in front of me.
He's connected to.
Of course I'm going to use himif we need a contractor or we've
(23:53):
got a new hire, that's comingon board.
So that's been really cool.
From the monetization ispotential clients come out of it
as well.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, I think it's special.
You keep it as that.
And how much do these eventscost for you to set up?
At the moment, $1,500, aboutthat, maybe a little bit less.
One placement 10, 20x ROI.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, a story on the recruitment side from the
leadership invite-only boardroomevent or breakfast.
Yeah, we did that with thefirst one, with 20 people or so,
and I was like I'm not surewhere this sits A little bit
nervous about you.
Know, let's do a 5 pm Talkingto all the big dogs.
Yeah, and just, you knoweveryone's going to come in a
boardroom.
I've got to sort of emcee this.
You know they're all potentialclients, even they're quite
(24:32):
senior in the industry, and thatcost about $1,500.
As they're all leaving out, oneguy hung back and said hey,
mate, we've just had our dataanalytics leave and handed his
resignation yesterday.
I'll give you a call tomorrowand that was a 30 grand
placement, so that 1,500 had a20x return.
(24:52):
I was like, oh, that's thevalue here.
That actually okay, I see thismakes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
In your first event.
Yeah, Mate awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Let's keep doing this .
Yeah yeah, definitely, andthat's a very commercial lens to
it and you've got to have that,but in reality, the impact's
also there.
I speak and hear the sameproblem from one data manager to
another.
I can't solve it.
Yeah, why don't you solve itwith someone else?
That's also facing thechallenge For sure.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So I think that impact has to be central.
But as a spinoff, if you arehiring, we're the best position
to help as well.
Yeah, and when we caught up forSalt, I don't know if you
remember 12 months ago, 18months ago you had a coffee.
Yeah, have you digitalized thecommunity yet?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Not as much.
It's meetup based, sodigitalizers in meetup we can
send out comms through there.
The next phase of that would behaving, say, an app or a
platform that people can connecton.
School's a good one.
I've done a little schoolcommunity, I think it's.
I don't want to do too much indifferent areas where there's
not.
I guess the return on that whatabout?
(25:53):
LinkedIn Group.
Linkedin Group I've thoughtabout it's just going to be.
Meetup in Perth is we'relooking at the Perth market.
Specialised Meetup in Perth islike we were looking at the
Perth market.
Specialised Meetup is the go-tospot for these events.
So that's getting people there.
I think eventually there willbe some value in either a
platform or possibly a betterplace to connect people.
Last event we worked with amentorship group who's that?
(26:15):
So they're called Mentor atFord.
What made you pick them?
They're a start-up in Perth.
The founder was actually headof data at all.
He was a practice leader atInsight if you've heard of
Insight no Big Fortune 500company in the data space.
He started a platform where itlinks mentor to mentee and
basically facilitates thatinteraction.
So we were able to bring him inand then release a mentorship
(26:38):
group to essentially tailor justfor people in that inner joint
community.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Mate, he sounds like your go-to guy for the courses
and advice.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, he's very good.
I like that a lot because it'sokay.
We do quarterly events forinner join.
Yeah, what are people doingafter that?
Let's, let's connect peoplethat can mentor and mentee each
other and they can learn, andwhere that connection happen,
industry and a join.
How does it fit with the goal?
Uplift data literacy acrossPerth.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Mate, it sounds like that's the mission.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, yeah.
And then I guess,recruitment-wise, long-term, if
we uplift data literacy, do youthink there'll be more roles
that are on in Perth as well?
Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Put Perth on the map.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, yeah, I think Perth we'll get in over to
Melbourne a little bit.
Now I'm a bit in Brizzy, nice,but starting here definitely.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Awesome.
And how has your role changednow?
Like, you've gotten through theI don't know, I don't know if
there's ever a finish line inbusiness We'll laugh and like to
win the race.
All you got to do is stayaround the longest.
But, like you know, we have athree-month slump where partners
come on dramatically.
They're like, start billing afair bit of money, and then
(27:46):
they're like month four, they'relike, oh shit, I am that good,
I'm crushing it.
They do a zero month or theyhave their worst month ever and
they let their foot off the gas.
Obviously worn against that now, but in the first 12 months it
used to happen all the timebecause, like, I am just the
king, this is awesome, this iseasy.
And then they stop doing thebasics.
So, like, how do you balance theexcitement?
Because I can feel the passionin you when you talk about these
events, these people.
You're meeting the doors,you're opening the deals, you're
doing.
But like, how do you stayfocused on day to day?
Because, like people will,especially I personalities
(28:08):
they'll be like, all right, I'mresearching how do I start a
community tomorrow, and they'llcompletely derail their
recruitment career and I likethat.
You keep bringing it back torecruitment.
But like, what do you do to staybalanced as a director and
making sure that your team arenot just caught in the?
Because I've failed at this.
I've failed multiple times atgetting caught in the big ideas
and no implementation.
So like, how do you get inday-to-day, making sure you're
(28:30):
doing your send-outs, makingsure you're doing your
interviews, and just keeping thewheels turning?
Because, like, if you ever stopdoing that or you have a shit
month, like it's going to affecthow you show up at these
meetings, how it's going toaffect how you show up at these
meetings, how you show up in thecommunity, you're not going to
have the money to invest inbetter.
So, like, how do you doday-to-day and what's changed
from Ed two years not Ed Dougtwo years ago, compared to now?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I think the structure is very important and I've
heard Matt Crossan talk on thisa lot.
In terms of make sure you haveyour clear day structure.
I'd say my nine to five isrecruitment.
Everything outside of that isthe events in the community as
well.
So I'm not trying to be aconsultancy, I'm not trying to
be a community.
We are a recruitment agency andthere's a lot of dialogue on
(29:17):
the internet.
Alex and Moses is great for this.
In terms of the woman in thered dress, the person that stays
consistent across one thing isgoing to get the biggest return,
rather than someone that hasthree businesses.
He framed it really well.
He spoke about it as it's anexercise of arrogance because
you think you can do threethings better than if you just
did one thing.
Then someone else is trying tocompete with you, so you're
(29:38):
trying to do three.
When someone else is doing one,you think you can do better
with you, so you're trying to dothree when someone else is
doing one and you think you cando better.
So I think, remaining focusedon the recruitment agency in
terms of my role, it's those keyKPIs.
How many BD calls are you doing?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
What are your metrics ?
That matter?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
My metrics that matter are meetings booked.
So right now it's more clientfacing Rachel's doing more of
the delivery and recruitment.
Right now, metrics are how manyBD outbounds are you doing?
How many meetings booked do youhave?
How many meetings do you haveand how many jobs on Awesome Do
you care?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
to share those numbers.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
What I try to hit Yep For meetings booked, I'll try
to do five to ten every week.
So booked in the future Jobs onone to two a week.
If I can hit that, that'sincredible.
Sometimes that's up, sometimesthat's lower.
You know how it is.
Bd outbounds aim is to hit.
Look honestly, it's around 50good outbounds, so that's 10 per
(30:32):
day.
Get those done straight awayand if I can hit those,
excellent.
Sometimes shit hits the fan andI have to divert, but ideally
always hit that as well.
Now I wouldn't say those areridiculously high, but it's.
Can you do that for two, threeyears?
Not, can you do them?
Can you do a thousand in a week?
Let's say Exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
And did you know that your activity predicts your P&L
?
So the lumpy cat.
When people say it's therollercoaster of recruitments
because they don't do BD forthree weeks, they source
candidates for three weeks.
They don't get paid for anotherfour to six weeks, maybe 12
weeks, depending if they dostart date, notice period,
four-week payment terms andthey're like, oh shit, why do I
have a lumpy cash flow?
This is the rollercoaster ofrecruitment.
(31:12):
This is how it should be.
But if you do what you said dayafter day, you just have to do
it every day.
Then you get it all rolling in.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I 100% agree with that.
What comes to mind is, I alwaysthink sometimes you have, say,
less jobs on than you hope andyou're quite nervous about a
placement, for example, eg youget into that 10th point offer
acceptance, start date.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And you've had three fall over and you've got to pay
the bills next week.
You're like, fuck, here we go,there's payroll coming.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
You've got to pay the bills next week.
You're like, fuck, here we go,there's payroll coming.
Yeah, you've got a tax bill.
Everything's happening, and Ialways find if I'm getting
nervous about a single placementor a single job or a single
client that's on my pipeline'snot big enough.
I have to accept that if I'mgetting super hyper-focused, the
way to stop that is have fivemore of those in the process.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
How do you do that?
Though it's so easy, doug, youcan just be like, yeah, look, I
should have just had five more.
But you're like, oh, thisdeal's got to come in, it's got
to come in.
Like how do you create thatabundance mindset when you're
actually forced into scarcity?
Because you're like there'sbeen times for me multiple times
and I'm like holy fuck, Like Idon't know what.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I'm doing this has to land this, this has to land,
this has to land If this doesn'tfucking land.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I onboarded a staff member in 2020, just coming out
of COVID in April, and I hadnine deals Like I'm not saying
they're deals, but they werefinal interviews offers nine
offers rejected in one month.
And I just stayed composed andcalm and I didn't tell the
consultant until like fourmonths later, when he was having
(32:41):
a shit month, the four-monthslump.
He was having a shit month atBlended and I said, bro, do you
know, realize, when you signedup the first month of onboarding
, when I'm onboarding you,recruiting, getting out of COVID
, maybe it was 2021.
And I said, mate, I had ninedeals fall over.
He's like what I was like.
He's like, mate, you seem likethe happiest bloke in the world.
I was like he's like, mate, youseem like the happiest bloke in
(33:02):
the world.
I said, yeah, mate, because theROI of fucking you up and
tripping you out is way biggerthan me losing those deals.
So do you have a frame in yourmind where you're like, hey, I
need to say this to myself, orkeep grounded, or identify that
before, because, mate, onceyou're on a Friday afternoon and
you've got payroll Monday andyou're going, hey, I need to pay
these bills.
You're too far gone and you'redesperate for that Friday deal
(33:24):
and then they didn't say yesstraight away.
Then you have it hanging overthe weekend.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It's like you knew my last month.
There's one of thosespecifically which was large.
So the question is, how do youmaintain the consistency?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, how do you get to that before.
We don't want recruiters to getinto that position, right?
So what can they do to mitigatethat?
Is there some early signs Likeit may be a quota of jobs on, it
may be X amount of clientmeetings?
Like what is it that they go?
Hey, look, once I've got to 10jobs on mine's 10.
If I don't have 10 jobs on, I'mwicking out.
If I don three retainers, I'mnervous.
(34:04):
So what do you reckon is asensible outlook on that?
Be like, hey, as long as you'vegot these bases covered you
won't ever have freaky moments.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I think for me it's recognising the fear or anxiety
or scarcity mindset that yousaid.
When you are hyper-focused onone deal or you're hyper-focused
on this has to go through,everything has to go through,
and recognising that puttingyour focus there isn't going to
change anything, isn't going todo anything.
If you feel like that, go fixit by getting more jobs on.
So that's get on the phonestraight away, that's organise
(34:34):
an event, or lots of more people, do the things that got you to
that job in the first place, butthen 5x, 10x that as well.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Just do the work.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, like taking the .
Oh, I'm super stressed aboutthis and it's like just do the
work.
I remember this going back tochildhood, but it always comes
up.
I was in year seven and I wasstressing about you know, you
start to get homework in yearseven and I was going for doing
a little pamphlet run.
You know, when you hand in theadvertising mail into people's
letterboxes.
(35:02):
And I was talking to the persondoing it and they were like and
I was complaining and sayingI've got so much homework to do.
I'm really stressed about allthis homework I've got in year
seven.
It's the worst thing in theworld.
And they just looked at me andsaid just go do homework.
Then, like, just go do it.
And it's so weird that thatkeeps on coming back to me
(35:22):
whenever I'm stressed about oh,I've got all this stuff to do.
The only thing you can do isjust go do it.
Go do it.
It's the only thing.
That has to be as complicated.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
No, Jeff Bezos put it perfectly Stress comes from not
doing what you know you shouldbe doing.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, I believe in that.
I think for business it's thestress management as much as
anything.
How do you manage your ownlocus of control so that you can
show up to a client meeting andnot be worrying about the
person that's sitting on theoffer over the weekend, for
example, Because you've got toshow up 100% for them and you
can build trust and be presentas well?
How do?
Speaker 2 (35:58):
you do that, besides putting a couple extra inches on
your arm, since last time wecaught, like I'm telling you
kids section shirts.
That's me.
How do you, how do you mitigatethat stress as a business owner
?
Because everyone's feeling itlike whether you're with us or
not, like every business owner,and I say, like when you fight
for your own dollar, it's awhole new level of stress.
So, like, how do you, how doyou manage?
Speaker 1 (36:19):
that.
I think that comes back topurpose a lot in terms of
sticking to your core focus.
Now I put purpose into twobuckets.
You have your inner purpose andyour outer purpose.
Outer purpose for me is let'sbuild this recruitment agency as
big as possible, x number andin X number of years, let's say,
and that's outer, that's verymuch.
(36:43):
You're in the thick of things.
It's a battle On the innerpurpose side.
This is your core and this issomething that, regardless of
whatever happens, you still haveyour inner.
So for me, the inner purpose ishow can you be as peaceful and
contented as possible with aslittle as possible?
So can you sit and enjoy the$4.50 or $6 coffee now these
days and be happy in that moment, and that's all that matters.
(37:06):
If you can be content with that, then it's a win and that's
sort of a personal, I guess,happiness journey yourself At
the same time having that locusgo to battle in the recruitment
war as well.
So having this core means yeah,I'm going to fight on this hill
and I'll die on this hillbefore this agency fails.
But if that did happen, anotherCOVID or something extremely
(37:30):
terrible happened in the familylet's say this core is still
there.
So it's like win, lose, fail.
I'm battling here, butregardless, you have that core
focus.
So it means you can go to therecruitment and business world
and still be at this base whereyou're safe, and comfortable and
you're still building thatcontentedness.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Not many people ever find that.
Define that.
Not many people ever find that.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
The contentedness.
Yeah, I don't think I've got itas well.
I think it's a journey, it's amirage.
We're always chasing it right.
Naval Ravikant says if youcan't be happy with a coffee,
you won't be happy with a yacht.
Yeah, so, like your level ofcontentment with what you have
won't change in a Ferrari forexample.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, mate, yeah, I've found that in the last 30
days, six weeks, I feel likeI've gotten to my true genius
and to the point where I'venever like felt so free or like
abundant, no matter what happens, like nothing can faze me A
conversation with the kids youknow what used to be a stressful
(38:34):
conversation at work or youknow whatever.
It's just like.
It's so calm now and you can.
I feel like you can just floatthrough life.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
And enjoying that process and being present for it
, regardless of win or fail.
But you still have to have thisframe of like I'm willing, I'm
going to die on this hill.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, I'm a fucking dog, no one's going to beat me.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I love that when there's, say, two agencies
competing on a roll, I don'tthink I understand.
Yeah, I'm willing to die forthis.
We're playing different gameshere, but it's holding two
contradictory thoughts in yourmind of this is everything.
But if everything failed, Istill have this locus of
(39:18):
calmness and I can just be happywith who I am For sure I could
rebuild any day.
Yeah, they are contradictory insome manner, but I think you
don't have to be.
You don't have to counter eachother out.
You can hold both in your mindas well.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
And what's the future for DR?
We're talking 10X.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Soon to not be DR.
We'll have a rebrand soon,you're going to rebrand.
Yeah, yeah, dr Douglas Robertson.
So we'll have a rebrand andthat's going to step into a
little bit of a different visionand mission.
So, whether that's upliftingdata literacy across Australia,
putting Australia on the map interms of data and analytics,
that's there, but definitely thevision, that's the long-term
(39:56):
vision, but definitely in theshorter term it's all right.
We have a permanent base.
We have a permanent base, wehave a contracting base.
Let's have more events.
Let's get the best people inthe best roles as well.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And what's the?
You know my favorite thingwhat's the opportunity cost or
cost of inaction if you don'tachieve that stuff and you just
keep doing what you're doing?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
the cost of inaction if I don't achieve that stuff
what if you don't 10x it?
What if you don't have?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
a contracting book?
What if you don't?
10x it.
What if you don't have acontracting book?
What if you don't have all thatstuff and you just stay doing
what you're doing?
Speaker 1 (40:26):
The cost of inaction.
I don't think there is a costbecause I'm taking the action.
Good answer, so it's like itwill be.
I'll push towards thatregardless.
Win, fail, the experience isthere.
That puts my mind at ease.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, because I was worried if you'd said anything
else.
Matt, is there anything?
Like you know, obviously, I'vemet a few people on the journey.
Is there anything that we couldhelp with to support you on
this journey at all?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I get a lot of value from the pods and seeing what
you guys do as well.
That's really awesome In termsof how you could help.
I think it's keep doing whatyou're doing in terms of putting
out that content there.
I'm always nudging peopletowards extra recruiter if
they're looking at the agencypath as well.
Yeah, yeah, nice.
But yeah, I love what you'redoing.
I think it's a lot of value aswell.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Awesome.
Thanks, brother.
This has been a really goodcombo.
What do you reckon?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Yeah, no, I appreciate it, man.
Thanks for inviting me on,really grateful.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
No worries, legend, all the best with DR, all the
new rebrand, thank you.
Thanks, mate, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Thanks for tuning in to another Confessions of a
Recruiter podcast with Blake andDeclan.
We hope you enjoyed and got alot of value and insights out of
this episode.
If you do have any questions oryou would like to recommend
someone to come on theConfessions podcast, we would
love any introductions andremember the rule of the podcast
, like share and recommend it toa friend.
Until next time.
My name's Douglas from DR Analytics Recruitment.
Listen to this pod, hear abouta story from being a data
analyst to becoming a dataanalyst recruiter and the
community.
That's the foundation of ouragency.
Check out the pod.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome back to another episode of Confessions
of a Recruiter.
I'm joined by Doug Robinson, DRAnalytics Recruitment Mate,
we're in the Wild West.
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Mate, welcome.
Welcome to the West Six-hourflight.
It's a long one, but glad youcan be here, mate.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
steak and eggs got me through today, so I'm ready to
rock and roll.
Now, mate, there's a few thingswe're already going to be
chatting about like communitythe hustle of recruitment, how
you've been able to build youragency over the last couple of
years.
So do you just want to chatback at, like, the last 12
(00:51):
months of what it's like beingin your business, at DR
Analytics?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, no awesome.
Last 12 months has been a bitof a transformation.
We've hired first full-time, sothat's been shifting my role
from getting jobs on and thenfilling those jobs to more so
community, the businessdevelopment and also leading
Rach, who's in the team rightnow.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Mate awesome.
And what changed for you to say, hey, I want to bring on,
because one thing you did thatnot many recruiters have done,
you've actually done the job.
You were a data analystyourself into data analytics
before getting into running yourown recruitment agency.
So where did this communitything come from?
Like was it?
What was the moment?
Because there's a lot of buzzaround community, obviously with
(01:33):
XRecruiter, that's theheartbeat of our company and
what our mission and the impact.
Like, what was it for you thatdawned on you and said, hey, I
need to be doing recruitment asopposed to just one-to-one phone
calls all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
For the community aspect.
It honestly started when I wasa data analyst and I thought
what can I do?
That leans towards starting anagency early and it's getting
people together.
Now the data world is oftenvery siloed, so people are in
organizations but they don'tspeak to anyone else.
So I had the first event 2022before I even started the agency
.
So you were just in your roleand then you just started.
(02:10):
The first event we had was hey,dming people on LinkedIn.
I had got a space in a bar, nomoney or anything.
People buy their own drinks,buy their own food if they want.
Gramercy Bar and Kitchen, nice.
22 people showed up andeveryone was like this is great,
this is really cool.
To have everyone come together,that's awesome, but it was
didn't even need to have therecruitment agency there, it was
just bringing people together.
(02:31):
Yeah, now, I didn't have thisnice vision that we're going to
have a hundred people events atone stage.
It was sort of let's figurethis out and we can grow from
there.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And what was your thought process?
Were you nervous about peopleshowing up?
Like what was your DM?
What was your DM message in themoment?
Like what were you saying tothese people?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
It was just highlighting the problem of data
analytics is siloed Like let'sbring people together so you can
learn, collaborate and maybeimprove your career as well, in
terms of someone here is facingthe same problem as another
person at another company.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And what were the biggest problems that data
analysts or data analyticspeople face that you tapped into
, that you found Loneliness isone you've mentioned.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Not loneliness.
Somewhat, I think it's becausethe industry moves so fast.
You're in this sort of silo ofall right.
All I know is this what aboutsomeone else who's got the same
problem, but they're using adifferent software?
Or maybe I need to be learningthis technology as well?
How have they done it as well?
So it's combating thattechnology is moving quicker
than you by meeting more peopleand getting that sort of group
(03:31):
effect.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So more like a hundred minds is more powerful
than one mentality.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, and it's almost like the, especially in data
and analytics.
One of the reasons why I gotout of it is because the
industry is like a treadmillYou've got to be upskilling all
the time.
Now, what you upskill on isvery important, so learning from
other people is the best factorthere.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So what would you suggest to a data analyst or
someone in data analytics aboutupskilling and making sure that
they're running faster than theguy on the treadmill next to
them?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Go on LinkedIn talk to different people Talk to Doug
.
Robinson DM me.
I know what's happening, but Ithink it's talking to other
people and understanding whattechnology is popular, because
10 years ago Oracle was all therage and now in Perth, azure is
all the rage.
So, understanding that dynamicand it's not about being the
best Oracle developer, let's say, but being able to learn the
(04:22):
new thing that's coming in town,for example, and how do you
learn it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Like is it you're going to speak to someone, but
what questions are you going toask them?
Like, how would you approachsomeone so they don't just go oh
look, so they get buy-in?
Because it's all well and goodto ask people questions, but
like, what would you say to themif they're a data analytics
person and they're like reachingout to someone for the first
time?
Traditionally they'reintroverted.
They may be a whiz, obviouslythey're wizards with computers,
(04:46):
but like, the people elementdoesn't always come strong in
that type of environment.
So, like, would you suggestjust a DM message to be like hey
, something humble that you'rewanting to learn and open up a
conversation?
Or would you want to you know,for them to come with certain
resources.
Is there chat, gpt or like?
What would you be doing tocreate the most leverage you
reckon?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
If I'm a data analyst wanting to upskill and learn
what's out there when you'reapproaching people.
When you're approaching people,I think you can start with
either a conversation, whetherit's at, say, an event that you
go to industry and a join andunderstanding what someone
else's challenges are in acompany, because they may be
completely different to whatthey're facing, what you're
(05:29):
facing at, you're facing yourown.
So, and how they're combating.
that might be with python, itmight be with azure, like
learning what they're solvingthe same problem with, and then
you can go to often theseservice providers like
databricks, snowflake you mighthave heard of, and you can
upskill on their websites forfree oh, wow, yeah, so a lot of
free resources.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I Is it like when I got into like, started getting
into gym fitness.
I'd always look on social mediaand be like why is every dude
on my thing jacked as, and everygirl is in like the best shape?
I'd be like I can't even workthis shit out, like it's just a
big blue ocean and I could neverget the right information until
I just paid for a coach, likemy coach Brody.
He just like goes hey, mate,this is the macro breakdown,
(06:05):
these are the foods that youneed to eat.
And then, within you know fourweeks, I'd lost like four kilos
and I was like, why have Istruggled with maintaining
energy, being fit, staying inshape for like so many years,
when I just went to a coach paid, you know, paid the money, got
the answer.
So like is there any you know,once they've reached out to
people for free information ordo that?
Is there anyone within thesphere that you would recommend
(06:27):
like a valuable course that maynot cost tens of thousands of
dollars but could be the firststep to just getting that answer
straight away?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah You're touching on.
One of the biggest challengesin the industry is that you can
get information and learnanywhere.
You can get people that are invery senior roles, that are
self-taught from YouTube, forexample.
So that's there.
Youtube is a resource thatanyone can use to learn, but
what is going to be a specificthing for you as well and
relevant to where you areExactly?
(06:56):
You touched on the coaching,and that's where I see it's
important to see what otherpeople are doing, so that you're
upskilling in areas that aredirectly relevant.
And why do you know it'srelevant?
Someone has that job in maybe amore senior role.
So I'd say, reaching out tosomeone that's where you want to
be and understanding whatthey've learned to get there as
well.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
And how far ahead would you suggest?
One to two years, 10 years, 20years?
It?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
depends how aspirational you are, but I
think you don't want to reachtoo.
Then it's the gap's too big interms of providing relevant
information.
That person's too far ahead.
I think one to two years isperfect, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And then, just because what I've worked out,
man, like success isn't figuredout anymore, it's purchased.
And you look at it from a smallscale, you go from okay, I want
to get you know, I want to beable to get better at BD.
All right, I, I want to be ableto get better at BD.
I'm going to go and learn theskill so I can then bring in
more money, or I can sit thereand figure it out.
I can be like all right, I'mgoing to have to find a coach,
(07:50):
I'm just going to have to figurethis shit out.
I'm just going to keep bashingthe phones until I figure it out
.
That process can take three tofive years.
You can pay for a cheap courseit could even be a free course
and you're going to get the bestinformation from someone at the
top of the advice ladder, sothen they can then just pass
their knowledge on to you in apalatable way.
And then you look at the nextstage, like and then you look at
(08:13):
the nth degree.
So that's just the first way toupskill.
You just pay for a course andget what you want.
And then you look at likecompanies on mass scales.
They're not looking at theircompetitors to be like, hey, how
can we compete against them?
Let's just buy them, becausethey're not spending their time,
money, resources with theirleadership team trying to figure
out what their competitors aredoing.
They're just going hey, how canwe buy them?
And then put them into ourcompany?
And we keep going.
So I think, like what you said,one of the biggest challenges
(08:36):
is like channeling that big blueocean on where to actually get
the best advice.
Like, maybe that could be aleverage point for you to update
your like, level up yourprofile and be like hey, these
are the top one or two peopledata analytics people in the
country to go to, and then theycould structure something.
You could have a referralnetwork together.
I'll put on a few webinars aswell.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, webinars Across Australia, that's where it
starts.
Yeah, yeah, I thinkunderstanding where to upskill
is the hardest part, but thenunderstanding which coach is
going to accelerate you thefastest as well, exactly, yeah,
who do you reckon would?
For data analytics.
It's difficult because it's notreally out there as much, and
it's a challenging space for,like you mentioned, courses.
There's a popular trend ofpeople starting their own boot
(09:19):
camps.
There's some that are extremelyexcellent and there's some that
may not be relevant to thatperson as well.
So, in terms of choosing yourcoach or course, you have to be
Like a niche.
Yeah, you have to decide what'sactually going to be valuable
for you because you could learna technology that's like, for
example, Google Cloud 1% of thePerth market.
There's no one here that usesGoogle Cloud.
(09:41):
I think it's two companies thatI'm aware of.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Is that an advantage?
Google aren't very good, eh,maybe I should chat to them and
we can fill some roles.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Same with business intelligence.
You might have heard of PowerBI and Tableau.
East Coast is what's better?
Depends on the use case.
Objectively that's probably acontentious issue there, but in
Perth it's 95% Power BI becausetheir Tableau rep left five
years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, tableau is Salesforce.
Salesforce is expensive, solike so is Tableau, but it's got
great AI features.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Tableau is good for custom data products.
Yep Power BI is better forenterprise.
So enterprise rollout easier touse for the standard user.
They've got different use cases.
But if you're in Perth, don'tdo a tablet course Like if
you're looking at a boot camp.
You should be doing Power BI atleast.
So there's a few differentniche areas based upon your area
and region and what technologyis currently flavour of the
(10:36):
month.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair.
And then what about you know,rolling over to you, I think,
mate, just in those few comments, you provide a lot of value for
data analysts to take and runwith.
What about you at the moment?
Like what's business like it's,you know, two and a half years
in it's way, different to yourfirst ever job in recruitment,
(10:58):
like doing blue collar, mate,how do you I don't even ask that
how do you go from doing a bluecollar recruitment gig to then
getting into data analytics foralmost four years and then
started in data analyticsrecruitment agency?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, mate, it's a bit of a journey there in terms
of different frame shifts overtime.
But I started in blue-collarrecruitment, which was trades
and labour FIFO workers oncontract mostly.
And I say that's the RockyBalboa moment of you know,
here's a phone, here's adatabase of 100,000 people.
Start calling 100 calls a dayor so.
(11:25):
Whatever you need to do, getsome people out.
Now this was 2020, a bit of arecruitment boom here and the
desk I was put on was a colddesk, so no clients.
So, as a junior, you know, gofind your clients and then go
find the people I was going.
What's going on here?
How am I supposed to do this?
So that was an initialchallenge, sort of a three
(11:45):
six-month hump.
But over time, bringing onclients and then also finding
the candidates on a cold desk,it kind of feels like you're
running your own business,almost.
So that's sort of where I guessthe seed started.
But over time it didn't feellike I was providing as much
value in that transactionalblue-collar space.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Seven-minute call.
Share a CV.
They're up on site thefollowing week, next one.
So I was like I want to getsome more hard skills.
So I did a data analytics bootcamp with UWA.
So I was learning thatpart-time while also doing
recruitment, true.
And then my barista helped meget a job by connecting me with
the head of data at an ASXlisted company Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And that was your entry to the market.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Entry was, honestly, it was a coffee.
I was getting a coffeementioned that I was interested
in it.
She then connected me to the GM, who was the head of data, who
was a regular at that cafe.
He caught up with me Two monthslater.
Here's your junior data analystrole.
Welcome to the team.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wow, yeah, so it was.
Uh, there's recruitmentagencies on every corner.
Hey, just baristas undercoverand that's.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I'll tell that story to people and say but share what
you want to do with otherpeople, because you never know
where that help might come fromas well have you always had that
belief or that confidence to dothat?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
because a lot of people would go oh look, you
know, I don't.
I don't want to chat about it,they're not going to, they won't
be interested in me, I've gotyou know.
No, no, no, like I'm just goingto keep plugging away, being
the dog on the rusty nail, notfully not getting fulfilled.
But I'm just going to work inmy zone of excellence.
I'm pretty good at recruitment.
I'm placing roles.
Like how do you actually makethat move to be like, hey, I'm
(13:22):
going to put myself out there,because even just you mentioning
that to a barista, 99% ofpeople wouldn't Every day.
They just go through lifesaying you know, next month I'll
do it, next year I'll do it,once this happens, I'll do it.
That time never comes.
Like how would you?
How did you?
Was it just a passing comment?
You said, fuck it, I'm justgoing to tell her.
Or like they get it out of you,it's honestly just a
conversation.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, like, what's going on?
What are you doing?
Oh, I'm studying this datacourse as well, doing
recruitment, and then that ledto oh, I know the head of data,
he's a regular here every day,like I can mention that as well.
He happened to be hiring for ajunior.
I think there's a, I think it.
(14:05):
I'm just doing this thing withmy life, I'm studying, so
sharing a little bit about whatyou're doing and then perhaps
that could lead to something, Ithink, for the I guess, quote
networking part of that.
It's not about the ask Like I'mnot going to my barista and
saying, no way, have you got adata job.
That's hiding behind theresomewhere.
But hiding behind theresomewhere, but sharing the
journey.
People may be like you and theymay feel like they can help as
(14:25):
well.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
And I've been terrified of going to networking
events.
Like I laugh.
It was the week I openedBlended and I rock up to a
200-person room and I just gotinvited to this networking event
.
It was at the Hammo, like alocal pub near my house.
I walked down, I'm shit nervous, got no money, just started a
(14:47):
business, not that confident,because as soon as you start a
business you lose all yourconfidence and you're like got
to rebuild now.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, imposter, syndrome.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, big time.
And I'm in a suit, like Ilooked apart, I'm like, and then
I didn't even know how toapproach someone.
I was that nervous to go up tothem Like have you ever felt
stuff like that?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Oh, I still get that Like regularly I'll go to events
and I feel out of place, like Idon't belong here.
What am I going to talk aboutwith people?
Yeah, just a little bit nervous.
There's even been times whereyou're like, should I just pull
the pin and clock off and gohome?
It's a 5.30 networking event.
Oh, I'm not feeling 100%, whichis you know that's a lie.
You can always go to thesethings.
(15:25):
Why do you choose to show upFor me?
I make a massive effort in Perthto go to all the local
technology events and, to behonest, from my perspective,
it's other people for me.
Other people at other agenciesaren't going to do that, and
part of the business for me isbeing part of that community and
attending those.
I think that's also for, say,the data professional who's
(15:47):
looking to upskill and build.
So you're in a competitivemarket.
If you're going to events otherpeople might not be.
All you have to do is show upto that and you'll win Like
you're on the board.
If you don't go, you're noteven on the board.
You can't get to play.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And you're an I personality, right, so you're an
influencer, you love people.
That's what seems to fuel youwhen you're in your zone of
genius, but, like a Cpersonality, that's the last
thing they feel like doing.
Now, what advice would you giveto them to be like hey, this is
what I'll be doing if I washighly introverted, nervous
about going Like, do you justshow up and just don't put any
pressure on yourself to not talkto anyone and just come back,
just be in the room.
Like, just be in the room orwhat would you say Honestly?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I'd say be in the room, talk to one person, that's
the goal.
That's the goal.
Start with the exposure therapy.
So if you can go listen to thetalk, maybe connect with the
speaker after and go home,that's a win.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
The speaker- that's the golden nugget, bro.
Be the speaker.
No, no, no, be the speaker.
That's 10 steps ahead.
But if we're talking about thegolden nugget, when you go to an
event, it's all well and goodto go and meet people, it's
great.
But what I did, that changedthe game for my networking.
When I was too shy to go andtalk to the room, I'd find out
who the speaker was and sendthem a handwritten letter the
(17:01):
next day.
Yeah, wow, yeah.
I love that.
I love the handwritten aspectand say I love this about your
speech.
Ps.
I'm just a young small businessowner wanting to learn.
I'd love to get a coffee.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, wow, the handwritten aspect's awesome, I
love there's 150 people in theroom.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
I didn't have to go around the entire room.
I just had to send one letterthe next day.
Get a photo of me in the roomMm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, and you're there.
You've shown up Like that'senough buying for him to say
yeah, absolutely.
Or them to say, hey, absolutely, I'll get a coffee with you.
You were at the event.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You came and listened to me speak for 30 minutes.
Of course, got impostersyndrome too.
They're about to walk out onthat panel.
They're going fuck.
I hope people show up.
I hope people are there.
Like what happens if they don'tlike my opening pitch and I
lose the audience.
Like what I've learned throughmy business journey is that the
big dogs are just as scared asthe ones coming up.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
A hundred percent and I feel that definitely, whether
it's speaking or you know, I'vegot a networking event tonight
for CICD on AWS.
I'm nervous someone's going tobe like oh, you don't really
know much about this, do youLike a bit of that imposter?
Where is it?
What is it?
Aws has a meetup for CICD.
What's that?
Continuous integration,continuous development.
(18:11):
So that's software for.
Like software speak for.
Let's continue to improve ourprocesses while not disrupting
the existing process over time.
So how can we update thingswithout shit hitting the fan?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
essentially, Mate, that's a technology problem and
a people problem.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, and so I don't know much about it, and some
roles we need someone that hasexperience in CICD Are you going
to speak at it?
No, no, no, Just be there.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I'm just going to be there and say, like what's going
on here, serge?
What are you doing tonight?
Come get some photos of Doug atthe event.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, yeah, mate, I'm just a guest, I'm just
wandering around.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Mate build authority.
Walk around with a videographernext year.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Jump it on the event.
Yeah, we'll go.
I've got my video crew here.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Mate Game changer for us.
Yeah so what were you going tosay?
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I was going to say on those events.
There's, I guess, from thecommunity aspect, there's that
public side, but we do a bit inthe private space as well.
So we've got an event.
Can you define that for me?
What does that mean?
So that's invite only for dataand analytics leaders across
Perth.
So there's the public.
You know, 100 person, that'sfor anyone, people that are job
seeking, maybe a few differentleaders as well that might speak
(19:17):
.
Then there's that's great forbuilding data literacy.
Then there's all right, let'sbring all the leaders together
and have a breakfast for an hourand a half and a few talks and
a few coffees to help thatcollaboration across the person
in finance that's having thesame problem as the person at
Commonwealth Bank, for example,in the data space.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Awesome.
Have you met?
Have you heard of StephenFullop, sydney recruiter?
No, I haven't Excel to him.
I'll connect you both, mate.
He's a high performer.
He's got a CIO network inSydney.
Similar thing you guys wouldget along like a house on fire.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
I'd love to hear he's probablygot a few tips on building that
network as well.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, but yeah for sure, like you can see on his
website, like all the showcasesand stuff of what they say about
him, it's pretty moving, yeah,awesome.
And then so can you explain itto us, your community group?
Like, what's it about, what'sthe mission behind it, what's
the reason for the impact.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It started as that 20 people in a bar.
It wasn't this big sort oflet's see what we can build with
this, but over time it'sdeveloped in a bit more meaning
and I feel like it happensactually a lot with things.
If you fuck around and find out, eventually the meaning can
come out to it or you see somethings.
But from the business side,what we want to do is build
(20:32):
people.
So start with the individual,bring those people together,
build community and then buildbusinesses.
So essentially, if we can takethe top 1% from that community
into businesses, then hey,that's perfect for the world.
That sounds like a lot of work,mate, yes, but I get a lot out
of it.
What do you get out of it Interms of it's awesome to meet
(20:55):
with one person for a coffee oryou have an interview with
someone.
You interview someone else andthen they both come to the event
and I point one and go you haveto meet this person.
And then after the event, theygo oh, I met David.
He's a legend, we're going tocatch up and talk about some
projects and I'm like, if thathappens, I'm super happy, that's
awesome.
So I get a lot out of thatpersonally, but as the sort of
(21:15):
macro idea for the communityit's, can we uplift data
literacy across Perth.
So if someone can come to theevent that's siloed in a job at
Rio Tinto doing datavisualization, if they can learn
something and apply it the nextday, then that's a win.
So across the board, can weuplift data literacy as a whole
and I think that as an impact,that's awesome.
(21:36):
Have you read 10x is easier than2x?
No, I haven't.
I've heard the concept beforeand I like the.
I think I've heard the analogyof if you're going to go a
kilometre, you might walk it,but if you're going 10, you
might drive as well.
Is that sort of the whole bookin a nutshell?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
mate.
Yeah, like, just think biggerone-to-one, like.
You've already figured out theone-to-many right.
So if you're going, hey, howcan I place this one data
analytics into one role?
That's what 99% of recruitersdo You're thinking, hey, how can
I get 100 of them in a room andconnect all of them together
and I become the go-to thoughtleader.
(22:10):
And then you think one bigger,like have you monetized your
community yet?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yes, because the agency's there Exactly so.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Like, how do you do that on steroids?
How do you get five people fromthat one conversation to go and
meet another company the nextday based on what they said?
Like there's five send-outs,five potential placements?
Like I think when you startmonetising community in the
wrong way, like getting sponsorsand stuff into your community,
then they can start dictatingterms and it loses the heartbeat
(22:40):
of what it's all about, becausethen they go all right.
Well, we want assets, we wantcontact numbers of everyone in
the community so we can marketto them, and then dilutes it.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
What do you reckon?
Yeah, it gets transactional.
I've seen that happen with runclubs.
I think I forgot which branddid it, but they started a run
club and then it was hey, likethe first 50 people that rock up
, get these new shorts.
That we've just released and youknow you have to take a photo
with it as well.
But it wasn't really thepurpose.
But if they had gone and said,oh, we've got a run club X
(23:10):
sports brand shirt, everyonewould be like shit, yeah, that's
awesome, I'll buy that.
Yeah, rather than forcing it onpeople.
But from the people ask me alot what's the ROI, what do you
get from these events and why doyou do them as well?
I think probably 80% of thespeakers which are potential
clients for the recruitmentbusiness end up being clients
down the line and I think that'sfrom the recruitment side.
(23:32):
They're watching the tangible,basically our tangible database
right in front of them.
It's like, holy, we've got ahundred people here interested
in data.
Oh, there's one guy that knowseveryone here.
If I'm going to look for a rolelike this is right in front of
me.
It's not oh, I've got adatabase of 5,000.
It's, I can see these peopleright in front of me.
He's connected to.
Of course I'm going to use himif we need a contractor or we've
(23:53):
got a new hire, that's comingon board.
So that's been really cool.
From the monetization ispotential clients come out of it
as well.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, I think it's special.
You keep it as that.
And how much do these eventscost for you to set up?
At the moment, $1,500, aboutthat, maybe a little bit less.
One placement 10, 20x ROI.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, a story on the recruitment side from the
leadership invite-only boardroomevent or breakfast.
Yeah, we did that with thefirst one, with 20 people or so,
and I was like I'm not surewhere this sits A little bit
nervous about you.
Know, let's do a 5 pm Talkingto all the big dogs.
Yeah, and just, you knoweveryone's going to come in a
boardroom.
I've got to sort of emcee this.
You know they're all potentialclients, even they're quite
(24:32):
senior in the industry, and thatcost about $1,500.
As they're all leaving out, oneguy hung back and said hey,
mate, we've just had our dataanalytics leave and handed his
resignation yesterday.
I'll give you a call tomorrowand that was a 30 grand
placement, so that 1,500 had a20x return.
(24:52):
I was like, oh, that's thevalue here.
That actually okay, I see thismakes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
In your first event.
Yeah, Mate awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Let's keep doing this .
Yeah yeah, definitely, andthat's a very commercial lens to
it and you've got to have that,but in reality, the impact's
also there.
I speak and hear the sameproblem from one data manager to
another.
I can't solve it.
Yeah, why don't you solve itwith someone else?
That's also facing thechallenge For sure.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So I think that impact has to be central.
But as a spinoff, if you arehiring, we're the best position
to help as well.
Yeah, and when we caught up forSalt, I don't know if you
remember 12 months ago, 18months ago you had a coffee.
Yeah, have you digitalized thecommunity yet?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Not as much.
It's meetup based, sodigitalizers in meetup we can
send out comms through there.
The next phase of that would behaving, say, an app or a
platform that people can connecton.
School's a good one.
I've done a little schoolcommunity, I think it's.
I don't want to do too much indifferent areas where there's
not.
I guess the return on that whatabout?
(25:53):
LinkedIn Group.
Linkedin Group I've thoughtabout it's just going to be.
Meetup in Perth is we'relooking at the Perth market.
Specialised Meetup in Perth islike we were looking at the
Perth market.
Specialised Meetup is the go-tospot for these events.
So that's getting people there.
I think eventually there willbe some value in either a
platform or possibly a betterplace to connect people.
Last event we worked with amentorship group who's that?
(26:15):
So they're called Mentor atFord.
What made you pick them?
They're a start-up in Perth.
The founder was actually headof data at all.
He was a practice leader atInsight if you've heard of
Insight no Big Fortune 500company in the data space.
He started a platform where itlinks mentor to mentee and
basically facilitates thatinteraction.
So we were able to bring him inand then release a mentorship
(26:38):
group to essentially tailor justfor people in that inner joint
community.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Mate, he sounds like your go-to guy for the courses
and advice.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, he's very good.
I like that a lot because it'sokay.
We do quarterly events forinner join.
Yeah, what are people doingafter that?
Let's, let's connect peoplethat can mentor and mentee each
other and they can learn, andwhere that connection happen,
industry and a join.
How does it fit with the goal?
Uplift data literacy acrossPerth.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Mate, it sounds like that's the mission.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, yeah.
And then I guess,recruitment-wise, long-term, if
we uplift data literacy, do youthink there'll be more roles
that are on in Perth as well?
Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Put Perth on the map.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, yeah, I think Perth we'll get in over to
Melbourne a little bit.
Now I'm a bit in Brizzy, nice,but starting here definitely.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Awesome.
And how has your role changednow?
Like, you've gotten through theI don't know, I don't know if
there's ever a finish line inbusiness We'll laugh and like to
win the race.
All you got to do is stayaround the longest.
But, like you know, we have athree-month slump where partners
come on dramatically.
They're like, start billing afair bit of money, and then
(27:46):
they're like month four, they'relike, oh shit, I am that good,
I'm crushing it.
They do a zero month or theyhave their worst month ever and
they let their foot off the gas.
Obviously worn against that now, but in the first 12 months it
used to happen all the timebecause, like, I am just the
king, this is awesome, this iseasy.
And then they stop doing thebasics.
So, like, how do you balance theexcitement?
Because I can feel the passionin you when you talk about these
events, these people.
You're meeting the doors,you're opening the deals, you're
doing.
But like, how do you stayfocused on day to day?
Because, like people will,especially I personalities
(28:08):
they'll be like, all right, I'mresearching how do I start a
community tomorrow, and they'llcompletely derail their
recruitment career and I likethat.
You keep bringing it back torecruitment.
But like, what do you do to staybalanced as a director and
making sure that your team arenot just caught in the?
Because I've failed at this.
I've failed multiple times atgetting caught in the big ideas
and no implementation.
So like, how do you get inday-to-day, making sure you're
(28:30):
doing your send-outs, makingsure you're doing your
interviews, and just keeping thewheels turning?
Because, like, if you ever stopdoing that or you have a shit
month, like it's going to affecthow you show up at these
meetings, how it's going toaffect how you show up at these
meetings, how you show up in thecommunity, you're not going to
have the money to invest inbetter.
So, like, how do you doday-to-day and what's changed
from Ed two years not Ed Dougtwo years ago, compared to now?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I think the structure is very important and I've
heard Matt Crossan talk on thisa lot.
In terms of make sure you haveyour clear day structure.
I'd say my nine to five isrecruitment.
Everything outside of that isthe events in the community as
well.
So I'm not trying to be aconsultancy, I'm not trying to
be a community.
We are a recruitment agency andthere's a lot of dialogue on
(29:17):
the internet.
Alex and Moses is great for this.
In terms of the woman in thered dress, the person that stays
consistent across one thing isgoing to get the biggest return,
rather than someone that hasthree businesses.
He framed it really well.
He spoke about it as it's anexercise of arrogance because
you think you can do threethings better than if you just
did one thing.
Then someone else is trying tocompete with you, so you're
(29:38):
trying to do three.
When someone else is doing one,you think you can do better
with you, so you're trying to dothree when someone else is
doing one and you think you cando better.
So I think, remaining focusedon the recruitment agency in
terms of my role, it's those keyKPIs.
How many BD calls are you doing?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
What are your metrics ?
That matter?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
My metrics that matter are meetings booked.
So right now it's more clientfacing Rachel's doing more of
the delivery and recruitment.
Right now, metrics are how manyBD outbounds are you doing?
How many meetings booked do youhave?
How many meetings do you haveand how many jobs on Awesome Do
you care?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
to share those numbers.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
What I try to hit Yep For meetings booked, I'll try
to do five to ten every week.
So booked in the future Jobs onone to two a week.
If I can hit that, that'sincredible.
Sometimes that's up, sometimesthat's lower.
You know how it is.
Bd outbounds aim is to hit.
Look honestly, it's around 50good outbounds, so that's 10 per
(30:32):
day.
Get those done straight awayand if I can hit those,
excellent.
Sometimes shit hits the fan andI have to divert, but ideally
always hit that as well.
Now I wouldn't say those areridiculously high, but it's.
Can you do that for two, threeyears?
Not, can you do them?
Can you do a thousand in a week?
Let's say Exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
And did you know that your activity predicts your P&L
?
So the lumpy cat.
When people say it's therollercoaster of recruitments
because they don't do BD forthree weeks, they source
candidates for three weeks.
They don't get paid for anotherfour to six weeks, maybe 12
weeks, depending if they dostart date, notice period,
four-week payment terms andthey're like, oh shit, why do I
have a lumpy cash flow?
This is the rollercoaster ofrecruitment.
(31:12):
This is how it should be.
But if you do what you said dayafter day, you just have to do
it every day.
Then you get it all rolling in.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I 100% agree with that.
What comes to mind is, I alwaysthink sometimes you have, say,
less jobs on than you hope andyou're quite nervous about a
placement, for example, eg youget into that 10th point offer
acceptance, start date.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And you've had three fall over and you've got to pay
the bills next week.
You're like, fuck, here we go,there's payroll coming.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
You've got to pay the bills next week.
You're like, fuck, here we go,there's payroll coming.
Yeah, you've got a tax bill.
Everything's happening, and Ialways find if I'm getting
nervous about a single placementor a single job or a single
client that's on my pipeline'snot big enough.
I have to accept that if I'mgetting super hyper-focused, the
way to stop that is have fivemore of those in the process.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
How do you do that?
Though it's so easy, doug, youcan just be like, yeah, look, I
should have just had five more.
But you're like, oh, thisdeal's got to come in, it's got
to come in.
Like how do you create thatabundance mindset when you're
actually forced into scarcity?
Because you're like there'sbeen times for me multiple times
and I'm like holy fuck, Like Idon't know what.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I'm doing this has to land this, this has to land,
this has to land If this doesn'tfucking land.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I onboarded a staff member in 2020, just coming out
of COVID in April, and I hadnine deals Like I'm not saying
they're deals, but they werefinal interviews offers nine
offers rejected in one month.
And I just stayed composed andcalm and I didn't tell the
consultant until like fourmonths later, when he was having
(32:41):
a shit month, the four-monthslump.
He was having a shit month atBlended and I said, bro, do you
know, realize, when you signedup the first month of onboarding
, when I'm onboarding you,recruiting, getting out of COVID
, maybe it was 2021.
And I said, mate, I had ninedeals fall over.
He's like what I was like.
He's like, mate, you seem likethe happiest bloke in the world.
I was like he's like, mate, youseem like the happiest bloke in
(33:02):
the world.
I said, yeah, mate, because theROI of fucking you up and
tripping you out is way biggerthan me losing those deals.
So do you have a frame in yourmind where you're like, hey, I
need to say this to myself, orkeep grounded, or identify that
before, because, mate, onceyou're on a Friday afternoon and
you've got payroll Monday andyou're going, hey, I need to pay
these bills.
You're too far gone and you'redesperate for that Friday deal
(33:24):
and then they didn't say yesstraight away.
Then you have it hanging overthe weekend.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It's like you knew my last month.
There's one of thosespecifically which was large.
So the question is, how do youmaintain the consistency?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, how do you get to that before.
We don't want recruiters to getinto that position, right?
So what can they do to mitigatethat?
Is there some early signs Likeit may be a quota of jobs on, it
may be X amount of clientmeetings?
Like what is it that they go?
Hey, look, once I've got to 10jobs on mine's 10.
If I don't have 10 jobs on, I'mwicking out.
If I don three retainers, I'mnervous.
(34:04):
So what do you reckon is asensible outlook on that?
Be like, hey, as long as you'vegot these bases covered you
won't ever have freaky moments.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I think for me it's recognising the fear or anxiety
or scarcity mindset that yousaid.
When you are hyper-focused onone deal or you're hyper-focused
on this has to go through,everything has to go through,
and recognising that puttingyour focus there isn't going to
change anything, isn't going todo anything.
If you feel like that, go fixit by getting more jobs on.
So that's get on the phonestraight away, that's organise
(34:34):
an event, or lots of more people, do the things that got you to
that job in the first place, butthen 5x, 10x that as well.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Just do the work.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, like taking the .
Oh, I'm super stressed aboutthis and it's like just do the
work.
I remember this going back tochildhood, but it always comes
up.
I was in year seven and I wasstressing about you know, you
start to get homework in yearseven and I was going for doing
a little pamphlet run.
You know, when you hand in theadvertising mail into people's
letterboxes.
(35:02):
And I was talking to the persondoing it and they were like and
I was complaining and sayingI've got so much homework to do.
I'm really stressed about allthis homework I've got in year
seven.
It's the worst thing in theworld.
And they just looked at me andsaid just go do homework.
Then, like, just go do it.
And it's so weird that thatkeeps on coming back to me
(35:22):
whenever I'm stressed about oh,I've got all this stuff to do.
The only thing you can do isjust go do it.
Go do it.
It's the only thing.
That has to be as complicated.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
No, Jeff Bezos put it perfectly Stress comes from not
doing what you know you shouldbe doing.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, I believe in that.
I think for business it's thestress management as much as
anything.
How do you manage your ownlocus of control so that you can
show up to a client meeting andnot be worrying about the
person that's sitting on theoffer over the weekend, for
example, Because you've got toshow up 100% for them and you
can build trust and be presentas well?
How do?
Speaker 2 (35:58):
you do that, besides putting a couple extra inches on
your arm, since last time wecaught, like I'm telling you
kids section shirts.
That's me.
How do you, how do you mitigatethat stress as a business owner
?
Because everyone's feeling itlike whether you're with us or
not, like every business owner,and I say, like when you fight
for your own dollar, it's awhole new level of stress.
So, like, how do you, how doyou manage?
Speaker 1 (36:19):
that.
I think that comes back topurpose a lot in terms of
sticking to your core focus.
Now I put purpose into twobuckets.
You have your inner purpose andyour outer purpose.
Outer purpose for me is let'sbuild this recruitment agency as
big as possible, x number andin X number of years, let's say,
and that's outer, that's verymuch.
(36:43):
You're in the thick of things.
It's a battle On the innerpurpose side.
This is your core and this issomething that, regardless of
whatever happens, you still haveyour inner.
So for me, the inner purpose ishow can you be as peaceful and
contented as possible with aslittle as possible?
So can you sit and enjoy the$4.50 or $6 coffee now these
days and be happy in that moment, and that's all that matters.
(37:06):
If you can be content with that, then it's a win and that's
sort of a personal, I guess,happiness journey yourself At
the same time having that locusgo to battle in the recruitment
war as well.
So having this core means yeah,I'm going to fight on this hill
and I'll die on this hillbefore this agency fails.
But if that did happen, anotherCOVID or something extremely
(37:30):
terrible happened in the familylet's say this core is still
there.
So it's like win, lose, fail.
I'm battling here, butregardless, you have that core
focus.
So it means you can go to therecruitment and business world
and still be at this base whereyou're safe, and comfortable and
you're still building thatcontentedness.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Not many people ever find that.
Define that.
Not many people ever find that.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
The contentedness.
Yeah, I don't think I've got itas well.
I think it's a journey, it's amirage.
We're always chasing it right.
Naval Ravikant says if youcan't be happy with a coffee,
you won't be happy with a yacht.
Yeah, so, like your level ofcontentment with what you have
won't change in a Ferrari forexample.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, mate, yeah, I've found that in the last 30
days, six weeks, I feel likeI've gotten to my true genius
and to the point where I'venever like felt so free or like
abundant, no matter what happens, like nothing can faze me A
conversation with the kids youknow what used to be a stressful
(38:34):
conversation at work or youknow whatever.
It's just like.
It's so calm now and you can.
I feel like you can just floatthrough life.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
And enjoying that process and being present for it
, regardless of win or fail.
But you still have to have thisframe of like I'm willing, I'm
going to die on this hill.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, I'm a fucking dog, no one's going to beat me.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I love that when there's, say, two agencies
competing on a roll, I don'tthink I understand.
Yeah, I'm willing to die forthis.
We're playing different gameshere, but it's holding two
contradictory thoughts in yourmind of this is everything.
But if everything failed, Istill have this locus of
(39:18):
calmness and I can just be happywith who I am For sure I could
rebuild any day.
Yeah, they are contradictory insome manner, but I think you
don't have to be.
You don't have to counter eachother out.
You can hold both in your mindas well.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
And what's the future for DR?
We're talking 10X.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Soon to not be DR.
We'll have a rebrand soon,you're going to rebrand.
Yeah, yeah, dr Douglas Robertson.
So we'll have a rebrand andthat's going to step into a
little bit of a different visionand mission.
So, whether that's upliftingdata literacy across Australia,
putting Australia on the map interms of data and analytics,
that's there, but definitely thevision, that's the long-term
(39:56):
vision, but definitely in theshorter term it's all right.
We have a permanent base.
We have a permanent base, wehave a contracting base.
Let's have more events.
Let's get the best people inthe best roles as well.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And what's the?
You know my favorite thingwhat's the opportunity cost or
cost of inaction if you don'tachieve that stuff and you just
keep doing what you're doing?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
the cost of inaction if I don't achieve that stuff
what if you don't 10x it?
What if you don't have?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
a contracting book?
What if you don't?
10x it.
What if you don't have acontracting book?
What if you don't have all thatstuff and you just stay doing
what you're doing?
Speaker 1 (40:26):
The cost of inaction.
I don't think there is a costbecause I'm taking the action.
Good answer, so it's like itwill be.
I'll push towards thatregardless.
Win, fail, the experience isthere.
That puts my mind at ease.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, because I was worried if you'd said anything
else.
Matt, is there anything?
Like you know, obviously, I'vemet a few people on the journey.
Is there anything that we couldhelp with to support you on
this journey at all?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I get a lot of value from the pods and seeing what
you guys do as well.
That's really awesome In termsof how you could help.
I think it's keep doing whatyou're doing in terms of putting
out that content there.
I'm always nudging peopletowards extra recruiter if
they're looking at the agencypath as well.
Yeah, yeah, nice.
But yeah, I love what you'redoing.
I think it's a lot of value aswell.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Awesome.
Thanks, brother.
This has been a really goodcombo.
What do you reckon?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Yeah, no, I appreciate it, man.
Thanks for inviting me on,really grateful.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
No worries, legend, all the best with DR, all the
new rebrand, thank you.
Thanks, mate, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Thanks for tuning in to another Confessions of a
Recruiter podcast with Blake andDeclan.
We hope you enjoyed and got alot of value and insights out of
this episode.
If you do have any questions oryou would like to recommend
someone to come on theConfessions podcast, we would
love any introductions andremember the rule of the podcast
, like share and recommend it toa friend.
Until next time.
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