The 60% of Recruiters Who'll Quietly Sink Your Agency. Part 2

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Are you still trying to grow your recruiting desk or business on your own? Join the Elite Recruiter Community and connect with recruiters who know your challenges. Members get unlimited access to replays from the AI Recruiting Summit, Finish the year Strong and all our past events plus biweekly roundtables where we dive into sourcing business development and mindset. You'll also tap into our Billers Club for accountability and a split space to partner on roles. Join the number one growth environment for recruiters. For just $49 per month you'll be part of a tight knit group that pushes you to grow and you can cancel anytime. Visit the link in the show Notes and click Join now to get started and start mastering your craft today. You have just downloaded part two of this amazing interview with Tom Kelly. If you have not downloaded part one, run back over to Spotify, run back over to Apple Podcasts.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:47]:
Check out part one before you dig right in because this is awesome. Enjoy. Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host Benjamin Mena where we focus focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements. You know the resume never tells the full story. Candidates share what really matters during conversations, on calls and interviews over email. Their motivations, salary, expectations, plans to relocate. Most of that detail ends up buried in notes and forgotten.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:24]:
Atlas changes that. It's the AI first recruitment platform. Built to eliminate admin. It captures every conversation automatically and turns it into something you can use with MagicSearch. You can ask Atlas questions like who talked about wanting a four day week? Or who mentioned they're open to relocating next year. It searches across your entire database and pulls the answers instantly. No keyword guessing and no digging through old notes. You get insight from real conversations, not limited resume fields.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:51]:
Atlas also makes BD easier with opportunities you can track and grow client relationships powered by generative AI and built into your existing workflow. If you want visibility, smart dashboards give you a clear view of the pipeline across your business. And that's not theory. Atlas customers have reported over 40% EBITDA growth and over 80% increase in monthly billings after adopting the platform. It's built for agencies that want to grow without adding more manual work. Don't miss the future of recruitment. Get started with Atlas today and unlock your exclusive listener offer at recruit with atlas.com we got a bunch more to dig into but I want to take you back 25 year old self sitting in Bristol with everything's happened over the last eight years plus what would surprise 24 old you the most? And what would you want to undo?

Tom Kelly [00:02:45]:
I mean, have to hold myself back because I don't want to sound super cheesy. I am from the UK after all. But I've lived in America now, so I'm going to go full cheese. I think, I think the main. So I got. A large part of the reason why I got a job in recruitment is I used to have a very bad stutter, like really bad, like to the point where I was afraid to pay a phone bill because I'd have to talk on the phone. And so a lot of it was like, look, I was like, I've got to fight this fear. So I wanted to get a telephone based job.

Tom Kelly [00:03:12]:
So I was either going to go and sell a product on the phone or I was going to go work in recruitment. And so I think a lot of getting through that and getting that out my system is what created a lot of the drive, you know, and it really did. Like you ask anybody about when I first started in Esprit, they thought I was weird because I didn't say anything to them. I was just like A, cause I was shitting myself and B, because I just really wanted just to focus and just get over that fear, you know. And even now, you know, speaking in front of people like, is the stutter, is it there? So I think a lot of that 24, 25, you know, obviously moved on from that a lot. But I think a lot of it is like, you don't know anything yet. I'm probably going to say this back to myself in about 20 years, but it's like, just learn from good people and do not have any ego whatsoever. And just make sure that if you get a gut feel for something and you believe in it, then you've got to run after it.

Tom Kelly [00:04:06]:
Because I've had so many times in my life where I'd had a great business idea and not gone after it. And then you watch Shark Tank or the equivalent in the UK and you just absolutely like, I mean it just eats you up because you didn't follow through with it. So I think I would be saying to myself, look, if you have the idea, go for it. If your company gets in trouble again, then you need to cut it back faster. That would be one thing that I would change. I would have done it all quicker. I think for me I just, it would, you know, it's just very difficult, you know, when you love people to let that many people go. But I would do it faster because Then the business would be even healthier.

Tom Kelly [00:04:38]:
But as well. Yeah, I mean, it's. Just stick to what you know and make sure that if you have a gut feel that somebody's good, go for it and bring them through. Like some of the guys now, you know, Tash, Sam, I believe in those guys so much that for me, I trust them with everything. So there's no need to micromanage. I just trust them 100%. And so I think it as well, it would be make sure that you hire the right people with the right potential and with the right, you know, with the right values that fit your values, as opposed to going with what other people tell you to hire, which is what we did, you know, with a lot of the big operations team and so on and so forth. Those people helped us out tremendously.

Tom Kelly [00:05:22]:
So we don't have a bad word to say about them at all. But they weren't the right people for us. It wasn't us. It wasn't us to our core. So that was a very waffly answer because. Because you put me on the spot there. But, yeah, those would be the key things.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:34]:
So I've seen this, like, time and time again with some of these interviews. Somebody's biggest challenge ends up becoming one of their biggest strengths. Like, you said that your stutter was so bad you knew you had to get into a sales job to change it.

Tom Kelly [00:05:48]:
Yep. Yeah. I can't even tell you, like, when it would come around to talking, you know, somebody would ask me a question, I go bright red. I literally thought I was going to spontaneously combust, you know, just because of just the fear of just having to talk in front of people. And so, you know, if anybody else has anything like that, and I recognize it in the team, when we're talking, you put somebody on the spot. Some people are terrified of it. And, like, this is what we do a lot in schools. You know, just today, two of our guys went to do a talk to some year 8 students in the UK about the space industry, and everyone completely shits themselves.

Tom Kelly [00:06:21]:
But afterwards, you feel great and you feel like you really push yourself. And this is why evolving, it's literally the name of our company. Evona means evolve, people. And evolving the space industry. And evolving is our main value. And this is why we push the people in the company just to go outside the comfort zone, because it's come from me, you know, it's fully authentic. I literally did it myself. And, you know, I always say, if you're moving forward, then you're moving Backwards.

Tom Kelly [00:06:45]:
And so it just goes to show what you can do if you do truly believe in yourself. But that's very difficult, you know, especially in today's age. You know, social media, young people, everyone's second guessing themselves, everyone's getting more insecure. I think recruitment as a job gives people that opportunity to reach their full potential and to really get into something and really make a difference. And the stigma attached to it. There isn't as much of a stigma in the US as there is in the uk, but the stigma attached to it, just ignore them. Just, you know, screw those guys.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:15]:
So I'm going to switch gears a little bit. You said during our pregame call, and this might piss a few people off, but in recruitment there really isn't any intellectual property. There is no IP other than relationships. What does that actually mean?

Tom Kelly [00:07:29]:
Yeah, so I've never really got it, especially now. So you can build up a huge CRM of candidates. Great. A hundred percent. But unless that is activated, unless your audience is up to bed and, you know, you doing the podcast, absolute respect, this is the way to do it. And you know, this is smart ways of going out there building relationships, business development. And so if you're just relying on, on a CRM that you're building, well, that data is, it is worth something for sure. But it's becoming more and more worthless tools like juice box pin.

Tom Kelly [00:08:03]:
Candidately, you know, the ability to get in front of a lot of candidates now is getting much easier. So the candidate data is worth less and less. And so let's put that to one side then ultimately. Okay, right. So we have a very good brand and we're very deliberate about how we make sure that we come up top on the LLMs and on Google. And the world is changing. You know, as a founder you, you have a responsibility to understand that shit. You know, if you don't in today's age, then you're in trouble.

Tom Kelly [00:08:28]:
So there is some value in that. But ultimately it's the relationships, you know, it's the face to face, it's the people that would always come back to you. And that is what recruitment is. It is a relationship business. If you don't love people and if you don't want to build relationships, then I think you're in the wrong job. And especially now with the wall of a noise that is about to walk through, you really got to double down on your face to face relationships. It's actually the thing that scares me the most about my job now because I'm running the company and I'm very operational. Am I close enough to the customers? That's the one thing that kind of I think about every single day.

Tom Kelly [00:09:02]:
Without the relationships, there isn't a great deal of ip really. You know, that is what a recruitment company is. That's what you're buying. You know, that's the corner that you're cutting if you want to go buy a recruitment company. It's that embedded relationship inside of the sector.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:17]:
You also said something that, like, at the moment, you would hate to be running a gigantic recruiting company right now. Like, you don't have to name any names, but what specifically do you think is going to break the big firms in the next 18 months from where you're seeing and sitting?

Tom Kelly [00:09:34]:
So here's what I think is going to happen. AI is amazing. I've been on it from day one, all over it. I think you got a, you know, as a founder of a company, you got a responsibility to be at the forefront of that, to understand it, understand its potential and its limitations. I think, however, especially now with Claude, what's going to happen is if you aren't very careful, if you don't have your governance in place around AI, everyone's going to go in, everyone's going to create a dashboard for dashboard's sake, and everyone's going to create a whole load of nonsense which doesn't actually get them anywhere. And it's okay in a company our size because you can spot it and you can kind of like, and you can keep control of it. But how the hell are you going to deal with that if you're in a huge recruitment company? Like, it's, it's at such scale that I think the level of productivity that's going to drop by everyone getting so excited about these dashboards, you know, and everyone's going to need a dashboard for everything that at that scale, the productivity is going to drop. Now, these companies are smart.

Tom Kelly [00:10:28]:
They've got smart people. They will be fine. They've navigated through the same thing before. However, I think just at like a macro level, how they're going to police that, I don't know. And I think that's my major concern for those guys. And as well, you know, the ability to do a lot more with less people has never been greater. Our best people are doing insane amounts. And that's because they're leveraging the tools.

Tom Kelly [00:10:53]:
They're sticking to what they're good at and they're smart. And I think recruitment now is IQ over eq. I think it used to be EQ over iq. And because of the tools now you've got to be dialed in and you've got to be super smart to be very successful. Otherwise, yeah, an AI is going to come in and take your job. And so I think we're now in the realm of IQ for a period of time. Then it will go back to being both. So that, that, that's why I'm concerned about those companies and I'm very concerned for companies that don't sit inside of a vertical industry.

Tom Kelly [00:11:23]:
And the reason for that is because it's my theory and I might be completely wrong, but LinkedIn is about to have a wash of spam. I think a tidal wave is about to run through it where everyone's using their AIs, everyone's using Lemlist, all these different tools, and everyone's just going to automate their LinkedIn basically. Cause they're like, I don't want to do that anymore. I told us I was to do that. Now it means that a very average recruiter can get in front of a very good candidate. Like when you and I first started in recruitment, it was about the skin of the booty and it was almost like coding, wasn't it? Like you're almost like a deaf, you know, sat there and you're trying to crack the code, you know, with all the different searches. Well, you don't need to do that anymore because AI can do that and a lot of them will even automate the outreach for you. So what's going to happen is these really good candidates and the average candidates are now going to be so flattered to have so much outreach.

Tom Kelly [00:12:10]:
That's great. Until they actually talk to the person who isn't very good and they'll be like, recruiters are waste of time. And so I think it's going to be a love buff. I think there's going to be a lot of people who just can't bother to deal with these average recruiters anymore. So I think what's going to happen is the way people are going to look at getting a job is they're going to go to a vertical which is a place where they like to consume content. So in our case, they will go to a place where can I actually just get space news that interests me, investment news that interests me. They aren't going to spam me, I'm not going to get him loads of stuff and then I'll look for a job on my terms. Do you know? I mean, I don't, I.

Tom Kelly [00:12:45]:
It's too much Noise, you know, it's now on me. And to take it a step further, everyone I think will have their own AI. So the candidates AI is going to talk to the agency's AI is going to talk to, you know, and they'll make the match. So the reason why I made the comment about the big companies is how the hell at scale do you navigate through that? That's so difficult. And so I think there will be a lot of M and A. Like there already is. We've seen it a lot. And coming in and buying smaller companies, a lot of it's strategic.

Tom Kelly [00:13:11]:
You know, a lot of cybersecurity companies are doing very well at the moment because a large company will come in and they'll roll that offering into their existing clients. But yeah, I don't know how they're going to police it. I really don't. Now I might be completely wrong, but I've been right about a lot of stuff so far. So potential is there that you said

Benjamin Mena [00:13:27]:
it in the pregame, but you said it again, like you talked about like the candidates looking within an ecosystem of like their news, they're this, they're that, like space news. Are you helping develop this ecosystem or are you looking at attaching yourselves in other places within the ecosystem?

Tom Kelly [00:13:43]:
Yeah, it's a really good question. Yeah. So initially I was thinking let's go build it. But then we see other companies building it. And as a recruitment company, again, this is something that a lesson that we definitely learn is we're in the relationship business, that's who we are, that's what we do. And so therefore going and building huge platforms should let somebody else do that, let somebody else spend millions on it. And then you partner for the talent bit, you know, that's what we do, you know, that's our lane. And so, you know, there's like Space Network that set up Seraphim, one of the major investors are about to launch one.

Tom Kelly [00:14:16]:
So as recruitment company, do we go partner with those guys or do we go build ourselves? I think initially, you know, it is important to partner after that. Who knows what the world is going to look like in a year or two's time. So I think partnership, yes. I mean I have built my own dashboard, shared it with the team so that everyone is able to get up to speed. It has all the things that we've just mentioned built in. Claude hosted it in netlify. Again, because I think as a founder you need to know how to do this stuff. It's 2026, like if you don't know how to build and host an app or a site you're already behind.

Tom Kelly [00:14:47]:
You have a responsibility to know that for your business. But anyway, so yeah, I think I, I think a bit of both.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:54]:
So just for time's sake, and I kind of joked about this in the pregame, I was like, I really suck at like getting podcasts under 15 minutes. So I'm going to start like, kind of like jumping around for the listeners. That's why I just looked up and I'm like, crap, we're at hour. Just because like this flu. So sorry about that, Tom.

Tom Kelly [00:15:09]:
Yeah, yeah, no, no, of course, yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:12]:
So we're doing a little bit of a jumping route, but I want to take us a little over to the UK recruiter. So take me through a UK's recruiter day because like, when did they actually start? Because I think this is important for those listening. Like you're competing with the American recruiter. I would say, I think it's something like 89% of my monthly listeners are American recruiters. Walk me through like what they're doing, but also they still get to spend time with their family. Walk me through their day.

Tom Kelly [00:15:37]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So most of them will go to the gym in the morning, take the kids to school, they'll do what they need to do in the morning. Then what will happen is they're logging about 11 and we follow a book called the Rockefeller Habits. People haven't read it then they should read it or listen to it actually. But it's really, really, really good. And it talks to you about prioritization and it talks about clear messaging and it gives you a framework of how to run a company perfect for recruitment companies. And so there's a number of like huddles. So we have all hands on a Monday.

Tom Kelly [00:16:14]:
That's that. Right? Okay, where are we at? You know, what's our mission? What's our vision? What's our values? What's our bhag? How are we measuring against those? Where are we against the core drivers? And then what are the priorities over the quarter? And so everyone has that first thing on a Monday. And that's at like midday. No, no, no, it's at 1pm in the UK. So that's how the week starts. Then they have their daily sales huddle. So with the sales team manager talking about time to fill, talking about roles with less than five interviews after two weeks and talking about who is on the 25 interview over a four week period. Which star? Only KPI.

Tom Kelly [00:16:53]:
You have to be doing, you have to have at least that many interviews over any rolling four week period. So everyone knows where they're at to start with, which is the most important thing because then you can plan your day. So yeah, they'll start at like 11 or 12, then they'll work through to about 3 or 4. In that time they're typically doing their sourcing. You know, they're setting up their searches, you know, they're doing a lot of their outreach. They're, you know, they're warming up just a lot of the relationships. They're obviously texting a lot, as we said. Then comes, you know, some people work through.

Tom Kelly [00:17:22]:
So some people who don't have a family might just stay logged in until 8, 9pm Others will then go and they will help their partner and they'll make sure that the kids are looked after, that they have a family dinner, and then they'll log back in after that. And that's typically when they'll do a lot of their candidate calls. So, you know, the other thing as well is, look, Americans are a bit of a different beast than anywhere else in the world. You know, most people hear it up at 5am Most people here take work incredibly seriously. Most people, you know, you can catch them in the morning and they're happy to talk to you about a job. You do not get that in the UK or Europe. In fact, it's the opposite, especially in Europe. And my wife's Spanish, so I can say that.

Tom Kelly [00:17:58]:
So then they'll do their calls in the evenings and then they'll log off. Some people are on at like 11pm but it's incredibly important that they're in the best shape they've been in. If they're into fitness, if, if they're learning something that they're passionate about and they got time to do that, it's like really have to evidence them evolving outside of work as well as inside of work. It's the most important thing. So we have to give people space for that. Because what you'll find is the happier you are outside of work, the happy you are inside of work. I think people forget this. People don't recognize it.

Tom Kelly [00:18:29]:
So that's typically how they structure their day.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:31]:
And you guys have done $40 million in revenue and most people have like six, seven hours of freedom when the sun's up.

Tom Kelly [00:18:39]:
Correct.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:39]:
So jumping over to the fractional cfo, that fractional cfo, was he from the recruiting space?

Tom Kelly [00:18:46]:
So it's a funny story. So we actually built our own platform for fractional executives because I see the world going down a fractional route. And so we built that. It's got 2,500 fractional execs on there. We're given of our clients access to it as like a value add. I actually found him through that. So I basically advertised to it. I just free subbed in what I look for.

Tom Kelly [00:19:11]:
I was like, right, I want a CFO with SAS experience who's worked in the UK and the US but trained up in the UK and I bought, bought a bunch of people and I found this guy and you know he start like similar age to me, which helps. Started out in the UK and Deloitte, worked his way up, then went into a startup and then from there scaled that startup concede up I think to Series C. So there was no job that he hadn't done. And to come work at our company as a recruiter, you have to have recruited for VC backed companies, otherwise you can't really get a job here because it's just if you don't know that it's going to be a huge, huge learning curve. And so he had that. So he understood our client base, he understood what we were trying to do. And you know, he's a CFO with a personality, which really helps because we can jam on ideas, you know, we can have fun, you know, get same thing. You know, he has young kids, you know, we're just on the same wavelength and we talk the same language.

Tom Kelly [00:20:07]:
Anybody listening who doesn't have a fractional cfo, go and get one. It will change your life.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:12]:
You said hiring Americans has been challenging. Okay, which specifically have you learned about the US recruiter that a UK agency owner is like, hey, this is kind of tough. And remember 89% of my listening base

Tom Kelly [00:20:27]:
is the U.S. yeah, yeah, well, I mean we're hiring so please reach out. But anyway, yeah, the joy. I've thought about this so long and hard and I've been speaking to Ron, you know, the top biller who's moved over here with us because obviously from the uk, you know, he, I think what we put it down to is there's a natural cynicism inside of us Brits and in a sales environment, especially in recruitment, being so cynical actually helps because you know how our job works. You know, it's about control of the process and it's about thinking about what could go wrong. And if you're there ultra buzzed up, looking at everything that can go right, which is actually American culture, which I love by the way. And 99.9% of the time. It's significantly better than UK culture when it comes to business.

Tom Kelly [00:21:14]:
But in recruitment, that cynicism, I think it pays off very well. It's actually been able to read through the lines and to look at somebody in a negative light rather than only focusing on the positives. I think that's a major, major, major difference. And that is a cultural thing. Now, don't get me wrong, business culture in the U.S. is about. Let's try the idea. People in the U.S.

Tom Kelly [00:21:37]:
are not afraid of failure. People in the US are not afraid to take risks. In the UK, everyone's terrified of failure and risks and that's why the UK economy is the way that it is. And that's actually the problem in the uk. Not, you know, I don't go into politics, but not all the nonsense that you see on social media. It is a cultural issue when it comes to business, meaning people are afraid to take risks, people are afraid to back an idea, whereas in the US you can. But when that translates into recruitment, I think sometimes that over enthusiasm about people can sometimes translate into not actually seeing what's really going on. And so I think that is a really interesting point, isn't me.

Tom Kelly [00:22:14]:
So I think there's that and then I think there's the fact that there's. I don't know what the latest status, but there's like three times the amount of recruitment companies in the uk, yet the US market is three times the size to be good. In the uk you've got really good. It's hyper competitive. I can't tell you how many recruitment companies are in the uk. It's like so saturated, is unbelievable. So to make it to the top you got to be really good. Whereas in the US there's so much to go out and there's so many options that I think trying to find the level of quality you can find in the UK is challenging.

Tom Kelly [00:22:47]:
Now, I don't want to tie everyone in the same brush. You know, we haven't hired that many people from America. However, I think it, I think it's that, that grit and that cynicism and also the fact that, you know, financially it's quite tight in the uk, you know, the cost of living is high versus the salaries, so you have to be driven to make money. The other thing as well, it's a cultural thing, is that in the UK there's one upmanship. If you and I mates in the UK and we go to the pub, if you've got something, I want to get something better and it's Like I don't know if it's the weather or what, but like everyone wants to one up each other in the us if you've got something, I'm just happy for you. And I'm like, man, that's awesome, you know, well done. If I'm in the uk, I'm like, you prick, you're showing off. I'm going to go get something better.

Tom Kelly [00:23:30]:
It's like, so again, I think it's a cult. I think there's all these, these interesting cultural elements which, which is why British people are so good at recruitment. I think it's that and I've thought long and hard about this, trust me. Now don't get me wrong, you get a good American. Unbelievable. Like Steve is a, is a beast, you know, he is a machine, but he follows a basic sales process, but he does it to a high standard. Recruitment is about doing the basics to a high standard. I think a lot of Americans with recruitment could sometimes over engineer it a bit and want to do too much.

Tom Kelly [00:24:04]:
And so anyway, you know, I could talk about that point all day long.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:09]:
Silver bullet somewhere. It's magical that everybody knows me except

Tom Kelly [00:24:12]:
for me in any way.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:13]:
So yeah, out of curiosity, like, let me just say this, like I'm very US based. Like almost all my interviews are US based. I occasionally do have some interviews with UK recruiters, so I'm probably talking to the best of the best. What do you see in work ethic between the two, the US recruiters and UK recruiters? Is there a difference?

Tom Kelly [00:24:33]:
I'm not experienced enough to be able to answer that question with any real authority. So I can only really talk about the hiring that we've done. I would say that we've learned so much about ourselves that our hiring process now is very stringent. So we know exactly the sort of person that we want and we know exactly the sort of background and we know the values. And so therefore because we integer against the values, we mitigate it so much. That's why we interview so many people. But it's very difficult to actually have a role with us work ethic wise. I find it to be extremes in the us.

Tom Kelly [00:25:06]:
Either someone is a workaholic, wake up, think about work, think about making money, go to bed, think about making money, wake up, meet with friends, talk about making money. It's like making money is life, or there's an element of, sometimes people can be a bit entitled. But that's not just a US thing. I, I think that's a cultural thing, but it is the same thing in the uk but I would say it's like for like to be honest, I think it just depends on the person in the background. You know to be good in recruitment you've got to have an insecurity somewhere. You know, you know something must have happened to you for you to want to be this driven in recruitment. And so you know, if you get the right people it's, it's definitely like for like but it's only. If you would have asked me this five years ago I would have said the US wins hands down.

Tom Kelly [00:25:47]:
But I think we've understood so much about the sort of people that we like to work with in the UK that we can recognize it immediately and weed it out. So I think now it's like for

Benjamin Mena [00:25:56]:
like and for those listening, if you are looking for a position, how do they get a hold of you? Tom?

Tom Kelly [00:26:03]:
Yeah, I mean you can email me. So Tomvona or LinkedIn? Tomkelly. Yeah, I mean just reach out. Don't care where you're based. Just need to have recruited for VC backed companies and be up for it. That's it.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:16]:
So we've covered a lot and before we go over to our quickfire questions and I know there's stuff that I cut out for time, is there anything that you want to go deeper on that we talked about or we should have spoken about?

Tom Kelly [00:26:28]:
I think I probably could have chewed your ear off about the space industry and just going into all the detail about that because I love it and we didn't really touch on it. But to be honest with you, you know, we focused on the recruitment stuff which is probably the most important part. You know, honestly I'd just be keen to ask you the question back from all the people that you speak to. Are you seeing any kind of recent trends? Is there anything that's starting to stick out for you in recent months versus you know, all the time you've been doing this, is there anything that you've heard and you're like wow, I didn't think about that.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:57]:
And I'm going to be doing a talk for this for in June, but I'm seeing now people that are niched down and created a brand are getting overwhelmed with business when there's a lot of people out there struggling to get business. And I know it's always one of those sales things where you know, the best sellers always get the most business. But I'm watching the inbound changing. I know recruiters that are having millions of dollars a year of inbound business not doing a Cold call. Just because of the way that they've been building their personal or company brands. So that's been like one of the biggest things. And normally you're probably like the first person in like, how long, how many episodes that actually asked me a question. So I'm like, back to you.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:44]:
Yeah, Tom, this is about you. This isn't about me.

Tom Kelly [00:27:46]:
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:47]:
Yeah.

Tom Kelly [00:27:47]:
But I mean, you know, you're frantic of knowledge. You know, when you talk to this many people, you must be really upskilling yourself. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, the personal brand piece, you know, we didn't touch on that. We have invested into a partner called foxhomedia who are awesome, who really do give you the playbook on LinkedIn. And I think there's a big. I'm not an expert in this. I've had some stuff that's done well, but I get so dragged into the operational side. I'm probably not the best example.

Tom Kelly [00:28:11]:
I'm the first person to say that. However, I did have a guy the other day, walked up to in the park and he's like, oh, you, the space recruitment guy. And I was like, yeah. So, wow, there we go. You know, too right. This is in Tampa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I've done these comparisons between the UK and the US that quite funny because, you know, there's just so many really interesting differences between our two countries.

Tom Kelly [00:28:31]:
But, you know, I think that goes to show you don't need to post about your industry, you need to post about you and you need to find something that is authentic, that you push. And then when people look at you, that's when they understand about your company. And I think people forget that people are buying from a person. And so social media is really, you know, you can really showcase who you are actually as a person. And I think a lot of people miss this and they go, well, no, no, like, you know, let's say I do biotech, all I need to do is just talk about biotech. Well, actually, no, you need to talk about yourself and you need to talk about your personal story, your personal brand, because that's when they're going to come and buy from you. And, you know, and this is where a lot of the industry is going is, you know, it's terrifying because I'm a bit older. If I was in my early 20s, this stuff would just be bread and butter, you know.

Tom Kelly [00:29:15]:
Absolutely. This is what we do, isn't it? So I think the personal brand think, you know, that's not Something that we touched on too much. But that for sure is what's prevailing big time. That demand engine go to market is changing significantly for recruiters. Podcasts, events, that's where it's at. And personal branding and video, which I'm terrible at.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:37]:
I know it's one of those things like for so long I was like, I've been in recruiting now for 20 years and I'm just like, LinkedIn, get off my grass. Like this is for jobs like.

Tom Kelly [00:29:46]:
Exactly.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:46]:
But then you get a chance to, you know. You worked with Hoxa, right? John Anderson.

Tom Kelly [00:29:50]:
Yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:51]:
Guys a genius.

Tom Kelly [00:29:53]:
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're doing a great job. Yeah. You know, and they, they make it very simple and they have a boot camp for recruitment where they've just broken down to a simple code to follow. And I think they're a very interesting business as well in the way that they've restructured. You know, a lot of work stem from South Africa and a lot of amazing people, like some of their customer success people were just like, incredible. Like, they give me an absolute roasting when I don't hit what I need to hit. And I love it, you know, it's great. And so it's a good example there again of somebody, it's pretty similar generally to us, you know, got to a certain point, pulled it back, smart growth, you know, so, yeah, I absolutely agree with you.

Tom Kelly [00:30:31]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:31]:
So we're going to jump into our quick fire questions. They don't need to be quick answers. If you got a recruiter that hits you up or somebody, even somebody on your team is just like, hey, I want to go from average to elite. What advice would you tell them?

Tom Kelly [00:30:42]:
Mindset is the most important thing. Absolutely. One of our guys called Kaelin, he, he came in, he had a good start, he fell a bit into the victim mindset. You know, stuff was going wrong, but it was the candidate's fault or it was the client's fault. And I was like, every time something goes wrong, you have to look in the mirror. There will be something that you could have done better every single time. So number one is the mindset of the buck stops with me. And you have to learn something from every single part of the process.

Tom Kelly [00:31:16]:
Then comes consistency, like consistency in our game. It's one of our four values. It's the most important thing. Like in recruitment, it's so similar to sports teams. Everyone's heard all the analogies, everyone's pretty sick to death of it, but it is so similar to an elite sports team. That level of you have to consistently be fit. In order to consistently be fit in recruitment, your activity needs to be consistent. We have 25 interviews over a rolling four weeks.

Tom Kelly [00:31:43]:
That's your fitness, that's your barometer. If you're underneath that, then you aren't fit. Like you are not fit to play at the top level. If you're over that, then it comes a different set of challenges. So it's the level of consistency that every single day, every day in recruitment, you cannot let it go. Of course you need to have a break, but I'm talking about when you're working, same day plan, same focus, same relentlessness. In terms of getting done, what you need to get done, the level of passion that you need to have for what you do as well, that's another value of ours. You know, you get people like LinkedIn recruiter is obviously it's kind of old news, but like a good example of this is the winners are the people that go to the last page on their search.

Tom Kelly [00:32:27]:
The losers are the people that just do the first three pages. That level of thoroughness and just going through. And then to be elite in recruitment, it's about control. You have to have control over the process. You have to have control. And control comes from knowledge. You know, you get control over your clients by making sure they stick to a good process. Have control over your candidates by knowing your and your market.

Tom Kelly [00:32:52]:
If you don't know your market inside out, you will never have control over the candidate. And obviously wrapped around that is confidence. If you aren't confident in yourself. But that comes down to the mindset thing. I mean, we all get a kick in, in recruitment, don't we? It's a brutal, horribly hard job. Go out to bat for anybody who's done it for a long time because it's hardcore. People don't understand it. I think it's probably one of the jobs that looks the easiest but is actually the hardest.

Tom Kelly [00:33:14]:
But anyway, I would say, yeah, it breaks down to passion, consistency, relentlessness and having that winning mindset. You know, just having that mindset of like, look, the candidate didn't say the job, that's my fault. The buck stops with me. You know that. Never go to blame the candidate. Never go to blame the client. It's your fault. You're in charge of this process.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:33]:
How did you guys reverse engineer the 24 interviews over a four period that ended up being the magic number for success?

Tom Kelly [00:33:40]:
So where that came from is I've always battled with, in recruitment, having fixed periods that you report on versus rolling because, you know, especially with perm recruitment, because things change in recruitment. You know, it goes up, it goes down. We're all kind of motivated by different things. I mean, fixed periods, there's a plethora of issues that happen. And what you cannot do is, is get people incentivized to the point where they might actually damage the client relationship because they need to get the deal in that month, otherwise they're not going to end their quota. You know, that for me is a dangerous place to be, especially when you're in a vertical like ours where it's big into the investment but everyone knows everybody. So if you, if you have the wrong behaviors, you could do a lot of damage. So that was the first premise of it.

Tom Kelly [00:34:23]:
I was all right, we need to look at something rolling, you know, not something fixed. So rolling interviews. Then we looked our interview displacement ratio, which at the time was about 12 to 1. And so if somebody is consistently on 25 interviews over rolling four week period, then they have a really good shot of doing two transactions per month. And so when you then look at that, then step number one, get everyone up to 25 interviews. Step number two, train and develop people on their interview to placement ratio to a really high standard. And then once you've got that, then that 25 interviews could be two, three, maybe even four placements a month. And then if the people go, well, actually I don't need 25 interviews anymore because I'm consistently doing two transactions a month, then perfect, good for you.

Tom Kelly [00:35:08]:
But imagine if you did do 25 interviews, you know, you would actually, you know, do more placements. And so again, going back to your first question, the confidence cruisers invest when they're busy and when they've got interviews, they got stuff going on, you know, and you got multiple plates that you're trying to spin. You know, that's like our comfort zone, you know, that's when we feel like we're adding value. And so having that level of interviews are always going just keeps you in that, that positive momentum mindset, adding value. But yeah, to answer your question, it was reverse engineering the interete to placement ratio.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:39]:
Is there a book that's had a huge impact on your life?

Tom Kelly [00:35:41]:
There's a few. Ronnie Wood's autobiography from the Rolling Stones showed me what it's like to prioritize living a great life. Alex Ferguson's autobiography as well, fascinating the man management elements and understanding that he was the longest serving manager of Manchester United just for the American audience. But the main one is the Rockefeller Abbots, our Chairman recommended that we read it. Game Changer.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:10]:
What's your favorite tech tool at the moment?

Tom Kelly [00:36:12]:
Claude.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:14]:
What's your favorite use of Claude? I should say.

Tom Kelly [00:36:17]:
Yeah, exactly. Do you know what? I listen to another podcast and the thing I took from that, which, which I gave to our team is like AI and he refers to it as friend Marcus. He's like, AI is his friend Marcus, who's got an IQ of 160. He wants him to win 24 hours a day. And so when you consider it that way, it's like you can use it for ideation. You can use it so you don't waste your team's time. You can use it as a first port of call to ask questions, you know, and to, you know, so your team can execute on what they're doing. Don't go waste anyone's time by these nonsense questions.

Tom Kelly [00:36:56]:
The amount of time to say, have you asked AI? Have you asked AI? Have you asked? So for me, it's a really good filter to get through and to help me because you can put self in this podcast because I know it's far from different directions. It helps me to be super organized and to organize my thoughts. And so I would say organization, if I were to pin it down, is the thing that I like to use it the most. There's a bit of a cop out answer though. So to answer your question, I do really like, candidly, I like the guys there. A smaller company sits over top of Bullhorn. Not crazy about Bullhorn, you know, not sure what that world looks like in the future. That's probably a different subject.

Tom Kelly [00:37:30]:
But candidate is great. And you know, again, if you're a founder, working with other founders of companies and getting a good relationship with them is really important. I think the relationships, everybody in a recruitment company, whether your operations, you need to have good relationships with the peer companies. It's no different to candidates and clients, the same thing. And so having a commercial with those guys and seeing what they're doing and understanding it and being involved in the conversation is really, really useful as well. But great presentation tool, really neat stuff. Not the most complex tool in the world. Simple and effective and it works well.

Tom Kelly [00:38:04]:
So I would say candidate is great at the moment, but I mean there's loads. I mean we use so much.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:10]:
Last question and then I'll let you go. And we're already like way over in time, so I apologize.

Tom Kelly [00:38:16]:
No, it's my fault, honestly.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:18]:
And we didn't even talk about space, which is bugging me because I love space.

Tom Kelly [00:38:21]:
Yeah,

Benjamin Mena [00:38:24]:
space Quiz. We watch the rockets go up. So anyways, yeah, you guys have done like $40 million in revenue or $40 million in fees. You've hired tons of recruiters. I see you out there on LinkedIn. You're active. You've probably gotten questions like, nonstop over the years of like, hey, how'd you do it? How'd you grow your business? What is working for business development? How are you doing X, Y and Z? Time and time again, do you ever just sit back and I just in the back of your head is just like, I wish somebody would just ask me this one question, but they never do. If so, what would that question be and what's the answer?

Tom Kelly [00:38:59]:
I'm not sure how you come up with this question, but it's a hell of a question. It really makes you think, doesn't it? I think the main question is actually a management question. I think the question I wish that everybody would ask is like, how do, psychologically speaking, how do you assess your sales team and how does that work? Because I've got a very specific way in which I look at that and I always have done, and it's never asked, you know, and this is a company management thing. How do you get the best out your sales team? Like, how do you understand them and what methodology you working through with that? And I've never found the book that's gelled with me, but I kind of have my own view on it. And so I think that's the main question. Really? Yeah. How do you. How do you look at that?

Benjamin Mena [00:39:51]:
How would you answer it? Yeah.

Tom Kelly [00:39:54]:
So I've always thought, especially in recruitment, is that in a sales team? So you have your top 10% who do not care about anybody else. They just want to bill, they just want to absolutely fly those people, move everything out of their way, essentially. Then you've got your next group of people, the next 20%. Those people want to be that top person, and they aspire to be that top person. And so you're basically like, with them. You've got to show them the playbook of what the top people are doing. And then you've got to encourage them to try and get there. Then you've got your bottom 10%, and your bottom 10% are the people that are never going to make it, who don't really care.

Tom Kelly [00:40:35]:
They kind of join probably for the wrong reasons, or it's just not right for them, or it's just not the right time. And then the bit that gets like, super, super interesting is that then you have your other 60% and that 60% of people judge themselves against the bottom 10%. It's like, as long as I'm doing enough to not be that person, then I'm okay. And so this is where performance management is absolutely critical in recruitment companies. If you didn't have a very clear performance management framework and admittedly we've been very slow with, with some of us, that definitely a weakness that we've had in the past. It's like if you don't, you are clearly in tune with those people. You know, those are your swing people because the top 10% are fine. The people underneath that want to be those people, great.

Tom Kelly [00:41:17]:
That's a nice problem to have those people there. If you can get them to not focus on the bottom 10% and just edge up and look up and want to be those people, that is how you end up with a incredible sales team. And I think people overlook that and they don't think about that and they don't think about how they segment it. And it's probably applicable to most sales businesses. But I've just found it to be incredibly useful in a recruitment company to look at that and see which bracket those people fall into and do not manage everybody the same because, you know, everyone's so different, just different motivations and so yeah, it's just an interesting framework that I've always used.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:52]:
I like. Two more questions. If somebody wants to follow you or connect with you, how do they go about doing that?

Tom Kelly [00:41:58]:
Probably LinkedIn. I kind of suck on all of the other socials, but LinkedIn for sure. Yeah, just Tom Kelly of owner and

Benjamin Mena [00:42:07]:
is there anything else that you want to leave the listeners before I let you go?

Tom Kelly [00:42:11]:
Definitely. If you're a recruiter at the moment, it's a really exciting time, but it's also a terrifying time. Don't worry, you're not alone. Everyone's in the same boat. Everyone's shitting themselves about AI. Everyone's not quite sure what it's going to look like. So definitely don't worry. I think there's really good areas where you can go and network with other recruiters.

Tom Kelly [00:42:29]:
I think definitely don't be a lone wolf. Definitely go and find people that you aspire to be but or so other founders. Like I'm in a bunch of groups and I ask questions all the time. Was literally asking stuff earlier. And so I think surrounding yourself with those people is very important as well as recruiters. It's so easy to become a lone wolf, especially, you know, for those people that have gone out, set up their own company, don't plan to grow it. Really good pillars, good for them. But still, we're at an interesting inflection point for our industry.

Tom Kelly [00:42:56]:
So you'd really benefit from just surrounding yourself with other people and understanding what they're thinking and where things are going. Because there's going to be a lot of winners, but there's going to be a lot of losers. And so you need to make sure that you're the winning side.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:06]:
Absolutely. Well, Tom, I just want to say thank you so much. This has been an awesome interview. And you also, you just got back from paternity leave too, right? So congratulations.

Tom Kelly [00:43:14]:
Thanks a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I managed to get five weeks out and performance went up as well, so I was doing something right. I'm not obviously, but you know, the team are so. Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, that was awesome. The sleep's a bit all over the place, but I'm gonna be coming over to your part of the world and flying back over to northern Spain tomorrow. Appreciate your southern France, aren't you? But you know, it's not, you know, you know, isn't it Isn't a million miles away, is it? Nice wine, nice food, nice cheese, you know, all that stuff.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:42]:
It's a quick hop in a skip jump. I think it was a two hour drive to San Sebastian. I was like, wow, this is amazing.

Tom Kelly [00:43:48]:
Anyways, yeah, what a place.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:50]:
Tom, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on. I mean, it's just going from four founders to the amount of people that you guys had and then cutting it all the way back down, but still having almost the same revenue, doubling revenue per head at that point in time. Like there are so many other companies that that story could have gone a completely different way. And I know that somebody's listening is going to be like, wait, I can take something that I learned from Tom, put that back into my test, put that back into my business and really just change the future. Like I've said every single episode, I truly believe 2026 is going to be your year by the time this goes live. We're almost halfway through Draw the line in the sand, Go all in, make your new number, make it be 24 interviews over a four week time period. Set the standard for yourself and win. Tom, thank you so much.

Tom Kelly [00:44:40]:
Exactly. Thank you.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:42]:
You know, the resume never tells the full story. Candidates share what really matters during conversations on calls and interviews. Their motivations, salary expectations, plans to relocate. Most of that detail ends up buried in notes and forgotten atlas changes that. It's the AI first recruitment platform. Built to eliminate admin, it captures every conversation automatically and turns it into something you can use with MagicSearch. You can ask Atlas questions like who talked about wanting a four day week? Or who mentioned they're open to relocating next year? It searches across your entire database and pulls the answers instantly. No keyword guessing and and no digging through old notes.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:19]:
You get insight from real conversations, not limited resume fields. Atlas also makes BD easier with opportunities you can track and grow client relationships powered by generative AI and built into your existing workflow. If you want visibility, smart dashboards give you a clear view of the pipeline across your business. And that's not theory. Atlas customers have reported over 40% EBITDA growth and over 80% increase in monthly billings after adopting the platform. It's built for agencies that want to grow without adding more manual work. Don't miss the future of recruitment. Get started with Atlas today and unlock your exclusive listener offer at recruit with atlas.com thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:05]:
If you enjoyed, hit, subscribe and leave a rating.