Think Like a Recruiter

Renata (01:25.774)
I feel like I know you. That’s the parasympathetic relationship. Is that what they call it? When we talk to people we’ve never met, but we’ve been observing them on social media and you have such a great style of posting on LinkedIn and…

you do so well with your posts. I just wanted to start by saying I really love what you do on LinkedIn and how you present yourself. I think it’s great, Russell.

Russell Ayles (02:02.755)
Thanks, I hate it. I hate posting on LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah I do. I just feel…

Renata (02:05.218)
Do you? Why do you hate it?

Russell Ayles (02:10.519)
I just feel the pressure there to do it. You know, it’s not, and you know what? And it’s weird. know, like being, you know, being like a, you know, like a LinkedIn top voice, I think, I think that gives an extra pressure. You kind of like, well, I have to post and also if I don’t post, are they gonna, know, are they just gonna suddenly sort of change their mind? Then I’m thinking, well, why should I care if they change their mind or take it away? It doesn’t mean anything. They’re like, yeah, but it’s quite nice actually. So you just kind of, yeah, you just put pressure on yourself and,

Renata (02:12.525)
Yeah.

Renata (02:34.678)
one

Russell Ayles (02:37.751)
Yeah, it’s just finding time because I can’t… I don’t really know because it’s a little bit… It’s a little bit soft to kind of tell because there might be people that…

Renata (02:39.448)
Does it bring you business? Do you do it because of it brings you business?

Russell Ayles (02:54.263)
would have conversations with me because it’s a bit of a warmer kind of conversation because they might have seen my posts. But I don’t do it for business really. I just do it because I want to kind of just try and maintain some kind of presence, I guess. I don’t think it does any harm. I don’t think it’s going to, I don’t think it’s brought me in loads of business. We’re saying that there was one business I worked with recently and I’m pretty sure she had seen

Renata (02:59.19)
Yeah.

Renata (03:05.911)
No,

Renata (03:14.2)
Mm

Russell Ayles (03:24.217)
my LinkedIn posts and I just we just placed a couple of people with them it’s like a kind of home renovation startup business it does tiles so to be fair we just yeah that was you know that’s quite a bit of money from them so yeah I guess I guess there has been some but I think it just I think it just takes time I think for me it’s more

Renata (03:34.797)
Yeah.

Renata (03:40.385)
Okay.

Russell Ayles (03:45.001)
much as I’ve been here kind of four or five years it’s still trying to kind of establish myself in the Australian market because it’s yeah you know I’m relatively unknown you know all my experience previously has been in the UK so it’s yeah it can’t hurt.

Renata (03:57.142)
Yeah. I think your LinkedIn helps a lot. You you have such a strong, unique voice. You know, it’s very yours. It’s not like anybody else’s. I really like the way that you post. I thought it was going to bring you way more business. Where is your pipeline coming from? How do you get clients?

Russell Ayles (04:18.958)
Just mainly your traditional business development that you get from doing recruitment. Cold calling, cold outreach via LinkedIn. It’s not to say maybe it has brought me more business than I know. I think it’s more of case of…

Renata (04:23.521)
Okay.

Renata (04:29.4)
Right.

Russell Ayles (04:37.057)
Yeah, you know, I just don’t really know. I don’t ask people, you, know, have you seen my stuff on LinkedIn? I don’t really want, you know, I think that sounds a bit, sounds a bit funny. So maybe it has done, but no, just, just sort of regular kind of cold outreach and just forming relationships. You know, I work with, you know, the clients that we work with, you know, we don’t work with everyone, but the people we work with, we, you know, work with on a regular basis. So yeah, it’s just, it’s been two years now doing this and I’ve proven to myself that I can.

Renata (04:42.273)
Yeah.

Renata (04:49.27)
Yes.

Russell Ayles (05:05.567)
run a one -man business and I can support myself and everyone else and now it’s kind of the next step is trying to build something so hopefully next year that’ll be time for that.

Renata (05:15.852)
I think the way that I would explain it is like the consistency of your professional branding. So the LinkedIn posts that you do are very professional and align with the work that you do. Then people hop on your website and your website is great, by the way. I love your website. And, you know, it doesn’t look like it’s from a one man’s business. It looks, you know, like a bigger outfit than that because you chose well the design and it just

look so professional and then you look at on your website specifically there’s a list of clients that you’ve worked for all the sort of big retailers big names people would recognize so that just reinforces at every point that people can trust you with their jobs right

Russell Ayles (06:04.013)
I’m glad you like the website. actually, I’m just about to rebrand completely. Yeah, completely new business name and website.

Renata (06:09.43)
Are you?

Renata (06:13.334)
Right, so you’re not going to be called unrivaled anymore?

Russell Ayles (06:16.043)
No, I hate it. I hate the name actually. I liked it at first because it was about kind of, you know, it was about trying to…

Renata (06:20.118)
Okay.

Russell Ayles (06:26.565)
I was trying to come up with something that gave an impression of, you know, it’s almost like we can’t be beaten when it comes to like the service levels we give, you know, the amount of experience and knowledge we bring. yeah, it’s just for the past year, you know, every time I say I was right, you know, calling for my right, it just hasn’t felt right. So yeah, I’m actually changing it.

Renata (06:37.89)
Yeah.

Renata (06:46.806)
Okay. What’s your name? Can you tell us or is it still embargoed?

Russell Ayles (06:51.526)
I don’t know is this part of the podcast or is it just me and you chatting?

Renata (06:56.398)
OK, don’t say it then. This podcast is going to go out in about four to six weeks. So if you’re not ready.

Russell Ayles (07:02.631)
well it’ll be out then, it’s called it is called so E -T -I -S -K etisk means it’s Swedish for ethical so basically my

Renata (07:09.294)
T -I -S.

Renata (07:13.784)
Huh?

Thank

Russell Ayles (07:17.285)
you know my full belief is that don’t believe recruitment is ethical and that’s not to say it’s underhanded that’s not to say it’s you know there’s something kind of inherently wrong with it but I just don’t think people have have kind of you know that’s

ethical mindset at the heart of everything they do. You know, there’s too many companies that don’t really care that they don’t get back to Canada. There’s too many recruitment agencies that make a point of not actually responding to applications, know, the very least applications. And then just even the way that I think businesses vet the recruitment agencies that they use, know, is working in retail. I’ve always found it really bizarre when

So as a retailer, going, you’re really fit your suppliers quite, you know, quite, quite in depth. you’re going to make sure that they’re paying their employees well. you know, there’s no kind of slave labor or child labor, health and safety, you know, in the warehouses and factories and everything in China and Turkey, wherever it may be. But then when you look at your human suppliers, your recruitment agencies, there’s very little due diligence done by businesses.

Renata (08:16.802)
Mm -hmm.

Russell Ayles (08:33.682)
So to give you an example, which and this is something that I just find bizarre as well. So I don’t know if you know a guy called Steve Gard who runs the Circle Back Initiative. So he runs an initiative where businesses can join this initiative and also agencies where you commit to responding to every application. So that’s how we started basically, know, every business committing to.

Renata (08:42.784)
No.

Russell Ayles (08:54.903)
respond to everybody who applies for a job. You’ll see that’s kind of benchmarking now for sort of candidate experience and stuff like that. So he has some big businesses on there like Target, Kmart.

not just retailers, they’re just ones that spring to mind because they are retailers. So they’re committing to responding to every single application. But then they use agencies that I know 100 % have in their advert copy, only successful candidates will be contacted. you’re saying, look at us, look at us as a business. We promised to respond to everyone, we care so much, but we don’t care enough to make sure our recruitment agencies are doing the same thing. So I just think there’s a bit of a disconnect. So I wanted something that

Renata (09:12.812)
Mm

Renata (09:29.07)
you

Renata (09:34.956)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (09:39.931)
I’m only saying it sounded a bit different, it was a bit unique.

I also wanted something that was a bit industry agnostic as well because as much as you know I love retail, I love e -commerce, I love fashion, it’s all I’ve done. In terms of the growth of the business I don’t believe what we do and you know the kind of clients we work with should remain just in that realm. There could be other industries that are very closely aligned whether that’s kind of digital agencies or you know things like that that we can help. A lot of what we do is a lot of different positions that we recruit for can span

Renata (10:05.538)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (10:13.369)
different industries. why, you know, why, why, just specifically work for retail and fashion businesses? So I wanted something that was, you know, was agnostic and more of an, something that represented an ethos of how we operate. So yeah, I was looking at ethical, I think the word ethical is pretty boring and overused. So I was looking at it in different languages basically. And I saw a tisk and I thought, I like that. And then I’m just working with the, I’m working with like a web and creative design agency now to kind of come up with, because what I’m conscious of is that I don’t

Renata (10:14.733)
Yes.

Renata (10:26.328)
No.

Russell Ayles (10:43.309)
on know a tisk and you know being ethical you know the word a tisk can come across quite boring you know everyone says you know know ethical we do things the right way so in terms of the branding I’m going in the complete opposite direction you know the branding is is loud it’s almost kind of

Renata (10:51.789)
Right

Russell Ayles (11:00.649)
Imagine urban, loud, graffiti, kind of bold colours and also the language we’re going to be using is going to be very direct. It’s going to be along the lines of, don’t be a dick, get back to people, do the right thing. Rather than pushing the boundaries of what people would assume is tradition professionalism. Just being normal people and just being to the point, I guess.

Renata (11:06.264)
Yeah.

Renata (11:14.577)
Yeah.

Thank

Renata (11:23.082)
and

Renata (11:27.168)
I love it. As you were talking about this and the reason why you chose your new name, I started thinking about all of my clients that have that are in retail and have applied for jobs with, you know, quote unquote, very ethical.

retailers in terms of their messaging to consumers. But we have experienced something very different in their recruitment processes. Exactly like you said, and that was so disappointing for the candidate because the brand is so high in equity, right? So you have that brand, amazing brand awareness, amazing brand equity, but then the candidate’s experience is not aligned with the

the brand and I think that if you can bring that to the fold so that the career marketing is done in the same way as the customer marketing, I think that’s really lovely and amazing. And I’m actually not sure if the recruitment process was a complete schmozzle because of culture or because of lack of understanding of how recruitment works because sometimes these brands grow, grow, grow from a little startup.

and become quite disjointed internally. So I remember us discussing it, you know, and I can’t say the names of the companies, but companies that are really sort of interesting from a consumer perspective that we opt into even paying a little bit more for the product because of the ethics behind it. But then the experience as a candidate looking for an executive role was terrible. And I have a feeling it’s less about the culture internally and more about the fact that

these people just started a company without really really strong background in HR and recruitment and you know getting somebody like you to step in and support them just aligns the recruitment process with their ethos.

Russell Ayles (13:21.369)
Hmm.

Russell Ayles (13:27.053)
Yeah, I think again, you know, find it weird how companies businesses will invest so much to make sure their tone of voice across every single channel is is

the same, you is of high quality, is on brand, is speaking to the customers in the right way. So whether it’s online, whether it’s on social media, whether it’s in store, but then it seems to kind of stop there. Why not continue that to the way you speak to your candidates who are essentially customers? And I always butcher this kind of story. So…

Renata (13:40.782)
Mm.

Russell Ayles (14:06.073)
If anyone’s listening to this go and go and look it up. Just Google it. But if you, you look at, Virgin media and Virgin media in the UK. they did a study. This was years ago. Let’s say years ago, 2016. I think, cause I remember listening to it. was at rec fest back in the UK in, in East London. was, and there was, they were telling the story about how they, they basically worked out that the poor customer experience is costing the business like five, six million.

pounds a year because they they worked out that

All these bad experiences that they, you know, they’ve got the data on it. So it’s not just kind of, know, something that they thought was happening. Like I said, I haven’t got all the details, but they, figured out the poor candidate experience was meaning not only they would cancel their Virgin contracts, but they would then tell at least five people who even would join the business or would cancel contracts. And there’s this knock on effect. was costing the company millions and actually turned it around to make it, you know, something that made profits. And they gave such a good customer experience. gave away, you know, during the process, it gave away sort of

Renata (14:54.657)
Thank

Russell Ayles (15:09.851)
discounted services with them to people and friends and family discounts.

just by giving such a great experience and then people, you know, using these, these, these discounts and people, you know, sort of talking about what a great experience they had. They ended up actually making a business like four or five million pounds. Like, like I said, like I’ve completely butchered that story, but you can go and look it up and, you know, there’s lots of different websites that talk about it a bit more sophisticated, more sophisticated than I just did. But, you know, what it just goes to show is that the people that apply for your jobs are your customers, especially in retail, you know, yeah, not everyone’s going to be a customer, but you can grow to love a company and be a

Renata (15:34.742)
Mm

Russell Ayles (15:47.099)
So one of my first in -house roles back in the UK in 2012 was with Mothercare. Now I was… How old was I? Late 20s maybe? No 31. So I was 31 and I at the time had no children. really have any interest in children. You know, it’s just I was a 31 year old kind of just you know pretty pretty happy with just what I was doing and

Renata (15:58.584)
Mm -hmm.

Russell Ayles (16:15.959)
Yes, I started working for mother care. I didn’t, you know, I wasn’t a customer. Didn’t really have an affinity with a product, but it was my first in -house role from agency. So it was something that, you know, I had to be quite open to. But by the end of working there over the course of two years, I became incredibly proud to work for that business because, you know, the kind of extent they went to to make sure that their product was, like, baby proof, they quadruple stitched items rather than sort of cheaper outlets that didn’t do that. yeah, I had immense pride. So I’d speak to people about it. You know, I’d tell them that. I’d did you know mother

yeah it’s a bit more expensive but did you know they quadruple stitch all of the seams to make sure it’s as soft as it can be for like the baby’s skin and stuff like that so I was almost like a brand ambassador just because I was incredibly proud of working there so you know even if you’re not a customer and you have a great experience with a business people will talk about it as well so whether you know that is during the process or working for the business so yeah I just find it you know going back to that point I just find it weird how they care so much about how they’re talking to people on social media talking to people and you know the customer journey on the website

Renata (16:47.938)
Mm

Renata (16:57.952)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (17:16.163)
the experience in store, but then, yeah, it kind of stops with that, you know, that candidate experience. Why isn’t that aligned? You you think about some of these big businesses must be getting, I don’t know, know, tens of thousands of job applications each year. So let’s say 30 ,000, some big businesses, even if only half of them are customers, then there’s still 15 ,000 people that you’ve got direct contact with that you can give a great experience even if they’re not relevant for your roles. So yeah, I think there’s a bit of a disconnect somewhere.

Renata (17:20.035)
Yeah.

Renata (17:30.71)
Yes.

Renata (17:44.918)
Yes, absolutely.

I’d love to talk to you about 2024. We’re recording this in September 2024, late September. And just this week, early in this week, another recruiter called me to ask how my business was going because his business wasn’t doing so well this year. And he wanted to get some feedback from me as a coach. And we had a bit of a chat about that. How is business going for you in 2024?

Russell Ayles (18:14.553)
It’s a bit of a funny one because I haven’t got much to kind of compare it to because the business has been running for two years. know, I’ve only been in Australia, you know, like I’ve only seen things during and post COVID. So I came here in 2019 in the July. So, you know, under a year later where, you know, everyone’s in lockdown and the economy’s changed. So we’re doing better than we did last year. But is that just because that was my first year last year?

Renata (18:26.895)
-huh.

Renata (18:39.723)
Okay.

Probably, yeah.

Russell Ayles (18:43.702)
So, you you would expect a bit of growth in that second year anyway. do, I feel like it’s very similar to last year. I don’t feel like it’s any better. If anything, I’ve probably relied on a smaller number of clients this year, but done more work with that smaller number of clients rather than last year. I probably had more clients, but again, that’s been more of a conscious thing in terms of knowing.

Renata (18:47.584)
Yeah. Yeah.

Renata (18:56.929)
Yeah.

Renata (19:06.817)
Okay.

Renata (19:10.412)
Thank

Russell Ayles (19:11.941)
When you start doing any sort of business, but I think especially recruitment as an agency, it’s very hard to turn business down. So even if you’re working with a business that are not really aligned to your own values or they work in a way that, you know, they might work very much just contingency, multi -agency.

Renata (19:25.582)
Mm.

Renata (19:31.074)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (19:31.673)
You feel like kind of, I’ll beg as can’t be choosers. I’ve got to, you know, I’ve got to, I’m new, you know, in terms of, yeah, I’ve got 20 years of recruiting experience, but in terms of my business, you know, you get imposter syndrome, I’m new, I need to prove my worth. need to, you know, I need to kind of, you know, yeah, you know, sort of say yes to everything. And I think you just suddenly, once you start kind of doing okay, you get a bit more confidence and you kind of think, well, actually, no, I don’t want to work with these types of businesses anymore. I prefer working with these types of businesses. And yeah, so I’m working with a smaller number of clients, but

Renata (19:38.988)
Yeah.

Renata (19:48.096)
Mm

Russell Ayles (20:03.148)
It’s just been a big learning curve over the past two years. think just creating a business and kind of… There’s so many good things about it because you… I love working for myself. I could never work for somebody else again. I love…

Renata (20:07.265)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (20:22.167)
being able to wake up and I might sit on my laptop at seven o ‘clock in the morning and I feel good about that. Whereas if I worked for somebody and I felt like I had to do that, then I’d feel really, you know, really shitty about that. it’s, it’s.

Renata (20:27.736)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (20:37.657)
there’s lots of good parts, know, being able to work when you want to work, but often that stretches into, you know, working 12 hour days. You don’t mind it because you, you know, you feel like every, every hour you work, you’re, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re putting that into something, you know, you’re building something, but then also it’s hard to switch off, you know, I never switch off even, even over the weekends. I have nights when I’m laying there in bed thinking.

Renata (20:44.428)
Yes.

Renata (21:00.148)
I know.

Russell Ayles (21:00.717)
God, if people just stop using me or I lose a couple of clients, then what do I do? My wife’s off on maternity leave at the moment, she’s unpaid maternity leave, so she just gets a government standard. You’re like, okay, so there’s a bit of pressure on now as well. So there’s lots of pressure, but it’s different pressure to working for another business. So yeah, it’s very up and down, but I think that’s the nature of just recruitment full stop anyway. It can be very up and down.

Renata (21:05.856)
Yeah.

Renata (21:21.728)
Yeah.

Renata (21:28.526)
Yeah, that’s true. I think it for more established recruiters that have been operating for a long time or the publicly listed recruitment companies, you can tell because they have to disclose it that 2024 hasn’t been a good year for them. I work.

worldwide so I you know clients in the US are having a harder time in finding jobs clients in the UK as well but things especially in the UK are turning around now post -election and I think that with the US post -election will be the same

But the fact that you started last year and it shows that there’s a crescendo there and this year has been just as good or maybe even better than last year shows that you’re going against the tide and growing your business. So it’s a good outcome for you. I love your niche in terms of being in retail, fashion and e -commerce. How do you find your candidates? Do they come to you once you advertise or do you have to do a little bit of

Russell Ayles (22:11.584)
Hmm

Renata (22:29.196)
search and scout them.

Russell Ayles (22:31.191)
Yeah, look, it’s both really. very much depends on the role. There’s certain roles where you might be able to rely on advert response a little bit, but I never just do one or the other. will always advertise. Maybe that’s a lie. I won’t always advertise a role just because, you know, things cost money. there’s limited. So I have two job slots on LinkedIn. I have more than two jobs at any one time, but I do rotate those job slots. So it just depends.

Renata (22:33.634)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (23:01.115)
I’d probably advertise 80 % of the rolls. But yeah, it’s very much a mixture of… I’d say I’ll 70 % of my candidates through…

Renata (23:05.527)
huh.

Russell Ayles (23:13.561)
searching so through mainly LinkedIn but you know if you say sort of LinkedIn and my network I find 70 % of candidates through that maybe even 80 % and then the remainder might come from from advertising so yeah it’s a real mixture you know some of the roles that we

Renata (23:26.527)
Mm

Russell Ayles (23:32.245)
recruit for a quiet specialized and quite niche. So, you know, can’t just rely on people coming through job applications. You’ve got to really kind of go out and cherry pick those types of people that you want to work, that you want to have conversations with. That’s mainly using LinkedIn. You sometimes we use Seek, but it’s not really, to be honest, I don’t find it very good. So I think, I think LinkedIn and then I do have certain people that are probably sick of me calling them that I I like, so I have people that are kind of very well networked in

Renata (23:35.491)
Yeah.

Renata (23:40.376)
do.

Renata (23:48.28)
you

Renata (23:52.94)
Yeah, yeah.

Renata (23:58.848)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (24:02.139)
But especially kind of e -commerce and sort of fashion and retail, I’m always building that network. I just reach out to people on LinkedIn constantly and just kind of say, hey, I’d love a chat. Do you want to, can I buy you a coffee or this or that? And then, yeah, I’m starting to build that network with people that if I get a role in, especially more of a kind of senior role, I can call them up and say, hey, look, I’m recruiting for this business. They’re looking for this. Who do you recognize should be speaking to? So it’s a mixture of that and sourcing.

Renata (24:08.46)
Right. Yeah.

Renata (24:14.455)
you

Renata (24:19.31)
Thank you.

Renata (24:25.965)
Yeah. And you would mostly, you know, if you need to start from scratch and do that search to find those 70 to 80 % of your candidates, it’s LinkedIn that you use if you don’t have them in your network.

Russell Ayles (24:37.527)
Yeah, pretty much. I’ve used Seek and Indeed before, it’s mainly LinkedIn. But think that’s the nature of the roles I recruit for. are normally kind of mid to senior, obviously fashion retail, econ, but head office stuff. So it’s not really so much sort of store -based roles. We do a bit of that, probably less of that this year. Did more of that last year. You can probably…

Renata (24:44.684)
Yeah.

Renata (24:59.2)
Mm

Russell Ayles (25:04.761)
I’d say that’s probably a little bit more even where maybe 50 % of that you get people from advertising 50 % sourcing just because you generally find people in store a little less active on LinkedIn. Just generally not as much as it used to be. But generally speaking, a little bit less active than people who sort of work in support office, head office. Yeah.

Renata (25:27.832)
Yeah, fair enough. One thing that I’ve noticed as well is the, I mean, you mentioned that in a post and I wanted to sort of discuss a little bit more with you is the transferability of people skills. Even within the retail sector, if you’ve been in retail stores, even as a senior executive, a senior manager, which are usually my clientele.

They find it hard to transition to e -commerce. Sometimes it’s hard because they don’t have the experience, but sometimes it’s hard because they actually don’t like it. So, know, how are you finding the demands of your clients? What is it that clients ask, are prepared to compromise when they’re looking for candidates and they can’t find the exact fit? You mentioned it’s kind of a niche.

expertise that you’re sometimes looking for. Are you always able to find that niche expertise or do you need those sort transferable skills to come in and are clients happy with that?

Russell Ayles (26:33.943)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question. Look, I think most of the time businesses and whether they use an agency or direct, but especially when using an agency, I think they want kind of like for like a lot of the time. want somebody who’s worked for a similar type of business in a similar sort of role who’ve done a similar sort of thing. And that’s just because…

A lot of recruitment is about, yeah, you know, want to bring someone into the business. can add incredible value who can, you know, who’s got the skillset, but a of it is about minimizing risk as well. So the more things that you kind of get aligned that are similar to the role that you’re bringing someone in for, then it minimizes that risk. you know, for example, if I’m looking for an e -commerce manager for, let me just make up a business, Sassenbeid. So if I’m looking for an e -commerce manager for Sassenbeid and I can find somebody who’s from

a similar sized business compared to some of these specializes in women’s wear. It just feels a lot more comfortable to them. They bring a lot of kind of, know, knowledge and expertise into that business. Now that’s not to say they will just look for people from those sort of businesses, but would they look for, you know, an e -commerce manager outside of fashion and retail? Probably not, but it depends what the market’s like, you know, and think that’s where we kind of advise as, you know, recruiters, recruitment agencies.

We’re constantly in this market. So somebody comes to me and says, you know, we’re looking for, you know, this kind of position. This is sort of experience we need in it. We’ll know pretty much straight away if that’s going to be realistic or not. So you kind of, you want to try manager expectations. know, nothing’s ever impossible, but it’s about understanding what are the non -negotiables, what, things can you look past, what things can’t you look past. So it might be level, you know, they might not need somebody who’s at manager level on 150 K. They might be open to somebody who’s, you know, on the upward curve or somebody who’s a specialist looking to move into that.

somebody four days a week? Would I look at somebody remotely? Would I look at somebody who is even overqualified? I’ll always ask that question because there’s lots of people especially…

Russell Ayles (28:33.593)
What I find when you get to that kind of senior manager level of, and you know, in retail or, you know, those sort of industries, maybe that’s kind of 150 to 160, 170, 180. They don’t necessarily want to go into those head of or director level positions. They’re quite happy just kind of staying at that kind of kind of level. They enjoy it. They don’t want the extra pressure and stresses that come with it, but they find it really hard to get those jobs because they’re deemed as overqualified because they’ve got 20 years experience in the industry doing that kind of thing. So.

ask that question and kind of promote that sort of thing and because I think I think that’s just really great people to go overlook because they’re deemed to be overqualified flight risks you know I get it you know I understand why you might think somebody who’s overqualified could be a flight risk especially if they’re out of work at the moment because what starts going through your head is

Okay, are they just looking at this job because they’re not working at the moment? As soon as something comes up more at their level, will they just jump ship? know, and look, it’s a valid concern and I don’t blame businesses for thinking like that. But I think as long as you’re promoting them to have open conversations, to give the candidate a chance to be able to have that conversation with them, then you know, that’s, all we can really do.

Renata (29:28.792)
Yeah.

Renata (29:41.868)
Yeah, yeah, I’ve been posting about that on LinkedIn recently and I get some interesting comments because I’ve got comments from employers saying, of course I would hire an overqualified person. But I’ve also had employers actually reaching out to me for consultations on what to do with all of these overqualified people that are applying for jobs. They could have my job, you know, and I don’t know how to how to even let them know. I don’t know what feedback to give them.

that I’m not able to choose them. There’s so many different ways of thinking about this. I’d say from a career coach point of view, 80 % of the time they’re applying for a job overqualified because they’re just desperate. That’s usually what it is. But there are 20 % of people out there working with me that just don’t want the added pressures and responsibilities. They may even have had a taste of it and they didn’t like it. And they’re now.

And I think it’s probably better for the candidate to… I mean, would you agree that it’s probably better to be upfront about it with the recruiter and let them know?

Russell Ayles (30:45.46)
Yeah definitely I always promote transparency and just got to go back to your point

Renata (30:48.546)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (30:52.493)
Yeah, it’s a really hard dynamic, isn’t it? Just imagine if you are, you know, that head of department and there’s somebody who’s applying for this role or interviewing for this role, which is, you know, reporting into you. Who is more experienced than you? Who is more, you know, who has kind of done your job before? Are you going to be worried that they’re to sort of step into it if anything? You know, and these are all natural concerns, but I think like, like I said before, think as long as we’re kind of open to talking about these and delving into the reasons why somebody’s looking for this role and they’re not looking for something more senior, then, you know, that’s, that’s what interviews are for.

Renata (31:06.766)
Mm

Russell Ayles (31:22.497)
finding these things out and you’ve got to trust people sometimes and going back to your point about being open to recruiters we’re like as much as and speaking specifically about recruitment agencies in this scenario but look we are we’re paid by the business so that’s that’s our client so we’re working essentially for them

But, know, from my point of view, also, you know, I’m also working for the candidate. When I say the candidate, I’m talking about the people that are going into the process that might get that job. I’m not talking every candidate. I can’t work for every candidate out there. I can advise, you know, be respectful, get back to people, but, you know, I can’t kind of proactively work on their behalf. But once it gets to that point where people are in an interview process, I’m working to get the best outcome for everyone because that’s, you know, that’s my job and that’s also of benefit to me. So.

the more people are honest with me, I can then help using my experience manage that situation. So I might, what I get quite a lot, not quite a lot, but what I’ve got recently a few times is somebody going through a process where the role might be hybrid, say one day a week from home. And the person going through the process, half of the process says to me,

or maybe after the first interview or just before the first interview will say, do you think they’d be open to two days from home or maybe even sort of three days sometimes because of this, this is how flexible are they child pick up or this or this, or do think they could have a bit more budget for salary? And I normally say what I’d normally say in that situation is it’s hard for you to have this conversation with them or for me to have this conversation with them before you’ve gone in for interview because their default is probably going to be no.

because they don’t know you. They don’t know what you can bring to the business. They’ve got no skin in the game. They’ve got no commitment to you because at the moment you’re just a name on a CV.

Russell Ayles (33:11.577)
So, you know, we’re close enough. It’s not like they’re saying, we don’t offer work from home. do, you know, they’re saying it’s one day a week. It could possibly be two, but why don’t, you know, let’s go through this process first. And then at the end, if they are, you know, if you’re, if there’s something that you want to offer, that’s when we can start negotiating these kind of this, this middle ground to see if there’s any leniency this way or that way. Now that’s not to say we want to put people through a process in a way that, know, they don’t fit the bill and we want to try and sort of move the goalpost last minute. But, know, you kind of use your, you know, I’ve done this for 20 years. So you, you know,

when things are a bit more flexible but you also kind of get to understand when’s the best time to to bring this up as well you bring it up at the beginning you stand less chance of getting what you want compared to if you bring it up at the end but it depends how close you are to what they’re offering if they’re offering 150 and you want 190 then well no if you’re offering if they’re offering if they sell budgets 150 but you want more 160

I’d say, you know, rather than saying that upfront, go through the process because then they’ll be able to see your work. So when you have that conversation, they can make it, they can make that decision based on knowledge. You know, they’ve, they’ve had two interviews, three interviews with you. They’ve understood what you’ve done in past roles, what you can bring to the business. Now they can sit there and think, well, actually, yeah, how can we increase this to 160? Can we pull budget from elsewhere? How about this other role we’re recruiting for? Maybe we can take a little bit of budget from that because that’s, you know, maybe not as much of a key role. So it’s about understanding when.

to know when to have those conversations in the process sometimes and also how realistic are those outcomes going to be now going back to the honesty piece what I would say you know

What I mean by that is then I want that candidate to be completely honest with me because I’m here to help them, you know, through that process. If I think they can get the job, I want them to get the job as well. Then the more honest they are with me, the better we can handle that situation rather than going through the process, not having that conversation with me then right at the end saying, this is that, you know, this is actually what I’m going to look for. Or, you know, this is what I want in terms of flexibility. So yeah, it’s always good to be honest. And, you know, I think if you’re working with a good recruiter, somebody who’s experienced, they can kind of help manage you through this.

Renata (34:58.924)
Mm

Russell Ayles (35:19.227)
sort of minefield of salary negotiations, you know, if you want more flexibility, if you’re on a four day week or nine day fortnight or anything like that, they’ll know if it’s better to approach this subject upfront, they know if it’s better to wait on the back end or somewhere in the middle, depends how long they’ve worked with the client, but they probably know them quite well. So yeah, you know, I think from my point of view, what I want is complete honesty. Now it might be different if you’re going, if you’re applying for a job directly with that business and you’re dealing with an internal HR team, they’ve

you know, they might, know, they, they’ve there’s probably, there’s not as much in it for them to, sorry, that’s wrong. No, not, not saying there’s not as much in it for them, but it’s a slightly different relationship. You know, there, it’s a slightly different, dynamic there, you know, they’re more so working for that, you know, for that business, they’re part of that team. So having those conversations.

Yeah, you know, being completely honest upfront might be a bit more difficult. You know, you might have to have this thought process yourself to think, okay, when’s best to raise this when, you know, which is a little bit harder, which is, again, why I would always say to somebody, if you’ve got the opportunity to go through a recruiter for a position, then I always would do because I just think you get a lot of expertise and a lot of support that you wouldn’t necessarily get, you know, and sort of going through that process.

Renata (36:19.694)
Yeah.

Renata (36:34.744)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (36:34.881)
It’s daunting and don’t know when to bring things up. don’t know what you can talk about, what you shouldn’t talk about, what do you know. Even things are simple. People seem to struggle when asked, what salary are you looking for? Because there’s all this advice out there about, don’t tell them, or tell them you’re doing this, or tell them that, or tell them, I’ll just be honest. This is roughly what I’m looking for. You give a bandy.

Renata (36:43.17)
Mm

Renata (36:55.039)
Yeah. I think I was a little bit worried at the beginning when we started discussing this, because I was afraid your advice would be different from mine, but it’s the same. So that’s great because people are not going to be confused if they are listening to the episodes one after the other. You’re absolutely right. I think the only concern that the candidate may have is that recruiters are very different from each other.

I mean, this is just something that I would sort of ask you to think about. I mean, you probably already do it anyway, Russell, but it’s to be upfront about your philosophy and the way that you work with the candidates, maybe on your website or so that they feel comfortable talking to you because candidates are so wary of recruiters that never get back to them, that don’t seem to be in their, that they don’t seem to.

click with and they are worried that if they are too honest or say something that they’re gonna get out of the race. But I agree with you that there are some things that need to be discussed when the employer has already fallen in love with you. Right? So yeah.

Russell Ayles (38:05.773)
The thing is, think I get it. get it. Why job seekers and candidates don’t not necessarily don’t trust recruiters, but maybe don’t think they have their best interests at heart or yeah. Let’s say, it all stems from how recruitment is done. This is where all the issues stemmed from, right? Because

Renata (38:09.741)
You

Renata (38:18.318)
There’s a big range of recruiters out there. Let’s just be honest.

Yeah. Yeah.

Russell Ayles (38:28.205)
there’s too many businesses out there that undervalue recruitment. I’m looking at this through a lens of a recruitment agency. I’m not looking at this through a lens of businesses that are hiring directly. Even then they might want to look at what they’re targeting their internal teams against. But the problem is people’s mindset and view of recruitment agencies is normally…

you don’t pay a frontier you always you pay in delivery so we’re not going to pay you until you play somebody with us a lot of companies want to go to multiple agencies so they give very little commitment up front so then recruiters like you the agencies take a lot of risk so to minimize that risk recruiters have to play a bit more of a numbers game so i can’t just work on two things i’ve got to work on four things because i might not fill those four things now look i want to be clear i’m not talking about the way i do business i’m talking about the way i know that 70 80 percent of recruitment agencies

across different industries do business because I’ve seen it enough to know.

It all stems from, yeah, there being a lack of respect for recruitment agencies and recruiters do there, you know, there being a, being the case of, okay, yeah, we’re working with this agency, this agency, you free for agencies is first past the post. So the quality of care for candidates is going to be poor because they haven’t got the time to give candidates, you know, good care. They don’t care about the, you know, the process because all they want to do is place somebody in that role. And then it becomes a numbers game because they might think, well, I placed one in three roles because I always work on a contingent basis.

Renata (39:46.638)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (39:59.227)
is, you know, it’s normally multi agency, I’m up against other agencies when I’m going to work as well. So again, they think, well, I need 10 jobs to fill three. And then what they’re doing is looking at their job list and thinking, right, these are my most fillable jobs. So they’re focusing on that. So both the candidates and clients have perhaps the other jobs don’t, you know, get very little care at all. It just becomes a numbers game. start viewing candidates as numbers, jobs as numbers, and then the service levels are poor. And this is kind of this, you know, vicious circle then, well, yeah, you know, the, business

we’ll then think, well, recruitment’s rubbish. We don’t really trust them. We need to use more agencies because we’re not getting the results we want. Whereas if there’s more of a partnered approach where companies even paid upfront, I’m not talking about doing retained search for everything, but even if there was part of that risk taken by the businesses when they’re engaging a recruitment agency, half of that fee upfront to actually acknowledge that the work that we do as recruitment agencies isn’t just about that one person that finds a job.

Renata (40:34.956)
Mm

Russell Ayles (40:59.157)
everything that goes in between that is it’s a search that we do is a short list that we present this a feedback we give you and what the market’s saying about your business about the role you know all of these things if I don’t place a candidate all those things you’re kind of getting for free and you’re kind of saying you don’t value you know all you’re valuing is one person starting sitting on that chair yeah of course that’s the goal but this is a whole process you know it’s

I always think of it as an example like using an accountant. You wouldn’t go to five different accountants and say, well, I you to do my taxes, but whoever does it the quickest and saves me the most money, that’s anyone I’m going to pay. I’m pretty sure I know what they’d tell you to do. And it’d probably start with F and end with F as well. So.

Renata (41:35.8)
Mm.

Russell Ayles (41:42.879)
Why do people do this recruitment agencies? Why do they just think recruitment agencies are going to run around doing loads of work? And the thing is, yeah, you will end up, you know, you’ll end up filling the job because you use enough agencies, you know, then spam email enough people on their database, ignore the rest, know, ignore loads of people in the process and you will get ACV and you’ll end up recruiting somebody. But what cost at what cost to your brand at what cost to the people that have actually been in that process or being reached out to and then ignored about that process. So yeah, you know, it will come.

Renata (42:05.23)
you

Russell Ayles (42:12.843)
cost and would it be the most you know engaged candidate best candidate for your business probably not because they the agency’s not been allowed to take the time to really vet the candidate they might have overlooked a couple of things that they had you know slight red flags about because they thought well now they’ll probably get the job because they’re coming from these businesses you know they seem like a really good candidate so I’ll just take a chance and you know because if I don’t send them somebody else will won’t they so it all becomes very tangled very messy and poor so yeah probably rambled a bit there but it’s it just it just doesn’t

Renata (42:14.168)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (42:42.683)
make sense to me.

Renata (42:43.611)
No, I think that for the listeners for this show who are usually people seeking jobs, it’s really important to understand the recruitment and selection process from the point of view of the recruiter. Absolutely essential part of this because otherwise because job searching is such a lonely process, you’re by yourself most of the time. Most people don’t hire coaches to help them, don’t have outplacement support.

So it’s a guessing game. They’re guessing, you know, what’s going on and they don’t have a lot of know how and knowledge about the recruitment process. So this conversation is fantastic because I think people need to understand that they are not the client, that the client is the employer, that the recruiter is being paid by the employer, that the recruiter has different goals and, you know, and needs and KPIs than you have. And you don’t need to take everything so personally.

as well and finding great recruiters. like you said, applying to jobs through recruiters is actually optimizing your job search because if you don’t get a job with that recruiter for the first time, if you left a good impression, that recruiter may come back to you as you often you said before that you go to people time and time again to invite them to apply for roles because you’ve engaged with them. Yeah.

Russell Ayles (44:04.567)
definitely, that relationship…

Renata (44:06.828)
Like if you’re applying in -house, there’s less of a chance of that happening, right?

Russell Ayles (44:12.185)
Probably just because they’re going to probably get more volu… I don’t know. It’s hard to say that with any certainty, but I think, look, recruiters are not stupid. We know candidates we can trust and we know candidates we can’t.

you know, can you know, if all I’d say as a candidate is just be responsive, you know, if, if, if a recruiter calls you, get back to them when you, know, as soon as you can get back to them. I’m not saying call back, you know, drop everything, go back, but don’t leave it two days, you know, because that says to me, okay, not very responsive. Where’s the interest, you know, is this what you’re to be like during the process? And look, you’re not going to rule somebody out just for that, but you see common signs. Now I always, I always see something where

Renata (44:41.144)
Mm.

Russell Ayles (44:54.481)
I reach out to somebody on LinkedIn to get back to me quite quickly. We line up a call might be the next day. Let me tell you about the role, we blah, blah, blah. We have a good conversation. Okay, great. I’m going to put your details forward. go for an interview. They might call me afterwards and then I…

Renata (45:06.606)
Mm

Russell Ayles (45:11.193)
reach out to them because they invite for a second interview and then it takes them over a day to get back to me on LinkedIn or on text message. Okay, well can you talk? Yeah, can’t. Well, I can’t talk to them tomorrow. I can talk on Friday though. it’s things start to slow down and where they use and it’s, it’s a consistency. Now some people might always take two days to get back to you and then you get to learn that and that’s just them. But when somebody goes from getting back to you really quickly and it slows down 99 % of the time is because they’re losing interest in the position. And I’ve even got an example at the moment where, know, I’m trying

Renata (45:31.218)
Mm

Russell Ayles (45:41.147)
to get hold of somebody who’s, you know, for a second interview who is unresponsive. So I’m, you know, I’m being ghosted and it happens. We get ghosted a lot as well.

So I do try and mitigate this. always say out front to every single candidate when they enter the process, I say to them, look, there’s a good chance you’re going to go through this process and at some point either get cold feet or just figure out, know, this job is just not for me. And I said, that is absolutely fine. actually encourage that because I’d rather you pull out the process before an offer rather than kind of two or three months into the offer, because then people have invested time and lot of time and money then. I said, never be afraid to talk

about it if you’ve got cold feet never be afraid to drop out the process all I ask is that you just tell me and communicate with me because my relationship with the client is very important to me so I do try and sort of mitigate this and it doesn’t happen often but it does happen but

Honestly, I had a situation just very recently where somebody went for a role and after the first interview she called up and she said she goes, Russell, you’re not going to like what I’ve to say. I don’t think this role is right for me. I’d like to pull out. And I was like, look, that’s absolutely fine. And this is after her first video interview. So said, look, that’s absolutely fine. said, look, what’s changed? Because when we first spoke about the role.

Renata (46:54.826)
to begin.

Russell Ayles (47:01.773)
you were really excited about it, you know, because of this, this and this. So I just want to understand, you know, since, you know, and even after your video interview, you, you know, the text message you sent me was, wow, the role sounds amazing. I’m so excited. You know, what has changed? And she took, you know, I’m not going to specifics, but she talked me through it. And it seemed to me that, you know, she didn’t feel like the challenge was necessarily there. She wasn’t really sure. was, there was a bit of uncertainty. And I said, I said, look, that’s absolutely fine. You know, but.

Renata (47:03.982)
Mm -hmm.

Renata (47:18.348)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (47:31.543)
It seems to me that you have, just haven’t got enough information to be able to make a decision right now. It’s not, it’s not that you’re kind of interested and not interested is that there’s, you’ve got quite a few questions. So, you know, wouldn’t it make sense to go to the in -person interview? You know, you actually get to meet them. I said, it’s good you’re having these, these doubts because the interview is now going to give you the opportunity to raise these doubts, ask them in a way that you can kind of get to the bottom of these, you know, these doubts via, via questions to the business, find out more about the role and these things that are important to.

you. And I just said, look, I’m not here to push you into it. If you don’t want to go, honestly, no, you know, I’ve loved working with you. We’ll, you know, we’ll, work together again, but I do actually recommend you go. And she was like, yeah, do you know, do you know what you’re right? You’re right. I’m glad I spoke to you.

She got the job, just accepted it and signed the contract. But the point of that is that, you know, I’m not trying to kind of gloat about how great I am, although I am pretty great. But the point of that is that she might not have had that conversation if up front I didn’t say to her, look, whatever happens, just talk to me. You know, just talk to me. I’m not going to push you. Cause I think again, people might feel like recruiters want to try and push them into something or, you know, or not because they’ve got an ulterior motive. So I think just trying to keep that level of openness and transparency.

Renata (48:19.725)
Yeah.

Renata (48:33.934)
Hmm.

Renata (48:46.327)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (48:46.348)
I genuinely believe it always works out for everyone. But yeah, you know, some recruiters, they’re not bad people, but some recruiters are just…

Renata (48:49.943)
I think you did well.

Russell Ayles (48:56.225)
And look, I don’t go from too much of a tangent, but I’ve worked for recruitment businesses back in the UK and agency where the sort of targets that you’re working to, as in speculative of the CV sent out or CV sent out the number of interviews you’re arranging, all of these metrics that you’re targeted against don’t encourage good behavior. They encourage volume. They encourage, you know, placements, which essentially the businesses want, but it doesn’t encourage, you know, client experience. They don’t encourage a high level of candidate experience. Yeah, of course.

better client experience and candidate experience, you’d give you probably more likely to do a better job. what, you know, some of these targets that agencies still work to nowadays, which is, you know, CV sent out and all of this, don’t encourage great behavior. So the recruiters are just doing what the businesses are telling them to do. So when it comes to that, you know, communicating with candidates who are maybe, you know, unsuccessful or not going to be right for that role, that’s not a priority to them. You know, getting back to a candidate that they might have had a telephone screen with, and then they spoke to 10 people for a telephone screen and they’re going to put four people forward for

a role, their priority because of what they’re targeted against is not to then go and communicate to those six other people they’ve not put forward, is to then go and find the next four people to put forward for that next job and then the next job and next job because remember they’re working contingency multi -agency so they’ve got to work on 10 jobs at a time just to fill two or three. So they haven’t got time to deal with these people that aren’t right for this role, they just haven’t got time and it’s not a priority to them. Whereas if you work on just three roles and you’re either retained or working exclusively or

Renata (50:08.771)
Yep.

Renata (50:19.192)
Mm

Russell Ayles (50:26.42)
however it may be where you know that you’re to fill those three rolls unless something drastic happens like they just pull the roll or

whatever it may be, you know, the 5 % chance. Now I can, yeah, I will still put those four people forward, but I’ve got more time now to go back to those six people. And even if it’s an email, you know, it doesn’t need to be, even if it’s an email saying, Hey, look, you know, thanks for your chat so much. Really enjoyed it. You know, there were stronger candidates we’ve put forward for the role. You know, that doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that we’re not, know, there won’t be anything feasible in the future. Whatever it is, you get the gist, but you have more time now to give a better candidate.

Renata (50:32.59)
Bye.

Renata (50:59.104)
Mm

Russell Ayles (51:02.436)
experience and to get back to these people that you know are just not just not right for something right now so yeah it just yeah I’ll just it just confuses me

Renata (51:03.724)
Yeah.

Renata (51:11.769)
I think you’re doing a great job. I really like your point about giving it a go unless you’re absolutely 100 % sure that the job is not for you. Usually, when I’m working with clients, it’s usually red flags in regards to leadership style or culture or feedback received. I, as a candidate, received feedback from…

my network saying don’t work for this person or something like that that really made me pull out. However, sometimes what happens in our brain, we self -select ourselves out of a race. We argue, we think we’re being so objective and rational when in fact it’s just some sort of scary thoughts or yeah, just a feeling that you’re not ready for the role or something like that.

I also, fact in retail, have felt that some candidates that have extensive retail experience but then they apply or contacted for a role selling something that they’re not confident about, you know? Like, I don’t know, if you’re a woman and it’s power tools and then you’re like, no, that’s not for me. And then you go through the interview and you fall in love with the business and the company and all of that. But she had…

This client of mine had self -selected out of the race because she just didn’t feel like she could be a great marketing person for something she didn’t know much about. Yeah. Yeah.

Russell Ayles (52:42.328)
that happens happens all the time. get it even with like, I reach out to a guy for know, an ecommerce role for a women’s, know, women’s fashion brands and I’ll often get yeah, I don’t think it’s the right brand for me. And like, what you know, look at look at the opportunity. Don’t forget what the product is. And I’ve always thought like, so when I started off in agency back in like 2004, I did buying and merchandising. So it’s always that product related and

Renata (52:52.352)
Exactly. Yeah.

Renata (53:03.906)
This is.

Russell Ayles (53:08.447)
know, something that I’ve never really understood is people that got so attached to, to like, to a kind of product area. You know, you don’t have to be a customer to, to be great, you know, to be great as a buyer for that role, you know, I could be a beauty buyer, you know, I don’t have to wear makeup to be able to buy that, that area, you know, that there’s so many skills and so many, you know, kind of experiences that you can have, that’s going to make you great at that role, regardless of product. Now, yeah, of course there’s an argument to being, you know, really sort of niche and, know, you might have always worked in lingerie and you just know that technical

Renata (53:17.932)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (53:38.331)
inside out, but there’s so many products, 60, 70 % of the products out there when it comes to retail, you don’t have to be a wearer of that product. You don’t have to be a customer of that businesses, but there’s so many candidates out there that want to be, they want to be a customer of the brand they work for and be somebody who wears that product as well. There’s also businesses that want that. And I won’t say who, because there’s some I work with, but there’s businesses that want the…

Renata (53:44.076)
Yeah.

Renata (53:47.906)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (54:08.209)
Personally hired to be a customer to look like their customer right and see you know to be someone who would shop there and think about how much that narrows that talent pull down by

Renata (54:11.948)
Yeah. Yeah.

Russell Ayles (54:19.618)
So yeah, there’s some businesses you can imagine maybe some of the sort of higher end brands often like the women’s fashion brands who have this mindset of they want everyone to be that customer, know, to everyone to be, you know, to look like that, you know, that brand ambassador almost. yeah, and they would probably sacrifice certain skill sets to get that as well. look, businesses can recruit who they want, you know, we’re here ultimately, or I am here, I should say, I don’t want to speak for

Renata (54:24.695)
Hmm.

Renata (54:30.338)
That’s true.

Russell Ayles (54:48.571)
agencies. I’m here to kind of just say, you know, to advise people to say that the problem with that might be this or have you looked at that? Have you considered this? know, maybe you could, you know, you’d open your talent pool if you, if you looked at this, you know, companies that don’t offer any sort of work from home, you know, they don’t need me to say to them, this severely restricts your talent pool. Do you know, you know, they know that.

Renata (55:09.45)
Russell, you’re from England. Do you remember, do you know that show where people are buying houses in the countryside and then they see two houses that meet their criteria and then like a really odd house that’s completely out of the box? Is that how you present candidates to your clients as well? Do you usually send a client that’s a little bit outside of the assignment so that they have a little bit of a shock and awe and see the diversity in the market?

Russell Ayles (55:16.02)
Yeah, yeah.

Russell Ayles (55:34.19)
Yeah.

Yeah, do you know what it, it, it, and again, this, this, this is when it comes down to kind of understanding your clients. So some clients, I wouldn’t do that just because I know, I know they just wouldn’t be interested. And ultimately, ultimately I’m a business. I don’t want to send people date. They don’t want to see. But I’m working with a client at this moment in time where what they’re recruiting for is an e -commerce manager, but their budget is quite wide. You know, they, they, you know, there’s kind of like, we’ll look anywhere between kind of 140 and 180, 190 here.

Renata (55:50.803)
huh.

Russell Ayles (56:04.903)
and it’s a new position to them as well and they’d look at kind of know relocation or bringing somebody from even abroad or interstate and yeah because it is such a it’s a new role to them they haven’t got like this blueprint or this expectation of this person has to be this and has to be that and you know which is nice it’s quite refreshing so i’ve actually given them kind of

know, something I’ve given them five people that they’re interviewing and kind of almost like, you know, one at 141 51, you know, not purposefully, but I’d wanted to give them a kind of, you know, diverse selection. And then, you know, somebody who is kind of really established, you know, got this really strong experience and other people that are kind of more, you know, more up and coming more people that are kind of, you know, newer to the industry or less, you know, a bit less experienced, but have maybe more of an alignment with that brand. Cause it’s a very kind of specific brand. It’s, it’s a brand targeted at a very kind of, you know, specific

Renata (56:35.095)
Right.

Renata (56:54.734)
Mm

Russell Ayles (56:57.207)
type of customer. So trying to give them somebody that fits that profile but maybe less experienced. yeah, and so far the problem is so far they’ve loved everyone. yeah, it’s not, but I think for them it’s one of those things where they don’t, they know what they want, but they won’t, you know, maybe 70, 80%, but they won’t know that kind of final 20 % until they’ve talked to different types of people and thought, okay, so somebody with this experience could give us this.

Renata (57:02.956)
right.

Renata (57:08.703)
that’s a good problem to have.

Renata (57:19.875)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (57:26.827)
experience could bring this but do we need that right now actually maybe that’s something we need in four or five years time when we’ve grown a little bit more so it just gives them I think it just helps them with that decision making process you know it’s not to say the candidates are like sacrificial lambs to help them make a decision on who they want to then go out to market again but it’s about helping them see the different types of candidates that they can attract and then help them kind of you know work out what’s important to them because sometimes you think you know what’s important to you but you know sometimes that that just changes again like looking at

Renata (57:34.317)
Yeah.

Russell Ayles (57:56.687)
house you might think yeah there might be things like needs to have five bedrooms and this and this then there’s those things that are sort of preferences but then you end up going for this house that’s completely different you know you might think I want a modern house but then you see this old sandstone built house in you know in the middle of the country and you know it’s all like low ceilings and beams everywhere and you just fall in love with it because because it’s got character that can happen with job you know with jobseekers and candidates as well somebody might walk into that interview who on paper they don’t necessarily tick every box but obviously they’ll take enough boxes to be sick

Renata (58:07.029)
Yeah.

Renata (58:25.976)
because that’s just the thing.

Russell Ayles (58:27.087)
And they just come in and they just have something about them. You they just think, you know, you just think, well, you’re going to be great for us. I love your energy. Yeah, there might be a couple of areas that we need to train you a bit more on, but you bring so much more in terms of, these other areas that we hadn’t really thought of much, but now we see them and you, we love it. So, you know, that can always happen to you. That’s why I always encourage companies, you know, you don’t want them to see loads of people for the sake of seeing loads of people, but don’t be, you know, if somebody you’re on the fence about just, you know, just have a video call with them.

just have a know, a telephone call, just speak to them, you know, just give them a chance and yeah, know, just see how you feel after that. So yeah, I think, yeah.

Renata (58:56.972)
Yeah, yeah.

Renata (59:07.854)
Awesome. Russell, you know what? I could keep talking to you all afternoon. You have so much to say. I think we need you back on the podcast. Maybe next year we have another chat when you changed your name and expanded your area of expertise beyond retail, fashion and e -commerce jobs. I’d love to see how that goes for you. I loved having you here. I think that this is…

a podcast that I’m going to recommend all of my clients to listen to for that perspective on how recruiters think, how they work, how they operate, what makes them tick, why they do things the way they do. Not just because you’ve explained not just how you work, but you also explain how recruiters worked in general and you differentiated yourself at times. But sometimes it’s like that’s us. So thank you so much for the generosity of coming on the show and talking to us. I really, really appreciate it.

Russell Ayles (01:00:04.313)
You’re welcome. for having me on. Yeah, absolutely.

Renata (01:00:04.556)
We need to keep in touch. All right. Thank you so much.