At one stage, Friday was known as deals day. Now it’s a morning of half-hearted sales activity followed by an early finish.

As far as I’m concerned, adding efficiencies and building automation into the front of pipelines hasn’t driven productivity – it’s caused it to stagnate. People are doing the same amount of work in less time, as opposed to using the time they’ve gained to gained to accelerate performance.

People say it flippantly, but every day should be a school day. Thinking otherwise means you’re stagnating and destined to peddle the same old shit over and over again.

That doesn’t have to be the case.

It’s better to do nothing than be vanilla on social media. Simply regurgitating industry news and age-old wisdom will make you invisible – not interesting. On the flip side, daring to voice an honest opinion will make people stop scrolling and start noticing.

I recently did a piece on internal recruiters. By looking at some of the comments, you’d think I went around their house on Christmas Day and pissed on the tree. But it wasn’t clickbait. I believed in it.

I’m a recruiter at heart. So, I fully endorse any and all methods that result in clients attracting, hiring and retaining talent as and when they need.

But the days are numbered for internal recruiters. Companies’ needs are changing, and agency recruitment is having to evolve to match. Leaders are denouncing relics of the past and embracing a method of recruitment that scales with business objectives.

What will the next revolution of staffing be? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts but, as far as I’m concerned, it’s hiring on competency.
More and more companies are choosing candidates based solely on their ability to learn. But is the rise of competency-based hiring a micro fad, or is it the direction of recruitment as a whole?
Here’s why I think it’s got legs….

Congratulations on exiting your business (recruitment or other). A reason to celebrate indeed given how few manage this neat trick.
So, a heartfelt “nice one”!
You’ve now entered the upper echelons of the Business Hall of Fame. Your ‘moment of success’ has placed you within a ratified group of leaders. In fact, your Liam Neeson skill set has seen such acclaim that people dream of leveraging from your experience.
Your next role should be as an advisor, or even a NED! Or not…

Early in my career, I recognised the value of solution selling and developing “products” in recruitment was, back then, truly stand out!
Midway through my career, I struck “productisation” gold, by leveraging a deal Bill Bottriell (god), did with paper advertising, and I started sourcing and delivering first-time contractors.
Persuading businesses to employ “box fresh” but exceptionally qualified talent as 1st freelancers! was a skill. However, the way we wrapped it up into a product (service, solution, price), acted as a catalyst for substantial global growth.

I remember thinking in 1995 that you should make yourself redundant ASAP so you can do the jobs you need or want to do next. It’s still relevant now. Your success should set the tone, but if you’re still the major breadwinner two years in, then something is drastically wrong.

Training your staff to recruit will only get you so far. To really leave a legacy, you need to create restauranteurs, not chefs. When your team start to go out and win their own business, that’s a true reflection of success.

Why is it that, as soon as your staff leave the meeting room, it’s as if a device has zapped their brain and erased everything you’ve discussed? You’ve had a useful conversation, identified the goals and objectives, and still, two weeks later… nothing.
Recruitment entrepreneur Wayne Brophy calls it “The Zappers” – the only possible reason why culpability and commitment miraculously vanish the moment people return back to their desks. For meetings to be effective, you need to ramp up accountability. In other words: inspect, don’t expect.

Recruitment is facing its biggest challenge: shifting from bums on seats to consultancy. This is not evolution, but revolution, and as a business leader, you

Successful business leaders don’t need complete oversight of the operation. But your vision, value and voice do need to be seen in all decisions across the company.

Combined, these things form your personal brand: the perception others have of you. It’s all about how you act, how you stand out from the crowd, and how you make clients see why they should choose you over a competitor – both online and offline.

While most daily choices can be decided by gut instinct, the general direction of your organisation needs to embrace your personal brand. The trick is achieving a balance atevery stageof your journey as a recruitment business leader.

How do we inspire people to be superhuman at work? Short of buying them a cape, spandex and a steroid injection, the answer may be unclear at first. That’s why held a themed super lunch event earlier this year, putting Psychology at Work in the spotlight. We’ve pulled together a five-strong speaker list from all walks of corporate life, to help you understand how to get the best from your team.

My 16-year-old recently started a psychology group at boarding school. Her friends get together and talk about derangement, strange motivations, and ‘potentially’ criminal ambition. Which are all traits, you might say, that a teenager is familiar with. 

A lot of people I work with can’t wait to have a business where they don’t have to go in on a Friday. “At what point can I start to ease off?” they ask. My heart sinks: recruiters with this mentality are never going to move beyond a lifestyle business. 

Building a legacy gets harder, not easier. But it should also get more rewarding at every milestone. After all, if you don’t enjoy your business more than everyone else put together, why on earth would people come and work for you?

There are 50,000 recruitment agencies in the UK. The last thing the world needs is another one. To rise to the top, you need to bring something clever and genuinely different to the market, and have the balls and brains to make people believe it.

Everyone tells you to be niche. Not everyone takes the time to explain what this means or how far you should go in practice. Having strict discipline about your markets is imperative if you want to grow fast, especially as the recruitment sector becomes even more saturated and squeezed.

Too many leaders find it difficult to explain themselves clearly and pass on responsibility with confidence. As a result, they end up being the limiter to their own business. It’s a bad coach that says if a job’s worth doing, do it yourself. Why? Because if you skill your people up and delegate early, you’ll make them feel embedded in your business and ultimately build a succession plan.

If you’re running your own company, you’ve already demonstrated that you have the guts to stand up and make tough calls. Building a strong team is important, but your business isn’t a commune where people put tents up and a committee decides your fate. You need to look after your commercial interests.

Everyone knows what an elevator pitch is. But does your recruitment business have one that’s meaningful? One that you’re proud of? One that anyone knows or uses?
A lot of businesses talk about developing their ‘stories’. All try to define themselves through a commitment to the three core things:

People often ask me how to succeed in recruitment; how they can reach the golden horizon at the end of a £10m exit strategy. That’s everyone’s goal, though. The question I’m often asking in my head is: “Are they serious?”