Ep 97: Ending Career Misery: The Future of Recruitment with Andrew MacAskill

What if your job isn’t the problem—but your mindset is?

In a world where unfulfilling careers are the norm, Andrew MacAskill is on a mission to end career-based misery—and reshape how we think about leadership, recruitment, and purpose at work.

In this episode, Andrew joins me to tackle the real challenges facing today’s recruitment professionals and job seekers. From the fear of failure to the flaws in traditional hiring models, this conversation gets to the heart of what’s broken—and how we can fix it.

Whether you’re a recruiter, hiring manager, or professional in transition, this episode offers deep insights and actionable strategies to thrive in a changing world of work.

Ready to rethink recruitment? Hit play now. 🎧

“People join people, not businesses.” – Andrew MacAskill

You'll hear about:

✅ How to build compassionate leadership cultures that actually retain top talent ✅ Why recruitment consultants must evolve—or risk becoming irrelevant ✅ The power of personal branding in the modern job market ✅ Navigating the talent crunch, AI, and automation with strategy and empathy ✅ Finding alignment between personal values and organizational mission

 

Andrew’s resources:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jobsearchcoach/

Executive Career Jump - https://www.execcareerjump.com/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/AndrewMacAskill

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/executivecareerjump/

 

My resources: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/itschrisoconnell/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ChrisOConnell11

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/chrisoconnellcoach/

TikTok - https://www.instagram.com/chrisoconnellcoach/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_ZWYrxrzzaElmpZMy5S86w

Basemindset website - https://basemindset.com/

 

Pre-order my new book - https://access.basemindset.com/pre-order

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You got to get comfortable with the fact that it might not work.
I think that's the hardest thing.
We all have a fear of failure, don't we?
To some extent.
But I kind of live by the, I can deal with failure, but I can't deal with what if.
I think what if is what eats people up.
Yeah.
And having done a lot of career coaching, you speak to most people and a lot of them,there is a dream or a pivot or something that sits underneath it.

(00:24):
And they're living with what if.
And I think that's so sad.
Andy McCaskill, welcome to the Purpose-led Leadership podcast.
Delighted to have you on.
You've been on mine, I've been on yours, but I think this is the first in-person one we'vedone,
I think you're right.
Yeah.
Thank you for inviting me in.

(00:44):
Really good.
I always enjoy our conversations.
Good to see you.
For those that don't know you and you've got over 100,000 followers on LinkedIn, so mostpeople do, what do you actually do?
Who are you?
Who am I?
I'm still trying to work that out at 43 years old, in fairness.
I'll update you when I find out.
I guess from a career perspective, I've got one primary mission, which is to endcareer-based misery.

(01:06):
That's been a mission for the last 20 years or so, which has led me to work in careercoaching, led me to work in executive search and executive recruitment, write books to
help people get hired, and speak and generally debate the world of work, careers, andhiring as a whole.
That's the type of work we get involved with.
It's really good fun.
you've done some amazing stuff.

(01:27):
really interested, can sort of dive straight into it because obviously you've had a verysuccessful career as a sort of kind of senior leader in the recruitment space, but then
you kind of did your own thing which kind of blew up on LinkedIn quite well, well verywell.
And now you're back in as a CCO, aren't you?
So really interested in that transition because you've kind of had both ends of thespectrum there, haven't you?

(01:49):
We have, yeah.
And I think it's important, you we talk about careers as a whole, like you don't have tobe set on one path at one period of time.
And in my experience, whatever decision I've made, there's always been people telling meit was the wrong decision.
Yeah.
You know?
I mean, when I left accountancy to get into recruitment in the first place, people weresaying, why are you doing that?

(02:10):
I then moved to London and my friends from down south were going, oh, London, no, youdon't want to be up there.
Yeah.
Crazy place.
We then moved to Australia.
They're like, why are you going to Australia for?
know, but people are going to doubt whatever you do.
And certainly when we set up our own business, people were like, yeah, that's risky.
Yeah.
So I think you've got to just go with the internal compass and do what makes sense to youand back your intuition.

(02:32):
The psychology of that is actually really important and really valuable.
think in this world, we're kind of indoctrinated by all sorts of different advice andcontent and that kind of stuff.
I think leaning into this and understanding that actually making your own choice and thepeople you surround yourself with and the information that you're receiving, it plays a

(02:54):
big part in your, I think your trajectory, your choices.
How best is it to navigate that?
even your friends or family are saying one thing and you want to do another.
I mean, how do you build that kind of internal ability, that compass to know what to do,what's right for you, would you say?
You got to get comfortable with the fact that it might not work.
I think that's the hardest thing.

(03:15):
We all have a fear of failure, don't we?
To some extent.
But I kind of live by the, I can deal with failure, but I can't deal with what if.
I think what if is what eats people.
Yeah.
And having done a lot of career coaching, you speak to most people and a lot of them,there is a dream or a pivot or something that sits underneath it.

(03:36):
And they're living with what if.
And I think that's so sad.
I to regret something I've done than something I haven't done.
Exactly that.
In most cases.
And I think this is the purpose of the leadership podcast.
We'll move straight into that.
I think there's a lot of people in this world that are going through the motions.
This is not judging.
This is my observation around they're going to work or they're going to the business.

(03:58):
They're picking up the paycheck.
They're spending it.
They're going to eat, sleep, rave, repeat.
There's no kind of meaning behind that.
And I always think that
purpose is something that moves and shakes and evolves, unless you've got a centralisedreason or meaning or why for doing things, think generally life can pass you by.

(04:18):
It could definitely pass you by and resentment builds, is like poison.
It's not very good for you at all.
We've all had it at various points.
But yeah, no, I totally agree with that philosophy.
I think that it's all about aligning who you are with what you do and getting comfortablewith that.
And when you do that, good things tend to happen anyway.
Like from my perspective, the more I focused on the mission element to it, the more thecommercial outcomes and the business.

(04:48):
growth and success has happened anyway.
I think that plays out in people's career choices, as your business owner, kind of allfacets of life, right?
And I think your career misery thing, is that born out of your own experiences, otherexperiences, almost like you wrote your book, you did your executive career job thing, it
almost feels now you're kind of in a position where your purpose has been created throughyour experiences, would you say?

(05:13):
Definitely.
And there's data to back it up.
If you look at Gallup polls or whatever, the UK is terrible for it.
I think 80 % of the workforce in the UK are somewhat dissatisfied with their workinglives, but feel trapped.
It's become part of their identity.
They're a partner in a law firm.
That's how they introduce themselves to people.
It's how they carry themselves.

(05:34):
And the idea of it becoming their identity and breaking away from that is like aself-imposed prison.
So yeah, think it's a tricky thing.
Yeah.
So the transition from kind of executive career jump, which I think your wife still runs,to then going back into Fraser Dove, I want to talk about that.
How was that for you in terms of, did you have any kind of like, not reservations, butkind of like, it's almost, you went from one extreme to the other, but back again, it's

(06:03):
just, for me, it's a really interesting and very, not brave, but kind of like, you justmade the choice that you felt was right for you.
But I'm sure you felt judged by these decisions or not, how did it play out for you?
Yeah, no, definitely.
It definitely wasn't an easy decision at any point.
mean, CareerJump was born out of the fact that we had a mission for five years in arecruitment company that ultimately didn't work and had a bad ending.

(06:30):
Yeah.
And so initially it was as much about helping other people that were going through that,but also helping myself process that.
And I you've had some major inflection points in your journey as well, as we've discussed.
Yeah.
You do need to give yourself some time, don't you?
So I think the self-employment bit initially was kind of, right, I just need to let myselfbreathe here, get involved with a range of projects and let myself process the fact that

(06:56):
that particular five years didn't result in what I was hoping it would do.
But then good stuff started to happen.
You start to get hooked into it.
It was during the pandemic.
And so through sheer timing, what we were offering was something that was of need.
But ultimately, the longer that went on,
I was working the majority of time from my dining room table.

(07:18):
I really missed the collaboration with colleagues.
Really missed it.
It's amazing how much, how important that is to me.
I love working with other people directly and coaching is one type of relationship, but Imean like going with a group of people on a mission together as a tour of duty.
think that's a great feeling.

(07:41):
I'd worked with Fraser Dove on a consultancy basis, kind of doing some training aroundLinkedIn and retainer selling and this type of stuff.
And eventually the kind of stars aligned, the opportunity came up and decided to make.
I think it's really interesting because one of questions I'm going to ask you is what dorecruitment consultants really want apart from money?
But it doesn't matter whether it's a recruitment consultant.
think it's interesting.

(08:01):
Money is important, but there's been loads of studies on this.
It's probably the third most important thing.
in your description there, I feel as if you probably don't have a lot as a business owner,but you're the sort of individual that wants to learn, grow, and develop and be around
people that can enhance you.
And I think that was probably a part of the decision as well, no?
part of it.
I think recruitment consultants, a lot of them are financially driven.

(08:24):
I think that's absolutely fine.
But I do think that has changed since we entered the industry.
A lot is made of the latest generation and I think they're unfairly judged at times fornot being as driven or being entitled or whatever.
That's not been my experience.
They are as motivated and sales-orientated as we were when we joined the industry.

(08:47):
but they need to feel meaning in what they're doing.
They won't just do it for the paycheck.
There needs to be another layer of purpose, or meaning behind it.
And so I think what a lot of recruitment companies are struggling with at the moment isthey're still managing people in a Taipei fashion, purely around the financials, the
incentives, the status, when actually a large part of that employee population

(09:13):
want more than that.
And this makes sense to their head, their heart and their wallet is the expression I use.
No, absolutely.
love that.
I think recruitment companies ban on about culture.
But if you looked at 99 websites out of 100, they all say the same thing.
So how do you create a world-class culture?
think it is understanding that everyone's slightly different.

(09:34):
It's not a one-size-fits-all.
But things like vulnerability, empathy, that's come into the fore, a lot more compassion,the softer skills.
The archetypal old school one-dimensional leader will...
cool bullshit on that.
the importance of back in our day, was kind of like the employer asked the person to runfor a brick wall and they would because it was just the way it was done.

(09:55):
Make 100 calls, okay.
It's kind of like, I'm not advocating it's just the way it was, but that's completelychanged as well.
So what's your experience has been with the kind of the changing kind of leadership aroundsoft versus hard skills, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Well, as I say, I think you've got, you've got to hit their head, their heart and thewallet.
They're the three things that I think about.
So to motivate people, think from a head point of view, I think people need to feel likethey're learning.

(10:20):
Yeah.
They need to feel like they've got clarity on what they're supposed to be doing and theycan get their head around the task and what's expected of them.
From a heart point of view, I think they need to feel a deeper meaning and purpose withthe day-to-day work.
And there's personal purpose and also the company purpose and those two
value sets need to align appropriately.
And then I think you need to over-reward people that deliver high performance and lookafter their wallet as well.

(10:47):
And if you're hitting those three boxes, you're in a good space.
that's kind of how I think about it.
And you used a really important word, which is compassion.
And I think that is part of the key, mate, because there's been a lot of talk aboutempathy and empathy's okay.
But empathy is me understanding why you're feeling a certain way.

(11:10):
And quite often old Andrew would have then used my empathy to understand how you'refeeling, to manipulate you to do what I want you to do.
I think compassion is genuinely taking action to help that person based on where they'reat.
It's empathy in action.
In a positive forward way.

(11:32):
it?
No, no, compassion is action.
So I think there is a shift from empathy to action.
compassion.
Old Andrew has triggered me for a word to look at myself around what old Chris was like asa leader.
what I am now.
I'm a completely different man, right?
I I built a 25 million pound business, 100 people, but I think a lot of that was drive andeverything else, but a motivation.

(11:54):
I didn't, I don't think I had things like empathy, compassion and vulnerability back then.
Now I'm a completely different person.
So what's your journey been like as a leader?
How have you changed and adapt?
Have you had, have you, talk about old Andrew?
Give me some traits of old Andrew versus new Andrew.
Well, I turned up in London, best part of 20 years ago to work in city based recruitment.
You know what that was like.

(12:17):
The same as you, kind of assimilated to that environment.
And my view was, well, if you're to be a bear, be a grizzly.
And so it was quite an alpha environment.
It's quite an ego driven environment.
And so I played up to that character.
that at the time, based on my limited experience and based on where the world was at, waswhat I thought I had to be to be successful.

(12:42):
That's interesting, isn't it?
You talk about identity and kind of kind of moving to personal brand and leadership.
think the best, if I was to describe the most effective approach is being yourself.
And I think I did adopt a role as a leader.
put on a suit, I became this kind of stoic warrior, but I think people can see throughthat these days, right?

(13:02):
But most, I think, not most, a lot of leaders, I don't think are truly themselves or arethat kind of person.
What's your...
experience.
You talk a lot about the good, bad and ugly of leadership.
What have you seen in your travels?
Well, I have a lot of empathy for leaders because I think it is a really difficult role,genuinely.

(13:23):
And I think part of the challenge is a lot of the advice people get is contradictory.
And I've struggled with this as well.
I'm a big reader, big podcast listener, same as you.
I really believe in self-development.
But a lot of the times you feel like you're getting advice that's diametrically opposed toeach other.
So to give you some examples of that, know, one thing people talk a lot.

(13:44):
about moment is the importance of vulnerability, right?
I don't disagree with that at all.
I think vulnerability is important.
We don't have to be the bulletproof.
You can't be vulnerable every minute of the day either, can you?
Well, no, because also what's really important is delivering psychological safety.
So if I was entirely vulnerable and open about everything that was going on with me, stuffthat was going on in the business at times, at scale, there would be no psychological

(14:10):
safety.
this is, yeah, another good example is people say, you have to adapt your style based onthe person that you're speaking to.
Probably good advice, right?
Like that's, that's, that's good management advice, but equally on the other side, peoplesay, well, you have to be authentic.
It's like, well, how can I be authentic if I'm also adapting my style?

(14:31):
And these types of things just get in your head.
I think when you're leading people, quite often you just feel conflicted and confusedaround what should I be doing here?
Because I'm absorbing all this content, reading all these books.
And actually, amongst all of that, what you've really got to do is be more intuitive.
Because there is no model.
There is no magic beam that you can take.

(14:53):
There is no one YouTube video you can watch.
podcast you can listen to that will solve it.
You've got to be really intuitive.
You've got to be true to yourself.
Try and make decisions that offer transparency and lead in a way that you'd want to beled, right?
Like that's kind of where it all lands.
Yeah, that's good.
But also I think as well is about being a human being and accepting and being cool withthe fact that you might fuck it up sometimes.

(15:18):
Yeah.
You know, regularly.
And admit that and say sorry or whatever.
You know, I think that goes a long way as well.
Yeah.
No, sorry and thank you are probably the two most important phrases in the leadershipplaybook, they?
Yeah, try to teach my kids to say it, most adults don't bloody say it.
But actually that kind of respect level, I think if I'm interviewing somebody and they arequite complimentary and they are aware of their faults, those kind of skills I think are

(15:52):
massively underplayed, I think.
Yeah.
And taking ownership.
people really respect people that take ownership.
I like working with people that take ownership of all levels.
What's been some of your biggest leadership challenges then?
Any time you might have fallen over at a time and fucked it up.
Oh, geez.
I could have a couple of podcasts.

(16:14):
It's so true though.
I mean, the biggest one for me was thinking that I had to have the answer to everything.
That was a big problem.
And I also had a real problem with dominating the room and dominating the space.
So I worked with a coach on this in the end, which was really helpful because I would

(16:35):
go into a team meeting, stand up in front of the whiteboard, get overexcited about thelatest idea that I had, solve a problem in the business, draw it all out and expect
everyone to get it, follow me and go and do it.
Yeah, yeah.
And so I wasn't giving people space to contribute and I wasn't giving them ownership ofthe solution either.

(17:01):
So what the coach said to me, and this was a
a really good tip was in team meetings from now on, want you to speak last.
Right.
Not that.
time.
And there was a story about Nelson Mandela's father who used to go to tribal gatheringsand he was the chief.
And Nelson Mandela said, you know, what he learned from his father from that was that healways spoke last.

(17:22):
They all sat in a circle so they could all see each other and engage and everyone feltrespected.
So there was no hierarchy.
But also he always spoke last.
So this coach had me put a picture of Nelson Mandela as my screensaver on my lap,reminding me when I'm going in there, like, you know, with that kind of high energy.
Yeah.
Solution.
Yeah.
Mindset.

(17:42):
Actually, take a step back, try and speak last.
I think that's so powerful because obviously that engenders and encourages the people inthe room to be creative and you're not saving or rescuing them then.
But I think even in conflict or when you're negotiating, the ability to shut up, saynothing, pause, or even if you have an emotional reaction to something with your wife or
your, it's kind of that ability to just stop is, I think it's another underestimatedskill.

(18:09):
It's huge actually.
Yep.
So that's, that's big screw ups.
A lot of the content I write on the hiring side comes from my own failures in some hiringand people side in the past as well.
Ironically, we're supposed to be hiring experts.
And I'd like to think that I am a hiring expert to some extent, but there's no doubt thatI've made hiring errors throughout as well.

(18:30):
I think that's a real, and that's why I still believe in the potential and the future forthe recruitment executive search world is that hiring is such a painful pinch point.
for the vast majority of leaders.
Most people have never been trained on it, don't know how to run good processes, don'tknow what to look for and repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
What are the common mistakes then in the hiring equation?

(18:53):
This is going to be quite a long answer actually.
From the candidate's perspective, what are they doing that isn't conducive to a successfuloutcome?
The clients and also the recruitment consultant, those three Cs, candidate, client, andrecruitment consultant, where are they kind of, what are the do's and don'ts?
It's quite a long question.
Whatever you're comfortable with there.

(19:15):
Well, let's start with the hiring team, right?
The client.
That particular C in this particular equation.
And let's use commercial roles as an example, because most people, no matter what they'rein, can kind of understand and process that quite quickly.
So the most common challenge with hiring commercial people is, number one, you hire on CV,but far on behaviour.

(19:42):
So you hire on people that have a track record.
100%.
But then fire on behavior.
The problem with that in any sector is that a lot of previous track record is timing.
A lot of success is timing.
And I've learned that.
I've had playbooks that worked at a particular point in my life that I've then tried toreplicate elsewhere and they failed because it was timing.

(20:04):
I was doing LinkedIn at that time.
I was doing HubSpot at that time.
But isn't it also to interject a little bit, not necessarily what the candidates done iswhat they can do.
Yes, but that's exactly where that shift needs to be.
So rather than looking too much into the past, that should get you in the interview room.
You should be looking at the future predictors of success, defining what are the futurepredictors of success for a role and then assessing those.

(20:31):
So that's one challenge.
The other challenge with simple hiring processes, we might have spoken about this before,but is that currently it's a bit asked about face.
It's the wrong way around.
So a typical hiring process, phase one,
hiring manager will go in and interrogate the candidate.
If they're good, they'll then put them in and phase two, there'll be like a 50-50exchange.

(20:51):
And if they like them at phase three, they'll then sell to the candidate to try and closethem.
And know, and regularly leaders like you and I will get called in by managers saying, wereally like this lady, can you come and close them for us?
Right?
Actually, what you need to do is flip that on its head.
So the hiring team should be selling in the first interview.
judging the candidates based on the questions they ask rather than the answers they give.

(21:14):
You know, really like selling.
Then if they like them, moving them to a point where by the candidate selling back tothem, which is easier to close and more effective as a strategy.
few things there.
Future predictors, reversing when you're selling versus when you're expecting thecandidate to sell.
There's some good things that we need to look at.

(21:35):
So, from a candidate perspective, we ran some data.
which showed that actually at senior level, the candidate that most wanted the role andmost needed it was eight times less likely to get offered the job than the candidate that
least wanted the role.
And that was like a really frustrating thing when we were running CareerJump.
Because we're like, we've got these people that have got skills and are really keen ongetting hired and are not getting offered.

(22:02):
And so you go, okay, well, why is that?
And it was, the reason is, is because they weren't treating it as a two-way process.
So they were going in telling the interviewer what they wanted to hear or what theybelieved they wanted to hear, BSing their way through certain answers and not being open
and transparent.
Whereas the candidates who didn't care whether they got the job or not, they would go intoan interview and they would qualify the opportunity.

(22:27):
They would be way more honest.
So a candidate who didn't care whether they wanted the role, if you said, why did youleave that role?
They would say, I had a fallout with the boss.
It was a nightmare.
It all blew up one day in the boardroom and I stormed out.
I candidate the one to the job, you say to them, why did you leave that role?
They'll say, I was just ready for a new challenge.
Yeah, they're not they're not being real.
They're not being real.
Yeah.
Yeah
And so the biggest challenge for candidates is being brave enough to be real.

(22:50):
That's what you want.
If I was to choose those two based on that, I'd obviously go with the first onepersonally, you know, but as a hirer, you know.
everyone does.
Yeah, because you go, well, yeah, I've had faults as well.
I've had my own journey.
I can work with that person.
And it kind of shows a growth mindset.
So that's big.
And the waffling is a big problem too.
So a lot of candidates use interviews almost to air their knowledge, hoping that the rightanswer is in there somewhere and don't keep it too and just waffle for way, way too long.

(23:18):
And in this world, need, you know, people are looking to hire people that make the complexsimple.
if you're
overcomplicating your answers.
You're basically saying that's not me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you can put that down to nerves a little bit as well, but I think that let's move onto the recruitment consultant as well.
And then we'll do the rest of that.
Yeah, so recruitment consultant, think the biggest problem in the hiring process, andagain, it's a little bit like the desperate candidate versus the one that is more

(23:47):
objective, is over selling the candidates at shortlist.
I see this all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
Like we present five candidates and we sell them like they're all perfect human beings.
Yeah.
I mean, how much trust you reckon the client has in our assessment?
Yeah.
Zero.
Like we're saying that all we've found five impeccable humans.

(24:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We'd be far better off building trust with the client by saying here's the attributes.
Here's the risks.
Yes.
Here are the challenges.
Here are the down points.
Here is.
I think that's really important in terms of moving on to communication.
It's how we actually sell.
If we're just flopping an email over with a massive long chapter of superlative, that'snot ideal either.

(24:33):
Also, as an example, I was dealing with a client a couple of weeks ago.
I'm normally more strategic, but it was an issue with an offer.
The candidate had four interviews and the client
me up and said, I'm really pissed off because my client's email, he's offered mycandidate, but they've offered 15 or 20 grand under and they sent him an email.

(24:56):
I was like, all right.
the client was pissed off that their client sent an email offer, which is right.
But then the onus is on the consultant to make sure that they're managing that process.
I think how we communicate is really important and how we introduce stuff is reallyimportant as well,
Yeah, trust.
That's why I like fixed fees.
I think part of the reason clients do that is they know we're on 22 % of the number.

(25:23):
And so for them at that point in the process, that's a conflict of interest.
So I don't want Chris to come back and say we need another 10 grand, which he's going tobecause that's another 2,200 in his pocket on 22%.
Whereas if you have a fixed fee for 30 grand for the project,
Well, exactly.
It's the pond that you fish in.
you're pitching retained and excluded, that doesn't happen, right?

(25:45):
So it's how you position yourself, I think, isn't it?
And the client shouldn't do that to you out of respect for you.
Yes.
Yeah.
But yeah, worth it for anyone that hasn't tried it playing around with fixed feerecruitment rather than a percentage because then there's no
They don't do the sum in their head.
just think that's the...

(26:05):
Well, they know it's the fee, also when I come back to you as the client and I say thecandidate needs another 20 grand, Chris, you know that's not me just trying to bump up my
fee.
My fee's the same.
So it just removes that financial conflict from the offer management.
that's right.
But on the offer management point, I think at the start of a process, you need to have itwatertight and controlled.
But when it's the offer, I would encourage that that's either done in person with you oron a Zoom with you as well.

(26:32):
Well, certainly the candidate and the client need to be speaking more because I think thecandidate is less likely to go elsewhere.
I think you need to bring the parties in that situation because I think sometimes havingtoo much control towards the end of the process
You see the obvious benefits, but sometimes I think that you're risking that the candidatewouldn't mind letting you down, but wouldn't want to let the employer down potentially.

(26:57):
I don't know.
What do you think?
No, I think that's really well said.
like the idea of, yeah, kind of that triumphant of going through it.
There's a reason brokers exist, Chris, right?
Whether we're buying houses, whether we're looking at financial projects, it's becausethese are emotional topics.
And so you need a third party broker to take the emotion.
Totally.

(27:17):
And this whole bias judgment thing, I think there's been some research done as well wherea lot of employers, they don't necessarily hire on best fit sometimes in terms of the
semantics of a CB and a JD.
Sometimes they go on feeling and how they feel with the candidate as well.
sometimes it's out of your jurisdiction.

(27:39):
You can't do anything about that, right?
So think that's why it's important to...
not just match a CV with a JD, but understand the intrinsic behaviors of a business andwhat the drivers are and that kind of stuff.
And I think a lot of consultants don't do that.
No, but I think you've touched on it really well there.
Actually, a lot of problems at the back end are because the discovery briefing at thestart wasn't good enough.

(28:03):
you know, things going wrong 12 weeks later, you can pretty much track it back to thefact, know, did you do an in-depth job intake where you're getting into those factors
you've described?
Have you created a search matrix with the criteria that they're after?
Got them to sign off on it?
Assessed everyone against that?
Refer back to that throughout the process, you know?
Like I think that I think we're often excited to get a new job on.

(28:29):
And we're just like, what do you want?
And then I need a head of IT in Birmingham for 80 grand with this experience.
Like, no problem.
We've got loads.
Leave it with me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That should be an hour to 90 minutes of curiosity and investigation and in depth.
And sometimes what they think they want and what they need a different challenging andflexing.
But we don't.

(28:50):
Do we get delusions of grand tour?
A great role isn't just a great JD.
A great role in a great business is where you've got control.
You can see the buying intentions and you've got a process locked down.
So you spend an hour on the phone with the client.
And what I tend to say is if it's not retained or exclusive, right Mr.

(29:11):
Client, spent an hour on the phone.
We know exactly what you want.
Thank you for this opportunity to work with you.
What we're to do now is send you an email with a JD on it.
And if you want to make any changes or we miss anything, let us know.
the email is going to say, when you're to first interview, when we're going to do the CVreview, second interview, offer and pay.
If you send, we'll email that back to you.
If you send that back to us, we'll start working on it straight away.
What I mean by that is you have a service level agreement all the way through the process.

(29:34):
And if the client's pinching on that, it's about qualifying.
I think it's about qualifying clients out, not in, you know, positioning yourself as theyneed to, they almost need to convince you to work with them kind of mentality.
Yeah, the with or without you energy is good.
I was talking about this in the office before coming over here randomly.

(29:54):
And I was saying, look, the reason that we want to continue to BD at scale, the ultimatevision I have for all of you is where that you've got an abundance of opportunity to the
point that you don't have to ever accept people that don't buy into what you're doing,aren't willing to follow a great process and aren't engaging you in the right way.

(30:15):
And at times we were in a tough market last year in life sciences, it was tough.
part of that, part of the challenge of tough markets is you take on work and acceptbehavior through a scarcity mindset that doesn't serve you.
So keep BDing, even if you've got an existing client base, you want to keep BDing toensure that you can say no to people that aren't working the way you want them to.

(30:39):
this is the thing, right?
I don't care if you've got one roll on or 101, as you rightly say, you have to keep thatconvey about going.
And people don't see that because it's, but there's so many agencies or consultancies outthere that say they're specialists, but they're actually not.
Like I speak to people, I'm a financial services recruiter.
was like, really?
What you do?
Banking, hedge funds, private equity, you know, it's impossible.

(30:59):
I think it's about how we introduce ourselves.
I think it's things like name dropping and knowing the projects and the people and...
for example, life sciences is massive.
mean, sure, I would guess that you guys break it down.
You've got segments of segments.
Yeah, we've got five industry segments, which is biotech, medtech, pharma, CDMO andprivate equity.

(31:23):
And then we've got five practice segments as well.
So it's like a matrix.
So you'll have somebody that's in a particular practice in a particular industry.
And now we've opened offices in Switzerland and New York.
And so we're also regionalizing within that as well.
So it's a sector, a skill type, a region.

(31:44):
it's not, hi, it's Andrew here from FDI, we're a specialist life sciences business.
Oh hi, it's Andrew here from FDI, we're a specialist life sciences business, particularlyfocused in the biotech.
We're dealing with the likes of biotech one, biotech two.
I've got your CV in front of me, exactly the sort of CV that I feel my clients would wantto see, my objective to get you in front of them.
Tell me about your time there.
It's kind of that extra layer of kind of is what you want, right?

(32:05):
also from a value proposition point of view, like TA directors have got more capabilitythan ever before.
If all we are are generalists chucking out LinkedIn in mail.
It just infuriates me that kind of stuff.
And people will wonder why they get where they go wrong.
There's no value.
If you can't differentiate between them doing themselves and what you can do, you're

(32:27):
But also going back to the BD thing, think that surely we have to have the mindset thatrecruitment is sales.
I don't care what anyone says, but I'm always BDing in different formats, whether I'mdoing a post on LinkedIn or commenting or this concept of I'm a delivery person, I can't
BDs, I think is bullshit because you're speaking to candidates day in, day out.
And as you know, a CV is enriched with business information.

(32:48):
So even if you've got this 180 model and delivery model, I still think you need toencourage those individuals to be getting information.
Of course.
Yeah, 24-7.
And I try and get down to the point that like every conversation should have a commercialedge or outcome.
Because even if you're arranging interviews with a client, we should be asking what'snext.

(33:11):
know, sell when it's going well.
Why are we waiting for the end of the process to ask what's next?
Even if I'm arranging an interview and speaking to a candidate, I might want toidentify...
who their boss is from that conversation.
You know, like, cause we know there's going to be a gap there soon.
Cause it looks like going to get this job, you know, like every single, I think what you,you were a big biller.

(33:34):
And I think, you know, Tom Dubb, who's one of our founders, big biller, really good.
think what you guys do well and what we want to teach people is the joining the dots.
Yes.
Yes.
We never went, okay, I'm now BDing for an hour.
A bleeding!
Yeah, everything.

(33:55):
A bleed-beating.
Yeah, that's true.
I don't like stop and go, okay, now I'm going to go and sell something.
like everything I do today is going to be with a view to delivering customer success and apipeline of opportunities.
it's 100%.
It's a bit like a qualified candidate isn't someone that can do the job or is capable of aqualified candidate.
It's someone who can do the job, is available, will take it, but also will not takeanything else.

(34:17):
You've got where else they're interviewing, who they're reporting to, you've got leads.
you're covering every facet.
And I tried to teach to a client a couple of weeks ago and I said, well, you're about toplace this individual there.
Have you got the names of the three other places you've interviewed at, the companies, andyou're going to spec in candidates?
no, I can't do that.
That's against the partnership kind of methodology.
Well.
He's going to take, he's going to accept your job.

(34:38):
There's three leads there.
Ask him.
It's that kind of stuff, isn't it?
Yeah, sometimes the candidate will introduce you to them.
Yeah, if you do it in the right way.
But also about maximizing opportunities.
So if you put a candidate into a great organization for an interview, why can't you sendthat candidate to four other competitors as well and maximize your, you know, that's, I
think that's what it's about, particularly in this market where people are saying it's adifficult market.

(35:02):
But if you were to ask me one measure apart from series and interviews, how manyconversations, how many leads are you getting on a consistent basis?
If that's low, you know, I call it a traffic light system.
How many, you might have,
jobs on but how many orange clients have you got where you know this thing coming up?
How many red type?
How many have you got in your pipeline?
What's behind what you're doing?
You got to keep stoking the fire, haven't you mate?

(35:24):
You certainly have.
Yeah.
So we run off of two funnels.
We have a relationship funnel and an opportunity funnel.
So the opportunity funnel is about going from a live lead to a qualified lead to a pitchto a proposal to a That's the opportunity funnel.
Sounds good.
At any point in time, we're looking at the value of opportunity that every consultant'sgot in each part of that funnel.

(35:46):
Yeah.
And a relationship funnel is about taking someone from unknown through to contact throughto
customer through to champion and actively nurturing those relationships through thatfunnel as well.
Naturally, the people you're nurturing through those relationships feed into opportunityfunnel.
It's taking an active approach to that relationship management with people.

(36:09):
I this kind of stuff.
It's how many touch points and the types of touch points we're having, think, isn't it?
And we, yeah, the relationship funnel, we've got 20 touch points as part of the playbook,different things at different times.
I love this.
love, I love the whole, there's lots of stuff like clay and all these automation tools andsee, I think they're brilliant, but I've gone a deep dive into some of my client stuff.
And if you're sending 12 emails and your competitors are sending 12 emails, there's 144emails in, I think you've got to, if you're doing sequencing and automation, you have to

(36:38):
have human touch points.
have to mix it up a little bit.
So the danger of too much AI and automation and stuff like that, think, I think,
I think the best way to get business information sometimes is there's tools out there thatcan identify hiring managers for you and do all that kind of stuff for you.
That's great.
But if you're not training your consultants to get that information, it's about convertingthat information.

(36:59):
So I think AI and tech gets you to candidates and opportunities more quickly and clientsmore quickly, but you still have to have salespersonship to turn that into a sale.
Totally agree.
So we're doing loads in AI and automation.
We've got a head of growth who we've hired who is nerding out on it all.
He's created a number of custom GPTs and he's looking at an integrated automationstrategy.

(37:24):
all of that is to double the amount of human interactions we have rather than replace it.
It's taking everything away other than the human
bit.
That's how it works.
So the relationship funnel touch points aren't automated, they're human things.
So it's things like one of the touch points is if somebody is a prospect introducing themfor a non recruitment focused networking meeting with one of your clients.

(37:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you're joining up people in the industry to spend time together.
So brilliant.
Their view of you is okay, this guy's connected, but also you're getting
appear who you've been successful with talking to someone that you want to be successfulwith.
it's all a little bit like we've got 20 little bits and bobs like that, where you movepeople through from unknown to champion and they're all human.

(38:17):
They're not tech.
What do you think the future is of recruitment?
Because I think job boards and then was the internet, every new thing that comes in,people get the fear.
AI has almost been the worst one where people are, but I don't think it's as bad as whatpeople are making out of.
But I do think it's going to replace a lot of average recruiters actually.

(38:38):
What's the landscape looking like in terms of the positives and maybe even negatives of AIin recruitment?
Yeah, as I say, I see it as a positive because I think it's going to increaseprofitability and I think it's going to allow us to double down on the human elements of
what we do.
Yeah.
So I'm seeing it through a very positive lens.

(38:59):
Yeah, yeah.
Quite genuinely.
I'm not worried about being replaced.
I still think that human...
Yeah.
The more you push someone tech, the more people crave human interaction.
I remember when we started on...
LinkedIn, there were quite quickly there was the automated outreach stuff that would sendpeople a connection and then the moment they connected, send them a message and then send

(39:25):
them another message and that kind of thing.
And then our data showed that actually the LinkedIn contacts then pushed in the oppositedirection.
So we A-B tested sending invites with texting them and sending invites without textingthem.
And you'd think the one with texting them would be better.
received because more tailored.
Actually the one with no text had double the acceptance rate because they knew it was anAI.

(39:49):
They knew it was an automation.
They knew it was a human because everyone else was sending these text ones and thenhitting them up.
think goes through into communication in general.
I think there are studies around, I think a voice note is 67 % more likely to get aresponse rate versus a text message, because it's all that kind of stuff.
a lot of the businesses I've worked with, they seem to doing everything on Slack orMonday, and I think that's a helpful tool.

(40:14):
But if you're only communicating via technology internally, guess what?
Your people externally will be communicating externally like that.
So think how you communicate internally plays a big part in how you communicate externallyas well.
And I think that leaders need to be aware that if you can have a meeting in person or on aZoom or on a phone call versus anything else, think communication is such an important

(40:40):
facet in all sorts of business.
People are craving that human touch the more it goes.
The more digital the world gets, the more we crave very basic human things.
I've got mates who are river swimming and stuff, right?
Like meditating, all these ancient human endeavours.

(41:00):
That's fascinating because the more digital we get, the more everyone's leaning intofundamentalism.
almost going full circle, isn't it?
It will be dual.
the most successful organisations will find a way to be both highly digital enabled, buthighly human centric at the same time.
So mate, you're a top quality leader, recruiter, or a great track record.

(41:22):
You come across brilliantly.
You've got a hundred thousand followers.
You've got a book.
You've done some stage work.
You does loads of stuff, right?
So what was it about FDI?
Cause you probably could have picked what you wanted to do to an extent in terms of whatwas it about?
Yeah.
So again, Head Heart and Wallet always comes back to those three things for me.

(41:42):
For a head point of view, were expand and have, we have, they were, we have expanded theservices beyond search into broader professional services.
So we have additional offerings in the attraction phase, the assessment phase, theonboarding phase and the retention.
I love that.
think that's a big play.
lot of agencies don't see.

(42:03):
Just going into a bit more detail, what types of services are there that you've got.
Yeah.
So from an assessment point of view, we help people become destination employers viacontent for candidates and employer branding.
So that's our attraction service.
In the assessment phase, we've got a mixture of in-house playbooks, but also sometechnology that looks at helping uncover the right leaders and culture.

(42:24):
We've got onboarding coaches that get people up to speed quickly.
And in the retention phase, we've got a partnership with an employee listening andengagement platform that helps.
you get a feel for where you're at and hold onto the superstars once you've hired them.
Because hiring is, you know, our core business always will be.
Search will always be our core business.
It's only one part of the overall equation.

(42:45):
So you're just getting sticky with clients in a far less transactional way.
So you're kind of diversifying your services within the same sphere, which is quite cleverbecause, you know, the hiring, you call it the hiring, the talent war, the talent crunch.
What do you mean by those statements?
Yeah.
So the talent crunch is kind of the narrative we've tried to own in the last three yearsin our space.

(43:08):
That was part of my original strategy was that that was going to be the thing that wespoke about.
So the talent crunch is why I'm also very excited about the future for recruitment andsearch.
So there's a number of dynamics at the moment that are causing a lack of talent in keyareas.
Number one, self-employment has doubled in the last 10 years.
So people like you have gone from being on salaries

(43:32):
Um, to working in the freelance economy, the portfolio careers, careers.
Yeah.
We're seeing a load of different things.
We're seeing people come straight out of university and become a founder.
They're not doing their time in a big company.
They're just going, yeah, I'm going to be a founder.
This is what, this is what I want to do.
So one of our biggest talent competitors, no matter what, no matter what industry you'rein, one of your biggest talent competitors right now is people doing it for themselves.

(44:00):
Sure.
Self-employment's double.
got you.
So that's reducing the amount of available talent that's in the market.
We've also got the aging workforce that we've spoken about before that's a major problem.
particularly in Europe, we have a net 10 to 20 % reduction in workforce coming over thenext five years because we're having less children and we're having them later in life.

(44:23):
So the baby boomers are all retiring and there's nowhere near enough 18 to 25 year oldscoming through the system in order to fill that gap in the world.
there's less people.
Less humans.
We've got a supply problem in terms of humans.
Now AI and automation will fill some of that gap, but it won't be enough.
And that is also driving global competition because country by country is very aware ofthis.

(44:46):
you go, South Korea has got a 0.7 birth rate.
That is such a major strategic challenge for them.
No surprise is that they're doing fast track visas for life science professionals at themoment, trying to get expats out there.
So we've got more people than ever.
retiring and not enough people coming through.
The people that are coming through, twice the amount of people are choosing to work forthemselves rather than work for us or work for other employees.

(45:12):
That's a major squeeze.
And we've also at the moment got this change, which is called the big stay.
So post pandemic, we had the great resignation where everyone kind of reviewed where theywere at with their career and left.
Because of all the uncertainty in the market, because of the geopolitical situation andvarious other things,

(45:32):
In most major markets, have the opposite challenge right now, which is being called thebig stay, which is that people are very risk averse.
They're not applying for roles at the level that they used to.
People in jobs are 40 % less likely to be open to moving than they were.
It feels comfy.
I'll spend my time here and I'll take stock in the future type thing.

(45:53):
So that combination of not enough people, more people working for themselves, peoplestaying put and being risk averse, that means that mean that
You couldn't make a better macro situation for headhunter.
they changed the game a little bit more.
can't not advocate this, but you can't dispose of people easily now.
it a two year thing now or a year you can't do anything unless they've done somethingreally bad?

(46:17):
Yeah, two years.
Yeah, it's not.
So people aren't moving.
There's no kind of like, yeah.
No, there's no replacement stuff going on.
So all of that puts tremendous pressure on organizations.
They've got to somehow work that Rubik's cube and make it line up.

(46:37):
And they're not going to be to do it on their own.
They're going to need data, insights, head hunting.
They're going to need to be treating talent more strategically and viewing it as a lot ofthe businesses that fail, fail because of people now.
They're not failing because of product.
They just can't hold on or recruit the right people.
As we know, it's not just hiring them, it's building that sort career plan and theretention and that kind of stuff, isn't it?

(47:01):
how do you think it, what are the best ways to actually assess a candidate?
I know it's quite a broad question, but you can ask the questions and all that they fit inwith the archetype or they fit in with my values, but they don't really go in any depth,
do they?
How do you really understand?
How can you, what do think we can do to assess candidates better?
We've got to make the assessment as correlated to the job they're interviewing for aspossible.

(47:28):
It is, because for example, if you're interviewing an analyst, analysts will typically notbe great at selling themselves, not great at telling stories.
Do situational based stuff, right?
Exactly.
You've got to make the assessment as close to the job as possible.
Traditional interviewing works for extrovert people doing particular types of

(48:02):
We recommend it all the time.
So problem solving real time around a real life problem and check each other's chemistry,each other's cognitive thought process.
So yeah, the closer it is, better.
That's what we're working on.
And I think also, you know, technology does have a place in assessment as well.

(48:22):
Behavioural testing, looking at values, assessment, these types of things, I think areinteresting areas.
Okay.
Let's go to personal brand, mate.
We're kind of coming towards the end.
It's been fascinating.
It always is with you, mate.
100k followers.
Talk to us about that journey.
I mean, you exploded on LinkedIn.
I think you're 108,000.
God knows now.
You're one of the most followed people in the space, actually.

(48:45):
What was that journey like?
Because for me, I've got, you know, a decent following and...
I'll be honest with you for a couple of years, it went to my head a little bit and I gotentrenched in it.
I got always addicted to it.
And now I'm kind of, I'm not judging myself worth on the followers now.
I'm kind of, in a way, I'm quite detached from it.
So I've had, I've been in love with LinkedIn, out of love with, now I'm quite ambivalent.

(49:05):
What's your journey?
think that's healthy, I think that's healthy.
I've definitely been addicted to it points as well.
There's no getting around it.
But I mean, for me, it's been a really enriching journey.
I just started putting videos up, walk and talk videos up, six or seven years ago.
And all I thought was that I wanted to share the conversations that I was havingindividually at scale.

(49:29):
That was generally, think your intention was genuinely to add value.
The main reason why you not won, but you did well, you know?
Well, yeah, so we did that.
for us, the live broadcasting stuff went very well as well.
That was a major thing for us and getting picked up by LinkedIn as a result of all of thatwas a major thing for us.
But I think personal branding has gone, you know, from, you know, an ego driven activityto something that is a bit of an imperative.

(49:56):
You know, I think it's, think most leaders need to be thinking about it.
When we are head hunting people, they are
They are googling or looking on LinkedIn and the person that runs the company All thetime.
Yeah.
Yeah all the money's going into employer branding.
Yeah.
Yeah in the meantime people don't trust employer branding because

(50:18):
And they focus on let's get our company page up and ready.
No, let's get our individual pages active.
Yeah, yeah, individual active.
So I think it's an imperative.
I've really enjoyed it.
I get grief for it all the time from mates and things.
You've got to get used to that.
I've had my occasional trolls like everybody else has.
Yeah.
But overall, I mean, it created an inbound business for me.
It's something that clients talk to me about all the time and I think it helps me standout.

(50:42):
I think that's right.
think for people like you and me who are on LinkedIn to get a certain type of client, Ithink it works really well.
But where I'm struggling with it in terms of having a personal brand for the averagearchetypal recruitment consultant, how can they leverage that without it being...

(51:03):
Because is the average hiring manager, is the average candidate going to...
come to you as a recruitment consultant because you've got a personal brand more.
I think there's less of a need for that, would you say, that equation or not?
Am I wrong with that?
I don't know, if you're a senior consultant with two or three years experience and youemail someone and when they click on your profile to see if they've replied to the email,

(51:32):
if you've got content there that shows an expertise, if you've got recommendations therethat show happy customers, if you've got a narrative that shows a specialism, I don't see
that having anything other than.
I think the starting point, and I'm shocked by this, the amount of unoptimized LinkedInprofiles that there are as a recruitment consultant.

(51:52):
I'm a specialist IT recruiter, like really generous.
I haven't even got a banner.
There's no about section.
At least get that right.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
And the recommendations are important.
Yes.
People cringe at them.
And I understand that.
But the data shows, I've sat down with the LinkedIn product team and looked at this, thatpeople spend more time, if they're on your profile for more than five seconds, the time
they spend in most areas is recommendations.

(52:13):
We use online reviews and social proof to make decisions.
So yeah, I mean, I think for outreach to candidates, it works.
It definitely attracts client interests.
I always link in with clients that I'm lined up to pitch to.
Because I know over the the preceding two or three days prior to me turning up andpitching Fraser Dove Yeah, yeah that they're be seeing me in their feet because LinkedIn

(52:36):
pushes when you make a new connection it pushes your content to them Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
they would have already started to go this guy's talking some interest hopefully Yeah,yeah, but yeah, this guy's talking some interesting stuff doing some interesting thing
like hopefully by the time you get and quite often I'll get on the corner.
Okay.
That was an interesting potion did last last week or whatever it might be

(52:56):
you personally, your brand's been amazing in terms of your client inbound stuff, but Ithink it's enabled you to get on stages and you've been on TV.
And also you've written a book.
Yeah, all off the back of that personal brand.
And we're doing speaking now as a guest lecturer at London Business School the other daytalking about career habits and what really goes on in the hiring process and things like

(53:21):
that.
mean, what a joy, you know, like someone like me from pumpy getting invited into Londonbusiness.
Yeah, top MBA students, you know, like it's wild.
I'm in the midst of writing a book.
What was the process like for you writing that book?

(53:42):
I think that's a big achievement in itself.
Much harder than I expected.
It's a big thing to chew off, it?
So my process was like you, I already had a load of content that I'd posted, blogs I'dwritten, videos I'd done, et cetera.
So my process was to go and get all of that content and then try and organise it intotopics so that I had the basis of it.

(54:05):
That's really only one part of the journey, you know, because then you're into editing andflow and structure and all of that.
But I'm so pleased that I did it.
I'm so pleased.
me, I'm still writing it.
It's been launched in two months.
It's helped me enormously actually, in terms of, it was almost like a self developmentbook, but by doing it, was what I was developing myself actually.

(54:29):
Yeah, you do.
Yeah.
Well, you remind yourself of a lot.
Yeah.
But again, I mean, the book, I get spoiled with messages genuinely about people that arereading that.
It's sold thousands of copies all over the world.
It's got loads of really good Amazon reviews and things.
I'll just get messages.
Hey, I've just read your book.

(54:50):
I've just got hired.
You don't know me.
I'm in South Africa, but I just wanted to say cheers.
And it's like that.
I always reply saying, you know, thank you, because it just lights you up.
Let's talk a bit more about you before we kind of go in terms of like you as the man, whoAndrew is, but I think we'll start with what's been your best, you've achieved a what's
been your sort of highlight, your best thing you would point to or two or three things,you say?

(55:13):
The highlight in terms of achievement is raising a 12 year old and nine year old who I'mproud of.
Yeah.
And who seemed to like to spend time with me.
Right.
So like, think that, you know, underneath everything, this is the purpose driven podcast.
There's no doubt that, you know, we're fathers, we're role models to some extent.

(55:37):
And that I'm really, really proud of my little gang and they mean the world to me.
Certainly, certainly that for sure.
But the other proud, like I really like developing people as well.
And a lot of people that I've worked with at different points, not due to my input solelyat all, but there are a lot of people I've worked with at different points who've gone on

(56:02):
to become founders, who've gone on to become CEOs, who are now leaving me for dead quitefrankly, in terms of their career trajectories.
And I think that's fantastic.
I think that's what nice leg is.
I think that's brilliant.
Obviously, the kids are, you know, and your wife is a big part of your purpose.
But in terms of the purpose, then is that would you say is that kind of that the impactyou're having on others?

(56:24):
Is that an intrinsic part of your own individual purpose?
Would you say?
Yeah, definitely.
have a, I think I'm at my most purposeful when I'm being a A guide.
So whether that's guiding people through job searching or guiding, you know, young peoplethrough our industry and learning it as they go.

(56:46):
a guide is probably the word I would use to describe
One of the traits that you've got and you've got loads is I think you're very humble andyou're very, you know, you've got lots of humility.
And I think that's that again, that's an, you've achieved quite a lot.
And I think people look up to that and people that's leadership in itself, actually.
What would you say your Achilles heels have been in the past and what Achilles heels doyou have now?

(57:07):
Yeah.
So, lots.
my biggest Achilles heel is execution.
So I am good at strategy.
Yeah.
But it's cause I get excited by the next idea.
So I've always had to hire and work with people that are really strong on the executionside, because I will naturally be onto the next idea or be trying to come up with the

(57:35):
next.
That's awareness and acceptance, is important,
took a while to get there, but you have to, right?
yeah, I mean, at the moment, I'm the CCO, we have a managing director called Louise, shoutout Louise.
We have a great working relationship and we dovetail brilliantly because she is absolutelyfantastic.

(57:56):
And she can do commercial herself, no problem.
But she's very, very good on process, very, very good on keeping the beat of theorganisation following up on have people done what they said they were going to do.
Have we implemented that project in the way that we said,
You're just not wired by that.
You haven't got the time, inclination or capacity.
You just end up getting frustrated.
doesn't like that.

(58:16):
Yeah, it's not your thing.
I think that's how I my business.
was the kind of the visionary kind of ideas man, the driver, but without my COO, none ofit would have got done.
It's not real, So yeah, so that is the thing that I've always had to be aware of and workon and just try and get to a base level where it's not damaging for the people around you.
What about outside of work then?

(58:36):
Both of those questions.
Outside of work, let's see, I think fitness, like health and fitness is a constant battlefor me.
I do like Guinness, that's a problem.
But health and fitness is, it's weird how you can have like discipline in certain areas ofyour life and not in others, I think.

(58:57):
Cause we've talked about life harmony before, haven't we?
How are you getting on with that?
I'm doing okay.
I took up tennis 18 months ago, which been amazing Actual real tennis there are paddlecourts in the club and I have played paddle but I'm not trendy enough for that.
I don't think Yeah, crack I like paddle but yeah tennis so I've really got into that sothat's been good for me in terms of yeah having something for me that is an exercise and

(59:22):
outlet it's
think it's so important.
The biggest issue I'm finding with my COOs isn't necessarily operations, branding, allthat stuff.
It's actually their own time management and their ability to weave in things like gym,personal training, or that.
I think those kinds of things are just for us as executives, is those kinds of things arejust as important as the next business task.

(59:43):
And I think in this day and age, if you haven't got that in your life, you obviously burnout and all that kind of stuff.
Pure Escape is amazing.
I played for two hours last night in a ladder match, I'm in like a ladder comp in theclub.
And for those two hours, I wasn't thinking about anything other than the game.
It's meditative.
It's amazing.
yeah, health and fitness.
still, I enjoy life, right?

(01:00:06):
think that.
And so I'm not obsessed with it, but I would like, I'm very aware of.
my stage of life.
Like I admire the fact you've just done marathon and things like that.
I said to you, were looking at putting all that in the nicest possible way.
But yeah, I need to make sure, I want to make sure, not I need to, that's negative.

(01:00:27):
I want to make sure that I'm looking after myself appropriately as well.
I think because we're kind of coaches, leaders, managers, whatever, and I think we giveout a lot of advice.
I think that I've always had coaches around me and I think that's one of the things Iwould, you I think you're only as good as the people around you.
And I think sometimes you need, I think as a good leader, tell someone what they need tohear.

(01:00:50):
But also I think if we're only giving out advice to others and not getting anything fromother people, that can be quite dangerous as well.
So.
Yeah, well, that's absolutely right.
And I think when you define your value by how much you're helping people, you can oftenforget to help yourself in amongst all of that.

(01:01:12):
So that's the
I see that a lot on LinkedIn where people are doing it and they're getting the likes andeverything else, but the advice they're giving is so written for themselves.
And if I heeded half the advice I gave out, probably be a billionaire and be Zen and ayoga master.
That's the best content.
It is.
It is the best content.
yeah, definitely still work in progress, loads to go at.

(01:01:33):
But generally happy.
I'll try not to beat myself up too much about it because I think we can be that innercritic whilst it can be a good driving force.
You've got to give yourself a break.
I'm enjoying it, just keeping all the plates spinning, learning all the time and yeah,we'll keep cracking on.
Okay.
And just before we go then, in terms of like, we're both middle-aged men, we're both inour prime.

(01:01:55):
One of those statements is true.
What can men do more to help women and what can women do more to help men in this kind ofquite difficult, challenging landscape we're living in at the moment, would you say?
Yeah, well, I think what can men do more to help women?
That is a really interesting one.

(01:02:18):
And are you asking holistically or from a work?
I think there's been a lot of debate about women having less advantage or less opportunitythan men.
A lot of debate about men feeling unheard.
The CEO that was crying, know, people, a couple of years ago, people were taking the pissout of him, that kind of stuff.

(01:02:43):
I think I've seen things change.
think I've seen a lot of women demonising men.
I've seen a lot of men demeaning women.
And I think
How can we kind of collaborate a bit more to help each other?
I think what I've learned is we've got way more in common than we have different anyway.
And so I don't really find the stereotypes that helpful.

(01:03:04):
Yeah.
I think it's almost like we're forcing polarity.
We don't need to.
No.
No, no.
And yeah, I mean, we run a women in life sciences group called Lift Up.
Yeah, we've had eight women in the company who got together and started that movement 18months ago.
It's blown up.
I've been heavily involved with that male allyship and things like that.

(01:03:26):
there's definitely, I think there's definitely something about inclusivity in terms of howmen can help women, that's for sure.
And that's because quite often and typically the women are
taking up more of the caregiving duty.
Yeah.
Which is a massive sacrifice in fairness.
Like Zoe, my wife used to be my boss and our careers tracked pretty much exactly the same.

(01:03:50):
Yeah.
In terms of we both became directors within our industry.
She's in finance.
I'm in recruitment around similar time.
Yeah.
When we moved to Australia, I was an MD.
She was a GM of a cosmetics company.
Right?
Yeah.
The moment she had children is like her career just went on hold.
She took part-time jobs, which were actually full-time in nature and burnt her out.
She
never felt like she could be everywhere at once.

(01:04:10):
And my career continued to go and build and her stagnated at the point that she hadchildren.
Now there's absolutely nothing wrong by the way with being a full-time mother.
I think that's something that should be celebrated as well.
But my point is, is that there is a sacrifice from a career perspective that women make.
And the reason that they make it quite often is because they don't feel the inclusivity inthe workplace from the male colleagues to be able to do both.

(01:04:35):
And I think
We can do more to help with that.
Women with men, think, moving away from the stereotypes is also important there.
actually have, I think women can be harsher to men sometimes than men are to each other interms of the man up stuff and that kind of, yeah, yeah.

(01:04:58):
And the lack of compassion there.
yeah, as I say, I think there's some more compassion that can come in on both sides.
and seek to understand each other a lot more.
But ultimately, I don't think the divisiveness of the discussion is useful because I thinkit's our collaboration and partnership together that's built the societies, the companies
and
We We can't coexist without each other, we?

(01:05:21):
Might as collaborate.
let's not scrap, let's work together.
I'm lucky, I've got lots of really good women colleagues, friends, really amazingpartnership with my wife, very fortunate with that.
And plenty of good blokes around me too who will call me out if I'm getting too big in myboots based on LinkedIn engagement.

(01:05:43):
Just before we go, one piece of gold you could probably drop.
There's so much I could offer you to ask, but I'll ask to offer you.
A candidate looking for work, what's the best way he can navigate those seas?
Yes.
So the candidate looking for work needs to become the CEO of their job search.

(01:06:03):
So their job search needs to become their job.
So if you are a project manager, project manager job search.
If you're a marketing person, use your job search as a marketing funnel.
If you're a salesperson, take yourself to marketing.
you're saying don't just pick a few companies and whack your CV out.
Job applications are the lowest hit rate.
It needs structure, so you need to use your skills on that search.

(01:06:27):
80 % of the roles at senior level are never advertised.
We're doing confidential replacements all over the place at the moment in our exec searchpractice.
These aren't advertised roles.
You've got to apply a business, treat it as a business problem is what you need to do.
Use your skills.
Cheers, take care.