From Contingent to Retained Search with James O'Brien and I-Intro

Intro [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the elite recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:19]:

This is gonna be a fun episode of the elite recruiter podcast. I have my awesome guess. James O'Brien is the Managing Director of and i intro is a awesome tech tool that actually helps you win more retained work. And I know there's a lot of discussion with recruiters contingency retained, engaged. And, you know, it's nice to get those, retained checks and know that it's an exclusive for you. So What I intro does helps you win that retained work. So, James, welcome to the podcast today. Yeah. I'm delighted to be here, Benjamin. So thank you for inviting me. So before we get started, one of the first questions we always do a deep dive in is how did you even get up get into the wonderful word of recruiting?

James O’Brien [00:01:00]:

Yeah. Well, that's that's a that's a great question, and I'm gonna have to really Yeah. Test my memory banks here for this one because it's a good old while ago. It's back in the eighties, and I'm I'm not talking the 1880 until the 19 eighties. I was probably like a lot of people. This is, you know, I'm based in the UK. That's where I've done most of my work through my career. And like a a lot of people, it wasn't my first choice of career. I know it's for some people, but I was actually, availing myself of the services of a of a local recruitment agency, and I was looking for a new sales position and, the inevitable, hey. Well, have you ever thought about recruitment? came along and, my answer was no. What does it involve? What does it include? And you know, all of a sudden, I was immersed in the world of recruitment. And at that stage in my career, obviously, I was, sir, very young then. It was all contingency recruitment because when you're learning running the the tools and trips or the craft of your trade, basically, you you did contingent work. And I was remember at far end of the office, we had this long suite of offices. There were these old men. They were old men. I'm not being sexist there. They were old men. At that stage, you were doing something called executive search and retained recruitment. I thought, that that looks easy, but, yeah, I could do that faster and quicker than them, and I can I can do it in a better way. I let I now look back and reflect and think, actually, I'm probably older than those old men now. And, what they were doing was actually something quite interesting, but, you had to you had to learn your way to that one rather than just to sort of walk into So, yep, by accident, but a happy accident. I'm glad to be here. And then you went from there to be a franchise director for a hotel chain and a CEO of a year recruitment. Yeah. Well, the the the organization I worked for, they were, in the UK that records a a PLC company. So listed on the London Stock Exchange had a a big business but they also had other strands of businesses, in the world of consultancy, recruitment, and training. So I went and ran their one of their training businesses for a while, then jumped into did a bit of work in hotels, which was like me going back to when I was fifteen because that's when I started my career in hotels. And then I got into the world of, I came back to the world speak of recruitment. And I was actually building a a an international franchise recruitment network. predominantly across Europe, we weren't in the US. We we didn't stretch to that part of the world. is all part of the big ambitious plan, but, didn't didn't, didn't continue to see that one out. And actually, Benjamin, whilst I was there, that's when I, first became involved with our intro because I was originally a client of our intro. And like many of you listeners today, I was in a situation where Yeah. We had business was okay. You know, we were doing quite nicely. The fees were okay, but we we really were looking for some differentiation, particularly when learning and trying to sell retained recruitment. We were mid level. So in the UK, that main meant we dealt on salaries of between 80 and a 120,000. So a 100 to a 150, $160,000. So, you know, not not senior senior. but nice nice level fees. but we had nothing different. You know, we'd walk a room and say, hi. You know, I used to work for a company called EO executives. I work for EO executives. Trust us. We're really good, and we know how to do this. And I was looking for something that could give me an edge in the marketplace and give my franchisees an edge in the marketplace, and I met up with the co founders of, I intro. and I liked what they were talking about. This was way back in 2012, by the way. And, and and I saw basically acquired their system and implemented their methodology, their strategy, and their process into my business. and it, you know, it takes a little bit of time when you're transitioning from working one way. We were working predominantly contingently. Yeah. We didn't know how to do retained re or cream work. We knew how to compete against retained work. but, we didn't know how to sort of, you know, go out there and chase that work. And as you said right at the, at the at the intro there, you know, getting those checks rolling in when people pay you in advance, it such a sweet sweet thing, you know, improving the cash flow of your business rather than waiting months, to to get the, you know, to get the check for the work that you did. if you get paid because what we also find, is that, you know, we only feel 20% of the roles when we were a contingent recruiter And it's much nicer feeling, you know, the vast majority of the roles that you're working on in getting paid for those. So I became a client of my intro. We worked that system into my business. We had 30 offices around, predominantly around Europe, but also South Africa. And so I I sit here now as an advocate. I've jumped ship. I've swapped to different sides of the fence. I'm gonna sell on this side of the fence here. If for those of you old enough to remember, Victor, I am in Remington Microscreen, you know, I liked it so much. I joined the company. Didn't buy the company, by the way, but, Yeah. That's that's different. Sorry. So so, yeah, I got involved that way and and now running on this side, and we really, really love working with, recruitment businesses and the majority of our clients. work with over 300 clients, over the last year, 5 or 6 years. and the majority of them are, what I call, micro to small businesses, so, you know, the the solo entrepreneurs, the 2 or 3 partners in a business up to sort of 10, 15, 20, fee earners, We don't work with the super size companies. We we really, you know, have a really, a knack of helping those smaller businesses drive their revenue forward, increase their margins, and I say improve their cash flow at the same time.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:01]:

Awesome. And I I found out about you guys when one of my a recent guest was sitting there talking about how you guys are helping them retain, like, win more and more retained work. Yeah. Now if you wanna do, like, a quick, a quick deep dive into all the different things I entry does before we jump into the the meat of the conversation.

James O’Brien [00:06:19]:

Great. The mistake most people make, and, obviously, they're behind me. Obviously, I've got, you know, the next generation recruitment technology of the advert. So, obviously, we're a rec tech business. we do that, but one of the things that we found is tech by itself doesn't work. you know, so, you know, just just somebody buying a piece of software to keep up with the Jones is because it's shiny, a nice bright shiny penny. isn't really going to sort of, yeah, move the move the move the needle, so to speak. So what we found, and this was through some of my experience as a client before I joined the side of the business, is you need to coach train and support. So to to sort of transition a business from one business model to another business model, you need to provide a lot of coaching and support. So we've developed something called the retained recruiter Academy, which is an integral part of the Intro platform, yeah, which is both live training So I think you're referring to Matt, aren't you in terms of new guests? Yeah. Great. So so, yeah, Matt came through, our retained recruiter Academy, which is where we, don't you show him how to use tech, but actually how to pitch, win, and deliver retained with Crimson because it's not like a contingent process. So the retained recruiter Academy is there with both live training. Obviously, some people prefer to learn by watching and, listening. So, you know, we have a a learning management system embedded within our tech tech platform so that if you wanna learn 247, you can if you like. but obviously supported by live training and coaching sessions with our their academy director and and our other staff so that you give that, the the overall feeling that, you know, you're not by yourself because Yeah. If I, yeah, I've I've got a piece of software that I'm using in our business at the moment called Fireflies. It sort of records meetings and our AI notetaker. Fantastic. I mean, there's lots of different ones out there, but you just buy off the shelf and, yeah, you plug it in. And if you use it, you use it. If you don't, you don't. Our platform isn't just about buying a piece of software and then just, you know, hoping it's gonna work. You know, you need to work at it. This is this is this is changing a business process and for that, you need support, and encouragement and cajoling and nudging, along. So so, yeah, we we we provide all that. So, you know, coach, train, and support, people with the tech that they've acquired from us.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:22]:

I love that there's help because I got a a graveyard of software that I've purchased because every year I have to I have to go through, like, wait. What's the subscription? What's this?

James O’Brien [00:08:32]:

Yeah. Yeah. And then you and then the amount's up. Don't they god. How am I? -- blow blow in money on some of some of those ones there. I mean, one of the really nice things that we do when we sort of go through the training is we help people understand that and and this is one of the big difference people just think that, you know, selling a retainer, you just sell your service. So listen, I've been I've been in the industry 30 years, so you trust me to do the work. Yeah. And I'm good at it, and I know how to do it. And, the the reality is that's just exchanging well, it's really a 20th century process. Recruitment has been established last 50, 60 years. Yeah. It's, yeah, the the the process of, you know, engage a recruiter, brief them, which means send them the job description and then let them draw their database or their contacts and come up with a clutch of resumes. Yeah. and from that, then they hand it over to client, and then the client takes us through their their, their own internal hiring processes and and and and hopefully hires one of your candidates. And, you know, as I say, you win some, you lose a lot. that methodology just doesn't really change. Yeah. When I started, the only the, you know, I sort of jokingly say, the only difference is now that, you know, recruiters they email the resumes, whereas in my day, that was a fax machine that's standing by the fax to get your turn in the queue. yeah, but to be and if that's the height of technology and recruitment, then then we're betide us, really. Yeah. We need to do better than that. So what we see our intros is that the haven't got it being 21st century recruiters, helping people implement a process with employers that helps them, you know, not just recruit people, but retain the best people for the medium to long term. And to do that, we implement a strategy of utilizing multiple layers of scientific and objective assessment that help employers make more informed hiring decisions And the results that we've seen, Benjamin over the last 5, 10 years, 96% of the candidates placed through our methodology in our process is are still in the job 1 year later and 93% 2 years later. Now what does that stat mean? It's also why you're just throwing that statistic. Yeah? But according to a survey, big one.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:26]:

That that set means you get to keep your check.

James O’Brien [00:10:29]:

Absolutely. It's more than that, though. Here's here's so there's something even better than just keeping your check. Actually, you can use that to differentiate yourself because the standard the standard in the industry and somewhat, yeah, people listening to some minds a bit better than that. The standard is a 90 day rebate scheme. Yeah? a bit of a sliding scale rebate. Some people go to 6 months, but when you know your stats, when you know how how much quality is in your process, what you can do is you can offer your your clients an extended or what we call a recruitment risk reversal policy. Working with me, I'll stand by you shoulder to shoulder for up to 12 months. And if you've hired someone through me and you fire them because they don't perform or they don't fit in, which are the normal reasons, or they leave because they don't like you, or they've relocated, we'll do the work again for you. Now once that means statistically, 1 in 25, we're gonna have to do it again. And probably, yes, sometimes it goes, well, I I don't do the work again for free. I say you crazy? Why wouldn't you? Just think how sticky you've made yourself with that client. Yeah. That's the difference that you make. And that 96% statistic, you know, there's a piece of research done by a leadership IQ, and it's a bit out of date perhaps, but I don't think it's, like, gonna vary very much. It says, 46% of new hires in the US fail within 18 months. 46%. That's nearly half your people gonna be churned within within 1 to 2 years. Well, if you've got a system that says, actually, I'm gonna give you a much better output. Yeah. It stands the reason that you're gonna, yeah, you're gonna win clients. That's, gonna be really important in that way.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:53]:

Well, let me ask you the question. If you're a contingency recruiter, right, how do you actually start making that move over to retained?

James O’Brien [00:12:00]:

Yeah. Well, I think The thing is when we're running businesses as contingent recruiters and, listen, I have, every respect and admiration, and I'm not here to to bash contingent recruiters. The model work Yeah. Don't get me wrong. There are many, many, many successful businesses. But the reality is when you get to stage when you get fed up of being, you know, having no commitment or or or fee, you know, feedback from the client, it's you think, well, what am I gonna do differently? What how how can I make transition? Now the transition, there's no I don't think yeah. I'd love I wish there was. I wish there was just a a a simple pill take this pill and tomorrow, everything will be, yeah, all your clients will be retaining you, locksmith. It isn't it isn't that way. When we first launched the is we had our if you like, we had our, incubator, our incubator clients, and it and it took them 18 months. you know, we work with clients. I mean, when I say my former client, you know, I I became a client in 2013, the micro. My former company, EO executives, now based in Germany, not in the UK, by the way. they're still a client of our intro. So so I know this process works, but it's a gradual phasing. It's a tran that's why we call it a transition. because, you know, whilst you're moving and changing and changing, we all know changes can be uncomfortable for people. And, you know, you also face resistance, resistance from your own team. Yeah. From your own colleagues. You'll face resistance from your clients because they've been educated on a 20th century methodology. Just send me the resumes. I don't wanna, yeah, well, why do I need multiple layers of scientific objective assessment? Well, you need them because I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna stand by your your recruitment process. I'm gonna give you a re a recruitment risk reversal policy. And, yeah, you're not gonna be rehiring time and time again, which has got a huge consequence, on the cost basis. So it's a it's a it's a it's a It's a gentle transition because once you're trying to get your first or your second client, and I know, for example, when you had Matt on before, you know, he's he's gone very early, which is what we experienced most of the time. you're still gonna have to service some clients when a contingent and you're spinning all those plates, keeping them up in the air, you know, hoping not too many of them fall down and crash on your head. you know, those are ones you don't get paid for. So, you know, it's it's time to make a it's time to make a change if it's if your market's right for it. Not it's not right in every market, but There are some markets which, or certain roles, which are just, yeah, aren't suited for it because they need to move too quickly. So, yeah, we're not talking high volume you know, fast moving roles, you know, carry on, you know, contingent is the the right method for that. But, you know, if you're working at a mid to senior level, And it's indeed and it's a strategic or an important part of the organization, then, well worth getting. so so, yeah, absolutely. So a a gentle transition.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:30]:

So when you say gentle, like, how long does it take some, most organizations

James O’Brien [00:14:35]:

to start making that, like, that full transition or at least a halfway transition to retained. Yeah. No. We we when we when we build our programs, when we, you know, onboard our client, we talked to them about the, yeah, you know, a 30, 60, 90 day plan. Yeah. So within that 1st 3 months, you you've you've made the transition. You know what you've got to do. whether you're fully executed and that's, I suppose, that be I'm saying that can take a little bit longer. you know, it's great you get your first one, but then you go to your next client and they say, well, we don't do retainers, carry on working. The only way you're gonna work with me is if you send me some resumes, and I'm only paying you 20% this year. I'm not paying you, yeah, 25%, 30% whatever it may be. So you still gotta manage some of those relationships, but, yeah, sometimes you get that pushback. And and and what are the what are the challenges you have if you are gonna transition your business, and it does work. Yeah. What we typically see is recruiters, you know, almost, you know, can could go on to sort of look towards doubling their fees, you know, not the fees HR for the the income they generate because get a multiplier effect. They move further up the food chain. They go from charging 20 to 25% to charging 30 to 33%. You know, and if you look at the multiplier on that, if you're charging 25 percent of a $100,000 or you're making $25,000, you know, if you go up the food chain and start charging a 100 and a worth of a $150,000 also charging 30 percent while you're making 45, you know, 33 percent making $50,000. So all of a sudden, do the same amount of work, but getting better rewarded for it. And more importantly, you're getting that cash in your business much sooner. So I think that's the that's the change that you gotta be careful. So you gotta put in the effort It's not as safe. There's no I don't have a a a magic one that I can say Abra Cadabra,

Benjamin Mena [00:16:08]:

you know, and I you're now a a retained recruiter. It's not as simple as that. for the recruiters that are listening that aren't as familiar with retained work. You know, you we talked about contingency. I don't wanna say, like, you know, throwing a resume over, but emailing a resume. What is the difference in the processes for your clients between a contingency and a good retained search?

James O’Brien [00:16:28]:

Yeah. Well, if we just break them down quickly and and say, and I I think I probably used the language thrown over the fence, I was just trying to be a little bit, you know, make it make it a little bit of that. yeah, I I mean, yeah, many many, yeah, retained recruitment is is normally high speed. It's when there's almost a a fire sale. Somebody's left, the client firms up. I need a I need a new, you know, accounts director, and I need them now. yeah, who have you got? And, when when that in that type of a hiring process, then, you know, it's almost fastest finger first. Who can get to the data, or the database quickly enough to to pull out their candidates? And put them into the process. It's gonna take 2, 3 weeks. when the the the difference between a a retained search is that Yeah. You're not just looking for the the person who's available right now. You're actually doing a full and thorough search, and you're actually putting in place a process. So you know, the way that describe it is when you're working contingently, you're working on vacancies. Yep. When you're working on a retained search, you're working on a campaign. You're managing a project for your client. And it's really important that, you know, we say is when when the client has accepted that, you know, they they they they're they're making an important hire, if, you know, you can ask the questions here. Are you just looking for the best person available or the best person? Yeah. It's the best person available. It's who's available in the in the pool right now. and pull them out. So you're available. You're available next week and, yeah, hopefully, you work out, but statistically, we know what to offer them aren't gonna work out. We're over over 1, 2 years. Or are you looking for to to actually find a person? And that then depends on what are the objectives in the organization for what that person needs to achieve. So, yeah, as a As, you know, the difference we say is, you know, recruiters work on vacancies, management consultants who specialize in talent acquisition work on campaigns, which are on a consultive retained basis. And what you're doing is a difference between being, an order taker. So it'd be like, going to a restaurant and you ask her, wait, you know, waiter comes along and says, what would you like? I'd like somebody to 5 years experience these and work for a blue chip at fortune 500 company. Okay. I'll find you one of those. Yeah? Whereas, when you work into talk to a consultant recruiter, you're saying, okay. What type of person? Well, tell me what this person's gonna achieve. Yeah. And so you're acting as the consultant. You're acting like the doctor. You're asking all of the questions It's not jumping to the solution straight away to evaluate what that type of person needs. And then when you do your search, and I don't just mean the market mapping and go to market. I mean, of course, you do all that. But what you're doing is you're taking the work away from the employer. Because what are we great at doing? We're good at hiring people. We're good at ident flying assessing and evaluating the best talent for those roles. That's what we're experts at. As I say, we're experts in talent acquisition. Yeah. Your clients are experts in running their businesses So let us do some of the the assessment evaluation work for you, and that's what I when I talk about multiple layers of scientific and objective assessment, this is all about you know, putting that, you know, putting those plates in there. So it's not just about saying, this person's got a great resume. They have got the skills, knowledge, and experience. Yeah. That's what a recruiter can do. A management consultant, specialized in talent acquisition, has to do that. Plus, you have to put in more work, but what's that gonna do? that is going to save the employer your client time. Yeah? Because you're gonna be putting people in front of them who haven't just been evaluated because they got a great resume, anybody can do that, and you can hit lucky. Yeah. But actually, we know what it is to make somebody perform in your organization. Yeah. So we implement behavioral science into the process, and we do that not to, yeah, the second or third issue. We did this pre interview. So when the when the when the client's actually evaluating your campaign, your shortlist of candidates, which obviously should be presented on it in a 247 platform technology generated rather than just a resume that emailed over. they're not just reviewing the resume. They're actually reviewing the other data points that have been agreed with the client say this is the this determined success in your organization. It mitigates that risk from that you know, typically at least 30% failure rate that we see an organization in the 1st 12 months to as little as 4% and employers will pay for that. yeah, because people like to buy quality things. Yeah. So if but the problem is as a as a contingent recruiter, You go along. That's how I used to say, hey. I've been in recruitment 10 years. I know the market. I'm really experienced. Please trust me. Well, you know, I'd like a retainer, please. And they say, no. We don't do retainers. because they don't know what they're buying. And the perception of what they're buying from the retained recruiter is that they're paying for a little bit of your time to go into a database and come up with some resumes. Now what we do here in our intro, we've productized that intangible recruitment process. So that when you pitch because that's what I said, we help people pitch when it deliver. When you pitch, you show the client the work that you do. Visually, you take them into the tech platform So this is what we do. This is what we do, which means the people you're gonna be hiring are gonna be staying with their medium to long term. So that's the difference between a contingent search, which is quick. and has its place in the market. And, you know, a more qualified process where you're managing a campaign for a client over a specific time period. And and part of that means that, you know, we all fit, oh, you know, will it if I've got account that's available now and the client's not ready to hire for 4 weeks, will they, you know, will it be if they're not the right person in 4 weeks time, if they wanna go now, they're gonna go now and move on. Yeah. But so we talk about candidate engagement in in our training programs as well. But, yeah, you're managing that process for was definitely awesome. I love that you talked about the difference of

Benjamin Mena [00:21:42]:

contingent versus retained and how you have used the eye intro system to help recruiting firms win more work. before we jump out of the next section of podcasts, is there anything else that you would love to share about business development advice that you've seen? Well, I think in terms of probably just something else to add on to that last point. Some of the best. It might lead into to this development. I think, yeah, one of the big differences that often employers

James O’Brien [00:22:05]:

aren't aware of the differences between contingent retained. So they they don't understand what they're buying or what they're being asked to buy, which makes it very difficult for them to buy retained. And I think for me, the simple explanation is that most recruiters who focus on a contingent, model, are focusing on essentially candidate identification. So their their sole focus is to find candidates who identify with the knowledge skills and experience that the client has asked them for. And whereas in a retained model, you are going a lot deeper. You're not just you're not just finding. I don't I don't mean to belittle that. I mean, it's really, really important to find people the right knowledge skills and experience. But you're actually going to into into the assessment and evaluation phase where you're actually doing the work on behalf of the client. You know, you're actually sort of giving them a a much more or you're helping them make a much more informed hiring decision because you've assessed and evaluated the candidate against predetermined criteria that's not just about Yeah. So whether somebody's worked for 5 years or 10 years at company x or company y. So I think we we got that. And now now moving on to the question about business development. I think what's really critical is that the the business development of of going out there to win retained work to win recruitment work is you know, we know how difficult that is because it's not something, you know, if you if you contact the client and say, I'm a recruiter, I mean, expect the phone to be slammed down pretty quickly. you've ever been to a party and people say, well, what do you do? Oh, I'm a recruiter. We'll watch them turn away and and run away because there's a little little exercise. If anybody's got a couple of moments, go and type into Google, recruiters are and see what comes out. I mean, we're not we're not, we're not, you know, you know, we don't have the best reputation in the market, place, so to speak. But in terms of business development, so I think you have to plan your approach and you have to show the client or the potential client the prospect where there is that you actually add value, and that's why I could go back. That's why I just prefaced it with a point about candidate identification. You gotta show them you go above and beyond candidate identification. you know, you can do it better than the client, you can do it quicker than the client, and you can do it more cost effectively than the client. Now cost effectively doesn't mean cheap, It means it's more advantageous for the client to outsource it. You know, and what a little phrase is we sometimes use in our business model is, you know, we say it sort of says, like, do what you do best, which is run your business and outsource the rest. Let us do that. Yeah. And we talk about RPOs, recruitment process outsourcing, you know, on a on a miniature scale, you know, running a retained assignment is is outsourcing a recruitment process. a business development is challenging enough, but if you don't know what it is that you're actually trying to put across the clients, then you're just gonna fall flat, and you're gonna walk away. Maybe with a job order, you know, maybe you got the role, but you're working alongside 3 or 4 of the recruiters You're working on relatively low fees and your potential to fill that is probably, you know, 1 in 5. You know, typically, we find that most contingent recruiters have a fill rate of somewhere between 10 20 percent of our roles we work on. And I'm speaking to a potential client of ours just in this last couple of days, And it was interesting. He said, well, I I I sort of like doing contingent work because I have no commitment. Well, the clients don't have any commitment back to you either, do they? So, you know, the the reality is, you know, when we talk about, you know, which work you should you should put through a retained model is what we'll put put through work that you know you can fill. doesn't mean it has to be easy. It's gonna be a difficult. It might be a difficult search, but you can put the effort in there to to go out and win that. And and if the client understands or the prospect understands, sorry, what it is that you offer that's different, you know, and, you know, if you if you use the power 3, you know, we can do it better than you, do it faster than you, do it more efficient than you, then they'll find a reason to talk to you, and give you the opportunity to share with them what it is that you do differently. But if all you do is the same as everybody else, well, then it becomes down to a a competition on price. And then that's a that's a little, you know, that's a ever decreasing circles. You'll find that somebody else can do it quicker than quicker and cheaper than you. yeah. No. I've definitely seen that, you know, where creditors out there talking about, like, 8 10% fees. I'm like, you can't stay in business doing that. Like, maybe for a little while, like, a good way to get started in the industry, but, like, you cannot build a successful long term business on,

Benjamin Mena [00:26:02]:

like, such low percentages.

James O’Brien [00:26:04]:

Yeah. I mean, there's, I don't know what said said to you before, but, it just come into my head because I've I've just come back from the US actually, Benjamin. and that was interesting, interesting, you know, going around various places in the US and, you know, visiting and frequenting a few bars and just seeing what what beers they sell. And, and I was as well as the American beers, which I obviously tasted, it was interesting to see one of the Belgian beers that were over there called Stella Artois. And Stella Artois used to used to have a very interesting catchphrase way back when. I don't see it. I don't see it anymore, but it the the phrase was reassuringly expensive. And there's, you know, when you go in at 8 or 10%, if you think about it for a moment, how much time and effort can you really put into that? And I know somebody will argue this on your side, but, you know, but the reality is clients actually do prefer to pay top dollar for good quality. And I I I was run by it. I was working with a client, based out of Denmark, and they're recruiting in the UK. And we had a pre meeting pitch as, yeah, ahead of the pitch. We had a pre meeting with a their representative, their UK representative. And he asked us what we were charging. We really wanted to win the work, and, yeah, as a recruiter's mindset, That means, how low can I go? Now I don't mean the 8 to 10%. You know, we were thinking maybe go down to 20, maybe we could scrape up, you know, maybe push a little bit at 22. So when we mentioned this to the guys okay. He said, well, that's a lot lower than the other people. Now he was speaking to some good quality search firms in the UK. who are charging 33% plus. So we were we'd created this chasm between how much we were charging and how much they were charge They were 50% more expensive than we were, and we thought that was good. The client thought total opposite, and it opened my eyes to the that pricing is something that recruiters think you gotta go low to win the work. Whereas the client said, as well, actually, we wanna make sure that you guys, are motivated to deliver this because of the fees that you earn, not how hello. Okay. Because the second part of that was when I first learned that actually charging in stages, is is quite important as well because not only did we go low on the fee? We went low on the we actually split the, the fee into 2 payments, a deposit of £3000. The fee was gonna be about £27,000 if we were successful So it's a 130, 140,000 roll, whatever the numbers are. And, we said, well, we we'll just take a small fee up front to show you how motivated we are. We'll take the final fee at the end. And I said, Well, no. That doesn't work for us either because if you're not getting paid properly, do the work up front. You're just chancing your arm hoping you hit lucky. we want you we want to know that you're motivated to do the work in the first k in the first instance because everybody else is not only charging 33% plus, they're also doing an equal thirds. And that's when I my mindset flipped from being a recruiter to actually putting myself in the seat of the client to say, actually, how are they looking at this? Put yourself in their shoes. If it if it's cheap, everybody knows, buy cheap, buy twice. Yeah? From from our perspective, it it helped me sort of position. Right? Charge a fair price. Doesn't mean I'm always gonna charge 33%. Yeah. I'll look back quite like the number 28, for for one reason or another. It's a nice nice fee percentage for us and And don't be afraid of charging in installments either because then the client knows that you're motivated to do it and you get that that that come back to to the the client. So, you know, I'm I'm charging you good fee. I'm reassuring expenses because even buying something that's expensive is, you know, there's a good chance it's gonna be a good a good product or service in in in our case.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:29]:

Awesome. Well, before we jump over to quick fire questions, is there anything else you'd love to share?

James O’Brien [00:29:34]:

Probably, it I may probably come out of the quick fire questions. Look. I'm not sure what they're gonna be. But I I think I think that what they would like to say to people is, you know, it's always easy to to not retain. What I mean by that is a lot of people think, oh, it's the edge of me. I can win lots of work but we know that when we see clients transition and transitioning your business model from, yeah, it'd be and we don't we don't chat transitional of our clients a 100% re retained. That's not everybody's objective, and I'm not I'm not anti contingent network, but it's it is a process. it's it's not there's no magic pill. You can't just, you know, go on a training course tomorrow and all of a sudden, all of your business will be retained. You've gotta you've gotta work at your business model. And that was the mistake I made when I when I went through this transition myself 10, 11 years ago. I I thought that it was gonna be something easy and realized it wasn't. I thought I was buying a product and it wasn't. I was actually engaging in the transitioning of a of a business process, and and people have to commit to that process. So it's not easy, but the rewards are well worth it once you get to the side.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:31]:

Awesome. Phenomenal. Alright. So for the quick fire questions, ready? Yeah. What advice would you give to a brand new recruiter that's just getting started? in the industry in 2023.

James O’Brien [00:30:45]:

advice in 2023. well, I'd say project yourself 5, 10 years forward. I think where do what do I want to achieve in that period of time and work your way back. and one of the things that, we did, I I created a training program with what what are the training companies we're working with, and we called it the road to 300. We later changed it to the highway to 500. I said, you know, if you wanna achieve 300 k of fees, you know, then what do you need to do to achieve that? And you can then work it down, and you can break it down to the the effort you put in. So if my average fee is £25,000, dollars, whatever it happens to be, that means I need to do 12 assignments in a year, which is 1 a month. you know, so if you need to do one assignment a month, you know, how many how many meetings do I have to have with a client with my convert my my hit rate is 1 and 2? I've gotta have 2 business meetings with the client. What effort do I need to put in to get 2 meetings with the client? So you can work it back. So I'd say, project yourself forward and then work it back and then decide where are you gonna put the effort into it? But, also, naturally, one of the things we talk thing we talk a lot about in our in our training programs with when we're sort of coaching clients is Yeah. It's really important that you have a methodology to to focus on. You it's not just spray and pray. You've really gotta have a focus on that. And then when you combine that with your specialism because, presumably, gonna be specialized rather than just a generous trying to talk chase anything, then you have something really compelling to go out there and talk to people. So I'd say, check forward, work it back, work it out and then and then and then then then hit it. Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:09]:

And same question, but for recruiters that have been in the game for 5, 10, 20, 25 years. Yeah. What advice would you give to them to be soon as possible? I'd say well, instead of looking forward, first of all, look back.

James O’Brien [00:32:21]:

Yeah. Look back over your shoulder and see what have I been doing in the last 5 years that has, frustrated me and then start to think about what are you gonna do differently? The old adage, you know, the the, you know, they say the definition of madness was it Albert Einstein has always said, you know, keep on doing the same thing and expecting different results. Well, if you if you haven't made it in the last 25 years, yeah, then then you're gonna have to change something. You have to change something up because it's not gonna just you can't just carry on doing thing I expect seems to be gonna change. Now if you've been going 20, 25 years, I would probably almost guarantee that at some point you've had some good successes, you wouldn't still be here. But if you're if you're if you plateaued and, you're thinking, how do I make that expect? Then I think you've gotta look at doing something different. Yeah. You've gotta step out of your you know, your current comfort zone, and then you've gotta sort of, again, visualize where is it I'm not trying to get to? So it sort of comes back to the same thing that you can't carry on doing the same thing and expecting it to be any different. Yeah. If you're doing, you know, 250 this year and you wanna do 250 next year, well, Karen, doing what you're doing. If you're doing 250 this year and you wanna do 400 next year and you wanna do 600 the year after, you can't keep on doing. You guy that you've gotta sort of make the make the jump. What's the what's the, pop the phrasement? You gotta pivot. Yeah? You gotta you gotta look at doing some damage. So When we work with recruiters, one of the things that we find is, you know, they are quite often stuck at low fees, and they don't feel comfortable or confident enough to charge higher fees, and that's because they don't have a value proposition that's unique. Yeah. One of the big questions we asked people was, yeah, imagine I'm a client and you're coming to talk to me. So, again, this this is advice to the 20 year, you know, 20 year experience recruiter. You know, what is it that you say? And we get we get people to say this to us, and they say a a number of things. Oh, I'm a specialist. I'm niche. I'm well established in the marketplace. I know all the clients. I know all the candidates. Okay. As you've got out of the room and the next person comes in after you, what does he or she say? They say I'm niche. I'm a specialist. I'm well known in the market. I've got 20 years experience. It sounds exactly the same. If you sound exactly the same, you you you gotta find something to to move on through. again, we try and help people position themselves and differentiate themselves in the market by, by creating some a little bit of uniqueness in there. So, you know, finding things that, you know, can captivate the the the prospect to actually listen to them. And so so for the the the longer the tooth recruiter, you've gotta say, okay. If you if you wanna change, Sorry. If you wanna if you want to improve, you want a a better future, you've gotta do a you've gotta look at doing something different. It's not gonna it's not just a business as usual. And so you've gotta, you know, look at embracing the things that are around us. You know? Hey. What what's happening out there in the market? Much artificial intelligence? You know, what's that doing? What's chatgy PT doing to the market? Well, it it's, you know, is it is it streamlining it? Is it improving it? Maybe it is. You know? but, yeah, so you you've gotta keep on keep on your toes really. Be agile.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:00]:

Awesome. Great advice right there. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your success? Yeah.

James O’Brien [00:35:08]:

Again, I'll go back around about the same time I was building that program, you know, road to the 300. This was for our consultants to, you know, be delivering at least £300,000 worth of of income. which may not seem a lot to some people listening in, but for, you know, for the UK market, that's probably double the average. so We were we were embarking on that program, and that that was a company wide process. So I I was it's an old it's an old book. People heard of it, you know, it's by Jim Collins. called good to great, and I swallowed and digested that program, you know, to to really sort of, you know, look at what it is that we could do. you know, from the old analogies about who sat on the bus in what seat and the hedgehog concept. but that gave us some, really, some fundamentals about what it is that we're trying to built that into our business model to say, right. Yeah. We'll have a single a single focus to to move on to that. And we don't just wanna be a good recruitment business. We wanna be a great recruitment business. gonna be serving our clients, serving our candidates, serving our staff, our team. and I would say that, that process will no longer part of that business that I'm referring to. that business has gone up from strength to strength, had their biggest and best year last year. And and there's they're actually also a client of my interest. That's how I know these numbers, by the way. So so so, yeah, it it's had a big influence on on me shaping the strategy and direction of the business that I was running and heading at that time.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:24]:

I I absolutely love that because that also says a lot about leadership is when you've taken a business to up to a certain level. And then after you leave, it still keeps on growing. Yeah. because so often you see, I I sometimes the company just, like, implode when a leader goes because it was built from one of the leader and not built on, like, a foundational leadership.

James O’Brien [00:36:42]:

You can ask me a question. I'm sure you can ask me a question in the in the and I'm gonna give you a a little line about how that happens or even my advice on how that happens. So I'm gonna leave it. Hope you asked the question. If come out with the line.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:52]:

Alright. So I kind of going and talking to me, like, the same question along with the book, but has there been something that's had a huge impact on your own personal success?

James O’Brien [00:37:00]:

I think to be successful, you have to be unsuccessful. Yeah. I mean, we've all had these these moments when you look back and Something's gone wrong either in your personal life, your business life that impacts on your business life. and and so for for me, it's about having the ability the ability to bounce back from adversity. Yeah. It's it's sometimes when when I interview people, like, you know, I came back to a a role I had in 2003. And, and and that was a company I was running at the time. We were, we had VC backing. And I remember I was on holiday. It was this time of year. I was on holiday, and I had a phone call from my finance director to say, oh, we've got a board meeting next week, and I said, I know. She said, but do you know what's gonna happen at that board meeting? I said, I'm pretty certain I do know what's gonna happen. and that was gonna be my final board meeting. It's gonna be my final meeting in the company, and I sort of knew that was coming. And, you know, how you look on people's CDs and they massage what happened at that time. Oh, I I moved on to the next position. I said, no. No. I went to that meeting and I was fired. Yeah. I was fired for for good reasons. You know, as in good reasons, they they had they had just caused it to fire me, but, you know, I argued the case, you know, it was a it was a SAC me or back me type moment. when they decided to sack me. So that adversity, yeah, you gotta think, you know, I could have got into my shell, you know, fallen down a hole and and disappeared, but, the reality is sometimes, you know, to to be successful, you've got experience you're successful. And I think there's a, you know, a lot of I think I've read lots of things in, you know, people, and this is this is not what I'm this is not what I'm about being now successful, but, you know, a lot of people have been bankrupt. They want to be extremely successful. because they've experienced adversity. so, yeah, that isn't the case. I haven't been bankrupt. I'm just gonna ask. It's definitely a great advice, and they kinda, you know,

Benjamin Mena [00:38:44]:

really just it's gonna flow into my next question. And I think I might ask the second 2 parts. First is gonna be, like, just general and second is gonna be in the recruiting space. you can go back and sit down with yourself with all the knowledge that you have, all the experiences that you've gone through, and talk to younger James right where you're starting your career. What advice would you give yourself?

James O’Brien [00:39:08]:

Well, that's a that is, a a good one because, yeah, that's the the benefit of hindsight. I've got a PhD in hindsight, you know, as in, you know, you can look back on it. what would I say to myself? I'd I'd say it's it's difficult to say because I I don't have a lot of regrets, you know, so when I need to spoke a moment ago about being fired, I don't regret being fired. I actually learned from it. yeah, so sometimes you can you might look back and think, yeah, don't be don't be pigheaded. You know, when you're you're young, yeah, I'll go back to that position. I was in my thirties at the time. You think, I know everything. You know, I'm arrogant. I'm confident. and you don't, you know, I shouldn't have got fired. you know, it that cost me financially hugely because, you know, I wasn't just the the MDC over the company. I had significant shares in the company, which because of the, the way the shareholders are being written, I actually, you know, didn't didn't get the value that I that I could up from those. So sometimes it's about not being too so stubborn that you can't listen to other people. So when I mentioned a moment ago that my finance director phoned me up, she was phoning up to give me advice. But, you know, my pig headedness or stubbornness just said, well, I'm not gonna listen to that. So may I say, yeah, listen to others and and certainly, and what I've tried to do through my career, so, yeah, again, I can say something about is is seek out a mentor. Yeah. Look look for people who've who've who've been through some of those areas and listen to them. and try and take that advice and not just think, you know, when you're on this trajectory, which is flying high, you know, don't don't believe your own BS, really. Yeah. That's some because sometimes, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna get too close to the sun. I love that. And it's the same question, but, like, on putting on your recruiter hat. Everything that you know now. Like, if you could go talk to yourself the very beginning of your recruitment career, what advice would you give yourself? Push harder push higher, and and aim for the aim, you know, yeah, when I when I start out, you know, it's just a it was just about I was just chasing anything. so I suppose this this is probably a bit try and be a bit more strategic in terms of your thinking process. When you started when I started out, I was in my twenties. It was just, chased. Yeah. You just chased anything. You you If it moved, you you chased it. And I remember the office environment I worked in, we had multiple divisions, and I was at the I was in the sales recruitment division. We were at the far end of the office. Yeah. We were the the young books, and I remember, the other end of the office, and, I mean, the other end I mean, multiple doors, multiple offices is down there. There were the the executive search guys, and ladies. and, they seemed to me a little bit like old farts. Yeah. They were the the old people. They were probably about 10 years younger than I am now. And I asked I was obviously thought I could do a lot better than them because we could move faster. So, the advice is, you know, look around you, aim high, but map it out because too often people come into it and they just think they they don't look further forward than the next few weeks or the next quarter's commission check or whatever it may be. And I think that a lot of people don't realize that, you know, A lot of people fall into recruitment by accident. They don't choose as a career, and so they don't really think about it as a career, and it's an amazing career. So I did I and and I was one of those. I'd I didn't come into it thinking of his career. He was just a he's a stopcap. I'd gone to the agency to help him get me a a job selling photocopiers. and, you know, because it came with a company car. So little did I know that actually, you know, 30 odd years later would still be a great career? So so plan as a career, I mean, I'd I'd maybe the industry doesn't actually promote it in that way. It's, you know, for for a lot of people, they stopgap because they come in, they go out and disappear, but maybe maybe start. Awesome. Phenomenal. Well, before I let you go, is there anything else that you'd love to share with the listeners? Yes. I was going back to that leadership point, you said? So so one of my little tips is, that I learned before recruitment actually is that I used to work in the hotel industry as well. And, when you when you're just reminded me when you said about, it's great that you, and I I do I do to depreciate what you said there, but it's good that when people move on. And it's always been, like, yeah, my my tip my hiring tip is always hire people with the potential to be better than yourself. Because they'll push you, they'll drive you. And when you leave and move on, then indeed, yes, they will. they will continue to to rise and build the company and take it further further forward. And when I look at my old company now, I know the guy I know the guy's the CEO, his name, sir, Stefan Ashburner, based in Cologne and Germany, you know, he was already an exceptional person. Don't don't get me wrong. It's it's sort of not nothing to do with it. But, obviously, seeing him come behind me and go through and buy the company out. And, again, it's it's really positive to see this. So so I've got that little piece of advice for people, you know, when you're hiring, don't be afraid to hire people who can be better than yourself because, they'll just they'll make you look good.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:40]:

Awesome. Well, James, definitely, thank you so much. I'll have -- Yeah. From. -- James information and I I enter his information in his show notes. So definitely, like, check that out. But thank you for coming on the podcast. You're talking about it. the the journey from contingency to retained and just the benefits of just, like, separating yourself

James O’Brien [00:43:57]:

from the rest of the market. So thank you, James. You're very welcome. Flip forward to it. Speak to you again.

Intro [00:44:02]:

Alright. And for the listeners until next time, guys. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. with Benjamin MENA. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.