Can you give us a brief overview of your role?
My role is a dual role really. I recruit internally, building new teams and bringing on new talent; whether that is someone brand new to recruitment or senior recruiters who are joining the team. With that I’ll also be delivering training to the new guys who come on board. So I’m responsible for learning and development as well.
What led you to a career in recruitment in the first place?
I sort of fell into it way back in 2005. Which is how a lot of people I know also got started in recruitment.
I started in IT recruitment, and I’ve always recruited in IT, technical engineering and architecture. For the past two years I’ve been doing rec-to-rec, which means I recruit recruiters. I would build teams of Recruitment Managers, and Consultants for my Clients, and it’s been a pretty busy couple of years since the pandemic! This has led me to now, where I’ll be bringing on recruiters for Dynamic.
I’ve worked in recruitment for 17 years now, so it’s good to be in a position now to pass on that experience to someone who’s just starting their career. Being able to provide them with real life stories and experience is something I’m looking forward to.
So you’ve worked in recruitment for over 15 years. What’s your advice for someone just starting out?
First, I’d make sure to develop a good network of contacts, whatever industry you join. Whether that’s people with a lot of knowledge and experience in recruitment or other people like yourself, who are just starting out in their career.
For example, when I started working in architecture, I built up a big pipeline of architects and get to know the market through the candidates. Then, I would “take them to market”. They would be my candidates, and then become clients, and sometimes they’d be friends by the end. Building relationships is key in recruitment, and it’s a vital skill to have. Just make sure you’re honest and transparent.
For someone considering a career in recruitment, it’s honestly a great career. You don’t need a degree or years of studying and experience to get started. When you look at how long and hard people have to study to become a doctor for example: You can build a successful career without that.
What led you to Dynamic?
What I wanted to do was to be able to use the experience I had for finding recruitment consultants for my clients, but to use that to bring in recruiters for a company I work for. Because you get to see the consultants you bring on develop and grow into successful consultants and have successful careers. You have a sense of pride because you’re watching someone you bring into the team, and help them grow.
That was something I never got to experience when I was working with my clients. I’d keep in touch and check up on how they were fitting in, but all I would hear was “they’re doing really well”, but you don’t see it.
This is also the next step for me in my career, to becoming a recruitment trainer and developer.
What are you looking forward to in your new job?
It would be helping people get started in recruitment, or even to bring on people who already have experience, and help them flourish and have successful careers. That’s what I want to do.
Also as a part of this, to be a part of the company and to help it grow. The more successful teams we can build for the company, the better. It’s all about growth for me. We’re moving into our new office soon, (pictured below) so that will give us even more opportunities to grow the business.
If you could meet anyone, who would it be and why?
Bill Shankly. For what he did for building Liverpool football club, but also because he was a socialist in the sense that if we all work hard together, we all reap the rewards. He had some really interesting views.
Bill built Liverpool football club from nothing, built the training rooms, the toilets. He even painted them himself you know! He really gave it his all, and built a bastion of a club. But he had that attitude to everything. Once he said that if he was going to be a binman, he was going to be the best binman in the world. And I just think that’s a great attitude.
Can you tell us 3 interesting facts about yourself?
- Way back in 2000, I had a bit of an altercation with Harrison Ford. I just happened to be in a bar with him in New York and I asked him for a photo. He took a bit of an exception to it and we ended up having an argument.
- I also fought competitively, doing MMA for 4 years up until 2013. I broke my ankle playing football and wanted to get fit again after that healed. But then I ended up really enjoying it. I had to give it up eventually though. When you get to your late 30’s, you don’t really want to be getting punched in the head as much…
- I can run backwards incredibly fast. I realised when I played football, and you have to run backwards, I was surprisingly fast! It’s quite a special skill.
At Dynamic we’re always looking for new members to join our growing team. If you’re ready to get started in your career, contact us here to find out if you’ve got what it takes. Or apply directly to our open recruitment consultant position here.