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It's a Match!
Can a passion-driven business approach redefine an entire industry? Managing Director of Add Some Zest, Calum Lyle, believes so.
We loved speaking to Calum and hearing about his refreshing approach to recruitment. We feel Calum's values and our values at the Amplified Group are naturally aligned. It definitely feels like a match!
Calum shares how prioritising customer experience over profit can lead to a staggering +94 Net Promoter Score and an impressive candidate retention rate.
Calum has built an agency that truly enhances the recruitment process, focusing on authenticity and energy in every interaction. They choose passion and customer-centricity over mere financial gain.
We discover some practical tips on navigating the evolving job market, including strategies for bypassing AI filters and crafting personalised communication.
This episode is a wonderful example of breaking free of established ways of working, thinking creatively and executing on it.
Whilst this conversation is focused on a recruitment, it's a must listen for job seekers and hiring managers alike.
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplified-group/
Welcome to GAmplified from the Amplified Group, bringing you stories to help leaders in the tech industry execute at speed through the power of working together. Well Vicky, it feels very autumnal in Bucks today, just a bit drizzly and grim. What's it looking like in deepestst, darker Stocksfordshire?
Vicky:I would say I'm looking, it's a bit breezy so maybe we're in, maybe we're in different parts of the county this time, sam maybe, mayb.
Sam:Who'd have thought it. So who have we got on today?
Vicky:Oh, yet another wonderful guest who I don't know very well, but it feels like this could. I don't want to pre-empt things, callum, but it feels like this could be the start of a really exciting relationship here.
Calum:That's better than what I thought you were going to say. I thought you were going to say it'd be a wonderful podcast, and then I've got something really big to live up to, but I can certainly start a really exciting relationship.
Vicky:So we've got Calum Lyle with us and Callum is the MD of what is the name of the company.
Calum:Add Some Zest is the company, but we can shorten it to Zest for this.
Vicky:But I love the thought of Add Some Zest. I mean, that just says it all, doesn't it? It's just amazing. So Calum and I have been in the same circles just a little bit recently and what became apparent is some of the people that I've been coaching, they are looking to move to different roles. They're saying how do I know that I'm joining a good team and and that's something that's really interesting to us um, I've been following Calum probably for about a year, but what I've loved about the posts is how authentic they are and just it feels like we're on the same page. So I'm not going to spoil any of your thunder, callum, so that you can. You can tell us what, what you do.
Sam:So maybe you can start by giving us a little bit of your background, your history, what brings you to where you are today?
Calum:Yeah, of course, of course, and thanks for thanks for having me. So I guess it all kind of started straight out of university where, interestingly, interestingly, I studied international hospitality management and business, so completely outside of the kind of world of recruitment tech, all of that good stuff. But I had a real focus and, interestingly, I wrote my dissertation on how employee engagement affects staff attrition, specifically in hospitality. But I've got a real focus and interest in people and just all things that make people tick and encourage people to stay within organizations. And, fortunately, graduating, I went into a recruitment company purely focused around the kind of IT channel, focusing on commercial hires within that space. Within 18 months I switched places with the owner when the business was five people a very unusual position and decision from everyone but fortunately kind of grew that business to just shy of 30 people over um, the course of about seven or eight years. Um, and then, well, I'll be very, very truthful, I went into that thinking I wanted to earn lots of money, have lots of nice things, achieve lots of wonderful, wonderful things, become a, became MD of this business quite early on and I realized that none of those things actually really touched the sides or really were as fulfilling as I thought they would be, so made the decision in October 22 to ultimately start my own recruitment agency with a vision to radically change the perception of how a recruitment agency serves its people, customers and communities.
Calum:Recruitment has a big kind of stigma attached to it. Vicky mentions the name Add Some Zest. I have never been the stereotype of a recruiter, I'd like to think. I always like to add as much energy into conversations as I can, try and add value, add zest for every interaction, and I think that's what people are looking for in salespeople as well People who are going to really be energy givers, really come into an organization and really drive positive change, positive noise within a business. So that's ultimately what we've been doing.
Calum:A very short synopsis of how we're doing that. We incentivize our team based off of customer experience rather than traditional finance metrics Because of that, and we're delighted that our MPS score since inception is plus 94,. Our mps score since inception is plus 94, um which, uh is it's even crazy to to think and to say 96 percent of our candidates stay in the same role or are promoted within 12 months. That's amazing, um. So just stats that we're starting to prove what we said we were going to do now and it's been, it's been joyous and uh, yes, the test is yet to come.
Sam:Brilliant, Obviously, you know. It sounds like you were running the show at your old place anyway.
Calum:Was there anything specific that tipped you over the edge to go start your own? I think I was, but I had a very kind of capable kind of co-director. The founder of the business was brilliant and gave me that opportunity. We probably didn't necessarily have exactly the same value and alignment in terms of what good looked like and I'm super passionate about customer experience and making positive change in that space and that maybe didn't necessarily align and ultimately I was in a fortunate position where I could make the move. I was able to do it. Why not try and really get out there and change the perception of an industry I'd become passionate about? And yeah, you're right though, sam, I could have stayed. I could have earned a very good amount of money and allowed kind of things to tick over, but actually money didn't become my biggest driver and the the impact that I could make did so. That was the kind of real, real tipping point you know I was going to say.
Sam:The ironic thing about not chasing the dollar is that if you do it for the right reasons, the dollar chases you yeah so you know, you know soft cap was fairly successful and I was a part of that. I was in it to change stuff. You know I wanted to change the way we ran movers from transactional sales to services and solutions and and strategy. Lots of essays and the success followed us. That was my reason not to make bucket loads of money it sounds like for us, yeah, yeah, exactly an amplified group.
Vicky:Our mission is still we want to change how it feels to work in the tech industry, and it's not just all about the numbers that all the other stuff is just a happy byproduct of doing the right thing?
Calum:I think yeah that's why we focus on customer experience, because I genuinely believe that if you look after people and you make the right decisions for customers and candidates in our sense, then you don't need to worry about money, money, money will follow. But if you, if you, focus on money, I think you're disingenuous behind making the right decision. If I just push a push a candidate to accept a job that I want them to accept, is that the right job for them? But if I trust that I'm doing the right thing by them, I'm building a relationship with, it will last 30, 40 years or whatever, whatever that that kind of looks like.
Calum:So, uh, yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Sam:I always thought it was an interesting job, in that selling's not quite the right word, but you're almost selling in both directions, aren't you? You know you've got to pitch the company to the candidate and the candidate to the company, and, yes, okay, so they've both got to got to make that work themselves. But you've got a positioning is probably better than better word than selling. Perhaps how, what would you use? Well, you describe it yeah, position it.
Calum:Positioning is probably right. There is obviously an element of sales to it and of course there is.
Sam:Yeah, you've got to have the energy and the contacts and all that sort of stuff but exactly what?
Calum:what I think recruitment agencies do badly. Sam and we, we partner exclusively with everyone that we deal with, and one of the biggest acid tests for me is we say no to more business than we say yes to, because it's um, what's really hard for me is to sell a business that I I can't get behind and I would much rather not have that business and focus on, focus on finding the right, the right business. So to me, but again, that is a great example. Vicky could have mentioned my linkedin posts or whatever I've learned over my decade or so in doing this.
Calum:The more you're yourself, the more authentic you are, the more just, serendipitously people find you who are similar but equally, again, I think that's hard to do if you're purely commercially driven, because it's hard to be completely authentic. It's hard to to kind of always be transparent if you're yeah if you're trying to push someone or something into a position.
Vicky:So, um, so yeah, positioning, but again, we're very lucky to position companies that we genuinely believe in, yeah yeah, exactly, exactly no, that makes sense, that makes sense you know, I I put the the uh brief title of this podcast to be it's a match and it feels like it is yeah for the, for the role that you do allum.
Calum:I was going to say again this feels like a match too, yeah, yeah, well, there's um I think it's funny we talked a bit about soft cap before before, the, the podcast as well, and soft cat are a great example and I genuinely believe, and that's probably why I've I've kind of developed some nice relationships over there, because you, you can, you can see that when a business does it right, you can absolutely see that that kind of match and that fit and therefore you're probably slightly more attracted to those kind of people because that feels you have an affinity with, with that kind of vibe and culture and and fit. So um, so yeah, but it does, it does feel like a, a match that makes sense.
Sam:You know, similarly, when we were recruiting, we we would recruit, for we used to say attitude over aptitude. So you know people who would fit the vibe I don't think we called it that. We called it the vibe back in the day, but but that was exactly what we're doing, rather necessarily than someone with particular skills, because you could train particular skills into somebody with the right attitude yeah, I frame it experience is over experience.
Calum:I think that's a really, yeah, I like that kind of way of viewing things, because I think often experiences are undervalued in the, in the workplace and experience is overvalued. Um, I think you can still develop some great like if you look at a returning mum or whatever that looks like. Don't tell me you can't learn more in that situation of bringing up a human being into the world than you can working another year in the same organization going through the places in autopilot so great philosophy well, it's a bit of what's what's really tricky, vicky, which hopefully I'm certainly ever developing, but that attitude over aptitude is actually assessing that um and actually
Calum:putting number and a bit of rigor behind it, because it's so easy, especially in sales recruitment, to kind of have a conversation like this yeah, you kind of get things going. You think it's a match and then guys might talk about the football team they both support, and then they have an hour conversation and they think, oh, I really got on with Callum, but they've got no thought whether callum's a nice guy, but can he actually do the job that we want to do.
Sam:How do you do that? You use a lot of metrics in your recruitment by quite a lot of messages.
Calum:So we, as I said, we kind of partner with everyone, um, exclusively that enables us to spend a bit more time. Um, it's recruitment typically in kind of contingent agencies is sending the quickest cv because you're scared someone else will send it quicker. Is that sensible? Does that make sense? Not to me.
Sam:It doesn't sound like it particularly adds much value.
Calum:Exactly so we take our time a little bit more. It still doesn't mean it needs to take a long time to make the right hire. And we do a first stage video interview for every single click candidate that we introduce to a client. And those video interviews are led by me or one of the team, where we ask questions decided by the hiring manager, and they're usually around things and before we've even got to that stage we've had a quick conversation to say what are we trying to assess here? Is it coachability? Are we looking at your values and trying to align the candidate with with that? So that video interview will ultimately assess the candidate at a very first pass anyway against the customer rather than a generic sales or marketing or operations type role. And then we do it. We do a cultural assessment.
Calum:Now, I would never use any psychometrics as a decisive part of an interview process because I just don't think that's the right thing to do.
Calum:However, it's 50 questions that the hiring manager or the top performer within that team grade A example and 50 questions that the candidate answers, and it's just based off of their personality preferences.
Calum:And that's not to say we want to create clones, that is to say we want to fully understand the human beings that we're bringing into the organization. In doing that, you can. You can add value and you can actually put together a an onboarding process that's fit for purpose. You can actually make sure that you're interacting with that human being and in a way that actually works for them and isn't just the way that you've onboarded and interacted with the last five people that were a success in your team. Um, and all of these things just hopefully enable us, both as an agency and as a kind of outsourced recruitment partner, but also the hiring manager, to dig into the right areas through that process so they actually come to a point where they mitigate risk of making the wrong hire. Ultimately and as you said earlier, 96 percent of our candidates stay or are promoted within 12 months. So it's working, but we can still develop that.
Sam:Yeah, yeah. Can you not just throw a load of AI at it all? Don't have to do the people thing.
Calum:AI is really interesting, especially-.
Sam:Is that happening in recruitment? Is that a big thing?
Calum:Definitely. Well, it's definitely happening. It happens more within the kind of large corporate type environment. Yeah, Well, one of the issues I tell you, Sam, in recruitment 90, well, one person that we placed last year came for an application. So if you're advertising roles and expecting people to come through through that way, it's made that almost impossible, because what happens is, luckily we've developed quite a big following. People kind of know us, follow us, et cetera, as a business. If I put an advert out now, within 24 hours it would have 200 applicants, and what the big organizations are having to do because of that is put together a kind of AI solution. Often.
Sam:To do the first pass filter. Exactly 200 down to 50 or something something, and what's that doing?
Calum:that's looking for keywords on someone's cv. That's looking for, that's looking for particular trigger, trigger words or whatever that. Whatever that means um, in in their eyes and we talked earlier about experiences over experience how do you truly get the right human being to the right stage in order to give them a chance? So, from a candidate's perspective, it's really hard, isn't it?
Vicky:it's really hard. But I heard another story this week of a cmo of a of a fairly and rapidly growing fintech, and she was saying the problem that they've got with interviewing me. She said I've been doing this for years, vicky and I can. I know how to interview people and these interviews have just felt weird. It said I found out what it is there. They've got AI real time listening in to the interview and the AI is giving them the answers.
Vicky:Wow, and they're reading them out and I'm like holy crap, they're on a big recruitment drive at the minute. We've got the team getting together tomorrow to figure out how we overcome this and we think we need to go back to face-to-face interviews and I'm like plumb in Nora. This is taking it to a different level altogether.
Calum:That is madness. I've never heard that.
Vicky:And then I spoke to someone that's early in career, that's looking for a different role that I don't know very well, and they were telling me yeah, that's a normal thing, yeah, I've seen loads of that happening and I'm like gosh, it's a different thing altogether. And then I had somebody else that is looking for a job and they've been out of a job for six months and they're really blooming talented and they sent their cv over and it's a word document and it's horrendous to look at and I'm like why is it in this format? I said Randstad told me to put in this format because this is how AI will read it, and I'm like oh, god, that's definitely something.
Calum:If someone's wanting to apply for a large organisation, then you hear a lot people having kind of a CV that the three of us would look at to kind of best portray that person more traditional document that actually has a bit of character, has a bit of personality, and then a more ATSs, so applicant tracking system, kind of focus cv that effectively is just like gobbledygook that tries, tries to have the keywords in in the right places and and you just can't think a world where that makes sense or that's really what people are looking for. It's, uh, it's, it's a difficult, difficult situation so what could candidates do if you know?
Sam:obviously the answer is work with zest, right, yeah, there we are there, we are, but you know in theory, if you had a candidate who was applying to a big corporate role and they would have to get past the ai filters first, what? What do they do? Make sure they hit the right keywords, or is it?
Calum:so I'll speak to this because I'm mainly a sales recruiter. Anything commercial, but mainly sales and and what. What I love about that is the personality that comes with it typically. But also the interview process to some degree, for a salesperson is effectively a sales process. So if they are a good salesperson they can sell themselves, but also they should be able to catch people's attention. So to actually answer that question, if I was talking it through live, I would send a CV through whatever means you need to log that CV. I would then be able to find that hiring manager's email address. I would send them an email around three things. That here's three, three reasons I applied for the role and here's three, three reasons I think we should speak. I'd probably follow that with maybe a video type message or something that makes me stand out, maybe on linkedin, and just have a bit of a kind of sequence cadence of of messages that actually captures that person's attention, because it still is a that you're still trying to connect to a human and identifying the hiring manager and actually so it's almost less a way of getting through the ai filters, it's almost more of a way of bypassing the ai filters and getting to the human behind them
Calum:I would say so. I think we're stuck in life where so you mentioned, um there's incredibly talented people that have been out of work for for months, which is, which is such a shame. But I think you're forced in that scenario to look at it in two different ways. You can either complain and think, actually this is really rubbish and actually these, these systems aren't fit for purpose. Or you can think, as you say, sam, how can I actually still get my personality across and how can I wake up this morning and put my best foot forward and capture someone's attention and I think that's the same as sales, right, like you could just make a load of aimless calls or send some emails and not do that. But actually, if you, if you think and you really put together a thought-provoking reason and you're genuinely adding value to that person, then you will get through to someone and actually you will develop a conversation. And if you're the right person for the role you'll get the job.
Calum:But it's harder now than it was, certainly particularly last couple of years when there has been lots of redundancies. It's been a funny, funny time in recruitment people over hired in covid, overpaid, and then there's been a funny funny time in recruitment. People overhired in covid, overpaid and then there's been a bit of a market correction through the roof and then, all of a sudden, exactly, exactly, exactly yeah well, so what's the market like at the minute, then?
Sam:is that stuff picking up, are they, I think?
Calum:2025 will be a good year. It's been. It's been pretty higgledy-piggledy, I'm honest, and starting zest, zest, but we've been really, really fortunate actually to to develop a kind of strong customer base and and work exclusively and and actually start changing people's perception of recruitment, which is great. But it's, um, covid, as I say, people kind of pay too much for talent. Just off the back of that, there was a bit of a market correction, probably about 18 months, two years ago. Now that is still kind of carrying through as the large organizations make redundancies. It kind of has a bit of a domino effect. But yeah, in terms of, as of now, sam, people are, people are hiring again, I think 2025 is looking like a like a good, uh, going to be a good year. We're seven days into november. We've we've already kind of got a lot of people and it just feels more buoyant, with people reaching out to us and saying, look, we need to get the right people in the right places for 2025 it feels like it's picked up.
Vicky:I've seemed to have shared so many jobs over the last week that has come past me, so, yeah, that's great. There just does seem to be momentum yeah, I'm.
Calum:I'm noticing that as well just a just a question.
Vicky:I'm just thinking of our audience for the podcast. You work outside of the uk as well, don't you?
Calum:yeah, yeah, across across across europe. A couple of a couple kind of stateside, but not not a ridiculous man no, but but across europe yeah yeah, cool I'll tell you why. We're getting lots of demand, as you can can imagine, is the middle east is kind of going.
Calum:Yeah, wow, is is going is going crazy um, and there was jitex there, not too too long ago, but lots of um, lots of hiring out there, very um, and a really kind of growing market where it's so focused on who you know, not what you know, and it's just uh, relationship, such a relationship focused market it's such a lovely hospitable market it's funny if you were to target a load of um candidates in the uk or or kind of the netherlands, you probably wouldn't get that many responses from a really targeted, whereas everyone in Saudi and the UAE are so hospitable and so so lovely and will be really comfortable referring you to lots of different people if they kind of like you and feel like you're adding value.
Vicky:So it's an interesting market, but it's a nice space and somewhere that's certainly growing good so another person that I mentor has and I might have alluded to this at the beginning of the of the podcast has said you know that they're looking for a new role. How do they know that they're joining a good team? And you know, this is obviously where our paths potentially collide, because we're all about Team X and team experience and I fundamentally think you know there's so much about greatest place to work, best place to work, and and that is about the corporate and the company. And yet I think the team bit is it's like the I don't know, perhaps, sam, you can help me be more eloquent with this, but it's. It's like where the people bit. You feel good about what you're doing and actually, if you get the team bit right, that's what impacts the positiveness in the business to the growth.
Vicky:It's like the bit that binds the two together. Am I talking rubbish?
Sam:no, I don't think so. I can sort of see what you what, what you're getting. It came to me last night on a walk and I was like, I think I've not thought of it like that before I think, because employee satisfaction, happiness, whatever is quite fashionable. Yeah there, and rightly so. Right, there are a lot of organizations who probably paint a good picture of what they do and do. Do you know that that organization is actually as nice to work for as you believe it is?
Sam:and also your immediate team is almost more important than the wider organization this is my how do you, how do you know if your hiring manager and the team within are creating an environment that you want to be part of? Is it better to be part of a good team in a crap organization or a great organization but a crap team within it?
Calum:it's a good question I don't know the answer to that hard, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, it's um, it's, it's, it's something that's really hard to assess through through that kind of courting type process, because everyone it's not, it's, it's, it's something that's really hard to assess through through that kind of courting type process because everyone it's not, it's like dating everyone kind of puts their their best self into that, into that situation. Well, I can definitely tell you before I go into that answer is it's really interesting, especially especially in sales. Salary is much less of a factor than you think it would be in someone moving, moving role and actually over my decade or so.
Calum:It is going that way in terms of how much of a key factor, that is yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry and thankfully they can't see my awful tash, but um, my, my.
Calum:so the the kind of salary salary kind of is becoming becoming less important from a, from a kind of driver around moving. I mean, I think what's a really key differentiator between when you're thinking that right, joining the right team is what that team needs to look like, because good looks different to so many different people and I think people like the best places to work or anything like that employee engagement, employee satisfaction. If it's not your type of people answering that question, then actually that doesn't necessarily mean that it's your type of team that you want to be joining. So trying to be able to articulate that and trying to be able to go into conversations with I think interviews are often look at the interviewer, assessing the interviewee it should be a very two-way street yeah, and in both scenarios I think often, too often, even if people have that approach, both the interviewer and the interviewee are just asking a series of random questions to try and do that.
Calum:But actually if they, if the interviewee wants to work in a business where development is is really at the heart of everything and organize it, have four or five questions that are focused on development to bring to the conversation. Exactly the same from an interviewer perspective, if you're looking for someone who's super coachable, have have have two or three questions or a task that is designed to to kind of assess coachability and, um, I think I, I think that's a really important way of of doing things, a good tool actually, which I'll just bring up now as well. If some is a business kind of everyone knows glassdoor but people don't necessarily know.
Calum:Rep view spelt r-e-p-v-u-e oh, I got sent that this week okay, it's a good, good timing, so that that is a for sales people looking to join larger organizations. That isn't giving you a health check of the, the organization's engagement or employee satisfaction. That's giving you a health check of the attainment of quota across the team. So if you're looking for an organization because again, that's somewhere that people fall down they go into an organization and perhaps they run an 80k basic salary, 160k package and they go in and join somewhere that has 100k base salary but actually they only end up earning 20 on top because no one's hitting target. That's a way of kind of blastoring, I guess, attainment and actually having a bit of an acid test of how many are the targets realistic, but yeah yeah, exactly.
Calum:So that doesn't necessarily answer the team type question, but a lot, of, a lot of sales people, a lot of people, when making that decision, will be thinking about how can I kind of earn what, what they say I'll earn? Yeah that's a really nice place to look I think.
Vicky:I think from our perspective and this is I'm really keen to explore this with you and we won't include it on the podcast but the the point around actually measuring the team experience, because the types of questions that we ask are things like do you feel like you have input into the planning process? Do you feel like you're being heard? Are your meetings effective? Do you understand the work styles of the different people that you work with? Can you hold people to account?
Calum:and so it's the practicalities of actually how the team works, and it's quite staggering how strong the correlation is between the those responses and the performance of that team mainly sales teams quite staggering yeah, that's amazing though they're all great things to to kind of cover off what one of one of the fears of asking questions and one of the things you need to kind of see through, as I say, through that kind of courting type process or the interview process, and why why I wouldn't necessarily use psychometrics as a decisive factor is people often just yeah, people will answer what they think you want from both sides, because yeah
Calum:no one wants to go into a, no one goes on a first date saying I'm going to be a terrible husband or wife. They, they will. They will say they will. They will try and portray themselves in the best possible light. And it's trying to see through and get to the true reason behind that, which is why we say no to more business than we say yes to and actually try and really assess that. And the good acid test for me is thinking is this a business that I'd want to work?
Vicky:with yeah, I know that makes sense. I think the belief that we've got in the speed check is because it's not like us asking you as a manager do these things happen? Yeah, exactly, we're actually doing it's not like us asking you as a manager do these things, exactly, exactly it's more like a 360, yeah, but I love what you said about um the fact that an interview is a two-way process, because it's really critical that that is the case, isn't it?
Calum:yeah, well, I think, um, interestingly, one of the things which we do a lot of everyone's taught of how to to interview, or people will have kind of interview tips more. More from the interviewee side, not many interviewers are taught how to, how to interview and and, and there needs to be something that they're actually trying to assess and and both parties need to need to be kind of confident to to to kind of go into that conversation and get the answers that they need to. And I think, from a candidate's perspective as well, I would never be afraid to ask to speak to more people within an organization or ask for another stage. Again, the general, the general perception is that people want interview stages to be as quickly, quick as possible, and to to get to a decision, because someone might be off the market. But actually I'd much rather things be done right than be done quickly, and I think that's most people's perception. Yet we've been kind of taught that which is bonkers to me.
Calum:And you asked dig a bit deeper. When someone approaches us, yeah, callum, we need someone yesterday. Okay, well, we're probably not the right people for you there, but it's kind of that. That is the, the thought, and if you ask why they actually want the best person for the job and the candidate wants to to join a business they're going to stay within. So making a decision from both sides of our zoom call is bonkers. And and never be afraid, as a candidate, to either ask to speak to people or for sales people. Everyone's contactable. Now feel free to to kind of drop some people that you see within that organization. A message on linkedin we'd love to pick your brain. I'm currently in the interview process for x, y or z. I'd love to pick your brain on a few different things about working for the organization. Do you have five minutes later this week or something? And people?
Calum:I guess a responsible employer should be really happy to condone that and that's, and that's probably a just just a good, just as good acid test itself. Sam, it's a bit like it's a bit like buying a house, isn't it?
Sam:you know you, you buy a house, you might live in it for 10 years and you know you buy it in a 20 minute. Look around half the time.
Calum:Yeah, maybe you might go for a second viewing, but it's and it's mad how quickly you have to come to that decision exactly, and I guess this is a house where there are 100 people living in it um, yeah, yeah, so your housemates might be deeply unpleasant exactly, whereas if, um, if you're asking someone with an invested interest, um the hiring manager or, in your instance, the homeowner, they might say things that might not be truthful.
Calum:But there will be. If you take your time, if you ask the right questions, if you actually try and assess the opportunity as much as they're assessing you, good, good, good outcomes will be. You can't completely mitigate risk, but you can certainly. You can certainly do go go some of the way of doing that you've got a magic bullet.
Sam:Interview question interview question. Um like like you know, in early days of soft cap, we had a set of questions that we'd ask people to assess their ability to sort of think under pressure or, you know, deal with having stuff thrown at them a little bit. Um, you know, have you? Have you got any sort of?
Calum:uh, I've got a few magic bullets in terms of different, different areas, um, but, uh, personally, I probably got the right pair, because I'm very zesty and very different and I'd probably be asking what, what they do if money wasn't a, wasn't an issue, because, uh, I'd be, I'd be really interested to kind of get the get someone actually truly, truly, is passionate about. I think, um, there's a, there's a few things that I've learned and a few things that I will naturally do to try and assess what I believe is important in in um, in sales, and one of one of those things might be coachability. So, if someone is asked to do a presentation, um, they got this actually from mark reverge, who's the cro of hubspot grew that business like mad but someone's asked to a presentation, I'll ask them to do the presentation to me. I would and I'm not assessing them at all how they do the first presentation. I would see how they get on, I would give them some critique and at that point I would start assessing them.
Calum:So I'd assess whether they've got glassy eyes and they completely ignore everything. I say I start assessing them. So I'd assess whether they've got glassy eyes and they completely ignore everything. I say, yeah, I would assess if they start picking up their pen and think, okay, actually, callum, that's really good advice, yeah yeah, that's, that's brilliant and I would give taking the criticism criticism or not criticism, but the feedback on board exactly.
Calum:See, see what they're writing down, see just how they're. Are they like a puppy dog thinking, oh, this is great callum's, giving me some, some advice?
Sam:you see the light go on in their eyes exactly.
Calum:So I'd start assessing them at that point and more assessing through action than uh, than anything else and then I'd say, right, have five minutes, I'll go grab a coffee and then do it one more time and then then you can actually see a live example.
Calum:If someone has even developed a couple of percent on the first presentation in that period, I know that they're probably going to be coachable or they're someone that that we can work with if that's really important to a customer or us in recruiting. So yeah, there's a few things like that and I think it's important to have areas and a couple of different things and processes like that through the, through the assessment process, to actually get to what you're looking to get so, rather than a magic bullet question, a sort of a magic bullet exercise?
Calum:yeah, uh, yeah, I, I ideally, and I think that often and again, it's interesting, your ai example, um earlier if someone feeding you the answers, but I think that's, I think if it's an exercise or it's something you ask someone to do and you're challenging someone and saying comparing x to y, I think that's almost impossible. I don't, I don't know, someone will probably be able to do that.
Sam:Yeah so you clearly made a success of it in your, you know, in your previous business, in this one, is there anything in particular that you lay your success at the door of? Is it? Is it your energy? Is it your zest? Uh?
Calum:partly. I think that's one of our values, is kind of it's lovely I I love getting feedback, like vicky's very kind intro. So the kind of energy, authenticity, innovation and drive effectively are our values. We zest them up in terms of bring the zest or think differently or whatever We've framed those as Um, I think my I would put my success down to probably trying to do the right thing rather than the right, the right thing for the people I'm speaking to put other people's interests ahead of mine and I always preface this as I am ridiculously fortunate to do this.
Calum:I money doesn't need to be my biggest driver. I haven't made millions out of an exit, but I've been really fortunate to understand and go on that journey of earning a lot of money and actually understanding a really really important word of what is enough, and at the moment I have enough money to live the lifestyle that I want to live, so I don't need to make decisions based off of money. I can make decisions based off what I truly think is doing the right thing by the people that I'm working with and I think thinking differently, just actually looking at recruitment and what we're trying to solve and people I think nearly everyone would agree, are the most important part of any organization yet recruitment do a terrible job of finding those people and adding value through service.
Calum:So how can we actually add value to organizations, be a big part of those organizations? People actually finish a recruitment process and not just think, oh, that was like pulling teeth, getting that person really enjoy the process from every every side and I think, um that authenticity and just being truly me, um the good, bad and ugly sides of that.
Calum:I found that you work with people who you have synergy with, and the job and just everything becomes so joyous because of because of that, and I I think, when you love what you do and you love the conversations you're having, I think it's quite hard not to be good at it and I think it's quite hard not to end up as well as we do.
Vicky:Yeah, you are infectious. I'm going to give you a little bit of feedback, which has been really interesting listening to you saying that that that Tash certainly makes him look like he's probably carrying something started answering that question and sam was asking the question about you.
Calum:You used the word we so many times and I love that my biggest pet hate as a, as a human being, is when someone posts something on linkedin or something saying my team, they are not your team, it's a, it's a, it's a collective. Like you don't own, you don't own people, and I think it's um, yeah, it's, it's uh and that's a really important point as well like I've been really lucky to have a whole host of success and how I judge, judge success anyway, um, and none of that I could have done without the teams that have worked alongside me, but also the customers and the candidates and everyone who have trusted us because we've worked at a really tough time where people are making redundancies.
Calum:People already have recruitment agencies partners they use and they've trusted us. We charge a third of the fee up front. Most people just pay on completion. They've paid us and trusted us to do that. And not only that, we found the right people, we've got 100% fill rate and they've come out and they've given us a. We've developed a plus 94 MPS score. I just it couldn't be more wonderful.
Vicky:Well, it's success is breeding success, isn't it? It's really lovely to see, isn't it Sam?
Sam:Yeah, really good. Yeah, no, that's cool. So have you got any takeaways for our listeners? We always ask for two or three takeaways at the end.
Calum:Kind of the recruitment market is tough. So, as a candidate, I'll start with a candidate and then I'll give a couple of takeaways, one from a candidate, one from a client. The recruitment market is tough and you can either wallow in that toughness and kind of think, oh yeah, ai is taking over and there's a whole host of things stopping me from getting in front of the right people, or you can. You can really think about what makes you wonderful, because there will be a whole host of things that make you unique and wonderful, and evidencing those in a in a way that demonstrate that. And demonstrating that it's one thing, telling it's another thing showing and being able to show the hiring manager whatever way. If it was zest, I would send everyone videos because I love getting energy across, etc. And that's what I would do. So there are a whole host of ways to bypass all of the frustrating things that happen within within the, the recruitment process, whether it's ai, whether it's being ruled out for this, that or the other reason. But if you actually think about what makes you wonderful and how you can kind of highlight that through an interview process in a unique way or that kind of courting process in a unique way, then I would do that.
Calum:Secondly, for hiring managers we've discussed it, but I put a post out about this the other day and I'm not trying to badmouth people or make people feel bad here, but hiring managers will always want salespeople to know their numbers. Make sure they know their numbers as well. The questions we talked a little bit about how to find the right team. I want people to be able to, especially hiring managers, to know their numbers, whether that's kind of employee engagement, whether it's the kind of attainment versus target, whatever that looks like, because you'll find that that's what's really important to people and in knowing that and in confidently knowing that, you'll widen your talent pool.
Calum:But then, secondly, don't be afraid to that you're not. You're not an island as a hiring manager. Bring other people into the interview process, get, get, get your colleagues involved. Make sure people feel completely comfortable with the team they're coming into and there is a chance that that rules a couple of people out, because someone might meet a team member, might meet a few team members and think, actually, you know what, at this time I'm not sure this is the right team, but that is still a good outcome. It is, isn't?
Calum:it find out earlier yeah, you'd much rather rip the band-aid off. And yeah, and again, that's a unique take from a recruitment, uh, kind of recruiter, because naturally people, the more people I place, the more money I make. But actually I'd rather place someone the right person bloody brilliant yeah and everyone looks at that person and thinks you're the person that placed sam bloody hell. Thank you, um. Rather than you're the person that places.
Calum:Choice of example name thank, you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, um, rather than you're the person that placed those five people, three of which have left, two of which are all right and actually probably aren't the right fit culture. Yeah, okay, great, um, so I hope that I hope those kind of couple of takeaways one for a candidate, one for a customer- very helpful.
Sam:Thank you for that. And what about a book recommendation? Final question for you the book.
Calum:book I recommend to everyone is the Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Robach, but I mentioned that earlier, so has anyone said? Alchemy by Rory Sutherland.
Vicky:No.
Calum:No, that's that's. That's brilliant and that is brilliant. Just trying to think two books that. So Mark Robach is a brilliant one because that talks about kind of coachability. It talks about really hiring a players and how to assess those a players, how to find those a players and what they need to look like from a attitude as well as aptitude type type type perspective. Rory severland's um alchemy is all about the world through a marketer's eyes and not a finance person's eyes, and that kind of helps us go full cycle on our conversation today in the fact that most decisions are made from a very engineering and financial perspective. Hs2, how can we get to london 20 minutes quicker rather than thinking in transport? The best thing that's ever happened to taxis isn't the fact that you can get a an uber on an app. It's the fact that you know after ordering your uber where it is on a map because you've got that awkward time of thinking. I ordered this five minutes ago. I don't even know if they've left you can see where it is.
Calum:So the psychology and you?
Sam:you phone the taxi company up and they say oh yeah, it's just around the corner exactly, exactly, sam.
Calum:so it's a really good book that completely reframes the way that you should think about problems and that solutions often aren't the one that you necessarily think of. And it's yeah, there's so many bloody brilliant examples in that book and you'll love it.
Sam:Brilliant, brilliant. Thank you very much. Appreciate that Vicky anything to add, just to say thank you, I've really enjoyed it.
Vicky:It's just wonderful to hear your energy and I am just not surprised that your business is blooming.
Calum:Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm very glad it comes across as well. We ask for a lot of feedback through kind of NPS et cetera, and it's really lovely to get that feedback, especially around energy and authenticity, because it's very important to me. So thank you.
Sam:Sounds like it Fantastic. Well, that was brilliant. Nice to make your acquaintance, and hopefully there's some interesting tidbits in there for our listeners. I'm sure there are, so it just remains for me to say thanks, as always, for listening to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group. Your comments and your subscriptions are, as always, very gratefully received.