Ed Glover - xrecruiter | Confessions of a Recruiter #113

From martial arts champion to global recruitment leader, Ed Glover's remarkable career journey demonstrates how early discipline shapes professional success. Raised by a special forces father with a "if you're not first, you're last" mentality, Ed channeled that competitive spirit into multiple high-performance careers across three continents.

Ed's candid conversation reveals pivotal moments that shaped his path – from watching his father receive a medal from the Queen, to moving out at 15 and supporting himself through university, to being shown a £47,000 monthly payslip that convinced him to enter recruitment. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to launch his own agency after just two years in recruitment, navigating the challenges of rapid growth and cash flow management during the GFC.

The discussion offers fascinating insights into recruitment across different global markets. Ed shares how he transformed Michael Page's approach in San Francisco, abandoning pinstripe suits when meeting hoodie-wearing startup founders, and learning to "expand everyone's expectations" to create successful placements. His later roles at LinkedIn and Gartner taught him valuable lessons about enterprise sales and understanding that only two things truly matter in any deal: power (decision-makers) and urgency.

Now as Business Director at XRecruiter, Ed helps recruiters launch and scale their own agencies with the support he wishes he'd had. His perspective is refreshingly honest – addressing both the incredible rewards of independence and the challenges that held him back. For anyone considering their next career move, Ed's story demonstrates that success isn't linear but comes from continuously challenging yourself and recognizing when you're at your happiest.

Support the show

· Our Website is: xrecruiter.io

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, I'm Ed Glover.
I'm the business director hereat XRecruiter.
Just finished my podcast withBlake and Dec talking about my
journey from being a fresh gradin the UK around the world all
the way to where I am today.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Ed Glover is a seasoned business leader, sales
strategist and commercialadvisor with extensive
experience in enterprise,mid-market and hyper growth
environments.
He has a proven track record ofengaging with C-suite
executives and business ownersacross the UK, USA and Australia
.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
One of the interviews was a Wolf of Wall Street kind
of moment.
He asked me how much I thoughthe earned last month and I was
like, well, I think five grand.
And he pulled out his payslipit was 47,000 pounds.
That got me into recruitment.
Don't miss this episode.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's going welcome back to another episode of
confessions of a recruiter.
We've got a very spicy andexciting podcast today.
We're joined by mr ed glover.
Welcome, ed.
Good to be here.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Gents, mate thanks for coming on.
We're appreciative for for ravconnecting us all.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I know many moons ago yeah, should send him a message
, but I don't really talk to himanymore After what he said on
your last podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
So, ed, I've got a bit of an intro here for our
guests and our listeners, togive a bit of context on who
we're speaking to.
So I'm about to give you a pumpup, mate.
So you just sit back, relax andlisten to the magic.
Back, relax and listen to themagic.
Ed Glover is a seasonedbusiness leader, sales
strategist and commercialadvisor with extensive
experience in enterprise, midmarket and hyper-growth

(01:35):
environments.
He has a proven track record ofengaging with C-suite
executives and business ownersacross the UK, usa and Australia
, and currently he's in the bestposition of his career as the
business director at XRecruiter,a platform that supports
recruiters in launching andscaling their own recruitment
agencies.
Ed has consistently been one ofthe highest performing
individuals in everyorganization that he's worked at

(01:56):
, with numerous accolades,including winner's circle with
Gartner, flying to Rome withother high performers.
We spoke before that the onlyway you get to the winner's
circle with Gartner is you'vegot to do 130% of budget.
If you've got a $15 millionbudget, that's pretty 50.
15.
Oh 15.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
15, mate, yeah, that's 50.
50.
50, sorry.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah.
I got that wrong $15 millionbudget Millionaires Club at Page
, so billing over a milliondollars at Michael Page Million
pound biller in the UK, sothat's almost 2 million in
Aussie dollars.
You have started your ownrecruitment agency when you were
much younger, 22, 23.
Then you moved to Page, had anincredible career for eight

(02:43):
years in San Francisco, inAustralia, in the UK, and then
held a number of roles, whichincludes a senior sales
leadership role at Gartner, asenior level role at LinkedIn
and obviously Paige Group whereyou specialize in building and
leading high performance salesteams in numerous industries.
Financial services technologyand recruitment your expertise

(03:06):
sales leadership.
Financial services technologyand recruitment.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Your expertise sales leadership business development,
capability building andstrategic growth execution.
That is one hell of an intro.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
I better stack up now , mate.
Your experience is extremelyimpressive.
We're obviously very gratefulthat you've chosen to bring your
experience to the table atXRecruiter, so thank you for
being here.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
It's a pleasure.
It's certainly the mostexciting role I think I've done,
or started at least.
But yeah, it's going to be goodAwesome.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
And why don't we take it all back, mate?
Because you've got aninteresting journey, like your
upbringing, what your dad taughtyou.
Do you want to just sort ofgive us a light on what the uk's
like for all us aussies?

Speaker 1 (03:48):
yeah, yeah, well, um, it's not great, it's um.
I think my dad was in themilitary right.
He's in the special forces.
He was always a super highperformer when it came to sport.
You know, started his ownmartial art, became the two-time
world champion in his martialart.
I've got a medal from the queenum for some stuff that he did
in the Special Forces.
He was in the Falklands.
He did some secret stuff that Ican't really share too much

(04:09):
about.
But I remember being aboutseven years old and Queen gave a
medal on stage and I was justwatching him.
It's like the NBA, but forsoldiers, basically like what
Beckham gets and things likethat.
So if you've ever seenTalladega Nights where the dad
is like if you're not first,you're last, it was kind of my
upbringing.
He was like you've just got tobe the best at everything.
So he got me into martial artsreally, really young.
I became the UK champion atlike 12.

(04:31):
So that whole martial arts it'scalled Wado Roo Karate.
I don't know if you know muchabout that, but it's just a
style of karate, because thatwas it.
It was the 80s right.
So it was all karate.
Kid, that was the only martialart that was around.
Mma didn't really exist, so didthat, played football or soccer
for you guys at a relativelygood level, and yeah, so my

(04:52):
upbringing was all discipline,it was all sport, it was all
focus.
It was all you have to win, youhave to achieve Very little
place for not doing well.
So that's kind of how itstarted for me.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, and would you say that's a positive?

Speaker 1 (05:05):
impact.
I would say so.
I think it gave me discipline,but it taught me just to make
stuff happen.
For yourself, I'd say.
I moved out of home at 15,still at school, so I had to get
a job in the evenings to payfor my rent.
When I was living in thisterrible like above someone's
garage in the UK it was freezingcold.
But I started very young, so Ipaid my way through university

(05:26):
ultimately as well, and justfrom 15, I was working.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
So tired of work.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
I was working in like a it was called Safeway, but
it's like Coles.
I was working on the producedepartment just like stacking
apples and things.
That's all I could do.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
What did your mates is that normal over there Like,
did you have a few other matesthat would?
Go to work as well, or were youthe only one?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
No, you, I think it's normal.
The world I existed in wasfairly normal.
You just went and got a job andyou looked after yourself.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
I was about to say like is moving out at the age of
15, while you're still atschool and getting a job?
Was that normal?

Speaker 1 (05:58):
That's probably not as normal.
Did something happen.
I just had a fight with my dad.
Basically, yeah, it doesn'tsound like the boy you really
want?

Speaker 3 (06:11):
no, I lost, I lost and I was like I'm out of here,
mate.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
So, um, I moved out, but, um, it was actually quite a
traumatic time in my life.
But, um, but I was out thereand I just went and got a job
and, um, that was the end of itand I just fended for myself.
So, even going to university,where you're studying a lot, um,
had to get a job, had to pay myway.
So that's just been ingrainedin me and I've got an incredible
relationship with my father.
He's kind of a role model to methrough every aspect of my life
.
But that's how it started Very,very firm upbringing, I'd say.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, and how did you find yourself in recruitment,
like, what was the, what was thestarting blocks for you there?

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, well, like I say, my dad was military, so he
was pushing for me to join themilitary and I went to
university and needed apart-time job and ended up going
into a deco just walk in HighStreet Agency saying I needed a
part-time job like customerservice or something.
And one of my mates who camewith me, he took a job doing
telesales for this companycalled G Capital.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Bank.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
I think they're kind of not so much around anymore,
but at the time, they were thelargest company in the world.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
They were big in the Microsoft they were huge.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Right, general Electric and I was selling doing
telesales.
Well sorry, he got signed up todo telesales and he was getting
paid a pound more an hour thanme, so I was like I want to do
what he's doing and that kind ofhow it started.
And, um, I've shared this withyou, deck, but it was this story

(07:30):
it was this environment of like300 people in the call center,
and when you started you'd benumber 300 and every week they'd
position you in this group ofpeople in the pods based on your
ranking on this leaderboard ofhow good your sales were the
previous week.
And so the goal was to try andget into the top 10 pod.
So then about three months Igot into the top 10 pod, became

(07:50):
number one.
You got like a leather chair.
It was all like a bit Americanbut it was fun, and I stayed
there for, you know, a good yearand a half until some new boy
came into town and told me hewas going to take my spot.
And who was that?
He's a mate of mine, stillcalled Tom Sleater.
He's actually like the MD ofCredit Suisse between London,

(08:11):
switzerland and New York.
Now he's an incredibly highachiever, smoked me in his
career, but I remember himcoming up to me telling me that
he was going to take my spot atnumber one and I was like, mate,
you're not going to do that.
Anyway, across the six months,I just saw him slowly moving
through the ranks until he wassat right next to me and I was
like geez, this guy's actuallygonna take me out.

(08:33):
Um, so I didn't let my ego getahead of me.
I actually just listened to allthe things he was saying and,
uh, just adopted his best linesand just stayed number one until
I got promoted to be a salescoach and I guess long--winded
versions.
It gave me the taste for salesbecause I was winning like a
PlayStation 2.
This is how long ago it was.
Right, it's a PlayStation 2 andearning like 300 pounds a week,
doing like eight hours or 10hours.

(08:56):
So for me it was like wow, thissales world is what I want to
do now what?

Speaker 2 (09:01):
were you selling.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
It was like credit card insurance.
You're basically calling peoplewho've got like a Maya card and
just selling them.
If you lost your jacket on anight out, you can get it
insured.
Or if you lose your job and youcan't pay for it, pay your
credit card bill, we'll takecare of it.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Do you remember what you did different out of the 300
people?

Speaker 1 (09:22):
What I did.
So the target was about fivesales an hour and it was a
dialer system, so they just comethrough, come through, come
through, um, and I looked at howmuch balance they had on their
account and whether because usedto get rewarded, based on how
big, because it was one percentof their entire balance and I
remember just thinking that's abig deal.
So I'd focus on the big onesand I put more time into those
ones than the smaller ones.

(09:42):
But I also found part of thewhole product suite.
That was just what people werereally interested in and just
sold just that one bit andeveryone else was spending 10
minutes trying to selleverything and I would do a call
in a minute to the highestvalue ones, and so my sales
record was like 21 sales an hourwhen everyone else was like
five.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
So that's what.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
I did, I just narrowed it down.
What people cared about?
Big deals, big five.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
So that's that's what it does narrowed it down what
people cared about big deals,big deals, inverted commas, like
it wasn't huge, but that's howI did it.
Yeah, yeah, how good, okay, soyou were.
You were selling credit cardinsurance, pretty much, pumping
out 21 sales an hour.
That must have been prettyintense.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
It was intense I mean you wouldn't keep that up
forever.
But um, I I did that for a yearand then they made me a sales
coach.
I didn't get any training, itwas just like listening to
people's calls in this backoffice and then come out and
tell them what they did wrongand make them better.
So I was a sales coach for ayear for this huge company
part-time and then did that fora year, did really well, and

(10:38):
then they made me a team leader.
So I'm like this 20-year-oldguy running a team of 30
outbound sales people having noclue about leadership, no clue
about how to do this.
I remember just saying to himin my first team meeting right,
guys, the bottom five are goingto get fired.
It was as simple as that.
Unless your basic level, salesis this number.

(10:59):
And everyone just went and uptheir game and I became number
one sales manager.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
That's what I've been doing wrong.
That's no.
So we just need to threatenpeople's jobs.
Yeah, this is like.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
This is like 1999 mate this is an unscrupulous way
of operating.
But, um, it was a look, it'sthe most, it's the worst way to
lead.
It was a fear kind of way ofdoing it, but I didn't, I knew
no different and I'd heard thatcisco did that um in the us and
I thought, well, I'll just dothat.
That was about as far as itwent.
Yeah, interesting.

(11:28):
And so when did you get intorecruitment?
So sorry, yeah, I digressed alot.
So I came out of university andwanted sales and I was looking
at sales jobs, um, and I lookedat um I can't remember the
newspaper it's not dissimilar toyou guys where you were the
fastest growing company startup.
There was one calledProgressive IT Recruitment.
It's part of S3 Group, but atthe time it was just Progressive

(11:49):
and their nickname wasAggressive Progressive and I was
like I want to go and work forthe fastest growing, best one.
So I just reached out to themand got this interview and I
remember going into theiroffices.
This was in Leeds in the UK, ukand there's like a couple of
porsches parts outside and I waslike I'm already halfway in
here um interviewed them, gotoffered, and I did a couple of

(12:10):
other interviews within the samegroup, and one of them, by the
way, this is 2002 I think it wasum off the you know dot com
boom kind of thing.
And one of the interviews theguy asked me it was a wolf of
wall street kind of moment.
He asked me how much I thoughthe earned last month and I was
like, well, I've been earning300 pounds a week, five grand.

(12:31):
And he pulled out his payslipit was 47 000 pounds, wow.
And I was like, yeah, all rightI'm a recruiter, yeah, as a
recruiter he was.
I think he's a manager or seniorrecruiter or something, but
this is like these were glorydays, I think, in the uk and I
was like I'm in and so, um, thatgot me into recruitment who is
who's the donnie in?

Speaker 2 (12:49):
is it donnie in in wolf of wall street?

Speaker 3 (12:51):
what's his name?
Donnie?
Yeah, so you were the donnie.
There was a girlfriend, did youcall?

Speaker 1 (12:56):
your girlfriend, I think I did, but I um, I didn't
join that company because I justdidn't like that guy, um, but I
thought recruitment's it for menow and I ended up going to a
few different interviews butinterviewing with this company
called Robinson Keene andRichard Robinson and this is
very old school so only theolder school people who listen
to the podcast will recognizethese names.
But he was the MD of MichaelPage in the UK globally, I think

(13:20):
, actually before Terry Benson,who was before Stevingham, who's
before the most recent one.
And I went through thisinterview process and it was a
small firm, it was like 20people.
But he said to me you knowMichael Page, the flagship in
the UK at the time they were.
He said you can go and work fora manager who's got three years
experience on Michael Page.
We can learn from me.
And I was like I want to learnfrom you and so I joined that
firm and that got me intorecruitment Nice, and so that

(13:43):
was your first stint intorecruitment.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Correct, where did you?

Speaker 1 (13:45):
recruit.
It was accounting and finance.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Accounting and finance yeah, and then correct
me if I'm wrong, but then youmoved into starting your own
agency.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah.
So I learned some incrediblethings in that environment.
As an example, we weren'tallowed to send CVs.
When you picked up a job youknow we were taught to, you had
to sell the candidate over thephone, you had to lock them into
the interview and the CV wassent half an hour before the
interviews took place, as aninterview aid versus a
decision-making tool.
So it just taught you to trulyunderstand your candidates.
And he would say would yourather be trying to think of who

(14:22):
he used as an example at thetime, like Messi's agent, or
would you rather be looking fora number 10 for man united?
And I was like miss his agent.
He went yeah, you put himanywhere you want.
He goes align yourself the bestcandidates in the market only
and reverse engineer the wholeprocess.
So that's all I did.
So I got into this way ofoperating which was a little bit
more search mentality versusrecruitment mentality.

(14:44):
But I just started flying andmaking all this money and I was
like this recruitment thing'seasy man like, and so that got
me into it.
And then from there I was liketwo years in and my mate, who
was in another agency, wanted tostart and I said I'll just come
in, I'll come and start abusiness with you.
And that's how it all happenedand I had no idea at all what I
said two years recruitmentexperience pretty much

Speaker 3 (15:06):
yeah, welcome to the two-year club, brother.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, yeah I had 14, 15 months and similar to declan.
We started our own.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, it was just incredible naivety, I think.
But I was just so overconfidentthat I could do this because I
only ever seen three years ofthis telesales thing where I've
just gone through the ranks inthe biggest company in the world
and then shot the lights out inearly recruitment.
I was like I'm just going torule everything.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, so it's just got into it from there.
So tell us about starting yourown agency.
What was it like?
How was the relationship withyou and your you and your mate.
That started together.
Kind of it was a bit of.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
I'll be honest, it's a bit of a calamity at the start
because I'd done kind ofpolished high-end recruitment.
He'd done labor hire right.
So we were like let's just dothe company together, which
didn't really work.
And he was a bit older than me,I think he was about 40 so he
understood, he understood pnls,he understood the commercial
aspects and I just knew how torecruit.
That's why I said why don't Ijust come and do the recruitment

(16:02):
, do the permit, start to fundsome of the labor hire aspects
that you need, and then we'lljust kind of like work
symbiotically together and it'dbe great.
But there was no kind of brandaround what we're doing, it was
just go for it.
And you know, I was meetingwith the accountant.
I didn't know what we weretalking about.
I was just so far out of mydepth.
I think it took me a year and ahalf to kind of start to figure

(16:28):
shit out.
And I look back now and go man,if I could do it again, it'd be
an entirely different way ofdoing it, but it worked
eventually.
But what happened through thatone and a half years is I saw
that he was doing big pitches.
They used to do like call centerworkers and things like that,
or lots of warehouse workers andI saw the margins he was making
on it might have been like 150pounds a week or something on
one person, but he was pickingup 30 people at a time and I was

(16:50):
doing the rough maths on thisand the effort he was putting in
.
I thought to myself I can pitchbetter than you can.
Why don't you use me to go andwin all these pitches rather
than doing the full 360?
So I ended up just being thisperson who went out and got in
front of big companies like thebanks and started to win their
call center work and we wantAmazon and all the warehouse
people for Amazon and thingslike that.

(17:11):
So it's an odd way to approachit, but we were figuring it out
as we go and this is 20 yearsago, right, so you know it was
just we just went after themoney.
Really, it did that work.
It did work.
The UK had just come into theEU and we could get all these
workers from overseas, and sosuddenly our talent pool opened

(17:32):
up, particularly for moreunskilled workers.
So not unskilled, but callcenter people, things like that,
so you weren't tapping into thesame resource.
So I could go to Amazon and say, if you need 200 people, I can
bring you 200 people in aboutthree weeks, and what.
So it was exactly like that.
So that's how it started towork.
And I remember winning amazonand I sat in front of this you
know a couple of people in thereum opened my laptop up and put

(17:54):
and had the most ordinarypresentation you've ever seen
about what we could do and howwe could do it.
I'd built it and it was just sounpolished but it was just all
we had.
Um and she gave us a shot andshe said that, uh, she did it
because it was just authentic,which I think it was was average
.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Glover.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
But you know she liked us and so there were
things like that, just learningsalong the way, and we got lucky
on some.
You know we missed a few, butit worked.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
What did you learn about having a business partner
that you didn't consider beforelaunching the business?

Speaker 1 (18:22):
together.
What did I learn about having abusiness partner?
Look, it really was all thethings like the licenses we need
and just how often you speak toyour accountant about certain
things, and I had no idea aboutpayrolling temps, because I'd
never really done it, and wewere invoice financing all the
temps we were putting through,and that became a huge, huge

(18:47):
issue because we had so manystarting to come through and the
bank would lend you 85% of youryour invoice, but you still
have to find 15, and then, whenyou start having hundreds of
temps out there and it was thatpoint we had to bring in an
extra person who was this localwealthy guy we knew to start
funding a lot of this stuff.
So it became a real cash flowissue.
So that would probably be thebiggest thing managing my cash
flow or our cash flow, puttingmoney aside at the right time

(19:09):
for different um tax moments andI had no clue about you're
running hard and fast.
And then you started findingroadblocks in your own business
because you're running so fast Iended up winning too much that
we couldn't sustain it and wejust, you know, we didn't have a
real mapped out plan of growth.
It was just like go, yeah, andthat was it, which sounds great,
but but it just wasn't.

(19:30):
It became more headaches, moreheadaches, more headaches, and
it took away from the love thatI had for recruitment and sales.
I was getting caught up in somany different things like legal
issues and, just you know whenyou're bringing in migrant
workers in effect, lots of stuffgoes wrong.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
So what was the outcome of that?
So you got an investor inbecause you were making so so
many placements.
You're getting all this moneyin.
Yeah, you thought okay, we needmore cash.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
The banks aren't going to lend us any more cash
the gfc and the bank startedsaying you know, we, they
started off lending us, I think,90 or 95 percent of the invoice
and it got to 90, then it was85, and then it was 80, and it
was the credit crunch right 2008.
And I was like and it all toohard, and I just split up with
my long-term partner.
And I was like you know what?
And I sat down with the boysand I said I want, I want to get
out, I just want to leave andstart again.

(20:17):
I was still pretty young, Ithought I could do something
something more.
Um, and I just we, we agreed ona, an amount and they bought me
out.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Really yeah.
So how did you come to this?
I mean, that's a big decision.
Like you went in all thisbusiness, you're killing it,
you're crushing it.
You get an investor in to helpwith the cashflow.
Hopefully did that ease any ofthe pressure, or did that create
more complications with yourrelationship?

Speaker 1 (20:43):
No, it is the pressure.
We had a.
We had a good relationship.
I, honestly, um site is not,wasn't?
It wasn't really a businessdecision so much I'd split up
with this person and I.
We had multiple houses togetherand we just I just wanted to
get out of dodge and to thepoint.
That's why I came to australia.
I'd never been to australia.
I remember thinking I just wantto go as far away from this
situation as I can.

(21:03):
I was heartbroken, basically,and so I just thought get rid of
everything, take the money, goand do it again.
You can do this again.
You've done it before.
You can do it again.
So it was.
It was that you know and youknow everything was getting
tougher and the financial crisis.
So there's just a few things.
So I wouldn't say it was thesmartest business move I made,
but at the time it was necessaryfor my well-being.
Gotcha okay yep.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
So big life decision, big life decision left your
business, got a payout relocatedto australia, yeah, um.
And then you decided to joinPage.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah, because and I'd never been to Australia and my
next door neighbour was likewhere are you going to go in
Australia?
Because I'd just startedtalking about Australia and I
said Sydney, I guess, and hewent go to Brisbane.
And I was like, yeah, sure.
So I reached out to MichaelPage and they connected me with
a guy called John O'Wiles whoused to be the MD of Page in
Australia and he happened to bein the UK at the time.

(21:52):
So I met with him and just alegend of a guy and he was like,
well, why are you here, why?
Why do you want page?
Why do you want Australia?
Why do you want Brisbane?
Um, so I kind of gave him thebit of the story.
Uh, and I my recruitment careerin this business that was the
ex-empty of Michael Page.
So I feel like I've experiencedit.
I want to see if I can do it inthe big pond with you boys.

(22:15):
I want to prove myself that Ican do it.
A lot of my career has beendoing stuff that I haven't done.
Prove to myself I can do it.
So they put me in to Page inBrisbane, just as the GFC
started in Australia.
Good times, yeah, good times,yeah, good times Okay.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
So you relocated, relocated.
Did you know anyone inAustralia?
No one, so you were by yourself.
Yep, the office in Page.
Can you describe that Like?
What was it like?

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, it was on I think it's still on Creek Street
in Brisbane and they'd justdone this massive recruitment
drive of graduates, and sothere's about 50 people in the
office 35 were graduates.
Right Less than no recruitmentexperience, no life experience.
But I think they've got a bitoverconfident about how good
they could be and how quickly ittook to get these people up to

(23:04):
speed.
So they all landed and withinabout a couple of months they
all got made redundant and a lotof the remaining people got
made redundant and I rememberthinking I'm gonna be going
straight back to the uk herebecause I've just landed and you
know a bit more of an expensiveresource than a grad.
But they kept me and they gotrid of lots of other people and

(23:24):
at that time there was probablylike eight of us left well out
of 50 out of 50.
There was finance one person,there was me doing sales,
there's one person doingmarketing and we just went
through the GFC, just recruiting.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
What did you learn about going through the GFC that
you wouldn't have learnedotherwise?

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Hustle, I think, because I remember you know
you'd add Chase, right, you'd goand see, you'd see an advert
and it would say posted at 1041.
And you're like, oh, it's 1046.
You call and you'd like thethird agency to call them and
you're like, geez, um, it wasjust an intense.
You just had to be on your gameall the time.
Um, and even when I became amanager and built, started

(24:07):
building a team back up afterthe GFC, I remember saying to
them and again, not the best wayto to leave, but I remember
saying if there's an ad in yourmarket and it's not been chased
by you within the day, anyoneelse in the team can go after it
.
So it was just on the phonehustle, chasing things down, and
it just the team was like youknow, probably because finance

(24:32):
is always Michael Page, but itwas right up there with them.
It was a good operation.
What did you recruit withinsales as in like the roles, it
was anything from sales execs tosales directors.
I've recruited probably one ofmy favourite ones.
I recruited a global salesmanager for a private jet
business.
And do you want me to share thestory?
It's a fun story.
We get to the final stage.
It's like a 400K a year job,something like that.
We get to the final stage.
They've got one candidate theywant and they call me and say

(24:55):
right, we want to get you andthis candidate onto our boat.
On Tuesday morning we're goingto go out a bit to sea and see
some of our jets take off andyou're going to truly appreciate
what we do and how we do it.
So me and this candidate stoodthere in Hamilton at this kind
of dock I think it is waitingfor this boat to come up and we
get on.
It's like 9am on a Tuesday.
We get on and there's a coupleof girls there.
They start giving us some beersand we're like this is awesome

(25:17):
right, so we're there this ishow I want to close every deal.
And um gets to about midday andwe've seen this, and then the
owner of the business sits downand starts negotiating on salary
and we're pretty cooked by nowand all these beers and I
remember thinking schooled ushere.
They totally schooled us.
Then the candidate took like50k less than he wanted because
we're a bit tipsy and that wasit.

(25:38):
And I was like, oh, that's whatI know yeah, great 50k, day
it's awesome.
What a genius move from the guy.
But, um, that was a fun one torecruit.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, wow that is actually.
That is actually a genius move.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
We should have taken him out on a boat ride.
We should have.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Apparently, we knew that, yeah, so you're recruiting
sales, you're building the teamup, sales marketing digital
Started with just sales but yeah, I started building the team up
from sales, then addedmarketing and you know the guy
who's running marketing left andso they put under me and then
we launched digital under that,because at the time digital
wasn't really a standalone thing, it was kind of marketing

(26:14):
digital.
So we kind of bumped ittogether.
I grew that team to about 10people in Brisbane and I've got
to say at the time there was noone really competing with us.
We were, you know, you hadn'treally done much, had just
started.
No one was out there doing it,so we were kind of owning the
show.
We had someone at walters, umguy called callan who was doing
marketing really well, but saleswas kind of owned by us.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
What was the strategy to grow the team?
Was there any kind of secretformula, framework process like
how did you go from one personto know to hire the second
person to know to hire the thirdperson?
What was that strategy to build?

Speaker 1 (26:49):
the team.
I would love to say it was allmy strategy.
But you're kind of in those bigorganizations you kind of just
have to adhere to their strategyand and their strategy at the
time was, if you can get a deskto do 25 to 30k a month for like
six months, you add a newperson and it's probably a good
thing to scale a business, butnot so great if you're that
recruiter.
I remember adding someone.

(27:10):
They did an amazing job.
We split your desk, sorry, butwe got a new person split your
desk and it kept doing that andso you'd lose a lot of momentum.
You lose a lot.
People didn't love it, right,but it was just.
That was their formula.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
What would you have done differently?
Like?
Would you just get people like,say, instead?
Get people like, say, insteadof having 10, 500 K people
billing, would you then run therisk of having $5 million
billers?

Speaker 1 (27:37):
No, I think what.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
I would have done is how would you do it now?

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question.
I think I would have.
I would still obviously look toscale up in the same market,
but I wouldn't just split it inhalf vertically, if that makes
sense.
I'd have kept the person who'ddone all the work to retain some
of the higher ground effortsand control the sea level, those
kind of things and rain make,and then add below them and
groom them up, um, and theneventually have that person just
doing just exec, senior execstuff in the market because

(28:02):
that's really what you want todo when you start in recruitment
in a big firm.
You want to work the top of thefood chain at the end, and so
that gives you a bit of a pathfor everybody.
I'd say so that's potentiallywhat I'd do.
Um, yeah, going after otherverticals and other areas is is
good, but you run the risk ofjust dropping somebody into a
new space and it not working andthen you think they're not good

(28:24):
when it could be the market.
So I think I'd look at it a bitlike that how'd the us
opportunity come about?
with page.
Yeah, so, um, I'd reached acertain level in Brisbane.
The regional director wasn'tgoing anywhere.
I didn't really fancy Sydneyand one of the previous guys in
the office had moved over to theUS and was raving about how

(28:44):
great it was and it was kind ofthe Wild West, but it was just
uncharted territory.
And so I started speaking tosome of the internal senior MDs
of Michael page around the worldon opportunities and if you're
a good performer, you could.
Everyone wants you right.
And so there was opportunitiesin China.
There's opportunities indifferent parts of the world,
but the U?
S seemed like the coolest oneto do because they wanted me to

(29:07):
launch a new office in.
Dallas and Texas.
I had visions of going to theseAmerican football games and
just doing this and it'd beenreally fricking cool.
And the guy who sold me thedream was just this Brazilian
guy.
Latino made everything exciting.
I won't say much more about him, but you know, he just really
sold me this opportunity and Ithought, why not?

(29:28):
Let's just do it, Cause I wasconvinced that I wanted to be
the senior MD of Michael Page.
I just thought I want to get tothe top of the chain, top of
the food pile, whatever you callit, in the company that I
respected the most.
This is how I'm going to do it,and so that's.
That's how it came out.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
So what was the offer specifically?
Like, what did they paint foryou that got you really excited,
other than like football games?
Yeah, that was mine, my ownpicture cheerleaders way.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
I mean, um, no, it was, you know this guy.
Um, he'd started the firstoffice michael page in brazil
and he'd grown it to 20 officesor something and he was a bit of
a legend and his pitch was Iscaled businesses, I find mds, I
groom mds into you know,running big parts of michael
page, and I was like, okay, well, that's tick one.
He goes we're in houstonalready.

(30:18):
You know we're flying inhouston, we're going to start
there, you're going to map itout, we'll go and choose an
office, we're going to choosewhich disciplines we're going to
do and then, two months in,we're going to send you there.
You're going to hire people,you're going to choose what
you're going to recruit andyou're going to go and we're
going to protect you fromHouston while this launches in
terms of covering costs and allthat kind of good stuff.
So it was a low risk thing tosay.
I started an office for abusiness like Michael Page and

(30:43):
so that's what I did.
I get there, everything's goingto plan.
Start mapping it out.
Start, you know, connectingwith senior execs and there was
so much business over thereYou're like, connecting with
like senior people at Coca-Colawas easy, you know.
They'll just connect with you.
Let's chat.
Americans have a slightlydifferent view of doing business
.
They're just really open to it.
And then about two months in,the guy just said I'm not doing

(31:09):
Dallas anymore and I did notlike Houston and I was like I
just don't think what didn't youlike about it.
You have to go to know what youdon't like about it, but it's
I'm trying to think of the bestway Like it's huge, which is
great, but I just didn't lovethere was no culture there.
I run a lot, I do a lot ofexercise.

(31:29):
There was no culture there.
I run a lot, I do a lot ofexercise.
There was no greenery, it wasjust kind of industrial oil, you
know that kind of stuff.
I didn't love it and honestly,taking that opportunity away
from me really annoyed me, like,and I was like I've left my
entire life to do this, um, andit's not there anymore and for
you it's just a decision,whereas for me this is a

(31:50):
life-changing decision.
So he was like we'll just stayin houston.
I was like I'm not, and so Istarted thinking about going
back to australia at that point.
So then they had to find a rolefor me and I think I think they
punted a guy in san franciscoand just said we've got, we
found something for you, andthat's how it all came about
okay, so san fran back then waslike the holy gra, like the holy

(32:11):
grail of like tech startups.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Correct, it was like I think it was the highest.
San Fran back then was thehighest income per person on
average across the whole entirecountry.
Yeah, the housing was crazyexpensive.
Salaries were off the chartsbecause there was, like all
these massive tech companies.
So when you landed in San Fran,was it the same strategy?

(32:33):
Let's like map the market,figure out what verticals like.
What was the plan of attack forSan Fran.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
San Fran had always failed for Michael Page
historically.
They'd put big MDs in becauseit's a glamorous office to run.
Right, you've got San Fran andLA and California and they're
both pretty cool.
But San Fran was tech, startup,hyper growth world right, it
was cool, um, but it alwaysfailed.
And I ended up meeting theregional md, the guy who ran all

(33:00):
of it, um, and we had a good.
He was english, so it was easyjust to connect with him and we
had a good conversation and Isaid I think you're just putting
the wrong people into running.
You're putting people in whoare so far up in the business
that they don't know how to getinto it anymore and actually
realize what's happening.
You get out in front of clientsand change your model a bit.
As an example, everyone worepinstripe suits, you know, white
collars, white cuffs, red ties,like like it was wall street in

(33:23):
the 80s.
But you're going and meetingstartups.
Ceos are 22 wearing hoodies ina starbucks and there was just
they just did not connect and sowe were just not getting a
piece of the right market thatwas there.
And so the first thing I saidis to my boss I said we just
can't use the old Michael pagemodel of how you present
yourself over here.
We need to really change ourtalk track, change how we

(33:44):
approach the market.
We need to be stable,organization.
It's going to support thembeing creative and and going to
the hyper growth thing, butwe'll make sure you get the
right people.
So we had to change a bit ofhow we approached it.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
How did he feel about that?
Was he like glover, come on,mate.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Or was he like look, it's not working what we're
doing, let's he was yeah, he waslike that, like he was um
really fiery, emotional kind ofguy.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
He threw a table at me once um because a table,
flipped a table at me becausewhat'd you do?

Speaker 1 (34:10):
well, there's a in texas.
There's a?
Um, you can, it's called fireat will policy.
You don't need a reason, youjust pull out a gun.
No, well, you could.
But I'm actually carried a lotof guns around there, which is
freaky for me but you could justsay it's not working, see
nothing, no reason, and it'sjust just a state kind of policy
.
Right, it doesn't always sitthat ethically with me, because

(34:32):
I think people deserve a chanceand all the good stuff, right?
Um, he made me fire somebodythat he'd hired and then he said
she's not working.
She's like three weeks in, hadno recruitment experience and
had no time with him, wasn'teven in my team, and he said to
me you need to fire her.
And I said you need to fire herbecause it's your hire, she
sits over here and just becauseI'm one of the more senior
people in your business hereshouldn't fall on me.

(34:53):
I was like I just didn't agreewith it and he went okay, I'll
be in on monday and I'll do itwith you.
He just called in sick, um, soI had to do it and I was
ropeable about the whole thingand when he eventually came back
I had a bit of a disagreementwith him.
I was a bit more fiery at thetime and he flipped the table
and just we had a bit of anargument as much as I can give
youon that, um, he was a great

(35:15):
operator, um, but no longer withmichael page.
Yeah, just don't give him toomany tables.
Yeah, pretty much, but it'sjust the latino kind of you know
, energy, I guess but ultrapassionate ultra passionate.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, there we go exactly.
And self-sipping tables,brother.
So what was San Fran like?
Did you turn it around?
What was?
The outcomes yeah we did whatwere the strategies.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
They did a lot of finance.
I pivoted more to the sales andmarketing side.
We started to go after likesome smaller VC funds and like
different private equity typecompanies rather and say you
know who's on your list.
Can we type companies ratherand say you know who's on your,
you know your list?
Can we support them and startto go a bit more to the top
rather than just trying to feedit the non-decision makers?
If that makes sense, go a bitmore to power.

(35:56):
So we started to do a bit ofthat.
We focused on sales andmarketing heavily, did less
finance Cause Robert Half werein San Francisco and Robert Half
were in like the buildingopposite us and they had 4, 4
000 people in the us and they'rejust finance pretty much.
They do a bit of other stuff,but it was like we're not going
to take them down right, but wecan build out from this market.

(36:17):
So we, so we did that, um, butit was an incredible place to be
and I remember.
I remember walking to work andbecause obviously san fran
itself is not where all thebusinesses is all like in you
know, silicon valley but there'djust be these buses lined up
and it would say things likeuber and lyft and mtv, and you
see people getting on differentbuses, going off to do their

(36:37):
thing and I remember getting ameeting with like um, you know,
cfo for um ebay which I'd never,would have, never get that in a
million years and in some otherparts of the world.
But he, he wanted to meet and Iwent to their offices and had
like beach volleyball courts inthe middle of their complex and
it was just this amazing thingand he said ed, we just can't

(36:58):
find people and I was like why?
He said because everybody wantsto go and work for a startup
and take a piece of the pie, umand be like early in there he
goes.
So nobody wants to be a part ofebay anymore, um, unless they
just want a job.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
And nobody here wants a job, so that's when I was
like, okay, we need to changethe messaging for a company like
that, Um and as in, how do Ichange his kind of recruitment
strategy?
Yeah, when you go to market.
How do you overcome thatobjection when everyone's got
this fixed mindset that you knowyou need to only be in a
startup to you know, get yourbig payout and when they sell
like what did you?
Did you have a success story.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Like no, I didn't, which is why I'm hating this
question, but it's.
But not everyone becomes asuccess story.
That's the first thing.
But everybody still has a life.
They need to, you know,maintain and things like that.
So you just to him it was likewe need to change the profile of
the person we're going to get.
Like, you know, if you're notgoing to get these rising
hotshot stars which you probablydon't want in the business,

(37:53):
then anyway, correct, correct.
So the biggest thing I'vealways learned about recruitment
is you've got to expandeveryone's expectations.
You expand the client's view ofwhat they're going to get,
because everybody wants thatunicorn right.
Then you expand theexpectations of the candidate.
You want 200K, it's more likelygoing to be 150.
So let's just sit somewhere inthe middle, and once you've got
more of an overlap you'll landright.

(38:14):
And so it was those.
It was just pushing the clienta lot more on.
How did you do that?

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Because how did you do that?
Because I know there'll be alot of recruiters being like
mate.
That sounds all well and good.
I'm going to focus on expanding, but what's the first step to
showing someone how to expand aconversation?
Like if we have a client andthey give us a brief and they're
hell rigid.
Maybe the example could be youknow, you're a software company,
you've taken the contingentapproach, you've flooded the
market with your briefs to allthe recruiters and you're saying

(38:40):
, hey, best recruiter wins, andthen you're trying to reposition
that as trying to win itretained or exclusive.
Like what would you do?

Speaker 1 (38:48):
So I mean, typically, when people from the client
side work at a company, they'rethere for a number of reasons
and when you ask them whythey're there, why they join,
what are some of the reasons forkeeping them there?
Very rarely you hear just thefinancials, right, and but
that's a thing that recruitersget hung up on, which is, oh,
it's not paying the right amount, they won't be interested.
That's the more experience I'vegot in my career.

(39:09):
I've realized that there are somany other dynamics to it, and
so when you speak to yourclients and understand you know
why they're there, then you canuse that.
Okay, so why did you join ebay?
I mean, might have been money,been money, but why are you
still here?
Okay, what if I get somebodywho you know is paying a bit
more or paying a bit less, butthese are the things that are
important to them.
Do you think we can have a realconversation about that kind of
person?
So it's just opening their mindwith their own story.

(39:31):
I'd find, because you know I'vejoined XRecruiter, as an
example, because of the lots ofthings that I think I want to be
a part of that doesn't lookexactly like what I should be
doing as my next move.
Sometimes, you know so, there'slots of reasons, um, but it's a
huge thing and particularlywhen you first start the process
, you do it.
Then you don't wait until acandidate wants something at

(39:53):
final stage to do that you knowso.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
So this is something that I have always naturally
done in my recruitment processis push the boundaries of
expectations, regardless ofwhether or not you know the
outcome.
Yeah, so, let's say a candidatecomes in, they're like, oh, I'm
looking for a hundred K plussuper Okay, okay, cool, no
worries If I, even if the briefthat I'm recruiting might be 110
, naturally just to do theexpanding process is okay If it

(40:20):
was 90, what are your thoughtson there?
Okay, do the expanding processis okay if it was 90, what are
your thoughts on there?
Okay, 95, what are yourthoughts on there?
And constantly just trying tosee how far you can push someone
from a salary standpoint, froma type of business standpoint,
from an interest standpoint, andat least that way you've got,
as you say, you've got so muchmore of a broader aspect to be
able to try and place them.

(40:40):
And if you do that both sideslike that's where the magic's
made.
I think so.
That's.
That's where recruiters get allthe deals.
Done is and you put it reallywell is expanding everyone's
expectations slightly untilthere's an overlap and you can
land it.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
I used to just one question I'd always say or
conversation I'd have withcandidates when they said I want
a hundred K, all right, so anyjobs that come across my desk at
90, I'm not even going to callyou about them, I'm going to say
no straight away.
They'll be like, oh no, no, atleast run them by me.
I said, well, let's just, let'sjust create a baseline, right,
and they go anything over 75kAll right, so over 74k?
no, all right, 70k.

(41:16):
You know those.
I need to know what's a realconversation to be had If we
talk about opportunity costs.
I'm not going to spend 20minutes with you and it's just
going to be a no, right.
I need to know when I call you,we're having a real
conversation about what might be.
So you set all those things upright at the start and Paige
were brilliant I've got to givethem credit and they trained you
exceptionally well around thesethings.
So you know location, salary,career prospects, what's most

(41:40):
important to you, and you'dstart ranking them and then
you'd pull bits down and pushbits up so you could really pull
on the triggers when you got tothat stage the things they
first said when they first met.
You could anchor them to that.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Ed, something that recruiters struggle with is
using the CRM.
How did you go at Pagespecifically with updating your
notes, tagging candidates,making sure that everything was
perfect?
Are you a CRM type of guy orare you just pulling memories of

(42:12):
the conversation you had withthat guy six months ago?
I'll give him a call.
What's your method ofrecruitment?

Speaker 1 (42:18):
I've evolved over the years, but I was terrible at
the CRM recruitment I'll.
I mean, I've evolved over theyears, but I was terrible at the
crm.
Um, but when I started to getgood was I started looking at,
uh, when people start lookingfor jobs again and it's usually
a three-year cycle or somethinglike that right, I started
thinking, oh, maybe there arepeople that I met three years
ago who'll be suddenly in themarket now.
And going back to my earlierconversation around attached to
the best candidates, I was likewho are the best candidates I

(42:39):
was working with three years agogoing to the crm?
Oh, who were they?
So then your memory startsfailing you and I was like I
need to do this better, becauseit's okay living in the moment,
knowing who your candidates were, who you met in the last three
months, because everyone canremember those.
You can remember what you gotfor christmas a few weeks after.
But if I said, deck, what'd youget for christmas last year,
you might struggle to remember.
Remembering a candidate fromthree years ago is an impossible

(43:01):
task unless they were just theone.
So I started to think like thatand then I started to use that
example to people that were inmy teams and saying what if I
could tell you the best fivecandidates in industrial sales
in Townsville?
Now who would be looking?
How valuable would that be toyou?
I'll be a game changer, ed.

(43:21):
So now who will be looking?
How valuable would that be toyou?
I'll be a game changer, ed.
So let's start thinking likethat.
They need to see how it impactsthem, because crms are usually
what people think that themanagers just want to look at to
see what they're doing.
But actually you can use it toyour advantage.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
So I had to change my mindset on that for it to
become valuable how would youchange your recruiter's mindset
today if someone's listening andthey go oh I'm really shit at
the crm.
I'm great at making quickplacements in a three-month
window, but when it comes torecalling candidates from two
years ago maybe it's they're dugin my email somewhere.
I've got to remember their name, or linked in them like what.

(43:52):
What are some of the strategiesor the processes that maybe
someone can take away right nowto start being more organized?

Speaker 1 (44:01):
I think for me something I used to do all my
notes at the end of the week,which is a really bad call,
because you get to yourcandidate notes and go tier two.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
You just can remember .

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Do it in the moment, honestly, because you're, you
come out from a candidateinterview, you're excited about
them, you remember it.
Do it then, and there, um, andthen you go back on your notes
and I used just put like littlecode words into my notes which
just help me kind of triggerwhat they're about, and I'll go
all right, that's it.
So do it in the moment.
It will be valuable to you inthe future and even if it's that
extra two placements a yearthat could take you to you know

(44:36):
the next high achievers thing orit could be that extra 30 grand
you need for that deposit.
Whatever it is, attach it tosomething that's important to
you, um, and stay focused on itand do it in the moment.
That's probably the best I'vegot to answer that love that.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah, no, that's.
That's really really good.
Um, so you've had a reallysuccessful career at page.
Why did it end?

Speaker 1 (44:56):
um, I had to go back to the uk like, um, some family
stuff, um, mum wasn't well, justthings like that went back to
the UK.
And then I was in London.
It was cold, it was miserable.
My partner at the time gotmugged and I was like I really
want to go back to Australia.
And so for me, at the time I wastalking to my old MD of Michael

(45:19):
Page, a guy guy called SimonMeyer, who was just brilliant,
brilliant human but reallyentrepreneurial type guy, and
he'd said I'm starting a newcompany and I want you involved
in it, but I can't say what itis right now, cause there's some
legal standpoints and thingslike that.
And he said, just stay, juststay ready to go, pretty much.
And I was like, well, how longis it going to be fuzzy?

(45:40):
His nickname was fuzzy.
I was like, how long is itgoing to be fuzzy?
His nickname was fuzzy.
I was like how long is it goingto be?
He goes can't tell you.
And so I was kind of like justin limbo waiting, um, but it
came around and it was a companycalled future you and literally
I was in london in my kitchenat like 5 am talking to him, one
of the other founders and justthree or four people in the

(46:00):
background were like hi ed, hied.
These are people that I reallyrespected through my career.
We're all joining and I thoughtto myself, oh, he's bringing
the band back together.
This is amazing.
I want in on this.
And it was just a dream, thatthe hopes and dreams of what
that business could have beenjust really got me.
And then it was back inAustralia and it was all this
good stuff.
So that kind of pulled me out,because the other option was to

(46:22):
go to a big, big organization.
But again, challenging myself, Ithought yeah, it's a startup,
but with people who are peoplewho know me, my capabilities.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Why didn't it live out to its full potential?

Speaker 1 (46:33):
I mean, there's a number of reasons and I want to
be very delicate around thisbecause I've still got an
incredible, incredible amount ofrespect for all the people in
that business that I work withand I think they went a bit too
hard too soon.
They brought in a lot offirepower and, like some of the
people that are bringing in,you'd be like they could be
running this business.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
I remember at the time I was gobsmacked.
It was like wow, this, thisagency.
Was that when we just got intorecruitment Slightly after, was
it 2016?

Speaker 1 (47:03):
2017, 2016, around there, yeah, true, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
And I'm looking at the-.
I'm pretty sure I copied one ofthe videos on the Future U
website because I was like, well, there's like a skydiver or
something and it's like pink andblue or something like that.
And I looked at Future U,looking at all of these absolute
guns thinking these guys,everything they touch just turns
to gold, yeah, yeah.
It was like it felt like ashoe-in.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, yeah, I think the concept was creating a super
boutique which was just thebest recruiters in their market.
We'll do less disciplines, ifyou like, than, say, a Walters
or a Page and we'll just be likeslightly bigger than a boutique
, but not as big as amultinational and we'll just
have the best people, right,that was the concept.
And then we went out prettyhard and I was based in

(47:48):
melbourne and the guys who ranmelbourne um guy, I'm still
really good friends with a guycalled joe vise um and a guy
called mark richardson.
They were incredible operatorsand melbourne kept to like a
size.
They kept it to like 15, 20people and Melbourne was just
shooting the lights out andSydney they added so many people
they were just getting a bitoverexcited and I think that

(48:09):
part of the business wasn'tdoing its bit, I think.
And we ended up doing like 19disciplines and I remember
saying at the time that's morethan Michael Page do, actually.
So I don't think we're a superboutique anymore.
I think we're a super boutiqueanymore.
I think we're just a watereddown multinational um, and at
the time, you know, a fewpartners were having similar
thoughts and um, there's alittle bit of an exodus,

(48:29):
unfortunately.
Because, why?
Because it wasn't, let me thinkof the right way to frame it.
Look, there are some promisesthat are made along the way that
probably weren't going tohappen.
Um, we're all feeling a littlebit of of that.
And then I'd know it justwasn't quite.
It just didn't start to washout like it was told at the
start.

(48:50):
If it stayed to the model wewere told at the start, I think
we might have all stayed.
I think, um, but it just wasn'tquite playing out.
Yeah, that for my and again, Ican't speak for anyone else that
was just my perspective.
Are they still around?

Speaker 3 (49:02):
They're still around 30 staff.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
They're doing really well Like run by Emily, who is
an ex Michael Bajan.
She's incredible, yeah, and shethinks she's got some really
strong people.
They're just in Sydney now,yeah, and I think they've and
keeping it a good size.
I think they're doing reallywell, it wouldn't surprise me.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
She's an awesome leader, because Matt took over
their office in Melbourne with.
Oreck yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah, that's interesting, he knows it well.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Yeah, and then made some interesting like learnings
you got from LinkedIn.
Like to be the head of salesfor mid-market at LinkedIn.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
Yeah, well, there's a couple good guy.
But yeah, at that time, havingcome from San Fran, seeing all
this kind of tech, linkedin wasjust blowing up and at the time
I think I'm trying to think howmany people they had on board.
It was like they used to saythat somebody joins LinkedIn
every three seconds or somethinglike that.
So it's going through thisincredible growth.
Microsoft had recently acquiredthem.

(49:56):
It was really cool and to comeon board and kind of technically
leave recruitment but stayingclose enough that you still you
can touch and feel it had a teamof you know ex-recruiters who
were selling into you knowmid-market companies and small,
medium-sized businesses inaustralia which makes up most of
australia and selling againstrecruiters.
You're selling linkedinrecruited job slots, things like

(50:18):
that.
I thought this is going to be awalk in the park.
And then when you get into itand it was a wonderful time,
incredible people you realizeselling against recruitment is
quite hard because dealing withmid-market companies, they've
probably got like one HR personor talent acquisition person
here's 10 grand for a LinkedInrecruiter license and it will

(50:39):
save you all this money.
But they're like, yeah, butit's a lot more work for me and
also I only recruit onemarketing person a year and I
haven't said the opportunitycost of them doing that actually
started to really make senseBecause so many companies like
now we're just happy to pay themoney to recruiters because we
know what we get.
I haven't got the time to doall this.
It's not the best use of mytime and use of my time.
And then you start.
I started to remember all thereasons what about the key part.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
when you said about um, they wanted someone to blame
and keep accountable.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, so that was like I had numerous
conversations with um people intalent saying, no, if I don't
get somebody and I've usedMichael page to do it.
Uh, we can say we hired one ofthe, the, the.
What well, we used one of thebest recruiters out there and
they couldn't deliver on it,Whereas when it's them, they
failed.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah, recruiters out there, just add that to your
pitch.
Guys, I will be your scapegoatIf this goes wrong.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Come to me.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
You can blame me.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
But you know we used to talk about it a lot in
recruitment you do 10 interviewsa week with candidates
specifically in your niche.
So over the course of the yearpeople, your view on the market
versus an internal talent personwhen they go to market once a
year and just see who's activeis way different.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
so the quality you get from a recruiter versus kind
of using you know your talentperson is just worlds apart yeah
, I think talent acquisitionwill have, like when we're
talking about ai and all thistype of stuff, there's a lot of
um, like what you said on thepodcast, there's a lot of heavy
admin that talent acquisition do.
That's much different torecruitment.

(52:04):
So I think, like either theirroles will get more redefined or
there'll be certain softwaresthat will be able to do a lot of
the heavy lifting and then toremain successful as a talent
acquisition specialist, you willhave to be able to communicate
to hiring managers better, beable to fill more jobs.
Otherwise, like recruiters aslike the skill of them will just

(52:27):
keep getting greater andgreater because of what we're
doing.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Um, and I see that being a real shift.
Sorry, sorry.
Yeah, there's always going tobe a place for recruiters whilst
we still use interviews to hirepeople.
Right, that's a person toperson interaction, and so that
will always be there as long asit can be the most valuable
thing.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
As long as there's people around, you need someone
to connect everyone Exactly.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
So how competitive was it to get that role at
LinkedIn?
Because I see LinkedIn as alittle bit of like a not like a
boys club, but like a bit of aprestigious you know, you've got
to really be at the top of yourgame.
They only accept really highquality individuals.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Clearly not Blake.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Like every person that I've met with at LinkedIn,
generally operate at a levelthat is impressive, and so you,
being head of sales, that wouldwas that a competitive role to,
I assume.
So I mean what?

Speaker 1 (53:24):
how they split the markets up was kind of
geographically.
So you'd, you know, you'd runan acquisition team, which is me
, which is all signing people upin mid-market, but then we'd
pass, once they're signed up,you pass them over to a team who
were just account managers, sothey used to look for people who
just really hunters basicallyin that space.
And so I think that part makesit competitive, because I think

(53:46):
the more experience you get inrecruitment or sales or whatever
it is, you naturally deviate abit from being a true hunter
because you kind of feel likeI've done the hard yards, I've
done my hunting, I'll hirepeople who hunt around, you know
around me or you know in myteams, and I'll just be kind of
glory kind of person.
I love sales and I love hunting, and so maybe that came across.

(54:07):
I don't know who else was inthe process, who else was in the
mix, but maybe from thatperspective it was.
But the new businessacquisition is I don't know if
it's a dying art, but I don'tthink many people do it that
well or do it with a lot ofscience behind it.
What did you learn at LinkedIn?
Well, some of those things.
I learned that there's a trueplace for recruitment and

(54:29):
actually the pitch can't bereplacing recruitment and it's
something that I've learnedsince in the job that I've done
most recently.
You have to learn how tocoexist in the market with these
people and these organizationsor whatever it is, uh, and find
your place and find your niche.
So it's not just a costexercise.
It's cheaper than recruitment,so you're going to buy.

(54:51):
It's not just a.
You have access to everybodynow, not just who's on um, a
company's database.
You know you have to change andtweak your approach because
people don't always buy in theway you think you need to sell,
so understanding that.
So what I learned at LinkedInwas the discovery aspect has
always been the biggest partjust really qualifying and what

(55:11):
we talked about, the initialkind of interview, really
digging in there, or the initialjob brief or whatever it is.
That's the quality there andthe rest of it.
If you do that right, we'lljust flow through.
So it refined my skills, um,about asking second and third
level questions and diggingdeeper.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
And then Garner mate, like that's, that's a heavy
hitting business.
Can you explain the size of itand the yeah, so yeah who's?

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Gartner is such a unique, unique business it's
sometimes hard to explain, butthere's about 20,000 people
globally and they are anadvisory company.
So I guess the easiest way toexplain it is if I'm a CIO, as
an example, and I've got somebig projects or transformations
that we're doing or whatever youcan, you can have your own

(56:02):
people do it and you know you'relimited by their capabilities
in many ways, like they mightnot be great in ai because it's
so new.
Right, you could hire a bigconsulting firm like a mckinsey
or a bain or someone like thatto come in and you pay them
millions to come in and do thisand they do it and then leave
and take all the ip with them.
Or you you can hire a Gartner,which is you sign up to them and

(56:23):
they basically advise and buildcapability in your own team so
they can do it themselves.
So it's almost like if I'mdriving and you jump in an Uber
and you say take me to thevalley, you're probably just on
your phone the whole time.
You're not seeing how thedrivers get in there, but your
GPS will show you how to avoidthe roadworks and the traffic
and Gartner is helping themavoid the pitfalls that you
might face if you're doing ityourself.

(56:43):
So it was a business that wouldsell access to our people, our
geniuses basically we used tocall them analysts, but they're
just like super smart people incertain parts of technology.
We'd sell access to thosepeople to help them do things
themselves.
That was the concept of it, ifthat makes sense.

(57:06):
So yeah, so I got brought on umrunning a sales team in in
melbourne.
Basically it was a regionalsales manager team of four um
and then within about a monththe other one of the other sales
managers moved on and, um, theyasked me to run both teams.
So then I was running the stateand it's just a bigger job, uh.
And then and that was right atthe start of covid, so I was
doing this all remotely andhadn't met half the team and it
was a really challenging timedid well.
Then I got promoted to runQueensland and I actually got

(57:27):
told by the old GVP that hewanted me to at some stage run a
country.
So he gave me New Zealand torun to, kind of New Zealand's.
Okay if you mess it up, butjust kind of learn your trade.
And then did that for a whileand then and it was running the
sales, basically had sales teams, had account directors or all
managing businesses, and andthen they said, like the

(57:50):
flagship part of Gartner, themost important part we have is
the financial services vertical.
It is the banks, and if we'retalking to any other company in
Australia and we're dealing withyour CBAs and your A and Zs and
we're supporting them andproviding to them, it's like it
just the flow and effect ofdoing that, so he goes, we want

(58:10):
you to run the big flagship partof it.
And so that's what I did andhad to create this entire
vertical and pull these accountstogether, pull these people
together and build the entireteam and go to market strategy
for that part of the business.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
And, uh, it was really tough yeah, well, you
were there for a while yeah, youobviously did a good job did a
good job, like what's thedifferent uh way of selling for
Gartner that you weren'tfamiliar with from page, from
running your own recruitmentagency from LinkedIn, like what
was the style difference, Iguess?

Speaker 1 (58:42):
the main thing when you're doing big, complex
enterprise sales is there's morepeople involved, and so you
used to historically talk aboutpower the person who makes the
decision or the person who canveto the decision but you've
probably got six or seven peoplewho've got power and they've
all got different opinions, andso rounding that together takes
time, and then you want to pointtowards an end game of a closed

(59:06):
meeting, but it's so hard tomanage that, so it becomes very
strategic in terms of managingthe dynamics and you end up
talking about individual keystakeholders.
You might have a 15-person dealto get passed for it to get
signed, and then there's allthese different variables and so
what happens there is you needpeople who can just keep focused

(59:26):
when they're not getting wins.
You know cause.
You might do three deals a yearright, but they're big deals
and imagine going a month or twoand you're not getting that
validation of doing somethinggood.
So it was actually helping themunderstand that you get you
doing a good meeting.
There is the job we've hiredyou to do.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
Yeah, that's what's interesting, why they target so
many recruiters because you canturn a deal around in a week, a
couple of days, so recruitersneed that.
I don't think.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
I would last.
With a sales cycle that long, Ifeel like I would almost get a
bit bored and sad, I love-.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
It reminds me of your printer days.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Yeah, printer days were very similar Three five
year agreements.
You had to just sit around forthree years, until you could
call them back up again and go.
Are you ready?

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
And, yeah, you can't be an anxious person in that
environment because youoveranalyze every single thing
you might've done wrong and thenyou can just hang on to the
thing that wasn't actually thereason, but you've.
You've dissected a meeting somuch with your vp and all these
different people and you couldbe spinning your wheels in the
wrong area.
It's hard sometimes, um, but itultimately taught me that
there's only two things thatmatter in sales.

(01:00:30):
There's only two things thatreally matter um, in in not
recruitment, but power, peoplewho make the decisions and the
urgency.
Why is it happening now?
All the other stuff doesn't.
Does someone want to leave ajob now?
Are they making the decision oris their wife making the
decision?
Those things.
So that's what I love about thejourney with XRecruiter is you
can connect those two dotsreally quickly.
Speaking to the people who makedecisions, why now?

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Why did you join XRecruiter, going from Gartner
top of the game awesome businessgetting paid well to then going
down to Cruder for a smallerbusiness completely?

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
different.
Don't laugh at us, mate.
It was all you guys, mate.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
It was you guys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
But I get what you're saying, but it's like.
So I resigned from Gartnerbased on a number of reasons,
but part of it was I was losingmy love for sales right, and for
some of the reasons we justtalked about, losing my love for
sales, just wasn't enjoyingsome of the things that were
happening there.
And I decided to take some timeout and just reassess.
When was I the happiest I'vebeen in my career?

(01:01:32):
Basically Because I'm justobviously getting older now and
I've decided that I'm not goingto be the MD of these companies.
So I need to do a job that Ijust feel fulfilled in.
And I look back and thought itwas actually in recruitment.
So you know, cards on the table.
I started to explore what myrecruitment career might look
like again If I was to go backin.
Was I going to, you know, joina Michael page again?

(01:01:55):
And I was talking to them and Iwas talking to all these
companies again.
And then I came across you guys, companies again.
And then, um, I came across youguys and then it just got me
excited because I flash back toall the you took your advice
from 20 years ago.
That's what got you here.
I did, I did.
I look back at the things I umgot wrong and if I could do it
again, what would I do?
So there was that um.

(01:02:16):
But it's exciting seeing youguys in the afr, seeing how
you're truly changing people'skind of careers and path, and I
wish I'd had you guys to hold myhand when I did my own company,
to be honest.
But it was those things and andI just felt like it was an
environment I could actuallymake a difference.
If I'm honest, you know youguys are doing incredible stuff,
but there's things that I canbring from my experience that
can help and I thought I journeywith you and that's the true

(01:02:45):
reason is I wanted to be heardin an environment, a career, um,
that I was having and fulfilledin it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Yeah, yeah have being in our side of the fence.
We've almost created a new sideof the fence, I guess.
You know you've got being anemployer, as a, as an agency
owner, you've got being arecruiter, as a payg, you know,
but now we've got like thisthird fence where it's we're an
ex-recruiter, where we'rehelping facilitate both sides,
whether you're an agency ownerto run a better agency or you're

(01:03:10):
a recruiter wanting to startyour own agency.
Being on this side has anythingsurprised you or changed the way
that you look at recruiters orthe industry or like what
recruiters are going through?
I think I was.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
I thought more people would be keener to do it
themselves, really, cause I mean, you've got these incredible
recruiters who making a lot ofmoney for someone else and even
when I was at these bigcompanies, you know you kind of
tell yourself, oh, it's thebrand that's got me's not, it's
you.
Your, your clients deal withyou.
So with that knowledge, I'msurprised there is just not
every single recruiter who'sbilling over 400k should think

(01:03:48):
about going on their own.
That's so.
There's that part, but I alsorecognize that, um, there's lots
of other factors that areinvolved.
But I love the fact you'readding this new dimension to
recruitment.
It's like recruitment didn'texist.
It was just a company and anemployee and they used to join
the dots themselves and thenrecruitment went hey, we can do
this for you, you know.
And now you're saying we'llremove those barriers for you
guys, so you can do it, and Ilove that, um, but I just wish

(01:04:12):
more people believed in their,their capabilities and that they
can do this for themselves,because actually the daunting
part is all the stuff that youguys take care of truly, because
otherwise you're just doingwhat you've been doing for the
last, however many years, butyou get more of the pie.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
That's awesome and um quickly, like what's your, you
know, 30 second, one minutevision of what you see for extra
creative.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Um, look, I would.
I would say, if I did my careerthe other way around, if I did
Michael Page first, did this bigcorporate.
It's hard to leave thatenvironment.
And Blake, we've been chattingabout this it's hard to leave
that environment because youknow there's so you think
there's so much that's involved.
I was fortunate that I did myown thing first and it was just
easy because the concept was goon your own.

(01:04:55):
I went on my own, on your own,go on your own.
So, um, I would like you guys,or us, now just to change the
game even more significantlythan it is and and change it not
just in australia, but overseas.
I think the us is ripe for thepicking.
Like the mentality of people inthe us is go for it, bro, you
know, and that's what you want,there's no fear.

(01:05:16):
Uk is a little bit risk averse,but the us is an amazing market,
so I want to be on this rocketship with you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
You are mate and just see you change the game.
Awesome.
Well, let's go for it bro.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Yo great conversation mate, appreciate it, appreciate
you coming on Pleasure.
Thank you.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherConfessions of a Recruiter
podcast with Blake and Declan.
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

(01:05:47):
love any introductions andremember the rule of the podcast
, like share and recommend it toa friend.
Until next time, bye.