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COVID-19 changed everything and things are still far from normal. Everyone is talking about a “new normal” but what does this really mean for recruitment? What lessons have we learnt from the lockdown that we will want to continue? What will recruitment look like with 3m people unemployed? How will your organisation adapt to this new normal? In this episode Adrian shares the recording from his recent Recruiter Roundtable event where he spoke with 3 experienced recruiters on their expectations of what like will be like recruiting in this “new normal” If you want to connect to any of the recruiters featured in this episode please use the links below: Raph Frascogna – Head of Talent Acquisition, Loveholidays - https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphf/Oli Cavaliero – Head of Talent Management, Honest Burgers - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivercavaliero/Natasha Nagra – Talent Resourcing Manager, Kew Green Hotels - https://www.linkedin.com/in/natashanagra/

This episode is an interview with Michael Gilbertson, Recruitment Manager for the Air Ambulance Service (c.350 staff). They are an innovative charity with a great culture who recently signed up for our help100 programme (https://hireful.co.uk/help100-programme/) This episode was recorded remotely during lockdown and we discussed:  Why he left a good role with Barclays to join a relatively small charity who had no dedicated resourcing function whatsoever. How his CEO for his current job reversed the tables on him at interview and asked him to interview her in order for her to decide if he was good enough to be their new recruitment manager. Some of the misconceptions people have about working for a charity and how Michael thinks the Air Ambulance’s culture is more similar to an entrepreneurial SME. How in past companies corporate values have been “words on the walls” but at the Air Ambulance Service they are at the heart of everything they do. How Michael went about broadening hiring manager perspectives so that they could be more open to people coming from other industries with transferable skills. Why recruitment is essentially “disappointment management” so the candidate experience is really crucial to protecting the charity’s reputation. How he has made a conscious effort to connect with other recruiters on LinkedIn You can connect with Michael on LinkedIn , and information on The Air Ambulance careers can be found here: https://theairambulanceservice.org.uk/our-work/work-with-us/

This episode is an interview with Max Encke, Talent Acquisition Lead for Eigen Technologies (c.150 staff). They are a fast growing tech company working in the machine learning sector.  This episode was recorded remotely during lockdown and we discussed:  Some of the sustainable changes that Eigen are looking to make to their business to increase diversity and inclusivity. How they are partnering with Tech Returners a company who helps people who have taken a career break, perhaps to look after children or a relative, get their career back on track. How by networking and building out his personal brand on LinkedIn and beyond, he was able to secure a new role in the UK whilst still being based in Australia. How being hired remotely from Australia reinforces for him, how important the consistent communication is important to provide the “vibe check” to candidates who are thinking of joining your but have met anyone from your company or visited your offices. Eigen’s nine company values and why this is mathematically the right number of values for the business. How to cut through the noise and ensure that candidates you are approaching are willing to talk with you. You can connect with Max on LinkedIn, and information on Eigen Technologies careers can be found here: https://eigentech.com/careers Resources mentioned in this episode: Tech Returners: https://www.techreturners.com/Cooper Pedy (town were Max visited in Australia): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/oceania/australia/articles/Welcome-to-Coober-Pedy-the-worlds-quirkiest-town/How Eigen have presented their values on their website, see: https://eigentech.com/careersGoogle Keep: https://www.google.com/keep/Evernote: https://evernote.com/Enboarder: https://enboarder.com/Talk talent to me podcast: https://talktalenttome.com/Stephen King, Dark Tower Series: https://stephenking.com/darktower/book/

This episode is an interview with Julia Seymour, the Group Resourcing Manager for Sigma Financial Group (c.500 staff). Most of their recruitment is based around customer service/call centre staff to work on client campaigns. This episode was recorded remotely during lockdown and we discussed:   How she loves designing new recruitment processes for each different client they work and how she has to motivate herself to document these same processes (Julia is like me, someone who struggles with high detail admin tasks). Her approach to recruiting for her team and how she looks for a range of different skill sets. How she needs to be recruiting in a “proactively reactive” manner so that she is always ready to respond to the recruitment needs of the business once a new client is won and a new campaign would start within weeks. Building the recruitment function with scratch and how she decided on what the priorities wereManaging the onboarding process now everyone is working remotely. You can connect with Julia on LinkedIn, and information on Sigma Financial Group careers can be found here: http://www.sigfin.co.uk/work-for-us/ Resources mentioned in this episode: ·      Microsoft Teams: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software ·      Books by Dorothy Koomson: https://www.dorothykoomson.co.uk/

This is the second of Adrian’s solo episodes. With more and more people being made redundant and others feeling that their job might not be secure, we thought we should do an episode to share a few jobseeking tips. This episode is not specifically aimed at recruiters, so feel free to share to anyone who is looking and might need some help. This session will cover: What recruiters want and more importantly don’t want to see when reviewing your CVHow to upgrade your LinkedIn profile so you are ready to make a great first impressionThe most common mistake that active jobseekers make on LinkedInWhen and how to follow up with recruitersHow to network productively on LinkedIn If you like your jobseeking training more visual, then we would also recommend these training videos, Adrian recorded: https://hireful.co.uk/job-seekers/advice/ Finally, we are running a jobseeker surgery on LinkedIn once a fortnight on Tuesday mornings (9.30am). This is an opportunity to update your skills and come along to a Q&A with other jobseekers. We plan to run this till the end of the Summer of 2020 and then we will review and see what the ongoing demand is. The details of the next upcoming event will be listed on our LinkedIn Company page, see: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hireful/

This episode is an interview with Baljit Kaur, an Equality and Diversity expert and also founder of Innate Consultancy. This is another of our “expert” interviews and focused on the subject of equality and inclusion which is very prominent in the news at the moment. This episode was recorded in 2020 and one of the main takeaways is that organisations have been talking about this subject for a while and now they need to start taking action. This is very timely given the reaction to the Government’s recent announcement of another inequality review, when it appears most of the country is keen that we enact many of the recommendations of the previous reviews. Anyway, you will be pleased to hear that Baljit kept the conversation away from the politics of the day and focused on practical steps you can take as an organisation to be more inclusive. Specifically, we discussed: Why some organisations feel the need to mimic what others are doing. When they really need to identify their unique challenges and look at 2-3 initiatives they can do to address these. How many organisations recruit diverse workforces and then face new issues but not having clear guidelines around subjects like banter.Why some organisations are drawn to focus on initiatives around safer protected characteristics such as  gender rather than perhaps taking an approach that would address multiple categories. How we all need to understand that we are all flawed by conscious and unconscious bias and we all need to accept but work harder to be “the least biased version of ourselves” You can connect with Baljit on LinkedIn, and Innate Consultancy’s website can be found here: https://www.innateconsultancy.co.uk/ Resources mentioned in this episode: The Chimp Paradox by Prof. Steve Peters: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006WCJ9OS/

This episode is an interview with Matt Birtchnell, Talent Specialist at Xero (c.400 UK staff). Matt has almost 15 years’ experience in the recruitment sector across a wide range of industries. He joined Xero as their first inhouse dedicated recruiter, as has been heavily involved in building up their resourcing capability. Xero is a young “hyper growth” organisation and this presents lots of challenges to the recruitment function. Matt and his colleagues are challenged to recruit highly talented people at volume (c. 170 hires this year). This was a wide ranging discussion that includes how: COVID-19 lockdown is affecting their working practices and the outlook for their hiring in the near future. Xero is promoting their community connect programme even during lockdown (whilst socially distancing). They look to create and share content on social media and how they do this whilst staying inline with their employer brand and their organisation’s “tone of voice”. Their brand is focused on standing out from other traditional software companies and how this is then reflected in their Employer Brand. They outgrew their old ATS (Jobvite) and how they decided on their new ATS (Lever) which is being rolled out globally. You can connect with Matt on LinkedIn, and take a look at the Xero’s career opportunities on their website, here: https://www.xero.com/uk/about/careers/ Resources mentioned in this episode: Maintaining great communication during the lockdown with tools like Slack, see: https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/Creating graphics for social media via Canva, which is free, see: https://www.canva.com/en_gb/Xero’s new ATS, which is Lever, see: https://www.lever.co/LinkedIn Recruiter, see: https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/recruiterFintech Insider podcast, see: https://11fs.com/digital-insights/podcasts

This episode is an interview with Simon Connell from WebOnboarding. Simon recently completed a guest webinar for us and as the lockdown has made onboarding an even hotter topic than it already was, I twisted his arm as I was keen to deliver an “expert episode” on the subject of onboarding. We had a great conversation that started with the revelation that Simon’s passion outside of work is wrestling (hence the title of the episode). The conversation covered lots of interesting ground in the onboarding arena, including: Simon’s tips on how to build an onboarding process from scratchHow some organisations are onboarding their staff completely remotely during the lockdownHow candidate expectations are changing and what this means for how you onboard new employeesThe growing trend of more and more organisations offering welcome packs to new employeesNew hire surveys and why surveying is key to understanding what is working and what needs improvement You can connect with Simon here, and see more from WebOnboarding on their website. Resources mentioned in this episode: The War of Arts: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007A4SDCG/Oura ring: https://ouraring.com/

This episode is an interview with Catherine Mayo, Resourcing Manager at Solicitors Regulatory Authority (c.640 staff). Catherine has worked in a wide variety of industries from Construction, Engineering and Software through to her current role working for a Regulatory Body. Since joining the SRA in 2015, she has been heavily involved in their diversity and inclusivity efforts. These overall collaborative efforts led to the SRA recently being listed in the Stonewall 100 list of Top Employers who achieve acceptance without exception for all LGBT people. In addition, to D&I we also discussed the following: How the last few years has seen a “seismic shift” in candidate expectations of employer brand and candidate experience.Building your diversity and inclusion strategies into your employer brand story and how the SRA managed to achieve a 50% increase in applications.How the SRA looks to build employee networks who represent and Advice Catherine would give to organisations starting out on their D&I journey and how to build stakeholder engagement.How the SRA has challenged itself to be braver and bolder on when telling their employer story.Engaging your employees and their networks to build an authentic social recruiting voice. You can connect with Catherine on LinkedIn, and take a look at the SRA’s career opportunities on their website. Resources mentioned in this episode: The SRA’s Company LinkedIn Page with over 53,000 followers: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solicitors-regulation-authority/Stonewall 100: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/full-list-top-100-employers-2020Malcolm Gladwell’s – Talking to strangers: https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Strangers-Should-about-People-ebook/dp/B07NDKVWZWMasaji Ishikawa’s – A river in darkness: https://www.amazon.com/River-Darkness-Escape-North-Korea-ebook/dp/B06XKRKFZL/Ocean Vuong’s - On earth we are briefly gorgeous: https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Were-Briefly-Gorgeous-Novel/dp/0525562028/Sarah Winman’s – When God was a rabbit: https://www.amazon.com/When-God-was-Rabbit-Bestseller-ebook/dp/B004MPRDZ4/

This episode is an interview with Martin Price, Co-Founder at Secure Screening Services. This was the first of our “expert” interviews that we also plan to fit into the podcast. Martin’s area of expertise is background checking. This can sound like a slightly dull subject but bear with us, Martin has a very interesting background and operates his business differently to the rest of the market. Some of the items we discussed in this episode includes: Martin’s early career in the Police force, booting in doors with the Drug Squad. Transitioning over to an Intelligence focused role within the Police. How the Police uses “Open Source Research” techniques to gather intelligence on criminals. How Martin’s company delivers “Open Source Research” whilst maintaining a high ethical standard. When and where to use background checking, including an interesting story of how Martin hired and then arrested his fraudulent dog walker! You can connect with Martin on LinkedIn and take a look at the Secure Screening Services website here. Resources mentioned in this episode: Richard Branson: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Branson/e/B000APPS34Elon Musk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elon-Musk-Billionaire-SpaceX-Shaping-ebook/dp/B00SIDCSWY/Martin’s dog tracker: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tractive-Lightweight-waterproof-tracking-unlimited/dp/B00F8A1ZBA/

This is the first of a few solo episodes Adrian plans to produce during the year. 3 weeks into the COVID19 lockdown Adrian put together some advice for recruiters who are transitioning to being a work from home recruiter. This session will cover: How to structure your WFH day to ensure you achieve your goals and stay healthyThe options for running video interviewsDelivering a fully remote onboarding process

This episode is an interview with Sean Greathead, Director of People & Talent at Mapp (c.310 staff). It was obvious that our chat with Sean was going to be interesting after he revealed his first billable task in HR: firing two people who got into a physical fight over an apple danish! His career spans several continents and many more sectors. Since joining Mapp in 2016, he has set about helping them build a values-based business with a truly authentic approach to working with employees and customers. This ‘values-based’ ideology was at the heart of everything we spoke about during the podcast: How Mapp set about building a values-based business.Turning ‘Blue Monday’ on its headTaking back control of recruitment - how Mapp reduced their reliance on agencies to source new hires. Encouraging interviewers to rely on their instincts when making post-interview decisions, while also drilling down into those instincts to uncover evidence and lessen the risk of unconscious bias.Why staff’s high ‘social engagement’ leads to open and direct feedback.Sean’s two favourite interview questions (which Adrian has started using himself). You can connect with Sean on LinkedIn, and take a look at Mapp’s career opportunities on their website. Resources mentioned in this episode: The tool MAPP use to measure employee engagement: https://www.cultureamp.com/Favourite tech is his Apple Watch: https://www.apple.com/uk/watch/Favourite podcast (apart from ours), ‘How I Built This’: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this?t=1583101196964Sean specifically mentioned two great episodes: Belkin: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/10/722148754/belkin-international-chet-pipkinFive Guys: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/531097687/five-guys-jerry-murrell

For our third installment, we sat down with Ellie Brown. Ellie is Head of People Ops at Oodle Car Finance, a company that employs around 300 staff. Ellie grew up in Oxfordshire and left school at eighteen as so many of us do - without a set career path. She was, however, abundantly clear that she didn’t want to go to university, so it was rather ironic that she swiftly proceeded to secure an HR apprenticeship at Oxford University. She eventually moved into the tech world with Adestra before joining Oodle, who were recently awarded 14th place in the Times Best Companies to Work for 2020. As always, we covered plenty in our latest episode: How Ellie got her current job by drawing up a list of the tech companies she wanted to work with in Oxford and reaching out to their CEOs directly. How a great first interview and one highly personalised gesture convinced her that Oodle was the company for her. Using Zapier and GetFeedback to build a low-cost pulse survey to help ‘temperature check’ staff.Systemising the candidate and onboarding experience, whilst also building in time for people to personalise each person’s experience.  Cultivating a business culture built on open feedback with weekly team meetings and quarterly ‘town hall’ meetings for the entire company to ask questions of the senior leadership team. How Ellie put her HR and business skills to good use, volunteering for a charity that helps protect vulnerable children in Africa. Feel free to connect with Ellie on LinkedIn, and you can check out Oodle Car Finance’s career opportunities over on their website. Resources mentioned in this episode (lots of cool low-cost/free tech): Book given to Ellie by Oodle CEO, after 1st interview: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Moments-Certain-Experiences-Extraordinary/dp/0593079264GetFeedback is used to deliver their pulse survey every month: https://www.getfeedback.com/Ellie uses this for candidates to book in a 30-minute call: https://calendly.com/This is the tool they use in their Town Hall for staff to anonymously ask questions: https://www.mentimeter.com/Connecting HR Africa/Hope for Justice: https://hopeforjustice.org/Favourite book, Daring Greatly by Brené Brown: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Daring-Greatly-Courage-Vulnerable-Transforms/dp/1592408419 Favourite technology, Zapier: https://zapier.com/home

This episode is an interview with Carrie Daniels, Talent Acquisition Manager at Animal Friends (365 staff). Carrie grew up in South Wales, where she scoured Monmouthshire for prized rocks and dreamed of becoming a geologist. Her post-uni career then got off to a rocky (sorry) start, as she found herself knee-deep in statistics in her role as a data analyst. She then entered recruitment by managing a graduate scheme at a major law firm, before several internal promotions and a few external career moves led her to where she is now: heading up recruitment at Animal Friends. Animal Friends is a fast-growing insurance company and a big fish in the relatively small pond of Amesbury, Wiltshire (near Stonehenge). As always, we covered plenty in this episode:   Getting rid of the paper-based tests to make candidate experiences more fun.Building a great process to move quickly for high-volume contact centre recruitment.How Animal Friends’ strategies take them out into the local community - we talk heading down to local libraries and doctors surgeries to hand out flyers.Getting creative. Taking chances. Doing the obvious but often overlooked stuff - like putting a big pink banner down the side of your car park to say ‘we’re hiring’!Are CVs going to stay as relevant in the fast-paced world of recruitment we’re moving into? Feel free to connect to Carrie on LinkedIn, and if you’re interested in career opportunities with Animal Friends, just head over to their website. Resources mentioned in this episode: Favourite podcast: Desert Island Discs (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr/episodes/downloads)The In House Recruitment Live(https://inhouserecruitment.co.uk/)

This episode is an interview with Raph Frascogna, Head of Talent Acquisition from LoveHolidays (400 staff). Raph’s journey began on a council estate, where he dreamed of making it big as a hip hop DJ. Logically, then, he moved onto a law degree before entering the world of recruitment. His recruitment career has seen him join forces with a wide range of organisations from the Police Force to Thomas Cook, with a number of interim contracts also in the mix. He’s now plying his trade at Love Holidays, which is where our podcast picks up. We covered plenty of different subjects in this first episode:   Raph’s approach to using recruitment agenciesHow he revamped the Love Holidays referral schemeFailed and successful ATS implementationsVideo interviews, Glassdoor, and much more Feel free to connect to Raph on LinkedIn, and if you’re interested in career opportunities with Love Holidays, please head over to their website. Resources mentioned in this episode:  Hung Lee’s recruiting brainfood: https://www.recruitingbrainfood.com/Favourite technology: Spotify (https://www.spotify.com/uk/) & Audible (https://www.audible.co.uk/)

Welcome to episode 0 of the Sub1000 recruitment podcast, hosted by Adrian McDonagh from hireful. Every fortnight, we’ll deliver you a podcast brimming with practical tips and insights, primarily from in-house recruiters and HR professionals at Sub1000 staff organisations. In addition to the interviews, we will also run sessions with other subject specialists such as diversity consultants, brand experts, and many more. Each session will be aimed at helping recruiters (and companies) with limited budgets and resources, inspiring you to try new things.  Bravery and daring can go a long way in this world, and are important qualities for anyone hoping to make a difference for their organisation’s recruitment. So have a listen to hear some of the finest minds in our world come together - there should be plenty in there for you to chew on!