We recruit top talent for our clients.
There, I've said the dirty word. Recruiter.
It is a word that's right up there with car salesperson (been one of those also), estate agent (also sadly been one of those)* and lawyer (not been one of these fortunately).
Straight out of university I imported luxury cars into the UK (p.s. this is not me!)
Yes I worked at Foxtons, yes I had a Foxtons mini and no this wasn't my one!
I didn't intend on becoming a recruiter, it started by helping a client out initially at the end of 2021...
"Nick you know the industry, you've built and scaled a business and teams in this space and we're struggling to get value out of the recruiters. Why don't you help?"
How hard can it be, I thought. Turns out it wasn't at all.
I don't look or act like a recruiter, so I can reach talent that others simply can't. Not only that, I could sell my clients' business really well. So I found someone, he loved the opportunity, was hired (he is still there today), and with that I realised there is a problem to fix. It’s the industry that needs transformation, and that's what got me interested.
I realised that my experience of recruiters (generally) has been a process I've always had to endure. There are exceptions, Rob Case, who took me seriously from the first call, even though at the time I was sitting in my paddling pool drinking champagne (see * for my excuse, and it was hot). He placed me into Inca Software, has hired for me since and is a friend today.
But generally, recruitment is a transaction, it's not a partnership and definitely not a strategic one, where they actually are interested, motivated (and capable), of helping you scale your business in the long term.
You'll be familiar with the following:
Candidates being presented that aren't relevant
Pushed to choose a candidate as they are 'wanted elsewhere'
All candidates presented are immediately available (desperate?)
You're not sure if you trust what the recruiter is telling you (knowing they just want to make the placement)
You're not sure if you're interviewing correctly for competency and fit or asking the right questions
You're not sure you're making the right decisions on hires
It is what frustrated me as founder and a hiring manager. So much so at Sempre I hired our own recruiter, embedded them into the sales team and built out a large database so I wouldn't have to deal with recruiters again (Rob excepted). Except that it didn't really work.
Back to today, following that first hire I helped with, we've been sought out by others again and again to help. 'I' is now 'we' and we've blended our deep industry know-how, with recruiting excellence, which has enabled us to reach further, faster, and better build and nurture our 'career-curious' candidate base.
We're targeting everything that's wrong with the industry, and trying to do what is right. Not only do we work extremely hard head hunting every single role we work on, we're constantly evolving and improving our outreach strategies. We look into the future and warm up people in advance of roles going live. We deliver a multi-stage assessment and interview process, which means that by the time you get recommended a candidate by us, you're going to want to meet them.
We're not 100% perfect, but we're getting pretty darn close. And we've gone further than just head hunting, we also deliver:
Custom resourcing programmes
Where your reputation is predicated on delivery and reputational damage sets in with your inability to implement, we provide the delivery elasticity you need to flex up and down via custom-built training and secondment programmes.
Strategic resourcing
If you don't know exactly what or who you need, you aren't confident in your interview/onboarding/development capabilities or you just don't have the time, then you've failed before you've begun.
We cover the entire spectrum of the process right from the very start - designing the role with you as well as what good looks like, owning the entire process through to building onboarding and development programmes.
Talent Strategy
We deliver a comprehensive programme that trains you on (and implements) best-in-class talent processes, systems and capabilities.
This ensures you programmatically hire the best, every time, become a great company to work for and build a talent pool that makes people like us (recruiters, urgh, I've said it again) redundant.
Sales as a service
We drive up opportunities in your business by having the conversations you don't or can't have.
So if any of this resonates, and if you want a team who can:
Deeply understand your business and your culture
Sell your business better than you
Comprehensively head hunt and leave no stone unturned
Access candidates that no-one else can
Land extremely high quality candidates
Genuinely help you move the needle forward
Then we should talk.
At very least, we'll give you insight into how our talent advisory practice works with clients and what learnings you can take from that to help transform your business.
This post was written by Nick Patrick, Founder of Vicit.
* In my defence when I was young I thought I was cool, so I wanted to buy fast cars and property - which I did (without being cool)!
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