July 20, 2022 • 63 mins
In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking to Danielle and Ben, who are the co-founders of Found by Few is a fantastic recruitment agency that works within the creative field to place amazing talent into amazing businesses.
We talk about how they approach their recruitment, the way in which they support employers and of course, their candidates and how they do this whilst enhancing diversity in the creative space as well.
There's some really great tips for employers and some helpful insights and ways in we can all do to start to think about recruitment in a slightly more progressive way as we move forward through our great resignation period.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Hello and welcome to our newest Zing Learning podcast,
a conversation with in today's episode, we have the
absolute pleasure of speaking to Danielle and Ben, who
are the co founders of Found by Few.
Found by Few is a fantastic recruitment agency
(00:27):
that works within the creative field to really
place amazing talent into really amazing businesses.
Now, the best thing about Fan by Few is the
way in which they approach their recruitment, the way in
which they support employers and of course, their candidates.
And they do this in a way to really
enhance diversity in the creative space as well.
(00:49):
So hopefully you're going to enjoy some of
the fantastic things we talk about today.
There's some really great tips in there as well
for employers, some really great ways in which we
can start to think about recruitment in a slightly
more progressive way as we move forward.
So grab a cup of kick back and have a listen.
(01:14):
Welcome, Danielle and Ben.
I'm going to talk to you both about some really
cool things that you're doing in the recruitment space today.
But I think first, if it's okay with you, do you
want to just introduce yourselves to the listeners, tell us a
little bit about who you are and what you do?
Yeah, thanks.
And thanks for having us on your podcast today.
We're really happy to be here.
(01:36):
So I'm just going to jump straight in.
I'm Danielle.
I'm a co founder and CMO found by few.
I head up our marketing and our commitment
to building a diverse and inclusive workplace.
Excellent, thanks.
Hi, Zoe.
(01:57):
I'm Ben, another co founder in town by few.
My background is entirely in recruitment.
I've been in the industry for 16 years as
a consultant, as a director in another business, and
for the last year, the CEO and proud co
founder of Fan by Few with Danielle. Excellent. Yeah.
(02:17):
I'm so shocked to have you both on today because
I think what we're going to talk about, of course,
is recruitment and some of the aspects to do with
the lack of diversity in lots of different spaces.
But I also know that you have very different
experiences and you're going to have very different perspectives.
And I think that's going to be quite interesting for
the listeners and the different employers and people like that
(02:38):
that are going to be listening to this.
So let's just dive straight in and I'm going
to ask you, and this is definitely out to
both of you because you're co founders, but what
makes Found by Few different to other recruitment organizations?
And you'll notice I use the
word organizations rather than agency there.
I don't know whether that's right.
I don't know whether that's the way
(02:59):
you position yourselves, but yeah, just what
makes you different to other recruiters?
Great question.
I'm going to start on this one.
One thing that makes us different is the fact that
we've got a co founder myself that has zero recruitment
experience and doesn't have a background in recruitment.
(03:20):
But what I do have is the experience of
being a candidate and being on the other side.
And I've worked with some amazing recruiters who the
experience has been great, but unfortunately I've had some
awful experiences too and I'm able to bring that
experience and that insight, sorry, that service to my
(03:43):
dog in the background into the business.
And so we're not trying to reinvent the world.
We're a recruitment agency.
We use a recruitment agency model.
We think it's a great model
that brings immense value to businesses.
(04:04):
For example, in the short space that
we've been running, we've doubled the size
of some product and design team.
So yeah, the model is great and
we are recruitment agency first and foremost.
But one thing that makes us different and one
thing that we're really proud of is the fact
(04:26):
that diversity, equity, inclusion is baked into our company
from the beginning and it informs everything we do
and we champion it in everything we do, whether
it's our marketing, whether it's with our clients and
our partners and internally as well. Yeah. Oh wow.
(04:50):
Good luck following that then.
Yeah, I guess what I would just add to that
is we see ourselves as super privileged to do recruitment.
Like, we're in an amazing position where we
get to help amazing companies grow and we
get to help amazing candidates get jobs.
What we also want to do with that
privileged position is we are like in this
(05:14):
amazing position where you get two perspectives.
And one thing that my experience in recruitment
taught me is that companies really want to
be better with regards to deni.
But one of the issues that you've got is
sometimes people don't know where to turn and I'm
sure you experience this so don't know where to
look and don't know who to talk to.
And I felt that recruitment companies had
(05:34):
this amazing position that they could really
capitalize on it and do better with.
And so we wanted to create a brand, a
recruitment company where you can come to us for
great staff, but also if you are struggling with
DNI, there's a recruitment pilot that you can turn
to who can give advice, basically can help you
with that journey or alternatively your brand.
(05:56):
And you've got amazing values with regard to DNI.
Why would you then want to partner with
a recruitment company that is pretty kind of
like bland, opaque and doesn't get it?
So we haven't reinvented the
wheel with regards to recruitment.
Like, our business model is exactly the
same as most other recruitment agencies.
But I would just say that perhaps our
values and the service that we feel we
(06:18):
can offer is different to some companies. Yeah.
Oh wow, that's so interesting because you've got a case so
there's so many things I want to pick up on there.
There was something around the idea
of the supplier, the partner relationships
that we have with other organizations.
And we were running a session last week for
Impact Bricks and funnily enough, and we were talking
(06:39):
about how you can ethically grow or at least
maintain your business in it in a human way.
And a big part of that is partnering with
other suppliers or organizations or whatever it might be.
They have very good values.
They seem to be aligned to your sort of thing.
So let's say it's not just about people wanting
(07:02):
to step into the di mindset when they're recruiting.
It's actually people that are already doing it and they
want to make sure they continue to do that.
So that's really great.
You've both mentioned there a little bit about the
values you've both mentioned there that you want to
kind of do something a little bit more than
(07:22):
you would expect from most recruitment agencies.
And I'll use that term, that recruitment agency.
Yeah, we're not embarrassed or afraid
to be called a recruitment agency.
No, and you shouldn't be.
And it's so interesting because Danielle, one of the first
things you said was that you've had some not so
great experiences as a candidate and I think anyone that's
listening to this now can resonate with that.
(07:45):
I think I've definitely had some experiences when I
was looking for employment where it's just been hideous.
But I've also had some amazing experiences
and I can remember that person's name.
I remember exactly the company that they worked for.
And actually when they left that company, I
followed them because they genuinely believed in me
(08:08):
and they could see my potential.
And I think that there's something in that with
regards to diversity and inclusion because a lot of
the time there's a lack of representation in organizations,
which means that people aren't necessarily given a chance
and therefore they don't necessarily have the experience, but
they do have the potential.
And I think that there's something in that the recruitment
(08:29):
agencies seem to be missing out on and it's a
real challenge for a lot of employers to change the
mindset of it's not just experience alone, there's lots of
other aspects that need to be looked at.
I've loved watching your agency grow and so quickly in the
last kind of twelve or so months, and the sort of
(08:51):
people that are working with you and the way in which
you go about business I think is quite inspiring.
So my next question is going to be how important is
diversity to you and the way that you do business?
But I guess we'd probably say it's quite important.
But why is it so important to you that diversity
(09:12):
is so at the core of what you do?
It's a huge question with so many different
answers and there's not just a one off
thing why it's really important to us.
I would say that even if you forget the
kind of like the ethical, the moral, the social
positives that come out of the DNI.
I would say that even we run a business that's
based in Brixton in South London, if we aren't able
(09:34):
to create an environment where a diverse set of people
are able to flourish and be good at their job,
then we are wasting what is like a huge tannin
pool in South London of potential employees.
For us, that would be amazing for us,
but if we don't have the environment that
lets them thrive, then we're completely missing out.
Like, for us to be a great company, we have
(09:54):
to create an inclusive culture where people can thrive.
So I think from that standpoint, for us
as a business, in terms of us growing
and hiring staff is incredibly important.
I think then, from another business perspective, if our
company doesn't reflect the diversity of our candidates and
our clients, then how can we best serve them?
So, yeah, outside of, like, this is stuff that
(10:15):
we generally believe in and we're passionate outside of
work, from a purely business perspective, it doesn't make
any sense not to try and build a diverse
and inclusive culture within our company.
I could go on for a long time, but I
would say there are just two bits that jump into
my head straight away and I can't understand why, if
you have a business in London and you've got 8
million people on your doorstep from all walks of life,
(10:37):
from everywhere, that you wouldn't try and create a culture
that can just harness that talent.
And that's what we're trying our best to do. Basically.
Yeah, I love that term, harvest.
That talent might steal that one.
I actually said harness, but yeah, take harvest.
You know what you want to hear.
Right, I'll just add to that.
(10:59):
Obviously, we have web based in Brixton, we
have now business based in Lambeth, being someone
that is born and bred in Lambeth.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, de, IB, whatever term
you like to call it, that has
just been the normal life for me.
(11:19):
Everyday living, growing up in Stratum, one
of the most diverse areas in London.
Yeah, diversity was just an everyday life in
my school years, in every aspect of my
life, until I stepped into a London office.
And that to me is alien.
(11:41):
Whereas the office space, being quite homogenous, seems to
be the norm for someone who's actually grown up
in a city, London, that is completely alien.
And that is something I very passionate about changing
and being a force for change in that.
And, yeah, I hope that gives a good idea
(12:07):
of why diversity, inclusion is so important to me,
because that is my life, that is my experience.
So why would I not want to champion it
and change it for the good of everyone?
I completely agree.
That idea that you grow up and I love Lambeth, I didn't
(12:31):
grow up here, but I grew up here, if you know what
I mean, I grew into an adult when I moved here.
I realized how fantastic this place is.
There's something around the idea of you're, around
people like you in your every day.
You then step into corporate London or London offices
(12:51):
or creative spaces, whatever it might be, and all
of a sudden you're the odd one out and
you're just thinking, how did this happen?
I'm in the same city.
I've just got a train or a tube for a few minutes
and all of a sudden I'm not seeing people like myself.
So I'm a massive believer that representation is so vital,
(13:12):
especially in careers, because what we do see, and I
have this a lot with not fortunately not my clients,
but whenever I talk to new clients, they'll be like,
actually we've got some really great levels of diversity.
And I'm like, brilliant, let's have a look at how
that progresses through the organization and let's have a look
at if there are any barriers in place or invisible
(13:35):
spaces in place that are going to stop people from
this wonderful diversity of those entry level roles at those
kind of lower skilled or lower level roles.
And then what you see and
you've got that homogeneous again.
So the idea that everybody is the same as we
get up towards those more senior or more specialist roles.
So it's really hard to deny it at that point.
(13:57):
It's really hard to say, no, my
organization is really diverse because we have
lots of different people working here.
That's great, but are they moving up?
Are you progressing?
Those people, are they having the same opportunities?
And actually when they're here, do they feel welcome?
Do they feel part of the success of the organization?
And things like that.
(14:18):
So I can't even imagine what it must have been
like to walk in off the streets of Lambeth where
you are just another person walking around in the wonderful
smokers board of South London and then into those spaces.
It's not enjoyable.
So that makes sense as to why this is so important.
Yeah, definitely a lot of what I
(14:43):
talk about publicly on LinkedIn and messages,
I try to raise awareness around.
It is really difficult articulating that experience and putting
it into words, but it's great to see that
it's resonating with a lot of people and yeah,
I just tried to make sure that I can
(15:04):
raise as much awareness as possible, but also help
people turn that awareness into action as well.
That is when I am the happiest,
when I see actual action around it.
And that is something we are
very much committed to as well.
There's something around that
having that meaningful work. Right?
(15:24):
So knowing that you're helping candidates that perhaps
wouldn't have got a look in from some
of these organizations and because you've built such
a strong relationship with your clients and the
employers you're working with, they're going to listen
to you, you're going to put great people
forward that they may not have considered before.
And those people are going to do an amazing job.
(15:45):
They're going to progress through the organization
that is action in itself, right?
Aside from all of the other stuff that's action. Yeah.
And I think you asked us, why
are you different to most recruitment agencies?
But we are a recruitment agency, so
we are still beholden to our clients.
Ultimately, we can only put candidates
in front of our clients.
(16:06):
They can only make decisions.
So myself and Danielle were always like,
well, what can we be doing?
What are we in charge of?
What do we have, like,
proper ownership, proper agency on?
And our communications is one of those things.
As I said, we're in a really privileged
position where we're in between candidates and clients.
That means, like, our network is amazing.
It's looked at by managers, and
(16:26):
it's looked at by candidates.
At the minimum, as a company, we make
sure that we're talking about issues that maybe
people don't feel they have the confidence to
do because they're in another company.
And if they wrote a post about some of the things
that Daniel talks about or some of the things that we
talk about, they might feel, I could lose my job, or,
I don't want to want the heat from this post.
So we try to write about things that other people
(16:48):
may not be in a position to talk about.
And at the minimum, we know
that our clients are seeing it. They know our values.
We know our candidates are seeing it.
They know our values.
And it just means both people are way more
comfortable, but both sets of people way more comfortable
talking about us, talking to us about some of
the issues that they're facing, whether it's in the
interview process, whether it's in that current role.
And, yes, we have this question constantly.
(17:10):
What more can we be doing?
Because we are an agency, we need clients
to hire our staff to get paid.
But at the minimum, we are in charge of
our communications, and we try to make sure that
I've had people come to me and go, you're
not worried about this stuff that you talk about?
It could turn clients off.
And I'm like, no, that's perfect.
If it does turn clients off, then
they're not the right client for us.
And actually, that's not the feedback we get at all.
(17:32):
We get messages from people like, they won't necessarily
write it on LinkedIn, but we'll get messages from
people going, oh, my God, you raised that issue.
I've never thought about it like that.
I'm really grateful.
Thank you for sharing that.
And we do generally believe, and I generally believe
for, like, 15 to 16 years in recruitment.
Most people are good people when they want to do better.
There are bad managers.
(17:53):
Of course they're bad managers,
but there's bad people everywhere.
But most people, they want to be better.
And it's like, unless they read
these posts, unless they understand people's
experiences and they can't be better.
And so, yeah, we just tried to raise
these issues as much as we can.
Yeah, you've used the word privilege a few times, which
is always something that I spend a lot of time
(18:15):
helping people understand what that means because people kind of
get a little bit tense when they hear the word.
But there's something there about being aware of
the privileged position you have between your candidates
and the organization, but also the platform in
which your voice is going to be heard.
Like you said, you've got 15 to 16 years of
(18:36):
experience in recruitment, then you've got tons of years of
experience in that kind of marketing mindset and understanding how
to communicate with people, you put that together, people are
going to listen to what you're saying.
So you've got this amazing platform.
And I do think that when we understand what
our power is, what our privileges, how we can
(18:58):
utilize our platforms, and then we use it to
educate other people, that's so powerful. It's so huge.
It makes such a difference to people,
probably more so than we'll ever realize.
But it's so great that you're getting that feedback from
people because that's obviously going to encourage you to continue
to do that, even on those tough days when things
(19:18):
are really hard and you've maybe had an organization that
you wanted to work with, it turns out that their
values don't align to yours and something isn't as enjoyable
as you would like it to be.
Yeah, interesting.
Okay, I will have to be careful with this, of
course, because we don't want to mention any names, but
what's been the most contentious topic that you've talked about
(19:43):
online or with an employer, maybe directly?
Has there been something that people just are like, no,
I don't want to talk about this at all.
This is not something that we want to
kind of become aware of our clients. Normally.
One of the things is how
do we get more diverse candidates?
How do we start this process?
(20:04):
And there is no silver bullet
to hire more diverse candidates.
And also, if you think diverse candidates in quotation
mark, one group of people that all think and
act the same, then you're not going to succeed.
But yeah, I guess when we like, we make suggestions.
For example, remote working is one of the quickest
ways that you could build a more diverse team.
And then people are like, well, we want people in
(20:25):
the office five days a week still, go get us
this board range of candidates and we try and explain
that, hey, look, being in the office five days a
week tends to suit a certain type of person.
Yeah, I would guess they
were the most contentious arguments.
I really do mean most of our clients are
really good people and they want to be better.
Daniel will probably speak differently about what's the
(20:46):
most contentious thing that perhaps she's right online
and perhaps had the most questions about in
terms of conversations with our clients.
Yeah, it's like they're normally really positive.
I generally mean people like most of
our clients want to be better.
The most frustrating conversation would be the lack
of remote working and how that really does
affect the team that you build.
(21:06):
That would be the most frustrating conversation.
And people just needing to understand going into the
office five days a week does tend to suit
white men, because that is like, the predominant culture.
That's who's not looking after the kids.
That's who wants to go to the pub
after work and do that kind of socializing
which I'm speaking in massively generalized terms.
(21:27):
Yeah, of course.
But yeah, it's just trying to say that
way of thinking that it's going to bring
you towards a certain type of person.
I don't know if that answers your question, but I'd
say that's probably one of the more common frustrations.
Yeah.
Frustrations. Yes.
Daniel, I definitely want to come to you, but I just
want to just finish that off just by saying that this
(21:49):
is 100% what is out there on social media, isn't it?
Like it constantly gets talked about, the fact
that we don't need to be in the
office five days a week anymore.
Yes, it's good for morale to bring people in from
time to time, but actually, people have changed the way
they work now, and they realize that they don't have
to be late to pick up the child from nursery
(22:11):
or they don't have to this, that and the other.
But I do think there's something really interesting
in that, but also the concept of tradition
and legacy, I think is in there.
And I think that's a real challenge with people's
mindsets, especially if they didn't suffer in the first
place by going in five days a week.
If they didn't find it challenging in the
first place, why would they then understand different
(22:33):
perspectives and why that is different? But thank you.
Danielle, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one.
I think, yeah, like you mentioned earlier, you've got
to kind of tread carefully with this one.
But I would actually say that every topic, more
or less that I talk about publicly is contentious.
You only have to look in the comments section
(22:54):
of one of my posts and see the arguments
happening between different people with different views.
And yes, I would say that if a
conversation makes you feel uncomfortable, then it's probably
a conversation that needs to be had.
(23:15):
And that's what I love about my job and what we
do and what we talk about, because a lot of the
experiences that people think don't happen because they don't happen to
them go under the radar, and people don't think they happen
and they don't exist, but they do exist and I feel
(23:37):
like people need to be made aware of that.
And if it causes some upset or makes people
feel a certain type of way, well, your 5
minutes or 1 minute of feeling a bit awkward,
imagine what that's like for someone who has to
fill that every single day of their working lives.
(23:59):
Yeah, I would say I couldn't really pinpoint I couldn't
say one topic was more contentious over the other.
I'm trying to think I would imagine that
from memory, some of the points that are
more about intersectionality would perhaps be most contentious.
For example, if Danielle would be talking particularly
about experience of black women in the office,
(24:20):
in the workplace, it's sometimes other women that
are like that perhaps, maybe will diminish the
element of racing that argument.
And understandable, obviously women are still
facing massive issues in the workplace.
Those comments, those posts tend to
draw out some interesting responses. Yeah.
(24:43):
And obviously you know that, Daniel, I stalked you
on LinkedIn anyway, so I'm always seeing your post
come out and I'm always commenting if it resonates
with me or if I think, wow, that's incredible
that you use your voice and put yourself out
there and done that brave thing.
Because it is brave.
It's only on social media, but it is real life.
This is stuff that is happening on a day to day.
(25:05):
We did a post recently about some of the misogynistic
comments and I guess you could go as far as
to say sexual harassment on social media and the comments
that came underneath it were just wild.
Sadly not unbelievable.
Sadly not unbelievable.
And at that point I'm just like, what do you know?
(25:25):
You have to stand up and say something about this.
I think there's so many elements to this, especially in
the work that you're doing because obviously you want to
weed away the type of organizations that don't align with
your values because you don't want to set up fantastic
candidates to go and work in those just toxic environments,
let's be honest in a lot of cases.
(25:47):
But also you've got the element of knowing that
you've got this platform and this privilege for people
to be able to hear what you're saying.
But I'd be interested to know Danielle, because
the intersectionality pieces is so important and I
love that you talk about all these different
elements with it and I think that that's
really inspiring for most women to see.
(26:08):
Unfortunately, sometimes, like you say, when it's not
our lived experience, we can have a bit
of a closed perspective on it.
But I think what you're doing is you're slowly
widening people's peripheral, if you like, around these things
and to help them understand it a bit more.
But what do you do?
Because you're on social quite a lot.
You're out there, you're doing some
(26:28):
fantastic things by sound, by few.
You're making sure that your storytelling
is getting through so people understand
where some of those challenges lie.
How do you deal with people
being like that on social media?
How do you kind of keep
your mental well being topped up?
Well, I try to book in monthly massages. No joking?
(26:54):
No being more vocal and more public was never
my intention with this business and joining the business,
but sometimes not as I fall into things but
yeah, I have a lot of things stories to
tell and I really am passionate about this.
(27:16):
I mean, previous employers and colleagues that have worked with me
would tell you that people said to me to stop banging
on about these topics all the time at work.
So it is my passion, part of my identity.
So I think because I am so passionate about
it, that helps me push through a lot of
(27:39):
the anxiety and the mental health, I guess problems
that comes with being so public but yeah, every
time I post something the anxiety is there.
It's very nerve wracking because you don't want to
(28:00):
these topics are really sensitive, you don't want to
offend people, you don't want things to be miscommunicated.
Yeah, you do feel like there can be a lot of
pressure but at the same time some things need to be
said and need to be out there because one thing that
(28:20):
does really help, say if someone's trolling me or sending me
awful messages, it's all the positive messages I get.
People send me so many positive, just really lovely messages
like direct messages on LinkedIn and it's not all people
(28:43):
that look like me or have the same ethnicity or
gender as me, it's white men as well.
I would actually say that 50% of the messages I
get are from white men and people that don't look
like me telling me about an experience they've had or
(29:04):
explain it to me, why a certain message or post
really resonates with them and how what I've said or
something they've read has helped them in a situation.
So yeah, I think sometimes people feel like di is
for underrepresented people but actually there are a lot of
(29:26):
white people of words but yeah, there are a lot
of white people and the dominant group that really care
about this and actually look for companies that have these
values when they're job searching.
I know that I've definitely spoken to people
(29:47):
that will not work for an employer that
doesn't have dei values or policies in place.
Yeah, wow.
I asked for a few reasons.
I asked because obviously I'm constantly seeing found by people
all over social media which is really nice and I
love your posts, I love the way that your values
(30:10):
come out and everything that you communicate out there and
obviously I see you around the office as well because
we work in the office of yours.
So I see this consistent approach to things but I
also know how difficult it can be because of the.
Work that I do and how it takes a real toll on you.
So I was really glad to hear
(30:32):
that we have the same thing.
Which is that we're just so passionate about it.
That even on those really tough
times when for me it's different.
I've had a very tough workshop.
Perhaps that I've had some people just keep
coming at me and denying the statistics.
Denying other people's experiences and things like that.
(30:52):
And that can really take it out of you.
And I feel like social media is exactly the
same level, just in a slightly different way. Yeah.
I would just add to that I'm quite lucky that
I have an amazing team around me that I can
lean on if something happens where someone jumped in the
comments and it's being rude or denying an experience.
(31:15):
And also, the people that are connected with me
and follow me, they're also my biggest advocates.
I don't even have to say anything.
They just jump straight in there and with some great
either defending me on a point or bringing some more
evidence and backing up any points that I've made.
(31:39):
So yeah, in terms of something that allows me to keep
my mental health in check and do the job well, is
the fact that I've got this community around me, the community
that we've built up over the last year yeah.
And also that 50% of people sending you
the messages, those kind of allyship mindsets, and
(32:03):
how can I support this better?
And what you're doing is creating this awareness
and this education around topics that some people
have got no perspective on at all.
So you're slowly chipping away at what
their view of that thing was.
And it's really interesting.
There's something else around and I do want to move
on to some other questions, but this is just so
(32:25):
interesting for me and hopefully for the listener as well.
But there's something also around that
concept of looking internally if something
angers you around somebody else.
So I've had a conversation with family members before
around the concept of gender identity and fluidity and
(32:46):
things like that, and there's been members of my
family that have got very angry at the conversation
because I just don't get it.
Why can't people just do this or this kind of thing?
So I've just said to them, well, why don't you look
inwards to figure out why are you so angry about this?
Why in the core of your stomach is this making
you so angry at this other person about something that
(33:09):
has absolutely nothing to do with you and it doesn't
affect your life in any particular way?
So it's a really interesting one.
And this is the sort of thing on social media
that if I get negative comments and things like that,
I've got this need to educate people to do that,
self reflection that need to get people to look inwardly.
(33:30):
Because nine times out of ten that will help us to
figure out the answer as to why we feel so strongly
about something that we have no kind of experience of.
Yeah, I'm just intrigued because I know that
that's the reason that I keep going.
And I was going to ask what keeps
you going when things are really tough?
(33:50):
But I think you've probably just answered my question there
with regards to the passion and things like that.
So instead what I'm going to ask is what is
the absolute highlight of the work that you both do?
What is it that drives you on a day to
day basis with your candidates, with your clients in general?
(34:10):
I mean, I am a recruiter at heart, so placing
people into a job that they like and you get
them a pay rise and the company is super happy
with them, I still get an absolute buzz off that's
100% what gets me up in the morning.
What I would say just to add to that is that
obviously now, as an owner of a business, I kind of
like live that buzz vicariously for who are staff.
(34:31):
So seeing them be good at their jobs, seeing
them get reviews on Google with people saying, hey,
look, this experience I had with you was amazing.
Seeing clients come back and say, hey,
this person that works you is great,
like, that gives me an absolute buzz.
I love that.
If you know anyone that has ever worked
for me or speaks to me, like, I
(34:52):
believe that recruiting is an amazing job.
If you like doing a good job for
people, you've got a bit about you where
you can influence, you can get passionate about
other people, you're interested in other people.
It's an amazing job and I feel really passionate about that
and I love teaching the job to other people and show
them how they can build a career from it.
So I would say that that is what gets me up
(35:12):
in the morning and then there's loads of added bits to
that which is like, hey, I do also believe that as
a recruiter, other than just placing people, we have a wider
purpose, like a wider there's more that we can contribute than
just placing people into jobs and we try and do that.
I do also believe that the world of work
is changing and that when you run a business
(35:33):
now, it's not just about making as much profit
as you can, making everybody else's life hell.
I think it's about like, hey, how can we run
a sustainable business for the people that work in the
business, can enjoy their life, earn good money, at the
same time, be proud of their job, not go into
the workplace and have to deal with ship that perhaps
had to deal with outside of work.
(35:54):
And that your job as a business owner is to
create sustainable business, but also create an environment where people
like they can enjoy their life seeing other people be
good at their job and yes, go work from Porto
or Berlin or go meet friends that they'd have had
to book a holiday to do before.
Whatever it is, that really gives me a buzz
(36:16):
and what motivates me, I think that's going to
be music to most candidates ears because I think
I can speak for most people when I say
most recruiters, or at least most of my experiences
with recruiters, have been very sales driven.
It didn't feel like a very personal experience.
(36:37):
It didn't feel like they really cared
about helping me or helping the organization.
They were just chucking my CV at anyone.
And I think that I know recruitment feels
like it's moving more towards this way.
So it's nice to see that you're kind of
trailblazing the way for other people to follow.
And I think that in itself is going to give you
(36:58):
massive sense of pride in the work that you're doing.
Yeah.
And I also think it's a necessity.
You spoke earlier about legacy and people dealing with
legacy of the industries that they're working in.
You have to think of in recruitment in the
early 2000s, recruiters were the people with the database.
(37:18):
If you wanted to hire someone, you
had to go to a recruitment agency.
They had the database and
therefore they were incomplete.
Charge this data and the whole idea is you
would just be shipping stuff out and you'd be
making placements and nobody else could go anywhere else.
And that kind of environment tended to promote like
quite metro masculine traits of like, ruthlessness, like moving
(37:41):
people out of the way to get to the
fax machine to send over those CVS, you had
to be in the office to send the CV.
So working super long hours and taking managers out, going
on big drinks and like, hey, swunt this clientele.
But the world of recruitment is changing because
everybody in our industry is on LinkedIn.
So it's not that companies don't have access.
(38:02):
We all use in the kind of the same database, if
you will, and therefore you have to offer something different.
You have to really be specialists in the field.
Your candidates have to know that they can trust you and
go to you because you know what we're talking about.
Your clients have to go to you.
And if it was just like any job
that they could feel without being a specialist
and they probably wouldn't need you anyway.
(38:22):
So you have to really be a specialist in your field now
and you have to add value to a client and candidate.
Otherwise you just have no need to exist.
So we've asked that when we hire now, rather
than looking for traditional traits of ruthlessness, money hungry,
if you just treat everybody like money, you are
going to get the service that you just mentioned.
But we try to hire people who like compassion driven
(38:46):
to want to do a good job for other people.
And what we tell them is that if you do that, then
the money will come and you'll get paid what you should do.
But we try not to hire.
The only thing that matters is money because then
you just treat people like money and actually that
doesn't really work out and that certainly comes through
and everybody that works with you and the way
that you do your business, definitely.
(39:06):
Danielle, what about you?
Yeah, so what gets me out of bed in the morning?
It might sound really cheesy, but
I love making people happy.
So my specialism is in marketing, b to B marketing.
And I love marketing.
(39:28):
I love design, I love designing things, I
love writing, I love everything that marketing encompasses.
But at Fan by Few, a big part of
my role is people management and making people happy
and making sure that our staff are well cared
for and looking after their wellbeing.
(39:50):
I love it.
I love the fact that if someone comes to me with
a problem or someone wants something, I can make that happen.
And then if I can't make that happen,
I will find an alternative or some kind
of solution to making them happy.
I love planning all our team socials and just looking
(40:13):
at what benefits and perks we can give to people.
And a big part of what I do is relationship building.
And I feel like in the pandemic, obviously Lockdown,
a lot of us were what I was experiencing
a lot of loneliness and yeah, and I think
I did a lot of soul searching.
(40:33):
And the one thing that I knew that
I needed in my career and my job
is the human connection, but relationship building.
And over the past year, I've been able to
build relationships with not only our staff, our clients,
but also just people in in our space.
(40:56):
And whether it's in the Dei space, whether
it's LinkedIn friends, I just love building relationships
with people and seeing how we can collaborate.
That's something that makes me happy.
The word that's coming through.
And it's no surprise that every single podcast that we
record being human, we all have that in common.
(41:22):
No matter what industry we're in, no matter
what point we're at in our career, you
got to treat people like humans.
And that human connection.
Regardless of whether you're an introvert or an extrovert
or wherever you at with your seniority and your
specialism, the human element is always there.
(41:43):
It's really interesting.
I had a conversation with someone that I
worked with at a Woman's Center bakery in
Brixton, and she was talking about the human
element that sometimes people kind of dehumanize others,
especially when they're very different to themselves.
So it doesn't surprise me that this human
element is coming out for both of you,
(42:04):
considering how important diversity is to you, the
way in which you run your business.
And it is a business.
You're okay, we're talking about the human element,
talking about the social impact that we're making.
But ultimately you are a business and you're
making a difference in meaningful work not just
to local communities, but genuinely to people's careers
(42:24):
and then the people that follow after them
and the people that follow after them.
So, yeah, it's just really lovely to kind of
hear that whole human thing really resonates with me.
Now, you talked a little bit earlier about one of the
challenges is the five day working week from the office.
That's still a mindset that some employers are
(42:46):
struggling to kind of move away from.
But is there another challenge?
Is there a blockage somewhere that you think
is really starting to prevent diversity from coming
into whether it's into the creative industry, whether
it's progressing through or any industry.
So what kind of challenges or barriers do
(43:07):
you think of really blocking that diversity from
coming in in the first place?
Okay, so as a recruitment company,
obviously we charge the place people.
So clients tend to only come to us for
kind of like mid to very senior level.
We don't do that much at the junior
side because people don't only want to pay
(43:27):
agencies to junior stuff, which is completely understandable.
So in terms of that first jump into a job,
like what's blocking people at that stage, we're probably not
the best people to speak about or speak to about.
However, it's something we're extremely passionate about and all the
content that we provide and if we give spare time
(43:49):
to anyone is to try and encourage motivate and give
confidence for people to look for these jobs because it
is a really high paying sector that we operate in
and to keep going to get that first job.
So I guess in terms of what's blocking those people,
we're probably not the best people to speak about.
What's then blocking people from home
(44:10):
kind of mid senior leads?
Well, there's a number of different issues
because I mentioned this earlier, candidates are
not one set of people.
But if we took away from the remote working,
I think things that do kind of like stop
people thinking differently is like people just expecting like,
hey, you sent us this CV with this experience,
(44:32):
can you just send us pretty much the same
CV but someone that isn't a white male?
And a lot of our time it's like, well,
if you do want, I don't know, ten years
experience in finance, this is going to really send
you towards white male candidates because finance ten years
ago less diverse than it is now.
So these kind of things were like hiring diverse candidates
(44:55):
isn't just asking for the same TV, but of a
woman, of someone that isn't white, whatever it is.
And that's one of the main things that you have to
be more open, like, where do you want to hire from?
You have to kind of change your mindset.
It's not a case of just getting it's not
like recruitment agencies have all these EVs and we're
just sending the mail ones, if that makes sense.
It's like you have to open your mind
(45:17):
to where this experience would have come from.
Do you really need these skills?
Do you really need this years of experience?
Do they really need to have come from this industry?
So, yeah, I think that's probably I don't know if
I've answered that succinctly, but people just generally kind of
almost just thinking that diversity is the same.
How can we get the same thing, but just
make sure it's a woman or whatever it is.
That is a big frustration for us.
(45:39):
It sounds almost like you're coaching these people to
say, hey, by the way, you're not going to
get it, it's not going to be the case.
You've also got to think, of course, with experience, a lot
of women who are in slightly more senior roles might be
of that kind of age, that they might have taken some
time off to care for children or elderly parents and things
(46:01):
because a lot of care taking roles unfortunately still fall down
to women in a lot of the ways.
So actually they're going to miss out on years of experience
at that point, but they still are able and capable to
do the job and they still have the potential.
So, yeah, it's that education and
that coaching to go well. Can you look at this in
a slightly different way, perhaps?
Yeah, education, coaching, I would almost say that our job
(46:25):
more often not is just to hold up like a
mirror and reflect back some things to the what tends
to happen is a top down instruction.
We need more diverse candidates.
Goes from the CEO to the manager, it goes to the
talent team, it then goes to us as the external recruiter
and we're like, well, hey, hang on a second, what are
you doing to attract these types of people?
It's not a case of like, you just wanting
(46:46):
them and they're all, well, please, can come, you
work for you, what are you doing? You're right.
So if you want a diverse leadership team,
it tends to be that leaders obviously will
be more experienced in their career.
As you get more experience in your career,
the chances are you will have a family.
So, yeah, what does your maternity pay look like?
What does your paternity pay look like?
(47:07):
What policies do you have that would attract these
type of people to work with before people sometimes
within the business that's kind of too scared to
say, well, what are we doing?
And then this kind of hot potato gets passed on.
And I've seen in my experience in recruitment that it goes
to the recruitment agency and they go, okay, yeah, we'll go
(47:27):
out and we'll try to find you more women.
Let's say that's not what the issue is.
The issue is, why do these people want to work for you?
If you are struggling to hire people that
aren't white, what does your leadership look?
Why would these people want to work for your company?
Why would they want to come in and be the only person?
So it's kind of like our job is to hold a mirror
back and just say, it's not about you wanting this thing.
(47:48):
What are you doing as a company?
And more than that as well, for
us, everybody's got a deni policy.
Let's forget about the deni policy.
What does it mean to you?
What does it mean to the hiring manager?
What does this really mean to you?
And get some stuff in between the lines
that we can talk to people about.
And so, yeah, I guess our job is,
(48:10):
I would say more coaching, like education.
It's really just to hold a mirror back
and just say, well, hang on a SEC.
Actually, it's not about you wanting these people.
Why would they want you?
So what are you offering?
Yeah, and I think, Danielle, you kind of
mentioned earlier about this idea that people are
more likely now to work for organizations that
(48:32):
have a very strong dei strategy.
They're actually doing some actionable
things and making a difference.
The statistic a couple of years ago, I think it was
a McKinsey report was about 67% of millennials will decide whether
or not to take a role, depending on that.
And it's obviously a lot higher now because
people have much more of a social conscience.
(48:53):
We're so much more aware now of, oh, hold on.
Just because our families and our generations before have
been treated this way or have had to work
really hard and that's just what's expected kind of
thing, it doesn't have to be the way in
which people enter the working world.
It doesn't have to be the way
in which we've progressed through now.
(49:14):
So I do think that there's something in
that concept and that holding the mirror up
and saying, what are you offering?
Is an action that's more than a dei strategy.
Like you say, it's more than some words on
the website and some kind of stock pictures of
lots of different looking people high fiving each other.
(49:35):
A lot more than that now.
Yeah, just a couple more questions then.
So what do you think?
Okay, now, what do you wish employers understood better
about the way in which they recruit in general?
(49:55):
Danielle, you wrote something the other day which I think is
one of the most important things to understand and which is
kind of linked to the thing we were before.
It's like, you are not doing again,
quotation marks, diverse candidates of favor.
By hiring them, you need them in your business.
And therefore, it goes back to what we were
saying, which is like, it's not a case of,
(50:15):
like, yeah, this is not a charity.
This is not you doing a favor to anybody.
And if you do have that mindset, I can assure you these
people are not going to stay with you for very long.
That is just the completely wrong
way to think about it.
So, like Daniel racist the other day, like I said
you before, if we are not able to create an
environment in our office where we can harvest or harness,
(50:36):
like, talent, then we are missing out as a business.
Like, we need these people.
We need to create a good environment for them
that's so integral to us as a business.
So I would just say that that
kind of like, mindset is so important.
Yeah, no, I 100% agree and I think that sentiment
and that point that I raised that the panel talk
(50:59):
really comes from a place of experience as well.
I've often been made to feel like I should
be grateful to be there because I'm some kind
of like token hire or I owe the employer
or manager something because they're doing me a favor
(51:23):
when actually I'm highly skilled at what I do.
I can do things across many disciplines and yeah,
I'm just shit hot at like, what I do.
And I was talking to someone quite senior about this
and it's something that I think has been recorded recently,
(51:44):
but they're seeing a trend in black women where they
progress to mid level and then they fall off.
And obviously data can only tell you so much.
There's loads of different factors in that.
It could be maternity, it could be many other reasons.
(52:06):
But in every organization, most organizations I've worked in,
when I've spoken to friends that come from the
same background as myself, it's pretty much the same
across the board where black women just don't seem
(52:26):
to be progressing past a certain stage.
And then that can only make you feel as a
black woman or a bad person, make you start to
believe that you are just there to tick a box
and you are seen as some kind of charity case
rather than a valued employee that deserves to progress and
(52:52):
be a valued part of the organization.
I don't know if I answered the question.
I feel I have gone there's so many things that
just come into my head then and I know we
haven't got much time left, but there's something there about
that limiting belief that somebody has put on you when
(53:14):
you go into an organization where they kind of like,
oh, you're a token higher.
And they might not say it outwardly, but their micro
behaviors or whatever it might be and the language that
people use will make you feel that way.
So then what happens is we might then naturally put
a limit on our own, so we might not then
be able to reach our full potential and be as
(53:38):
amazing as we are in those spaces.
And I think that's very clear, right?
Then people go off and they're fantastically talented in
an organization that does make them feel included.
And then you've got the
limiting belief of that example.
There are black women getting to those middle positions,
but actually then dropping off at that point, a
young black woman coming into an organization.
(53:59):
You see that happening.
Were you going to stop yourself
from trying too hard subconsciously?
Because what's the point? Kind of thing?
Or you try even harder, you use all
your energy, and then you just burn out.
So I just think it's just so interesting.
I'd be really interested to see some of
that data because it supports the narrative of
(54:23):
the conversations I'm having with people.
And like, you're right, you can't look at
data by itself, but when you pull it
all together with lots of different things, there's
a very, very obvious story being told there.
So I think the work that you're both doing and
in general, when people are talking about this more, making
it much less taboo to talk about, ultimately what we're
(54:45):
doing then is we're removing some of those barriers and
slowly taking down that kind of wall.
Okay, just to finish us off, then, I want to ask
you for one piece of advice or one suggestion that you
would give to employers who wanted to start thinking a little
(55:06):
bit differently about the way that they hire.
So I'll go to whoever first.
I won't put anyone on the spot.
I'll jump into two things straight away.
So one is to go back on what
we just said, which is a mindset change.
Like, you're not doing anyone a favor, so therefore
what you're doing to attract these types of people
that's like, number one, before anything, I then think
(55:27):
that you can't think of diverse candidates.
Again, in the quotation marks,
people can't see the camera.
So there's like, one set of people
that you can solve with one solution.
What attracts female leaders into the business
is going to be different from what
attracts young people from London, nonwhite Londoners
(55:55):
or whatever is going to attract.
If you have neurodiversity, you have
to look at your interview process.
What are you asking the candidates to do?
Who is this going to benefit? What is the prep?
Are you springing things on
people in the interview process?
Is there a panel of, like,
four people interviewing this one person?
There is no one size fits all.
And you have to really think, okay, if
you change your mindset and hopefully all of
(56:16):
those things should benefit from that.
But there are so many different factors to
this that there isn't this one solution.
There isn't like, yeah, put a DNI policy
on our website and hopefully that stuff.
You have to look at your interview process.
You have to look at who's conducting the interviews.
You have to look at what traits you're looking for.
You have to look at your policies you're
working from home policies and maternity policies.
So many different things you have to look at.
(56:38):
And that's completely the opposite
of what you've asked me.
But I guess it all goes back to,
like, you have to change your mindset.
There is no silver bullet.
If you change your mindset, then all of the
good things will follow afterwards, because you all look
at your interview process, you will look at who's
conducting your hiring, you will look at how you've
worded things in your drop spec.
But it all starts from a mindset change.
(56:59):
Yeah, and I've got that mirror concept again,
nobody can see what I'm doing, but I'm
holding up my hand with mirror.
But you've got that mirror concept.
I think that goes into that really nicely, which is
stop thinking about candidates as lucky to work for you.
Start thinking about how can we harvest or
(57:20):
harvest their talent and make them see what
it's worth, what we're offering to them.
Even for me, I didn't go to uni.
I dropped out of school early.
But I was incredibly lucky to sound, look and
be from the same area as my CEO.
So therefore, I was given all the confidence, all the
room to make mistakes, all the stuff to be successful.
(57:42):
And you have to normally look back
and go, actually, hang on a second.
Would that have happened if
some circumstances had been different? No, it wouldn't.
So I've been really benefit.
So I benefit from that, and therefore,
I see my job as a boss.
I need to give that confidence in that room
to fail to everybody that works for me.
Not just people.
Everyone has biases for people that
sound and look like them.
(58:03):
If Daniel meets someone from Stratum, if I meet
someone from Bombay, if Zary, you meet someone that
you have, like, this thing where automatically you're like,
hey, you've got this kind of, like, imaginary connection,
but you just have to make sure there's nothing
wrong with that connection. You just have to make sure
you give it to everybody else.
There really is no problem with
making a connection quickly with people.
You just have to make sure you're not just doing
(58:23):
it with those people, you're doing it to everyone. Yes.
And being aware of that affinity
bias as well is really important.
Okay, Danielle, one piece of advice or
suggestions from you and from your perspective? Yes.
I think Ben pretty much said a lot of things that
I obviously agree with, and I would have said as well.
(58:46):
So the only thing really I can add
to that is just keep educating yourself.
Do as much reading, as much research as
possible into different cultures and different areas and
things that you wouldn't necessarily look into.
Obviously, my experiences of black, mixed
race, woman, working class, windrush generation,
(59:10):
I know enough about that.
So, okay, what do I need to
do now in terms of education?
I need to look at the.
LGBT plus community.
I need to look at neurodiversity, I need to
look at all the different areas that don't apply
to me and educate myself in those areas.
(59:31):
I think other people need to be as curious about those,
especially if you're a business owner or a leader or a
manager, you need to be curious about those areas.
And also you need to just keep educating
yourself and not putting the responsibility of education
on the underrepresented people in your organization, because
(59:53):
that only leads to burnout, that leads to
people feeling tokenized, people feeling alienated.
So, yeah, that would be my one bit of advice. Yeah.
And just to add to it, then
it says, nobody is perfect with this.
There's no getting it right.
It is completely a journey of
trying to get things right.
(01:00:14):
And therefore we will never,
ever proclaim that we're perfect. Far from it.
What we will proclaim is we will always
try our best to understand and be better.
That is what we can commit to and
that's what we try to do every day.
But there's no way, like, oh, my God,
of course everyone's going to get stuff wrong.
And I guess that's why you were talking earlier about
(01:00:35):
people getting to a certain level and then dropping off.
Everybody has to be given room
to fail and then become better.
And if certain people aren't given the room
to fail, or if they're struck off from
their failing straight away, then yeah, that's just
that no one's ever going to succeed.
So, yeah, you can't be afraid to get stuff wrong.
You have to just commit to
be better and constantly learn. Yeah.
(01:00:55):
And you can't have one standard for one group, like
adding onto yourself about giving people the room to fail.
You can't have one level expectation for one group
of people and having a completely different level of
expectation for another because that is just unfair.
And you're never going to create an equal
(01:01:16):
playing field if you're treating people unfairly.
Yeah. Wow. Thank you.
That was like the perfect end, I think, to this.
I think there's been some
really good insights in there.
I think our listeners are going
to get something from this.
And we love the employers come and listen
(01:01:36):
to these because it means that they can
hear it from a different perspective.
They can hear it from an outside agency,
but also people that have experienced these things.
And I think that there's
something really powerful in knowledge.
They say knowledge is power and
they're not wrong, whoever they are. But yeah.
So thank you so much for joining me.
I've really enjoyed this.
(01:01:57):
Hope you have, too, and I'll speak to you soon.
All right. Thank you, Zoe.
Thanks, Zoe.
I'll see you soon.
Sadly, that's all we have time for today.
I could have spoken to Danielle and Ben probably
(01:02:18):
for another few hours, and I'm sure you probably
could have listened to them as well.
I think you probably heard how excited and engaged and
passionate they are with regards to really helping people to
find meaningful work but also really starting to change the
way people think about potential and experience and the way
in which we can recruit and really start to open
(01:02:39):
up to more diverse groups of people that perhaps we
hadn't thought about before.
Hopefully, if you're an employer listening to this, you've had
really great insights site into what it's like in the
recruitment field and also some really great ideas on how
you can really start to make a difference in the
work that you're doing as well.
So thank you so much for listening.
(01:02:59):
We will see you on the next one. Bye.
Hello and welcome to our newest Zing Learning podcast,
a conversation with in today's episode, we have the
absolute pleasure of speaking to Danielle and Ben, who
are the co founders of Found by Few.
Found by Few is a fantastic recruitment agency
(00:27):
that works within the creative field to really
place amazing talent into really amazing businesses.
Now, the best thing about Fan by Few is the
way in which they approach their recruitment, the way in
which they support employers and of course, their candidates.
And they do this in a way to really
enhance diversity in the creative space as well.
(00:49):
So hopefully you're going to enjoy some of
the fantastic things we talk about today.
There's some really great tips in there as well
for employers, some really great ways in which we
can start to think about recruitment in a slightly
more progressive way as we move forward.
So grab a cup of kick back and have a listen.
(01:14):
Welcome, Danielle and Ben.
I'm going to talk to you both about some really
cool things that you're doing in the recruitment space today.
But I think first, if it's okay with you, do you
want to just introduce yourselves to the listeners, tell us a
little bit about who you are and what you do?
Yeah, thanks.
And thanks for having us on your podcast today.
We're really happy to be here.
(01:36):
So I'm just going to jump straight in.
I'm Danielle.
I'm a co founder and CMO found by few.
I head up our marketing and our commitment
to building a diverse and inclusive workplace.
Excellent, thanks.
Hi, Zoe.
(01:57):
I'm Ben, another co founder in town by few.
My background is entirely in recruitment.
I've been in the industry for 16 years as
a consultant, as a director in another business, and
for the last year, the CEO and proud co
founder of Fan by Few with Danielle. Excellent. Yeah.
(02:17):
I'm so shocked to have you both on today because
I think what we're going to talk about, of course,
is recruitment and some of the aspects to do with
the lack of diversity in lots of different spaces.
But I also know that you have very different
experiences and you're going to have very different perspectives.
And I think that's going to be quite interesting for
the listeners and the different employers and people like that
(02:38):
that are going to be listening to this.
So let's just dive straight in and I'm going
to ask you, and this is definitely out to
both of you because you're co founders, but what
makes Found by Few different to other recruitment organizations?
And you'll notice I use the
word organizations rather than agency there.
I don't know whether that's right.
I don't know whether that's the way
(02:59):
you position yourselves, but yeah, just what
makes you different to other recruiters?
Great question.
I'm going to start on this one.
One thing that makes us different is the fact that
we've got a co founder myself that has zero recruitment
experience and doesn't have a background in recruitment.
(03:20):
But what I do have is the experience of
being a candidate and being on the other side.
And I've worked with some amazing recruiters who the
experience has been great, but unfortunately I've had some
awful experiences too and I'm able to bring that
experience and that insight, sorry, that service to my
(03:43):
dog in the background into the business.
And so we're not trying to reinvent the world.
We're a recruitment agency.
We use a recruitment agency model.
We think it's a great model
that brings immense value to businesses.
(04:04):
For example, in the short space that
we've been running, we've doubled the size
of some product and design team.
So yeah, the model is great and
we are recruitment agency first and foremost.
But one thing that makes us different and one
thing that we're really proud of is the fact
(04:26):
that diversity, equity, inclusion is baked into our company
from the beginning and it informs everything we do
and we champion it in everything we do, whether
it's our marketing, whether it's with our clients and
our partners and internally as well. Yeah. Oh wow.
(04:50):
Good luck following that then.
Yeah, I guess what I would just add to that
is we see ourselves as super privileged to do recruitment.
Like, we're in an amazing position where we
get to help amazing companies grow and we
get to help amazing candidates get jobs.
What we also want to do with that
privileged position is we are like in this
(05:14):
amazing position where you get two perspectives.
And one thing that my experience in recruitment
taught me is that companies really want to
be better with regards to deni.
But one of the issues that you've got is
sometimes people don't know where to turn and I'm
sure you experience this so don't know where to
look and don't know who to talk to.
And I felt that recruitment companies had
(05:34):
this amazing position that they could really
capitalize on it and do better with.
And so we wanted to create a brand, a
recruitment company where you can come to us for
great staff, but also if you are struggling with
DNI, there's a recruitment pilot that you can turn
to who can give advice, basically can help you
with that journey or alternatively your brand.
(05:56):
And you've got amazing values with regard to DNI.
Why would you then want to partner with
a recruitment company that is pretty kind of
like bland, opaque and doesn't get it?
So we haven't reinvented the
wheel with regards to recruitment.
Like, our business model is exactly the
same as most other recruitment agencies.
But I would just say that perhaps our
values and the service that we feel we
(06:18):
can offer is different to some companies. Yeah.
Oh wow, that's so interesting because you've got a case so
there's so many things I want to pick up on there.
There was something around the idea
of the supplier, the partner relationships
that we have with other organizations.
And we were running a session last week for
Impact Bricks and funnily enough, and we were talking
(06:39):
about how you can ethically grow or at least
maintain your business in it in a human way.
And a big part of that is partnering with
other suppliers or organizations or whatever it might be.
They have very good values.
They seem to be aligned to your sort of thing.
So let's say it's not just about people wanting
(07:02):
to step into the di mindset when they're recruiting.
It's actually people that are already doing it and they
want to make sure they continue to do that.
So that's really great.
You've both mentioned there a little bit about the
values you've both mentioned there that you want to
kind of do something a little bit more than
(07:22):
you would expect from most recruitment agencies.
And I'll use that term, that recruitment agency.
Yeah, we're not embarrassed or afraid
to be called a recruitment agency.
No, and you shouldn't be.
And it's so interesting because Danielle, one of the first
things you said was that you've had some not so
great experiences as a candidate and I think anyone that's
listening to this now can resonate with that.
(07:45):
I think I've definitely had some experiences when I
was looking for employment where it's just been hideous.
But I've also had some amazing experiences
and I can remember that person's name.
I remember exactly the company that they worked for.
And actually when they left that company, I
followed them because they genuinely believed in me
(08:08):
and they could see my potential.
And I think that there's something in that with
regards to diversity and inclusion because a lot of
the time there's a lack of representation in organizations,
which means that people aren't necessarily given a chance
and therefore they don't necessarily have the experience, but
they do have the potential.
And I think that there's something in that the recruitment
(08:29):
agencies seem to be missing out on and it's a
real challenge for a lot of employers to change the
mindset of it's not just experience alone, there's lots of
other aspects that need to be looked at.
I've loved watching your agency grow and so quickly in the
last kind of twelve or so months, and the sort of
(08:51):
people that are working with you and the way in which
you go about business I think is quite inspiring.
So my next question is going to be how important is
diversity to you and the way that you do business?
But I guess we'd probably say it's quite important.
But why is it so important to you that diversity
(09:12):
is so at the core of what you do?
It's a huge question with so many different
answers and there's not just a one off
thing why it's really important to us.
I would say that even if you forget the
kind of like the ethical, the moral, the social
positives that come out of the DNI.
I would say that even we run a business that's
based in Brixton in South London, if we aren't able
(09:34):
to create an environment where a diverse set of people
are able to flourish and be good at their job,
then we are wasting what is like a huge tannin
pool in South London of potential employees.
For us, that would be amazing for us,
but if we don't have the environment that
lets them thrive, then we're completely missing out.
Like, for us to be a great company, we have
(09:54):
to create an inclusive culture where people can thrive.
So I think from that standpoint, for us
as a business, in terms of us growing
and hiring staff is incredibly important.
I think then, from another business perspective, if our
company doesn't reflect the diversity of our candidates and
our clients, then how can we best serve them?
So, yeah, outside of, like, this is stuff that
(10:15):
we generally believe in and we're passionate outside of
work, from a purely business perspective, it doesn't make
any sense not to try and build a diverse
and inclusive culture within our company.
I could go on for a long time, but I
would say there are just two bits that jump into
my head straight away and I can't understand why, if
you have a business in London and you've got 8
million people on your doorstep from all walks of life,
(10:37):
from everywhere, that you wouldn't try and create a culture
that can just harness that talent.
And that's what we're trying our best to do. Basically.
Yeah, I love that term, harvest.
That talent might steal that one.
I actually said harness, but yeah, take harvest.
You know what you want to hear.
Right, I'll just add to that.
(10:59):
Obviously, we have web based in Brixton, we
have now business based in Lambeth, being someone
that is born and bred in Lambeth.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, de, IB, whatever term
you like to call it, that has
just been the normal life for me.
(11:19):
Everyday living, growing up in Stratum, one
of the most diverse areas in London.
Yeah, diversity was just an everyday life in
my school years, in every aspect of my
life, until I stepped into a London office.
And that to me is alien.
(11:41):
Whereas the office space, being quite homogenous, seems to
be the norm for someone who's actually grown up
in a city, London, that is completely alien.
And that is something I very passionate about changing
and being a force for change in that.
And, yeah, I hope that gives a good idea
(12:07):
of why diversity, inclusion is so important to me,
because that is my life, that is my experience.
So why would I not want to champion it
and change it for the good of everyone?
I completely agree.
That idea that you grow up and I love Lambeth, I didn't
(12:31):
grow up here, but I grew up here, if you know what
I mean, I grew into an adult when I moved here.
I realized how fantastic this place is.
There's something around the idea of you're, around
people like you in your every day.
You then step into corporate London or London offices
(12:51):
or creative spaces, whatever it might be, and all
of a sudden you're the odd one out and
you're just thinking, how did this happen?
I'm in the same city.
I've just got a train or a tube for a few minutes
and all of a sudden I'm not seeing people like myself.
So I'm a massive believer that representation is so vital,
(13:12):
especially in careers, because what we do see, and I
have this a lot with not fortunately not my clients,
but whenever I talk to new clients, they'll be like,
actually we've got some really great levels of diversity.
And I'm like, brilliant, let's have a look at how
that progresses through the organization and let's have a look
at if there are any barriers in place or invisible
(13:35):
spaces in place that are going to stop people from
this wonderful diversity of those entry level roles at those
kind of lower skilled or lower level roles.
And then what you see and
you've got that homogeneous again.
So the idea that everybody is the same as we
get up towards those more senior or more specialist roles.
So it's really hard to deny it at that point.
(13:57):
It's really hard to say, no, my
organization is really diverse because we have
lots of different people working here.
That's great, but are they moving up?
Are you progressing?
Those people, are they having the same opportunities?
And actually when they're here, do they feel welcome?
Do they feel part of the success of the organization?
And things like that.
(14:18):
So I can't even imagine what it must have been
like to walk in off the streets of Lambeth where
you are just another person walking around in the wonderful
smokers board of South London and then into those spaces.
It's not enjoyable.
So that makes sense as to why this is so important.
Yeah, definitely a lot of what I
(14:43):
talk about publicly on LinkedIn and messages,
I try to raise awareness around.
It is really difficult articulating that experience and putting
it into words, but it's great to see that
it's resonating with a lot of people and yeah,
I just tried to make sure that I can
(15:04):
raise as much awareness as possible, but also help
people turn that awareness into action as well.
That is when I am the happiest,
when I see actual action around it.
And that is something we are
very much committed to as well.
There's something around that
having that meaningful work. Right?
(15:24):
So knowing that you're helping candidates that perhaps
wouldn't have got a look in from some
of these organizations and because you've built such
a strong relationship with your clients and the
employers you're working with, they're going to listen
to you, you're going to put great people
forward that they may not have considered before.
And those people are going to do an amazing job.
(15:45):
They're going to progress through the organization
that is action in itself, right?
Aside from all of the other stuff that's action. Yeah.
And I think you asked us, why
are you different to most recruitment agencies?
But we are a recruitment agency, so
we are still beholden to our clients.
Ultimately, we can only put candidates
in front of our clients.
(16:06):
They can only make decisions.
So myself and Danielle were always like,
well, what can we be doing?
What are we in charge of?
What do we have, like,
proper ownership, proper agency on?
And our communications is one of those things.
As I said, we're in a really privileged
position where we're in between candidates and clients.
That means, like, our network is amazing.
It's looked at by managers, and
(16:26):
it's looked at by candidates.
At the minimum, as a company, we make
sure that we're talking about issues that maybe
people don't feel they have the confidence to
do because they're in another company.
And if they wrote a post about some of the things
that Daniel talks about or some of the things that we
talk about, they might feel, I could lose my job, or,
I don't want to want the heat from this post.
So we try to write about things that other people
(16:48):
may not be in a position to talk about.
And at the minimum, we know
that our clients are seeing it. They know our values.
We know our candidates are seeing it.
They know our values.
And it just means both people are way more
comfortable, but both sets of people way more comfortable
talking about us, talking to us about some of
the issues that they're facing, whether it's in the
interview process, whether it's in that current role.
And, yes, we have this question constantly.
(17:10):
What more can we be doing?
Because we are an agency, we need clients
to hire our staff to get paid.
But at the minimum, we are in charge of
our communications, and we try to make sure that
I've had people come to me and go, you're
not worried about this stuff that you talk about?
It could turn clients off.
And I'm like, no, that's perfect.
If it does turn clients off, then
they're not the right client for us.
And actually, that's not the feedback we get at all.
(17:32):
We get messages from people like, they won't necessarily
write it on LinkedIn, but we'll get messages from
people going, oh, my God, you raised that issue.
I've never thought about it like that.
I'm really grateful.
Thank you for sharing that.
And we do generally believe, and I generally believe
for, like, 15 to 16 years in recruitment.
Most people are good people when they want to do better.
There are bad managers.
(17:53):
Of course they're bad managers,
but there's bad people everywhere.
But most people, they want to be better.
And it's like, unless they read
these posts, unless they understand people's
experiences and they can't be better.
And so, yeah, we just tried to raise
these issues as much as we can.
Yeah, you've used the word privilege a few times, which
is always something that I spend a lot of time
(18:15):
helping people understand what that means because people kind of
get a little bit tense when they hear the word.
But there's something there about being aware of
the privileged position you have between your candidates
and the organization, but also the platform in
which your voice is going to be heard.
Like you said, you've got 15 to 16 years of
(18:36):
experience in recruitment, then you've got tons of years of
experience in that kind of marketing mindset and understanding how
to communicate with people, you put that together, people are
going to listen to what you're saying.
So you've got this amazing platform.
And I do think that when we understand what
our power is, what our privileges, how we can
(18:58):
utilize our platforms, and then we use it to
educate other people, that's so powerful. It's so huge.
It makes such a difference to people,
probably more so than we'll ever realize.
But it's so great that you're getting that feedback from
people because that's obviously going to encourage you to continue
to do that, even on those tough days when things
(19:18):
are really hard and you've maybe had an organization that
you wanted to work with, it turns out that their
values don't align to yours and something isn't as enjoyable
as you would like it to be.
Yeah, interesting.
Okay, I will have to be careful with this, of
course, because we don't want to mention any names, but
what's been the most contentious topic that you've talked about
(19:43):
online or with an employer, maybe directly?
Has there been something that people just are like, no,
I don't want to talk about this at all.
This is not something that we want to
kind of become aware of our clients. Normally.
One of the things is how
do we get more diverse candidates?
How do we start this process?
(20:04):
And there is no silver bullet
to hire more diverse candidates.
And also, if you think diverse candidates in quotation
mark, one group of people that all think and
act the same, then you're not going to succeed.
But yeah, I guess when we like, we make suggestions.
For example, remote working is one of the quickest
ways that you could build a more diverse team.
And then people are like, well, we want people in
(20:25):
the office five days a week still, go get us
this board range of candidates and we try and explain
that, hey, look, being in the office five days a
week tends to suit a certain type of person.
Yeah, I would guess they
were the most contentious arguments.
I really do mean most of our clients are
really good people and they want to be better.
Daniel will probably speak differently about what's the
(20:46):
most contentious thing that perhaps she's right online
and perhaps had the most questions about in
terms of conversations with our clients.
Yeah, it's like they're normally really positive.
I generally mean people like most of
our clients want to be better.
The most frustrating conversation would be the lack
of remote working and how that really does
affect the team that you build.
(21:06):
That would be the most frustrating conversation.
And people just needing to understand going into the
office five days a week does tend to suit
white men, because that is like, the predominant culture.
That's who's not looking after the kids.
That's who wants to go to the pub
after work and do that kind of socializing
which I'm speaking in massively generalized terms.
(21:27):
Yeah, of course.
But yeah, it's just trying to say that
way of thinking that it's going to bring
you towards a certain type of person.
I don't know if that answers your question, but I'd
say that's probably one of the more common frustrations.
Yeah.
Frustrations. Yes.
Daniel, I definitely want to come to you, but I just
want to just finish that off just by saying that this
(21:49):
is 100% what is out there on social media, isn't it?
Like it constantly gets talked about, the fact
that we don't need to be in the
office five days a week anymore.
Yes, it's good for morale to bring people in from
time to time, but actually, people have changed the way
they work now, and they realize that they don't have
to be late to pick up the child from nursery
(22:11):
or they don't have to this, that and the other.
But I do think there's something really interesting
in that, but also the concept of tradition
and legacy, I think is in there.
And I think that's a real challenge with people's
mindsets, especially if they didn't suffer in the first
place by going in five days a week.
If they didn't find it challenging in the
first place, why would they then understand different
(22:33):
perspectives and why that is different? But thank you.
Danielle, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one.
I think, yeah, like you mentioned earlier, you've got
to kind of tread carefully with this one.
But I would actually say that every topic, more
or less that I talk about publicly is contentious.
You only have to look in the comments section
(22:54):
of one of my posts and see the arguments
happening between different people with different views.
And yes, I would say that if a
conversation makes you feel uncomfortable, then it's probably
a conversation that needs to be had.
(23:15):
And that's what I love about my job and what we
do and what we talk about, because a lot of the
experiences that people think don't happen because they don't happen to
them go under the radar, and people don't think they happen
and they don't exist, but they do exist and I feel
(23:37):
like people need to be made aware of that.
And if it causes some upset or makes people
feel a certain type of way, well, your 5
minutes or 1 minute of feeling a bit awkward,
imagine what that's like for someone who has to
fill that every single day of their working lives.
(23:59):
Yeah, I would say I couldn't really pinpoint I couldn't
say one topic was more contentious over the other.
I'm trying to think I would imagine that
from memory, some of the points that are
more about intersectionality would perhaps be most contentious.
For example, if Danielle would be talking particularly
about experience of black women in the office,
(24:20):
in the workplace, it's sometimes other women that
are like that perhaps, maybe will diminish the
element of racing that argument.
And understandable, obviously women are still
facing massive issues in the workplace.
Those comments, those posts tend to
draw out some interesting responses. Yeah.
(24:43):
And obviously you know that, Daniel, I stalked you
on LinkedIn anyway, so I'm always seeing your post
come out and I'm always commenting if it resonates
with me or if I think, wow, that's incredible
that you use your voice and put yourself out
there and done that brave thing.
Because it is brave.
It's only on social media, but it is real life.
This is stuff that is happening on a day to day.
(25:05):
We did a post recently about some of the misogynistic
comments and I guess you could go as far as
to say sexual harassment on social media and the comments
that came underneath it were just wild.
Sadly not unbelievable.
Sadly not unbelievable.
And at that point I'm just like, what do you know?
(25:25):
You have to stand up and say something about this.
I think there's so many elements to this, especially in
the work that you're doing because obviously you want to
weed away the type of organizations that don't align with
your values because you don't want to set up fantastic
candidates to go and work in those just toxic environments,
let's be honest in a lot of cases.
(25:47):
But also you've got the element of knowing that
you've got this platform and this privilege for people
to be able to hear what you're saying.
But I'd be interested to know Danielle, because
the intersectionality pieces is so important and I
love that you talk about all these different
elements with it and I think that that's
really inspiring for most women to see.
(26:08):
Unfortunately, sometimes, like you say, when it's not
our lived experience, we can have a bit
of a closed perspective on it.
But I think what you're doing is you're slowly
widening people's peripheral, if you like, around these things
and to help them understand it a bit more.
But what do you do?
Because you're on social quite a lot.
You're out there, you're doing some
(26:28):
fantastic things by sound, by few.
You're making sure that your storytelling
is getting through so people understand
where some of those challenges lie.
How do you deal with people
being like that on social media?
How do you kind of keep
your mental well being topped up?
Well, I try to book in monthly massages. No joking?
(26:54):
No being more vocal and more public was never
my intention with this business and joining the business,
but sometimes not as I fall into things but
yeah, I have a lot of things stories to
tell and I really am passionate about this.
(27:16):
I mean, previous employers and colleagues that have worked with me
would tell you that people said to me to stop banging
on about these topics all the time at work.
So it is my passion, part of my identity.
So I think because I am so passionate about
it, that helps me push through a lot of
(27:39):
the anxiety and the mental health, I guess problems
that comes with being so public but yeah, every
time I post something the anxiety is there.
It's very nerve wracking because you don't want to
(28:00):
these topics are really sensitive, you don't want to
offend people, you don't want things to be miscommunicated.
Yeah, you do feel like there can be a lot of
pressure but at the same time some things need to be
said and need to be out there because one thing that
(28:20):
does really help, say if someone's trolling me or sending me
awful messages, it's all the positive messages I get.
People send me so many positive, just really lovely messages
like direct messages on LinkedIn and it's not all people
(28:43):
that look like me or have the same ethnicity or
gender as me, it's white men as well.
I would actually say that 50% of the messages I
get are from white men and people that don't look
like me telling me about an experience they've had or
(29:04):
explain it to me, why a certain message or post
really resonates with them and how what I've said or
something they've read has helped them in a situation.
So yeah, I think sometimes people feel like di is
for underrepresented people but actually there are a lot of
(29:26):
white people of words but yeah, there are a lot
of white people and the dominant group that really care
about this and actually look for companies that have these
values when they're job searching.
I know that I've definitely spoken to people
(29:47):
that will not work for an employer that
doesn't have dei values or policies in place.
Yeah, wow.
I asked for a few reasons.
I asked because obviously I'm constantly seeing found by people
all over social media which is really nice and I
love your posts, I love the way that your values
(30:10):
come out and everything that you communicate out there and
obviously I see you around the office as well because
we work in the office of yours.
So I see this consistent approach to things but I
also know how difficult it can be because of the.
Work that I do and how it takes a real toll on you.
So I was really glad to hear
(30:32):
that we have the same thing.
Which is that we're just so passionate about it.
That even on those really tough
times when for me it's different.
I've had a very tough workshop.
Perhaps that I've had some people just keep
coming at me and denying the statistics.
Denying other people's experiences and things like that.
(30:52):
And that can really take it out of you.
And I feel like social media is exactly the
same level, just in a slightly different way. Yeah.
I would just add to that I'm quite lucky that
I have an amazing team around me that I can
lean on if something happens where someone jumped in the
comments and it's being rude or denying an experience.
(31:15):
And also, the people that are connected with me
and follow me, they're also my biggest advocates.
I don't even have to say anything.
They just jump straight in there and with some great
either defending me on a point or bringing some more
evidence and backing up any points that I've made.
(31:39):
So yeah, in terms of something that allows me to keep
my mental health in check and do the job well, is
the fact that I've got this community around me, the community
that we've built up over the last year yeah.
And also that 50% of people sending you
the messages, those kind of allyship mindsets, and
(32:03):
how can I support this better?
And what you're doing is creating this awareness
and this education around topics that some people
have got no perspective on at all.
So you're slowly chipping away at what
their view of that thing was.
And it's really interesting.
There's something else around and I do want to move
on to some other questions, but this is just so
(32:25):
interesting for me and hopefully for the listener as well.
But there's something also around that
concept of looking internally if something
angers you around somebody else.
So I've had a conversation with family members before
around the concept of gender identity and fluidity and
(32:46):
things like that, and there's been members of my
family that have got very angry at the conversation
because I just don't get it.
Why can't people just do this or this kind of thing?
So I've just said to them, well, why don't you look
inwards to figure out why are you so angry about this?
Why in the core of your stomach is this making
you so angry at this other person about something that
(33:09):
has absolutely nothing to do with you and it doesn't
affect your life in any particular way?
So it's a really interesting one.
And this is the sort of thing on social media
that if I get negative comments and things like that,
I've got this need to educate people to do that,
self reflection that need to get people to look inwardly.
(33:30):
Because nine times out of ten that will help us to
figure out the answer as to why we feel so strongly
about something that we have no kind of experience of.
Yeah, I'm just intrigued because I know that
that's the reason that I keep going.
And I was going to ask what keeps
you going when things are really tough?
(33:50):
But I think you've probably just answered my question there
with regards to the passion and things like that.
So instead what I'm going to ask is what is
the absolute highlight of the work that you both do?
What is it that drives you on a day to
day basis with your candidates, with your clients in general?
(34:10):
I mean, I am a recruiter at heart, so placing
people into a job that they like and you get
them a pay rise and the company is super happy
with them, I still get an absolute buzz off that's
100% what gets me up in the morning.
What I would say just to add to that is that
obviously now, as an owner of a business, I kind of
like live that buzz vicariously for who are staff.
(34:31):
So seeing them be good at their jobs, seeing
them get reviews on Google with people saying, hey,
look, this experience I had with you was amazing.
Seeing clients come back and say, hey,
this person that works you is great,
like, that gives me an absolute buzz.
I love that.
If you know anyone that has ever worked
for me or speaks to me, like, I
(34:52):
believe that recruiting is an amazing job.
If you like doing a good job for
people, you've got a bit about you where
you can influence, you can get passionate about
other people, you're interested in other people.
It's an amazing job and I feel really passionate about that
and I love teaching the job to other people and show
them how they can build a career from it.
So I would say that that is what gets me up
(35:12):
in the morning and then there's loads of added bits to
that which is like, hey, I do also believe that as
a recruiter, other than just placing people, we have a wider
purpose, like a wider there's more that we can contribute than
just placing people into jobs and we try and do that.
I do also believe that the world of work
is changing and that when you run a business
(35:33):
now, it's not just about making as much profit
as you can, making everybody else's life hell.
I think it's about like, hey, how can we run
a sustainable business for the people that work in the
business, can enjoy their life, earn good money, at the
same time, be proud of their job, not go into
the workplace and have to deal with ship that perhaps
had to deal with outside of work.
(35:54):
And that your job as a business owner is to
create sustainable business, but also create an environment where people
like they can enjoy their life seeing other people be
good at their job and yes, go work from Porto
or Berlin or go meet friends that they'd have had
to book a holiday to do before.
Whatever it is, that really gives me a buzz
(36:16):
and what motivates me, I think that's going to
be music to most candidates ears because I think
I can speak for most people when I say
most recruiters, or at least most of my experiences
with recruiters, have been very sales driven.
It didn't feel like a very personal experience.
(36:37):
It didn't feel like they really cared
about helping me or helping the organization.
They were just chucking my CV at anyone.
And I think that I know recruitment feels
like it's moving more towards this way.
So it's nice to see that you're kind of
trailblazing the way for other people to follow.
And I think that in itself is going to give you
(36:58):
massive sense of pride in the work that you're doing.
Yeah.
And I also think it's a necessity.
You spoke earlier about legacy and people dealing with
legacy of the industries that they're working in.
You have to think of in recruitment in the
early 2000s, recruiters were the people with the database.
(37:18):
If you wanted to hire someone, you
had to go to a recruitment agency.
They had the database and
therefore they were incomplete.
Charge this data and the whole idea is you
would just be shipping stuff out and you'd be
making placements and nobody else could go anywhere else.
And that kind of environment tended to promote like
quite metro masculine traits of like, ruthlessness, like moving
(37:41):
people out of the way to get to the
fax machine to send over those CVS, you had
to be in the office to send the CV.
So working super long hours and taking managers out, going
on big drinks and like, hey, swunt this clientele.
But the world of recruitment is changing because
everybody in our industry is on LinkedIn.
So it's not that companies don't have access.
(38:02):
We all use in the kind of the same database, if
you will, and therefore you have to offer something different.
You have to really be specialists in the field.
Your candidates have to know that they can trust you and
go to you because you know what we're talking about.
Your clients have to go to you.
And if it was just like any job
that they could feel without being a specialist
and they probably wouldn't need you anyway.
(38:22):
So you have to really be a specialist in your field now
and you have to add value to a client and candidate.
Otherwise you just have no need to exist.
So we've asked that when we hire now, rather
than looking for traditional traits of ruthlessness, money hungry,
if you just treat everybody like money, you are
going to get the service that you just mentioned.
But we try to hire people who like compassion driven
(38:46):
to want to do a good job for other people.
And what we tell them is that if you do that, then
the money will come and you'll get paid what you should do.
But we try not to hire.
The only thing that matters is money because then
you just treat people like money and actually that
doesn't really work out and that certainly comes through
and everybody that works with you and the way
that you do your business, definitely.
(39:06):
Danielle, what about you?
Yeah, so what gets me out of bed in the morning?
It might sound really cheesy, but
I love making people happy.
So my specialism is in marketing, b to B marketing.
And I love marketing.
(39:28):
I love design, I love designing things, I
love writing, I love everything that marketing encompasses.
But at Fan by Few, a big part of
my role is people management and making people happy
and making sure that our staff are well cared
for and looking after their wellbeing.
(39:50):
I love it.
I love the fact that if someone comes to me with
a problem or someone wants something, I can make that happen.
And then if I can't make that happen,
I will find an alternative or some kind
of solution to making them happy.
I love planning all our team socials and just looking
(40:13):
at what benefits and perks we can give to people.
And a big part of what I do is relationship building.
And I feel like in the pandemic, obviously Lockdown,
a lot of us were what I was experiencing
a lot of loneliness and yeah, and I think
I did a lot of soul searching.
(40:33):
And the one thing that I knew that
I needed in my career and my job
is the human connection, but relationship building.
And over the past year, I've been able to
build relationships with not only our staff, our clients,
but also just people in in our space.
(40:56):
And whether it's in the Dei space, whether
it's LinkedIn friends, I just love building relationships
with people and seeing how we can collaborate.
That's something that makes me happy.
The word that's coming through.
And it's no surprise that every single podcast that we
record being human, we all have that in common.
(41:22):
No matter what industry we're in, no matter
what point we're at in our career, you
got to treat people like humans.
And that human connection.
Regardless of whether you're an introvert or an extrovert
or wherever you at with your seniority and your
specialism, the human element is always there.
(41:43):
It's really interesting.
I had a conversation with someone that I
worked with at a Woman's Center bakery in
Brixton, and she was talking about the human
element that sometimes people kind of dehumanize others,
especially when they're very different to themselves.
So it doesn't surprise me that this human
element is coming out for both of you,
(42:04):
considering how important diversity is to you, the
way in which you run your business.
And it is a business.
You're okay, we're talking about the human element,
talking about the social impact that we're making.
But ultimately you are a business and you're
making a difference in meaningful work not just
to local communities, but genuinely to people's careers
(42:24):
and then the people that follow after them
and the people that follow after them.
So, yeah, it's just really lovely to kind of
hear that whole human thing really resonates with me.
Now, you talked a little bit earlier about one of the
challenges is the five day working week from the office.
That's still a mindset that some employers are
(42:46):
struggling to kind of move away from.
But is there another challenge?
Is there a blockage somewhere that you think
is really starting to prevent diversity from coming
into whether it's into the creative industry, whether
it's progressing through or any industry.
So what kind of challenges or barriers do
(43:07):
you think of really blocking that diversity from
coming in in the first place?
Okay, so as a recruitment company,
obviously we charge the place people.
So clients tend to only come to us for
kind of like mid to very senior level.
We don't do that much at the junior
side because people don't only want to pay
(43:27):
agencies to junior stuff, which is completely understandable.
So in terms of that first jump into a job,
like what's blocking people at that stage, we're probably not
the best people to speak about or speak to about.
However, it's something we're extremely passionate about and all the
content that we provide and if we give spare time
(43:49):
to anyone is to try and encourage motivate and give
confidence for people to look for these jobs because it
is a really high paying sector that we operate in
and to keep going to get that first job.
So I guess in terms of what's blocking those people,
we're probably not the best people to speak about.
What's then blocking people from home
(44:10):
kind of mid senior leads?
Well, there's a number of different issues
because I mentioned this earlier, candidates are
not one set of people.
But if we took away from the remote working,
I think things that do kind of like stop
people thinking differently is like people just expecting like,
hey, you sent us this CV with this experience,
(44:32):
can you just send us pretty much the same
CV but someone that isn't a white male?
And a lot of our time it's like, well,
if you do want, I don't know, ten years
experience in finance, this is going to really send
you towards white male candidates because finance ten years
ago less diverse than it is now.
So these kind of things were like hiring diverse candidates
(44:55):
isn't just asking for the same TV, but of a
woman, of someone that isn't white, whatever it is.
And that's one of the main things that you have to
be more open, like, where do you want to hire from?
You have to kind of change your mindset.
It's not a case of just getting it's not
like recruitment agencies have all these EVs and we're
just sending the mail ones, if that makes sense.
It's like you have to open your mind
(45:17):
to where this experience would have come from.
Do you really need these skills?
Do you really need this years of experience?
Do they really need to have come from this industry?
So, yeah, I think that's probably I don't know if
I've answered that succinctly, but people just generally kind of
almost just thinking that diversity is the same.
How can we get the same thing, but just
make sure it's a woman or whatever it is.
That is a big frustration for us.
(45:39):
It sounds almost like you're coaching these people to
say, hey, by the way, you're not going to
get it, it's not going to be the case.
You've also got to think, of course, with experience, a lot
of women who are in slightly more senior roles might be
of that kind of age, that they might have taken some
time off to care for children or elderly parents and things
(46:01):
because a lot of care taking roles unfortunately still fall down
to women in a lot of the ways.
So actually they're going to miss out on years of experience
at that point, but they still are able and capable to
do the job and they still have the potential.
So, yeah, it's that education and
that coaching to go well. Can you look at this in
a slightly different way, perhaps?
Yeah, education, coaching, I would almost say that our job
(46:25):
more often not is just to hold up like a
mirror and reflect back some things to the what tends
to happen is a top down instruction.
We need more diverse candidates.
Goes from the CEO to the manager, it goes to the
talent team, it then goes to us as the external recruiter
and we're like, well, hey, hang on a second, what are
you doing to attract these types of people?
It's not a case of like, you just wanting
(46:46):
them and they're all, well, please, can come, you
work for you, what are you doing? You're right.
So if you want a diverse leadership team,
it tends to be that leaders obviously will
be more experienced in their career.
As you get more experience in your career,
the chances are you will have a family.
So, yeah, what does your maternity pay look like?
What does your paternity pay look like?
(47:07):
What policies do you have that would attract these
type of people to work with before people sometimes
within the business that's kind of too scared to
say, well, what are we doing?
And then this kind of hot potato gets passed on.
And I've seen in my experience in recruitment that it goes
to the recruitment agency and they go, okay, yeah, we'll go
(47:27):
out and we'll try to find you more women.
Let's say that's not what the issue is.
The issue is, why do these people want to work for you?
If you are struggling to hire people that
aren't white, what does your leadership look?
Why would these people want to work for your company?
Why would they want to come in and be the only person?
So it's kind of like our job is to hold a mirror
back and just say, it's not about you wanting this thing.
(47:48):
What are you doing as a company?
And more than that as well, for
us, everybody's got a deni policy.
Let's forget about the deni policy.
What does it mean to you?
What does it mean to the hiring manager?
What does this really mean to you?
And get some stuff in between the lines
that we can talk to people about.
And so, yeah, I guess our job is,
(48:10):
I would say more coaching, like education.
It's really just to hold a mirror back
and just say, well, hang on a SEC.
Actually, it's not about you wanting these people.
Why would they want you?
So what are you offering?
Yeah, and I think, Danielle, you kind of
mentioned earlier about this idea that people are
more likely now to work for organizations that
(48:32):
have a very strong dei strategy.
They're actually doing some actionable
things and making a difference.
The statistic a couple of years ago, I think it was
a McKinsey report was about 67% of millennials will decide whether
or not to take a role, depending on that.
And it's obviously a lot higher now because
people have much more of a social conscience.
(48:53):
We're so much more aware now of, oh, hold on.
Just because our families and our generations before have
been treated this way or have had to work
really hard and that's just what's expected kind of
thing, it doesn't have to be the way in
which people enter the working world.
It doesn't have to be the way
in which we've progressed through now.
(49:14):
So I do think that there's something in
that concept and that holding the mirror up
and saying, what are you offering?
Is an action that's more than a dei strategy.
Like you say, it's more than some words on
the website and some kind of stock pictures of
lots of different looking people high fiving each other.
(49:35):
A lot more than that now.
Yeah, just a couple more questions then.
So what do you think?
Okay, now, what do you wish employers understood better
about the way in which they recruit in general?
(49:55):
Danielle, you wrote something the other day which I think is
one of the most important things to understand and which is
kind of linked to the thing we were before.
It's like, you are not doing again,
quotation marks, diverse candidates of favor.
By hiring them, you need them in your business.
And therefore, it goes back to what we were
saying, which is like, it's not a case of,
(50:15):
like, yeah, this is not a charity.
This is not you doing a favor to anybody.
And if you do have that mindset, I can assure you these
people are not going to stay with you for very long.
That is just the completely wrong
way to think about it.
So, like Daniel racist the other day, like I said
you before, if we are not able to create an
environment in our office where we can harvest or harness,
(50:36):
like, talent, then we are missing out as a business.
Like, we need these people.
We need to create a good environment for them
that's so integral to us as a business.
So I would just say that that
kind of like, mindset is so important.
Yeah, no, I 100% agree and I think that sentiment
and that point that I raised that the panel talk
(50:59):
really comes from a place of experience as well.
I've often been made to feel like I should
be grateful to be there because I'm some kind
of like token hire or I owe the employer
or manager something because they're doing me a favor
(51:23):
when actually I'm highly skilled at what I do.
I can do things across many disciplines and yeah,
I'm just shit hot at like, what I do.
And I was talking to someone quite senior about this
and it's something that I think has been recorded recently,
(51:44):
but they're seeing a trend in black women where they
progress to mid level and then they fall off.
And obviously data can only tell you so much.
There's loads of different factors in that.
It could be maternity, it could be many other reasons.
(52:06):
But in every organization, most organizations I've worked in,
when I've spoken to friends that come from the
same background as myself, it's pretty much the same
across the board where black women just don't seem
(52:26):
to be progressing past a certain stage.
And then that can only make you feel as a
black woman or a bad person, make you start to
believe that you are just there to tick a box
and you are seen as some kind of charity case
rather than a valued employee that deserves to progress and
(52:52):
be a valued part of the organization.
I don't know if I answered the question.
I feel I have gone there's so many things that
just come into my head then and I know we
haven't got much time left, but there's something there about
that limiting belief that somebody has put on you when
(53:14):
you go into an organization where they kind of like,
oh, you're a token higher.
And they might not say it outwardly, but their micro
behaviors or whatever it might be and the language that
people use will make you feel that way.
So then what happens is we might then naturally put
a limit on our own, so we might not then
be able to reach our full potential and be as
(53:38):
amazing as we are in those spaces.
And I think that's very clear, right?
Then people go off and they're fantastically talented in
an organization that does make them feel included.
And then you've got the
limiting belief of that example.
There are black women getting to those middle positions,
but actually then dropping off at that point, a
young black woman coming into an organization.
(53:59):
You see that happening.
Were you going to stop yourself
from trying too hard subconsciously?
Because what's the point? Kind of thing?
Or you try even harder, you use all
your energy, and then you just burn out.
So I just think it's just so interesting.
I'd be really interested to see some of
that data because it supports the narrative of
(54:23):
the conversations I'm having with people.
And like, you're right, you can't look at
data by itself, but when you pull it
all together with lots of different things, there's
a very, very obvious story being told there.
So I think the work that you're both doing and
in general, when people are talking about this more, making
it much less taboo to talk about, ultimately what we're
(54:45):
doing then is we're removing some of those barriers and
slowly taking down that kind of wall.
Okay, just to finish us off, then, I want to ask
you for one piece of advice or one suggestion that you
would give to employers who wanted to start thinking a little
(55:06):
bit differently about the way that they hire.
So I'll go to whoever first.
I won't put anyone on the spot.
I'll jump into two things straight away.
So one is to go back on what
we just said, which is a mindset change.
Like, you're not doing anyone a favor, so therefore
what you're doing to attract these types of people
that's like, number one, before anything, I then think
(55:27):
that you can't think of diverse candidates.
Again, in the quotation marks,
people can't see the camera.
So there's like, one set of people
that you can solve with one solution.
What attracts female leaders into the business
is going to be different from what
attracts young people from London, nonwhite Londoners
(55:55):
or whatever is going to attract.
If you have neurodiversity, you have
to look at your interview process.
What are you asking the candidates to do?
Who is this going to benefit? What is the prep?
Are you springing things on
people in the interview process?
Is there a panel of, like,
four people interviewing this one person?
There is no one size fits all.
And you have to really think, okay, if
you change your mindset and hopefully all of
(56:16):
those things should benefit from that.
But there are so many different factors to
this that there isn't this one solution.
There isn't like, yeah, put a DNI policy
on our website and hopefully that stuff.
You have to look at your interview process.
You have to look at who's conducting the interviews.
You have to look at what traits you're looking for.
You have to look at your policies you're
working from home policies and maternity policies.
So many different things you have to look at.
(56:38):
And that's completely the opposite
of what you've asked me.
But I guess it all goes back to,
like, you have to change your mindset.
There is no silver bullet.
If you change your mindset, then all of the
good things will follow afterwards, because you all look
at your interview process, you will look at who's
conducting your hiring, you will look at how you've
worded things in your drop spec.
But it all starts from a mindset change.
(56:59):
Yeah, and I've got that mirror concept again,
nobody can see what I'm doing, but I'm
holding up my hand with mirror.
But you've got that mirror concept.
I think that goes into that really nicely, which is
stop thinking about candidates as lucky to work for you.
Start thinking about how can we harvest or
(57:20):
harvest their talent and make them see what
it's worth, what we're offering to them.
Even for me, I didn't go to uni.
I dropped out of school early.
But I was incredibly lucky to sound, look and
be from the same area as my CEO.
So therefore, I was given all the confidence, all the
room to make mistakes, all the stuff to be successful.
(57:42):
And you have to normally look back
and go, actually, hang on a second.
Would that have happened if
some circumstances had been different? No, it wouldn't.
So I've been really benefit.
So I benefit from that, and therefore,
I see my job as a boss.
I need to give that confidence in that room
to fail to everybody that works for me.
Not just people.
Everyone has biases for people that
sound and look like them.
(58:03):
If Daniel meets someone from Stratum, if I meet
someone from Bombay, if Zary, you meet someone that
you have, like, this thing where automatically you're like,
hey, you've got this kind of, like, imaginary connection,
but you just have to make sure there's nothing
wrong with that connection. You just have to make sure
you give it to everybody else.
There really is no problem with
making a connection quickly with people.
You just have to make sure you're not just doing
(58:23):
it with those people, you're doing it to everyone. Yes.
And being aware of that affinity
bias as well is really important.
Okay, Danielle, one piece of advice or
suggestions from you and from your perspective? Yes.
I think Ben pretty much said a lot of things that
I obviously agree with, and I would have said as well.
(58:46):
So the only thing really I can add
to that is just keep educating yourself.
Do as much reading, as much research as
possible into different cultures and different areas and
things that you wouldn't necessarily look into.
Obviously, my experiences of black, mixed
race, woman, working class, windrush generation,
(59:10):
I know enough about that.
So, okay, what do I need to
do now in terms of education?
I need to look at the.
LGBT plus community.
I need to look at neurodiversity, I need to
look at all the different areas that don't apply
to me and educate myself in those areas.
(59:31):
I think other people need to be as curious about those,
especially if you're a business owner or a leader or a
manager, you need to be curious about those areas.
And also you need to just keep educating
yourself and not putting the responsibility of education
on the underrepresented people in your organization, because
(59:53):
that only leads to burnout, that leads to
people feeling tokenized, people feeling alienated.
So, yeah, that would be my one bit of advice. Yeah.
And just to add to it, then
it says, nobody is perfect with this.
There's no getting it right.
It is completely a journey of
trying to get things right.
(01:00:14):
And therefore we will never,
ever proclaim that we're perfect. Far from it.
What we will proclaim is we will always
try our best to understand and be better.
That is what we can commit to and
that's what we try to do every day.
But there's no way, like, oh, my God,
of course everyone's going to get stuff wrong.
And I guess that's why you were talking earlier about
(01:00:35):
people getting to a certain level and then dropping off.
Everybody has to be given room
to fail and then become better.
And if certain people aren't given the room
to fail, or if they're struck off from
their failing straight away, then yeah, that's just
that no one's ever going to succeed.
So, yeah, you can't be afraid to get stuff wrong.
You have to just commit to
be better and constantly learn. Yeah.
(01:00:55):
And you can't have one standard for one group, like
adding onto yourself about giving people the room to fail.
You can't have one level expectation for one group
of people and having a completely different level of
expectation for another because that is just unfair.
And you're never going to create an equal
(01:01:16):
playing field if you're treating people unfairly.
Yeah. Wow. Thank you.
That was like the perfect end, I think, to this.
I think there's been some
really good insights in there.
I think our listeners are going
to get something from this.
And we love the employers come and listen
(01:01:36):
to these because it means that they can
hear it from a different perspective.
They can hear it from an outside agency,
but also people that have experienced these things.
And I think that there's
something really powerful in knowledge.
They say knowledge is power and
they're not wrong, whoever they are. But yeah.
So thank you so much for joining me.
I've really enjoyed this.
(01:01:57):
Hope you have, too, and I'll speak to you soon.
All right. Thank you, Zoe.
Thanks, Zoe.
I'll see you soon.
Sadly, that's all we have time for today.
I could have spoken to Danielle and Ben probably
(01:02:18):
for another few hours, and I'm sure you probably
could have listened to them as well.
I think you probably heard how excited and engaged and
passionate they are with regards to really helping people to
find meaningful work but also really starting to change the
way people think about potential and experience and the way
in which we can recruit and really start to open
(01:02:39):
up to more diverse groups of people that perhaps we
hadn't thought about before.
Hopefully, if you're an employer listening to this, you've had
really great insights site into what it's like in the
recruitment field and also some really great ideas on how
you can really start to make a difference in the
work that you're doing as well.
So thank you so much for listening.
(01:02:59):
We will see you on the next one. Bye.
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