Getting Past the Recruiters

Recruitment challenges in Workforce Management are at an all-time high. That’s why we brought in James Parkin, a true expert in navigating the tricky waters of hiring and job seeking, to WFM Unfiltered. Whether you’re a job seeker frustrated with ATS filters or a hiring manager struggling to find the right talent, this episode is packed with hard-hitting truths and actionable strategies.

James dives into the controversial topic of recruiters relying too much on keywords, shedding light on how this trend is impacting the quality of hires and the overall candidate experience. Are job boards your best friend or your worst enemy? James uncovers the hidden traps and explains how to use them to your advantage.

You’ll also hear fresh perspectives on why cultural fit matters as much as technical skills and how to build a recruitment process that truly prioritizes people. James shares jaw-dropping recruitment horror stories and explores the European advantage in the WFM job market. This is not your typical recruitment talk—it’s raw, real, and transformational.

Ready to transform your approach to hiring or job seeking? Don’t miss this episode. Subscribe now to WFM Unfiltered and gain insights that could change your career trajectory.

Today's episode is brought to you by our sponsors at Aspect WFM - find out more and book a demo at Aspect

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Transcript

Irina: 0:18

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of WFM Unfiltered. For an episode and a guest that are so great and so important, and I cannot wait to travel today

James: 0:31

so Newbury, home of, yeah, home of Greenham Common, the former US nuclear air base and currently best known as the headquarters of Vodafone UK

Irina: 0:41

Okay, the most important thing, I don't know why I just remember the weapons, you know?

James: 0:46

here.

Irina: 0:47

Yeah, we're, we're on that wave right now. But James, I'm so happy that you're joining me today for that conversation. How are you? And can you please introduce yourself?

James: 0:58

Yeah. Thank you, Irina. Yeah. I'm really well today. So yeah, my name's James Parkin. I've spent about 20 years in technology recruitment and well over a decade of that working in the CX space. I'm the founder of Vodafone. My own somewhat recruitment focused business called Ellison Coast. I also host the CCCX Update, which is a LinkedIn newsletter and YouTube channel. And I'm product director for a CX training platform called fastracx as well.

Irina: 1:24

Amazing. Thank you so much. And you are the perfect person to shed a little bit of light on the topic that you feel like every single person has potentially been burned at some stage in their lives. And it is the recruitment process. And I'm not going to lie, I might come a little bit harsh on you, James,

James: 1:47

Love it. Go for it.

Irina: 1:49

So the first thing that I want to understand is, and we had a little bit of chat about this topic before we hit the recording, but the thing that is super annoying, and again, has happened to probably many people, it's we're applying for a role, and we have the experience, and we have the skills, but there is that roadblock, the first step, called the recruiter, the recruiter. that doesn't necessarily know about the industry or have any knowledge about what exactly it's needed and they're often reading between keywords and key phrases and this is how they're making their determination. So what the heck do we do with this?

James: 2:30

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think you're right. It's, it's something that a lot of people bump into, right? So let's break that down because there are two types of recruiters. There, there are ones like myself, external recruiters or independent recruiters, and then there are internal recruiters, talent acquisition teams, sometimes HR that are employed full time by the company you're applying to. The, Positions of the two types of recruiter are slightly different and therefore the way of getting them to forward your application on is slightly different in approach. So for an external recruiter, an independent recruiter like myself, we are trying to help. A number of companies with requirements. So when we're interviewing somebody, a good recruiter should be working green, should be trying to recycle applicants. So we should be thinking, okay, are you suitable for this role you've applied to? But are you also suitable for this role? for other roles that I've got open. Are you suitable just for those other companies that I work with as well? So we should be trying to run multiple channels of thought at the same time. That's why sometimes external and independent recruiters might ask questions that you think, well, why is that applicable? Because they, they should have something else going on where they're trying to help. And the reason for that is because they only get paid if they place you in a job, right? So they will try and place everyone that speaks to them. But the flip side of that, because they only get paid if they place somebody in a job, is they do have to be a little bit more protective of their time. If they have someone apply that is so obviously not suitable, the chances are they're not going to want to talk to them for very long. Because that's 20 minutes of a day they could be spending interviewing someone that they think is going to get an interview and maybe get the job, right? So, they're viewed as perhaps a little bit more selfish. But they should be thinking more broadly, trying to help you across multiple jobs and multiple companies. So the way to get past them is to appreciate that context and try and demonstrate the breadth of your experience. So, you know, say, look, yeah, I can do this for this job, but I've also got experience in A, B, C, D, E and F, because the broader you can appear, the more likely they are to spend time talking to you and therefore try and place you. With internal recruiters, talent acquisition, sometimes they'll sit within HR, within a business, they will be handling multiple roles, most likely, for the same employer. So the culture bit, the soft fit the practicalities, if you need to go to an office or something like that, are solved very quickly because it's the same every single time. It's for the same company. However, they are, they are the people that are really working on the keyword side of things because With an external recruiter, an independent recruiter, they're likely to be a technical market specialist, like myself, like CX, what I do. So I know that. If you ask me about other things, I'm not, not really my game. With an internal recruitment, talent acquisition, they will know their company very, very well, but they will probably be somewhat specialists to a shallower level in multiple areas. So they have to kind of rely on keyword matching and job search matching, right? So they, with them, you need to be more precise. And you need to look at the job description that you've applied to and say, right, there's five essentials. I need to talk about examples where I've used at least four out of five. You need to be looking at like 80 percent compatibility or more because they're having to be much more focused. They're being chased by internal hiring managers saying, where are my CVs? Come on, I need to see people. This job needs to be filled urgently. Everyone thinks their job's the most important one in the world, so they're all being chased all the time. So they just need to get CVs over very, very quickly to as many different jobs as possible. So they've got to be specific. So, it's, there's a contrast. If you're speaking to an independent recruiter, be broad, lay it all out there, talk about all your experience, be thorough, and answer anything they ask you really. With internal recruiters, be precise, be specific, and be focused on that particular job you've applied to. A really good internal recruiter might still say to you, do you know what, I've got another job I think you might be suitable for. But that relies on that company having those opportunities. So it isn't always a reflection of their quality, but I, I do know that that happens. I've seen it happen with customers that I've worked with. Cause I, you know, as external and independent recruiters, we work with talent acquisition internally. And it's that difference in our approaches that mean we can be compatible with one another and rather than competing.

Irina: 7:17

This is such a such a great level of detail and thank you so much for separating the two roles because I started thinking that actually from my personal experience as a hiring manager as well and as a sales Somebody who has been applying for different roles, the internal recruiters are the ones that the ones that I had contact with that are looking more towards a profile and saying, okay, you know what, that person doesn't necessarily have the skills, but they have great potential. Would you mind spending the time with them? Whilst with external recruiters, often I had the experience when they are like. Oh, you probably know about more about this than me. So basically what are you doing or and can you do this one? So for me also from applicant perspective, it's not a great look when I know that I need to convince someone. That has potentially no idea about the job specification, but they're making the determination of, okay, this one can go to a next stage. And that worries me right now is, you know, the situation is tough. We're dealing with bunch of layoffs and a redundancy all over the globe. And many people are desperate for a role. So we're having hundreds of applicants fighting for a single role. So, the thing that I would like to elaborate a little bit more on with the redundancies that are happening and The fact that we're having hundreds of applicants fighting for a single role. How do they get ahead of everyone else? Like, how do they make impression to you guys, to recruiters, that, and again, it fair to be judged by someone who doesn't necessarily know what to look for?

James: 9:07

No is the answer. And I think, you know, let's acknowledge a couple of things, right? Recruitment, external recruitment but external recruiters, independent recruiters can become internal recruiters and sometimes vice versa as well. So recruitment, I use that as a broad term, is mostly unregulated. Therefore anyone can become a recruiter. And yeah, one of the things that I think it needs acknowledging. It's like any industry, people join it and they want, they want to be successful. A lot of people join independent and external recruitment because they've heard stories of how much money you can earn and that you can eventually set up your own business at 25 or whatever. They see people on The Apprentice that have set up recruitment companies and this, that and the other. They're often the worst examples of the types of people in our industry. But it's difficult, right? Particularly if you're a professional with 10, 20 years experience and you're trying to convince someone that is half your age with zero commercial experience that they should. Do their job. But at the same time, as someone that's led teams and, and, and trained to manage people, it, it is just an easier, our job is easier, the older you are and the longer you've been doing it, right? Because I can say to people, 20 years, people just tend to listen. Because if you can stick in anything for that period of time, professionally, you probably know what you're doing. So that's the sort of the context for is it fair that these people can dictate whether or not you get put forward for a job. I always advocate junior recruiters, people new to the industry, seeing applicants as a partnership and Asking a lot of open questions. Tell me about this. Explain to me about that. And being honest and saying, look, you know, I've, I've been doing this a year, 18 months, talk to me about that. Because people love talking about themselves and an applicant is the best person to talk about their experience and tell that recruiter everything they need to know to get past them. And there should be a sort of set of weighing scales or a seesaw effect. That if an applicant can talk and convey their experience in such a manner, effectively, that the sort of weight of that experience just makes it inevitable that that recruiter has to submit that CV, because they, they acknowledge they are not experienced enough. To make any other decision, but that also that should be positioned with the hirer. So if it's an external recruiter or an internal recruiter, the hiring manager should be thinking what sort of job is this person doing for me? So if you're talking to a junior recruiter, The hope is that the hirer knows what they're doing really is screening.

Irina: 12:02

Mm

James: 12:02

You said hundreds of applicants, right? If you look on LinkedIn and you see a job's got 400 applicants, the chances are 10 percent are suitable, maybe less. So really, what a junior recruiter is doing is just getting rid of 90%. And that's the job they're doing. Someone like myself should be doing a lot more work and the higher I should expect that. That almost every applicant I send, they should want to interview. That's, that's one of the things I set as part of my stall, right? Is if I send you someone, there's a logic and you're going to want to interview them. That's why I've sent them to you. But that's because I've been doing it longer. So there's a little bit of a burden on the applicant to think, okay. Who am I talking to here? And can I have a look at them on LinkedIn? Okay, they've been doing the job five years. Great. They should be able to have a conversation with me. And there should be some back and forth about whether or not I'm suitable. If they're not suitable, the reason should be obvious, right? It should be, it should be really incontrovertible. An applicant should never feel like they are being, excluded from an opportunity for something they can't get their head around. You know, it should, oh, it says three years on the job description. You've only got two and a half years experience. I'm not putting you forward. You know, that sort of nonsense, right? How to, how to get past that? I mean, there's two roads to roam here, right? On the one hand, it's like I said before, look at the job description and just set your answers up in advance. to just literally lie if you have to, cause it's only the recruiter to get to the hiring manager. You know, my, my, my view is the moment an applicant speaks to the hiring manager, that's when the work really begins. Cause those are the two people that are going to work together. Those are the two people that should understand one another. That hiring manager might not be particularly technical. They might be like a strategic person or a project or program person or a salesperson, but they need to hire an engineer. So they still might be a disconnect, but they probably know a lot more than the recruiter. So there's that road. The other road is if you speak to a recruiter either externally or internally, You should know who the end hirer is. An external recruiter should absolutely say, this is the company I'm hiring on behalf of, right? For various reasons. Internally, you'll know. If you're not happy with that service, and you think you've been given short shrift, you can be a bit of a Karen, and you can just go around and go directly to the hiring manager. I would. I'd just be like, that recruiter doesn't know what they're talking about, so I'm just going to go directly to the hirer. And, you know, as a professional recruiter, I would say, I sometimes have to do that, right? I'll deal with internal recruitment and I'll send candidates forward and they'll say, no, that candidate's not suitable. And I'm thinking, you, you literally just don't know. So I'll go directly to the hirer and I'll say, this candidate's been rejected by the way. And they'll go, oh no, I want to talk to them. Okay. Then I'm going to make myself unpopular. But that, you know, that has to happen for the good of trying to fill this role and trying to find, you Sometimes you, you, you know, you have to knock a few rough edges off. So I would say the same for applicants. Right. And also I think generally speaking with LinkedIn, if you see jobs advertised on LinkedIn the easy apply button is your enemy. Don't touch it. Ignore it. It's terrible.

Irina: 15:22

Oh, that's an interesting tip. Why? Why is that?

James: 15:24

awful, because it's, applying for a job shouldn't be a click of a button. You're putting, and what's happened, when I talk about, if you see 400 applicants for a job, only 10 percent are suitable, a lot of that is because of the Easy Apply button, and the fact that there are people, That will literally just sit there on their commute or whatever, just tapping that button to apply to as many jobs as possible, because they think that volume is going to get them the next role. Or they're just kind of window shopping. You're getting lost in an amongst group of people. You don't, and if you're 399th say, The chances they're going to even get to your CV before fatigue is set in is zero. And there's often up to a hundred applicants within minutes. So you're best off finding the recruiter and going direct and sending them a message saying, I saw this role. I was, you know, I hope you can see my profile. I hope you have time for a chat. And if that doesn't work, work out who the hiring manager is. And, you know, you can probably do that because it might say reporting into or part of this department. Yeah, it will use language like that and you'll be able to fathom who it is. And so I saw your company's advertising this. There's 400 plus applicants. I know that it's going to take days of screening. I just hope you have five minutes. Have a quick chat. Get on that human's radar. Get away from LinkedIn, Easy Apply and the crowd, right? Make yourself stand out. And, and then you're circumventing some of those challenges that we, we talked about.

Irina: 16:54

This is such a great tip because it never occurred to me. I myself have used in the past the Easy Apply button and I was like, Oh, you know what? This will share my profile. Probably it's a good thing because then somebody is going to go to my profile. To be honest, nobody has ever gone to my profile from the Easy Apply buttons that I have used. But since we're on the LinkedIn topic, there's another thing, and I'm going to use specifically WFM as an example, because this really annoys me, and I kind of think that it's potentially the same with other roles in industries, is when especially external recruiters are publishing a job ad, right, and you have those skills for the role. I can tell you my entire background is in all the different aspects of workforce management, and I'm lucky if I can catch one of those skills because they make no sense. Zero sense to this role. And I'm not really sure how LinkedIn works, but if a recruiter sees that I'm an applicant and I'm matching like zero of those skills that they have themselves published, I stand no chance. Literally no chance.

James: 18:06

Yeah that sort of coding type system. So, I mean, let's look at it another way. Myself, because I talk about a lot of the things that I recruit for, if I look at a CX job that I cannot do, It tells me I might be 50, 60% suitable because I've talked about the things that I recruit for. So, you know, it, it's, if I was a mechanic and I said, I, you know, I fix Land Rovers, it doesn't mean I'm a Land Rover, but that's, you know, that's, that's the simple logic behind it, right? So I, I think LinkedIn as a job board is really flawed for a number of reasons. And, and that's one of them as well as easy apply. This is why I generally would advocate going direct to humans. With external recruiters, independent recruiters, if they're advertising on LinkedIn, because they are paying probably a lot more to post that advert than an internal recruiter is and they'll be more aware of the commercial aspects of it. They are far more likely to want to try and get something from each applicant. So they're probably going to want to speak to you. Again, like I said, going back to earlier on, to see if you're suitable for something else. The challenge just, you know, speaking to your WFM community, the number of specific WFM roles advertised is very small. And the simple reason for that is people don't really understand it. And yeah, if you're looking at subcategories within contact center technologies and CX in general people don't really understand it. And if it costs you a thousand pounds to post an advert on LinkedIn, and you say, I want a WFM, you know, solutions consultant, LinkedIn will come back and it will go, Ooh, we don't have a lot of people like that on LinkedIn. So it'll say, hmm, you might not get a lot of response. I'll tell you what would be better, just post for Genesis Consultant, because then they know you're going to get loads of applicants. And what LinkedIn wants to do is say that thousand pounds you spent resulted in 400 profiles.

Irina: 20:08

Right.

James: 20:09

Yeah, but you're trying to tell me to advertise something I don't want. And, and all the job boards do this, right? REED do this as well. Total Jobs do this as well. So this is why you'll sometimes see adverts that don't quite make sense. And they might be called like Genesys Consultant, but then it'll be all WFM underneath. And you think, well, that, what is it you really want me to do? Well, it's because the job board is trying to push you towards something. So you get value for money, ROI, but you're not really, because it's, and I have this argument with job board people when they try and sell me their services. CV library is brilliant for this. Oh, we've got a billion CVs. Okay, go search for Genesis Solution Consultant, Genesis Cloud, da da da da da. And they go, Oh. Have you got another search we can do? No. Cause that's the only way you'd add value. Oh, we've only got 35 CVs. Yeah, I know. And I know all of them as well. So go away, leave me alone for another year, please. But they're all, they're all at it, right? They're all at it. And I think also because people have now become more protective of their own data and they know the value of it. They're less likely to be uploading their CVs just randomly to these job boards, which means their use cases is a lot narrower than it used to be. LinkedIn's really become the hub for it. And LinkedIn's trying to become all things to all people, short form stories and games. But so it really is becoming quite difficult. So I think you have to take it back to the human and just say, look, if I see, you know a person out there that works within my space, like a recruiter. Let's make sure I have a chat with them. And you know, there were, there are a few of me out there. Some really good people that do just CX stuff. And I'd say go talk to all of them. As external recruiters, we'll want to talk to you because we'll, we'll think, okay, are you suitable for any one of the companies that I work with or the jobs I'm With internal recruiters. They're not going to have quite so much time to spare to have those, I guess, kind of luxury conversations because they're under a lot of pressure from hiring managers, but it's the hiring managers that I'd go after. I would identify companies that you want to work for, that you've come across, that you've heard about, you've got a good view of, and I would approach the right people in that business and I'd say, look, I'm looking right now, or I'm going to be looking in the next few months. Can we have a 10 minute chat? People will do it. People will do it. I see it all the time. So ignore job adverts and LinkedIn, Easy Apply, and yeah, all that kind of stuff. You'll still have to go back to the recruiter after you spoke to the manager, but you'll be coming with a bit of a referral. So you'll probably, you'll sort of just skip that stage straight back again. But that, that's the way that it works, you know, and that's because that, and I know that because that's how I conduct my business is person to person. I try and avoid portals and processes and systems as much as possible because they're impersonal and the logic behind them is flawed.

Irina: 23:08

So that, that's very interesting point and I was starting to wonder whether, for sure, there is a difference actually between you having your own business and being external recruiter that's a part of a company because there, it's incoming, my rent, and I'm sure I speak for a lot of people that the thing that. Gives me the ick. Honestly, I'm getting rash all over my body right now. Talking about it is, first of all, when somebody approaches you that clearly has not even looked at your, let's use LinkedIn profile, any, suggesting you something that's offensive. For example, many of times, even I'm getting, yeah, you know what, we think that you might be a fit for that junior role that you don't need to have any experience. I'm like, thank you. I'm going to consider that. Completely different industries. You're talking to an external recruiter, for example, and they ghost you and then you never hear from them again. Or if you're lucky, you're getting, Oh, thank you. We have decided to proceed with another candidate and we already have someone in mind, blah, blah, blah. And on the same day, they republish that app.

James: 24:20

Yeah. yeah,

Irina: 24:21

yeah, and those are very typical examples. And the thing that freaking annoys me is that, Whenever we apply for a job, we're more often in a vulnerable position. So the least you can do is be a little bit more transparent and honest. That's, that's the least. So you set expectations. You know, I remember one time, I think I was probably early twenties. I was applying for a job and I heard nothing. And I got the rejection email one year later. for that role. One year later, how is that freaking possible? And my question is, why is that person not fired? Because somebody who does that, I'm sorry, it's not a good suit for that specific role. So what, what do you say about all of this, James?

James: 25:09

So, yeah, going back to what you said, is it different when you run your own business versus working for an organization as an external recruiter? Yes. And the big reason why, and the core reason as to why all those things you talked about there happen is KPIs or metrics. If, so to justify their job when they are junior, recruiters cannot always be measured on placing people, especially in a market like the last year where there weren't as many jobs out there. They will be targeted on other things. And. If you are targeting someone on a KPI or a metric, you are inherently creating the behavior around volume, right? I want you to do 5 of this, while some smart aleck is always going to do 10 or 15 and go, look how good I am. However, not more isn't always better. And, If you, you can only, here's some recruitment cliches for you, you can only expect what you inspect. So time on the phone will be one, right? People will say, I expect you to spend, the classic in my day was two hours a day outgoing on the phone. So people used to dial the speaking clock here in the UK and they used to just leave the phone slightly off the ringer and they'd get 10 15 minutes that way. Then it comes to the point of people looking at call logs and saying, well, you dialed that number two or three times in the day, so why did you phone them that many times? Are you just trying to get your call times up? Is it your mum? You know, and it's like, no, you know, you have to call that candidate, then call them back. Then you phoned them up with a question that you had or whatever. And it starts to become so granular and pressurized. These people will do just anything to hit those targets to justify their job. You then layer on systems, applicant tracking systems, CRMs, that have AI functionality that will create email campaigns for them to automate this, that will add in text messages and everything else. And now these recruiters can seemingly manage much more volume by doing those things. And then, you know, annually they might go back around and go, Oh, have you got any light? Have you got any jobs open that actually you should have closed down six months ago, eight months ago, but you just haven't done your admin, you haven't kept your system up to date? Oh yeah, that triggers the email that you get. Cause I've just closed that job because of volume, because they can't keep on top of it, because they're not tasked on the right things. And it's a short term game. And the argument will be from external recruitment businesses, it's a volume game. We'll hire 10 juniors and only two of them will be any good. So we have to set the bar up here to see who's going to do the work. And then eight of them will drop out because they aren't suitable. And the ones you're bumping into are the ones that aren't suitable. That's the problem. If the whole game is geared towards volume, you're getting this, and it's, you know, the recruitment industry has a reputational problem and has done for more than two decades, right? And it because of the way that it's set up. And that's why that I think there are so many people like myself that go and set up our own things, especially around when you start getting married and having families and you are experienced enough where you say enough is enough. I'm not doing that anymore. I don't like it. It doesn't work because you start to change your focus away from the company you work for and managing up in your business and you turn it outwards to the customers. And you say, well, what, what actually would the customers want? They really want single point of contact. They really want an understanding of what's going on, why they're not seeing applicants or why they are seeing applicants, why everyone seems to be over budget, why no one's got the right experience, why they're all in a different location why offers are being turned down, why people aren't turning up for interviews. They want to understand all these things. And that's where the consultant bit in a recruitment consultant's job title comes in. All that takes time, and it's not going to hit KPIs. You're not sending out CVs, you're not adding jobs, you're not adding data to the database, you're not making, well, you might be making phone calls, but you're, it just takes time. And, and maybe, you know, and you could see people lose their job because of that in a recruitment business, because they're not doing the things they're asked to do, but they're doing the right things. And if you're going to build, Recruiters are listening to this. If you're going to build a business, if you're really interested in doing this forever. Or maybe you think you are and you're going to build a business that's going to survive. You have to start building reputation from now. And I think that goes back to asking applicants open questions and just being interested and being curious, right. And wanting to learn and then building that into your approach to doing things. How you post on LinkedIn, how you, you know, go out and meet people and engage with them. Anything else you do for the community you're trying to work with within, within a recruitment capacity. Make all of it genuine, make all of it driven by purpose, and in time, it will become easier and you will get there. If that means you have to move companies, cause you work for a company that's crap, and they just want you to make a thousand phone calls a day, cause that's, they think that's how it works, then, except you're going to be there for 18 months, and then you're going to get fired, but that's fine, cause you can go to another company, and carry on doing what you're doing. You know, build your path. Unfortunately, from an individual perspective, and something you might not realize, they're a rec to recs, right? So they're recruitment companies that hire recruiters for recruitment companies. And they do exactly the same things that external recruiters do. So I get emails from people that I know, you know, who know I'm never going to hire anyone, right? Ellison Coast is me, trying to sell me candidates. And I'm like, you, this is automated. You've just hit this on your system and I'm on that list. So REC to RECs do exactly the same thing, knowing they're going to get, you know, snarky responses back. Oh, well done. Clap, clap. You know, even within their own field, right? So this goes all the way back to what I said earlier about it being largely an unregulated industry, and therefore the quality can be very, very poor. What I would say is in Europe, Recruitment is a much more mature industry. And in some countries, France, Germany the Netherlands as well less so the UK than those, it is, it is tighter in terms of how it works. Standards are higher when you, in comparison to America, right? It, you try working in North America and the standard of recruitment there, external recruitment there is Awful. It is dreadful. So, you know, we're somewhat better off here in Europe, at least than they are in North America, if that, if that warms you at all.

Irina: 32:01

Well, I, I don't know how to feel about it. I don't know about North America, but the things that I have seen exactly from those countries that you mentioned is I mean, beyond, and that was actually my, my next question. And I don't want to be seen as trashing recruiters because equally so I have worked with brilliant recruiters that are doing follow ups that are treating me like I'm their teammate, like, it's a partnership, but those are so few and far in between that it's like an exception, unfortunately. And I have noticed one more trend, and that trend is oh gosh, I'm going there. Outsourcing the external recruitment. The different locations that, honestly, it does not make any sense. First of all, from a cultural perspective, the conversations are like, it just doesn't work. Second of all, communication can be very difficult. And then I'm wondering what exactly is the expectation there? Because obviously it cannot lead or very rarely can lead to any kind of quality job being done, but it is what's happening. So my question for you would be is it a good idea to outsource your recruitment process for another country?

James: 33:24

Depends on the country. And it depends on, it depends on the country and it depends on your, as a, as a, as a hiring business, if you're the end customer, it depends on your medium, depending on the contract length that you've got with that outsourcer. It depends on the The specifics of the projects you're trying to hire for, and the medium to long term goals of your business. So, if you are planning on setting up contact centres in the Philippines or in India, and outsourcing some external recruitment now, builds that relationship, gets processes and systems in place, so that when you do that, you can hit the ground running with volume, then yeah, it makes sense to do it in those countries. If you are planning on only ever recruiting in Europe, And you need niche personnel. No, no, it doesn't make any sense at all. There are some exceptions to this, right? And I think, you know, South Africa is a good example where I'm seeing some companies outsource recruitment too. You've got European friendly time zones, obviously English being the language of business there, and in a fair number of European countries. But again, it depends on where you're hiring, right? If you're hiring in France, English, I mean, I'm no use to you, right? English speaking is not the way forward. So maybe you want to look at some North African countries where, again, it's native. But again, there are differences in how they speak French. And that's noticed, right? You do need a cultural awareness as well. Like, you know, recruitment processes in Germany and applicant, individuals being aware of their own data protection in Germany is like far higher than say here in the UK, for example. So you need people that understand that. Recruitment is recruitment, but how you apply the tools of that job vary over geographies and cultures, especially if you're hiring people that have only ever worked in that country. And that is, that is your intention. So it's much more complex than does it work or doesn't it. And it's And I, I think, you know, often it comes down to costs and that that's the driver, right? But the reality is the reputational damage you can do to your business if you get it wrong. And that's the same, by the way, if you work with a third party external recruiter here in the uk, that's just crap, right? The reput that I tend to say to customers, I'm your shop window, right? I might be the first point of contact with an individual that your business ever has. They might not know your company. I'm the first person to say its name. I've got to be able to talk about your business and represent it professionally. Be polite, be professional. Even if you're not suitable for the role, you should still leave thinking, well, he was a nice enough chap. Better luck next time, right? Because, you know, that's, I'm trying to do a job within a niche vertical. If you're going to a company where they've got, you know, a hundred resourcing agents and they work for, it's like a contact center BPO, right? You know, you've got to accept there's a difference and are you willing to tolerate that difference and what is the risk of that difference in terms of reputational damage? Because if they're saying, well, we've got volume, great. If one person does something wrong, they've maybe spoken to 20 candidates in a day and got it wrong. If 100 people are getting the same thing wrong and they're all speaking to 20 candidates a day and you don't pick that up for a week, that role that you're recruiting for has now become a lot harder because, you know, it's a customer experience. Right, that's the irony of our sector, right? Recruitment is a customer experience. The whole process from myself through to the hiring company, and you've got to think of it like that. What sort of customer experience do you want your most valuable asset, which is your people, your employees, your team members, to have? Should it reflect the values and the standard of your business? If so, think about that when you're thinking about offshoring. And does it align? If you wouldn't offshore part of your end customer facing CX, I would, bearing in mind also the people you're hiring may well also be your customers if you weren't, depending on your sector, right? You know, don't, don't offshore part of your recruitment, but it, but it can make a lot of sense in some cases. If it's just not purely driven by cost.

Irina: 37:54

Yeah. I, this is what I wanted to mention. And again, I don't want to be seen like we're completely trash talking offshoring cause this is not the case. It has to make sense. It absolutely has to make sense. If time zones cannot be met, if there is completely cultural misalignment, if, if, if just, It has to have some kind of criteria that are helpful for the business, because I've been in a situation where literally I start resenting this business because my first interaction is with something that Honestly, it shocks me. So then I'm starting to think if this is your, your window shopping, as you say, what is behind it? Like, oh my God, I would like to stay away from this because probably it's actually worse behind the window. Okay, so I think we covered a lot, a lot of positive stuff as well, and negative for certain, but thank you so much for giving so many tips. The other thing that I wanted to, to check with you is, and you mentioned quite a lot of things Times Reputation, and I certainly know of you, Way before we actually started talking because of people who you have helped place in companies that I have worked with.

James: 39:12

Yeah,

Irina: 39:12

Well, I, I want to check with you. Maybe final advice if somebody is to come to you for, for advice or for a job or something, first of all, what kind of roles are you helping people with? Second of all, what would be the, the best approach to do that?

James: 39:30

yeah, so if it's general advice on things like careers or LinkedIn, they can start off by checking out the YouTube channel, the CCCX update, cause over the few years that's been running, I've recorded a lot of content on there and they might find that just a nice easy way to get started. Grab some convenient information, but yeah, feel free to get in touch with me on LinkedIn, right? James Parkin you'll find me on there or Ellison Coast, which is my business. You can find me that way as well on LinkedIn and just ping me a message, right? I'm happy to have a chat with, with anybody. And it's all within the CX field, right. So the way I sort of define it is if a customer requires somebody that has specific knowledge of CX, whether that be the market, products, technology, whatever the role, then I can probably help. So whether that be marketing, legal. Finance, HR, obviously professional services, sales, technical product, R& D, everything, training. Great. If it's something that doesn't really require knowledge of our sector, then maybe I can help. I'm probably not your best bet. So if you think, hey, I've got specific CX knowledge, I'm going to be looking for a role in 2025. and you want some advice you just want a conversation, then yeah, reach out to me on LinkedIn, James Parkin, or find me through Ellison Coast, and I'll be more than happy to have a chat.

Irina: 40:56

Thank you so much for this conversation and for the amazing. So you're welcome anytime on the show and I can't wait to chat soon again.

James: 41:06

thank you very much.