Podcast Transcript

[00:36:15] Sean Steele: Welcome back to our regular listeners and to anyone joining us for the first time, we are thrilled to have you. My guest this week is Roheel Ahmad, the managing partner at Forsyth Barnes, a UK-based Talent Recruitment business. Correct me if I explain this the wrong way, Roheel, but UK-based Talent and Recruitment Business, for mid to executive level recruitment where you mix relationship building with investments in AI and tech to help attract the right talent for businesses. How close is that? Am I missing key components there?

[00:01:06] Roheel Ahmad: Nailed it to the point where it might just have to nick it from you.

[00:01:10] Sean Steele: Fantastic. Stick that into ChatGPT. It'll give you 25 new versions.

[00:01:15] Roheel Ahmad: Exactly. Spot on.

[00:01:16] Sean Steele: How are you today, mate? Well, and actually when I say that and I say today, but that means a ridiculous early hour of Friday morning because for you it is 00:30 in the morning, half past 12 at night. And we tried to find other times to fit life, but you've got kids, we couldn't quite get it to work. So, thank you very much for being up late at night for me, mate.

[00:01:40] Roheel Ahmad: No, not a problem. I was just saying before, quite often worked New York hours anyway, so I am kind of trying to trick myself to say it's actually 07:30 Eastern right now, or 04:30 West Coast, so yeah.

[00:01:53] Sean Steele: Perfect. Yeah. We do the work when it's there. Well look, I guess, context for today for our audience, you know, a lot of our audience at ScaleHQ and this, the audience of this podcast, but also our clients are in that sort of 2 to 20 mill range. And therefore, at some point they end up hiring their first general manager or first few key senior roles, maybe marketing or ops or sales or finance. And I don't know, fair to say, it seems sort of, you know, harder than ever for people to find and secure top talent, especially when they're smaller because top talent of course, always have and always will have lots of choice. But I'm keen to understand, given you spend so much time in your business, helping businesses find these people, the mistakes you see them make and the tips and experience you can share to help them improve the way they attract and recruit. And also, retain and set these roles up for success. Because I expect you get to see plenty of roles start, but also, get the deeper insight as to why they don't continue or they fail on the other side, and given AI enabled technology is changing so quickly, the tools that are used in the process of recruitment are clearly changing. I'd love to hear more about that from you today. Does that sound like a good setup for today?

[00:03:07] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah. Anywhere that can help and kind of give advice from what we're seeing in the marketplace. A 100%.

[00:03:11] Sean Steele: Beautiful. Why don't we start with Forsyth Barnes? Can you gimme like a brief sort of one to two minute history of your career and how you ended up as managing partner at Forsyth Barnes?

[00:03:21] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah, so co-Founded, myself and my business partner, Scott. We've worked with each other since about 2010 now. So, good number of years spent together for probably about the first seven, eight years of that. Probably spent more time with Scott than he did with his own wife. So, we've gotten to know each other pretty well in all of that as well. Luckily, we were kind of working quite close together of those years as well. He did a lot of the exec search piece. I did a lot of the interim projects at the very beginning with insurance firms across the UK and European markets, and was putting in sort of transformational and tech transformational teams in insurance businesses across the piece as well. From there, we got a strong sense of we could do it better than those that we were working for. And then no disrespect to them at all, but it was much of the same that had kind of come before us and before them. There wasn't too much appetite to drive innovation or change in the industry as well. So, we backed ourselves, we backed our ambition and our ability to go and start something for ourselves, hence the birth of FB. And we're now in our eighth year, so going great guns for what we offer for you.

[00:04:28] Sean Steele: Can you just give us a sense of the size of the business so people understand the scale of Forsyth Barnes?

[00:04:33] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah, so we're pushing eight people globally. Got offices in London and Nottingham in the UK and New York with a view to have West Coast set ups. So, ideally somewhere like in LA, pretty shortly, and then taking things in the other direction. We're looking at somewhere like a Dubai, but then be a get to basically like Australia, New Zealand, far East, and so on as well. So, yeah.

[00:05:00] Sean Steele: Well, that's fantastic because if you can get an APAC region set up and you can get the West Coast set up, then you don't have to sleep at all and you can just do a full-time hour shift, every day.

[00:05:09] Roheel Ahmad: And yeah, if I could spend my time flying around the world and just always chasing the sun, then hopefully I'll make it up for lack of sleep.

[00:05:17] Sean Steele: I can see from the website and from our early conversations that clearly your attempt to disrupt this space is a really core focus of the business and the brand and your positioning. Talk to me about the disruption and also what role technology plays in that.

[00:05:34] Roheel Ahmad: So, I'd say one of the biggest things that we are looking at is, traditionally, even us as a business when we first started, right? What was our job there? It was, we build a relationship with a client, we take on a requirement and we end up finding someone for that particular role and so on, right? But now I look at what we do so much more than that. So, one of the first things, and actually pretty topical for some of the bits that you mentioned there was. What do we do to add extra value to our clients that we work with when they are competing against those big global corporates or those that have been around in a certain industry for a number of years and so on as well. So, now I'm looking at a lot of things like how are we developing their EVP - Employee Value Proposition in the marketplace? How are we position them in the marketplace? How are we marketing them? Because if you look at our industry whilst we work with these amazing, I mean, we operate in a FinTech space in the, what we call Etel - Online Retail E-Com type space and sports space. These are three sectors which have changed immensely over the last 5-10 years. And yet when I look at our sector, and I think; ‘Cool, how do my competition advertise jobs? Well, it used to be a job ad that was put in the newspaper and then that went online. And now typically it is an Indeed or a LinkedIn and a few job boards, but it's still the same thing. What's really changed over the last sort of 10, 20, 30 years and that?’ And it's a paragraph on the business and a paragraph on the roll and a few bullet points and then summarised almost like a, “please don't bother replying unless you've got…” these types of things. Nothing's changed. So, how is that business being marketed in a different way in an age now where social media is taken off and is a whole industry where AI is now taking off and so on as well. So, we're looking at how we create digital content on those social media platforms and actually bring businesses to life through that digital content instead of just the same or job as, and that's just one way that we look familiar as well.

[00:07:35] Sean Steele: I think that is so on the money, you know, people who listen to this podcast will have heard us interview the Nudge Group. You may not have heard with them, but they fundamentally, they're an Australian-based, well Australian startup, probably four years ago. grew to 2 million in the first two years fundamentally because they were doing exactly that. They were like, the narrative, you guys are small businesses, you're competing with the big guys. No one's telling your story. So, they've built a whole video production business, podcast. They've got a big database and so they're about how do I extract that story and attach these people to your narrative and to the Founder and to their vision because actually, you're going to have to have some heart attached to this. They're not just looking for a job. If they're top talent, they've got lots of options. It's going to have to be over and above. Yeah. I think that's super on point. One of the things that you mentioned that I could see in your positioning was this, commitment to diversity and that you had an average sort of diverse shortlist in 2022 of 41%. How do you ensure diversity in a recruitment process?

[00:08:33] Roheel Ahmad: So, I think the very first thing is just actually having the mindset and the commitment to do so, like a general approach to championing diversity in the marketplace. And it's something that is quite often, especially within the tech type of markets and even within sports, how many senior leaders and then senior leaders within tech, you really find in the sporting fields, not too many. So, the very first thing is a mindset and the approach of; right, actually we can champion it and we take the pride in champion that in the first place. And then from there it's a case of; we are developing our networks like consistently day in, day out, and looking for those people who either in their industry right now in some form capacity and how can we elevate them. All looking at those who are possibly outside of the current industry, but have got good stories to tell, good ability, good skills, and so on that can actually add something in. And testament to those, I'd say over the last few years, there's a greater appetite now from those type of industries that we work in where they're looking for talent and skills and ideas from other sectors. And we're seeing that a lot more. When you look at the FinTech world, they're taking more people from retail than they ever have done because they're looking at customer retention, where in the past they never really thought about that as much. So, I'd say that's probably one of the very first things in there as well. And then we partner with other businesses of the firms who have a real specialist area in those nature as well. So, whether it is ethnic diversity, sexual diversity, et cetera in there as well, whereas making sure that we're trying to champion it and we are building those partnerships at the same time, so have greater access to people.

[00:10:05] Sean Steele: Got it. Yeah. I love that idea of thinking about who you are trying to become and actually, as a result of who you want to be in three years’ time. Okay, not only are you looking for people either that you are going to grow up with you and that you are willing to back and haven't got that experience or that have been there before and are going to lead you through the process, but actually, if you're trying to become somebody different, you are going to step over certain kinds of interactions with customers. There's going to be a certain problem that you're trying to solve. And to your point, that doesn't…I remember for example, in education, there's only so many education salespeople around who've actually sold courses and I found the best salespeople and I really created a lot of success in hiring people out of fitness chains. You know, people who had some good sales training, but they knew that actually their biggest challenge was helping somebody overcome the confidence barriers, was actually a big part of the gym, sort of sales. It was actually about the psychology of that customer, not about the industry that they grew up in and that psychology I needed in education. So, yeah, I can really resonate with that. In your experience, so, you know, I work with a lot of Founders who are often making this kind of first senior hire, and they're really keen, of course, not to get it wrong and some just go off and do it themselves. And some ask for our help, which is fine either way, but what sorts of mistakes, what are like some of the key common mistakes that you see when people are making that first hire and how can they avoid those?

[00:11:33] Roheel Ahmad: There's a whole host here.

[00:11:34] Sean Steele: You're probably going through like mentally, like three A4 pages, going; okay.

[00:11:38] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah. Pretty much.

[00:11:39] Sean Steele: What are the big ones?

[00:11:42] Roheel Ahmad: I do not, I'd even say it starts before you even start hiring. So, the very first thing is being clear in your own mind. What do you want the person to do? Getting that idea of what it is out of your own head and onto paper. And making sure that, A) There's a clear opportunity for someone in the first place. And then when you've got that, is there a proper role there? Have you fleshed it out? Is there that clear understanding? Because until you are clear about it yourself, how can you put that in front of anybody? And how can they be clear about what this role is when you don't even have that clarity yourself? So, I think that's probably one of the very first things is get it out of your own head and make sure that there is a clear role profile, there's a clear need. Is there progression within that role? What does that look like? Is there growth within a department, a team size, et cetera, et cetera in there as well. So, it's making sure you've kind of planned all of that to say, actually, yeah, there's a true role here in the first place. I think some of the other key mistakes in there are the actual hiring process itself. Where people sometimes with best intentions, but operate in such a slow process that they'll lose the best talent or their preferred talent, and then out of desperation will end up taking sort of third, fourth, fifth choice in a process. By nature, if they're your third, fourth, fifth choice, you're probably not as bought into them as you were your first and second. And then by nature they're probably on the balance of probability, not likely to have a higher chance of working out and success for you in the first place

[00:13:12] Sean Steele: Is that because they usually haven't thought about, like they've put in the effort maybe to think about the role and getting applicants in, but then they actually haven't thought about the second and third, you know, or how many stages they're going to have in their process, how quickly they're going to put them through and how they set that up and so they actually burn time almost doing that live? Is that part of the issue there?

[00:13:33] Roheel Ahmad: I don't think it's necessary thought about. I think there's a lack of understanding across sectors from people at the moment of just how important a process is. That is an individual's window into your business, and they have no other window, right? That's your shop front. So, if they're looking at that and it's a slow, laborious, your decision making is the same as well. To them, they're looking at thinking, is this synonymous with a culture here? Is this what I'm going to experience when we are trying to go after a market opportunity if I can spot something or if, if we're trying to pursue something, which naturally puts people off. And then your competition, who are more slick at this, who do understand just how important the process is, are operating at faster speed as well. So, money, and that element of it is always important. Don't get me wrong. I don't think you're going to get too many people for free, but we'd probably say one of the second most important parts in hiring your preferred talent is actually the process itself.

[00:14:33] Sean Steele: Yeah.

[00:14:34] Roheel Ahmad: [Inaudible] that's the people that people underestimate.

[00:14:36] Sean Steele: I actually did an article on this on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago and sort of outlined how I encourage clients to think about the stages of their recruitment process when they're hiring senior people for that exact reason. Because the number of people that I've had joined my businesses who said, I joined actually because of the hiring process. Like, I was so impressed by the depth and the thought that had gone into the hiring process. It made me go, this is the kind of place I want. Like, for example, you know, if we've got a second interview, our second interview would always be a presentation by them on a topic that actually creates a lot of breadth and a lot of creativity from them. Like, okay, I remember the first time this ever happened to me was at least, you know, 10-15 years ago. And the topic I was given was “show me you're a sales scientist.” Like, that was the presentation like, however you like, you've got 48 hours, come back in here and show me you're a sales scientist. And I just loved the breadth and the depth that created and the creativity that you could bring to it. But nobody's asking questions like that and it's still not happening today. But to your point, I was like, wow, if that's the kind of experience I have as a candidate in the process, that's the kind of leader I'd be interested in working for, because they clearly think about this stuff differently.

[00:15:46] Roheel Ahmad: And you have to flip it around as well in the sense of if you were being put through that process yourself now, would you be interested in your own business? I think that's almost a tough question to ask for some people because some people do have blinders on as to; now I've got a great business. But if that is your one window into your business, your culture, your decision making and everything that comes around with it, would you really truly join that business? If the answer is no, you need to reflect on it and have a look at it.

[00:16:13] Sean Steele: Yeah. That's so interesting. Okay, so, what are the top, like you guys learn a lot over time because you do this on such volume, right? And you've got teams of people doing this stuff. What are some of the top questions or top processes that you guys use to kind of sniff out those people that, you know, there are plenty of professional interviewers out there, which is why I would never make decisions on the first interview, because most senior people are actually very capable of getting through a first interview. They're well prepared, they're well structured, so on. If you set up this sort of second and third stage, well, you should be able to catch those out that are actually all talk and actually you've got a low degree of confidence in their ability to deliver. What do you guys do? What would you recommend people do to find those red flags, sniff those people out?

[00:16:57] Roheel Ahmad: So, this is something we went through a process on ourselves as we're scaling because we're continuing to scale ourselves globally as well. I think, so some of the things that we change ourselves internally and then have since recommended some of our clients as well, is we’re a multi-stage process. Now that doesn't mean it has to be laborious in that. That multi-stage process can still all happen in one day, for instance, but it's different people giving their different viewpoints and assessing for slightly different skills within that as well. Try to make it as objective and consistent as possible. So, too many people are as swayed by bias, depending on certain sporting interests or hobbies or they see themselves. It's a younger me, that type of thing, right? You've seen that all the time.

[00:17:41] Sean Steele: They're just like me.

[00:17:43] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah, exactly that. That was me 20 years ago. Too many people are swayed by their own mindset actually, when, this is probably one of the biggest ones that people don't realise. If they've had a bad morning, that person won't get the best interview experience, but also you won't be the best judge of character, when you're interviewing yourself. Similarly, on the flip side, if you've had a really good morning and you're coming in feeling euphoric, You're naturally likely to be a lot more positive on someone and overlook the kind of red flags that are coming in and so on as well. So, it's designing what's right for your business, a good objective process, making sure that they're underpinned by either core values of your business or core tenants. When you look at your top performers across the business and so on as well, and you look at those and say; what more common denominators across these people, what do they have that link them all together? Perfect. Now we've got a bit of a roll profile. Now how do we assess that through the course of an interview as well? I think probably one of the other things for good talk is, we're looking to get through the depth of the surface level of the answer. So, you are looking more at the decision-making process, why they chose that route, what was the outcome of that type of route in there as well. Looking at different scenarios. One thing I'd like to then do is kind of come back to a really similar scenario that they've talked me through, but put it into the context of my business and go through it and see if their decision-making process and their end kind of outcomes would be consistent with what they've told me maybe half hour ago on something they had talked about there as well. If the approach is the same, then good. It gives me some consistency and thought. Whereas if it's completely different, it's like, so if you just given me an answer, which is either a stock answer or really someone else was responsible for it as well. And then, I think a lot of people act on ego where it's; yeah, I'm a brilliant judge of character, I'm this, I'm that, I'm the Founder, I'm the CEO, whatever it might be. So, people look at me if, I can't make that decision myself. I don't think you can ever get it right all the time. I think you probably get it wrong a hell of a lot of the time. So, it's leaning on others who you trust, who understand your business, understand the culture, understand what you're looking for to get them involved in that process as well, including external people, advisors that you might have, or mentors that you might have as well. Get a second opinion from them.

[00:20:08] Sean Steele: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I have to say, I really have been enjoying that process with my own clients in being the person who helps them set up sort of stage two and stage three, and then I'm usually stage three, when they're down to like a final two, just so that I can be that sort of disconnect, create, you know, test those final things that they got to the end of the stage two and still had a few niggling concerns. They've got that extra sort of, but an independent third wheel to do a bit more testing. Yeah. Okay. I really like that. So, there's a lot of thought that needs to go into the process. What about the like, you mentioned before about, you know, sometimes people lose people because they're slow and their decision making is slow. How do you think about the balancing of the need for speed in filling positions? Because clearly it seems to move a lot faster than it used to in terms of how quickly people get offers and make decisions. With the need, how do you balance that sort of need for speed versus the need for thoroughness and quality in the selection of the candidates?

[00:21:04] Roheel Ahmad: I think you can do both. I think if you've got a good thorough, robust process, which, don't get me wrong, it takes a little bit of time to refine and make work for you and tweak it a little bit if you're implementing it at the beginning. But I don't see the reason why I, if you have that genuine need for speed because there's a market opportunity there, then why can't you not get a first stage, and so long as they've passed that first stage objectively, according to whether you want to kind of call it score or cloud system or whatever, then the next person meets them is testing for their types of skill sets that they're looking for or their traits that they're looking for, the third person tests for that, et cetera, et cetera. I think you can like, if you are determined enough and you have the need, there's nothing stopping you getting that all done in a day. I think it's very clear that if you're taking that subjective element away from things, I don't think you can completely shut the brain off. So, most people would tend to have an inkling whether this person's right for the business or not. But then if you take the subjective away and you're looking at the objective scorecard, as I was just talking about, have they passed? Have they failed? If they've passed, but I'm not so sure. That's where you're kind of looking at it saying; is it probably my bias or is there a red flag which I've just not explored enough, which I can get the next person to look at, or the person at the end to look at as well. So, I don't think it has to be one or the other at the end of the spectrum. I think it just has to be a well thought out, well-planned, tweaked, learn from your experiences and mistakes along that side as well. If I come back to that thing, if speed of process and the quality of that process is probably the second most important thing to attract people to your business, then that needs to be looked at a lot stronger than people realise at the moment as well. And actually, that's probably one of your competitive advantages compared to the corporates. It's very difficult for them to change those processes on a global scale. So, invariably they won't, right? So, you've got to use that to your advantage whilst those guys are dithering away. You've got to get in there and get these people in front of your business.

[00:24:10] Sean Steele: Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? Because yeah, one of the things that I struggle with in thinking about getting all of that done in a day, and it's probably my bias, you know, when you find things that work and then you go, okay, well, because that's worked in the past, and I can see it continue to work with my clients, but I'm always trying to get past the ability for someone to sell to me. And you articulated it well. It's like the reason you've got multiple stages in different perspectives is so you can test for those different skills. There's something I want to go deeper on here and I really need somebody else to test for that, or I need a method to test for that. And so, I tend to use presentations so that I can get out of them talking at me and get into, show me. Like, prove to me that you've got that level of thinking or that you can develop that strategy. I had a client the other day who was doing this process and he said; “Well, I'm trying to 2x the business in the next three years. Show me how you're going to help me do that.” And so, super broad question, like they could take a million different paths, but what you get to see is the quality of their thinking. Well, you don't give them a long period of time, like 48 hours, absolute maximum, so that you can still keep a short timeframe around that process. But I, in my own head, struggle to think about how I could get enough comfort inside a day. But I guess if you've got the right process and you can test in the right ways, the whole point is to be able to move quickly. And that should probably also impress.

[00:25:33] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah, look, I use that as an extreme as well, right? I think there's nothing stopping it. So, if you then turned that round and said; cool. Well look, could we get it done over two or three days to give those time gaps in between four or five days, even a week is a very speedy process within the poem realm, anyway. If you're talking kind of interim project, it's, I mean, quite often an interview doesn't even take place. And if it does, then it's kind of one and decision made type thing, because there's a greater need for speed even on that side. A week is still a very speedy process compared to those corporates. But again, you've got to use that to your advantage or come back to if it's well planned, it's well thought out, you've got a clear, concise methodology and what you are looking for in all of that, there's no reason to stop that being able to be done. I think more people have to use it to their advantage. And could probably not be stuck in. I mean, look, society's going that way anyway. We know that and the next generation sort of when you look at everything from attention spans and the impact of social media and so on as well, I think they'll only come to route more of the next decade or so as well. So, we need to react to that rather than trying to still implement process that maybe worked for us 10-15 years ago.

[00:26:51] Sean Steele: Okay, so one of the things that… I guess one of the things that recruiters find challenging, of course, is they do all this work. They've been appointed. They found somebody absolutely they thought was fabulous. The Founder thought they were fabulous. The person starts and everyone's excited, and we're all moving forward, everyone's getting paid, and we all think it's going to be great. And then, you know, two weeks later, or two days later, or certainly inside the probation period, probably far worse if it's like a three months or six months. But, you know, that the person leaves, and everyone's like, oh, that was an awful process. How do we screw that up? What do you see happening on the Founder side or the business side is that they're getting wrong, that typically don't set that person up for success or do make them leave? What are some of the common things that you see?

[00:27:40] Roheel Ahmad: So, I think the very first thing is, you know, so we have been in that position, I wouldn't say it's often, but we've been in that position. When I'm speaking to a Founder or a Leader of a business, their attitude towards it tells me almost everything that I need to know. So, if that first call is; ah, look, this has happened, crap. What can we do? We need to work together to find a solution to this kind of problem or to work together to get a replacement in, I mean, we offer a free replacement, right? So, cool. You're talking in the language of partnership, “we”, et cetera, et cetera. When it's a portion of “you guys need to fix this.” That's probably a good indicator to me away of why it's not worked out because there's no sense of shared responsibility. Now, depending on our clients and, and what we're doing for them, there's a little impact that we can have in terms of either they're onboarding, sometimes we help when they're onboarding. But in terms of those first meetings, the first board meetings, we're not involved in those. So, what have you done on your end for this individual to not still be there? So first of all, I'd say is the the element of shared responsibility in there and so on as well, that people are taking on. After that, the things that people tend to and reason tend to be, again, it comes from probably one of the things for me is the lack of communication around expectations. So, quite often where people don't have things developed well enough outside of their mind. And they're not able to articulate it because it's still held within their mind. They haven't actually communicated well enough at the interview stage. So, where people then tend to get frustrated, they come on board and it's either; this isn't what I signed up for, or you've not given me a clear picture of what your business truly is. So, that can be a big, big source of frustration for people as well. They're looking at thinking, you saw me a bit of a dream here, but when I've come on board, this is very, very different on a day-to-day type basis as well. So again…

[00:29:34] Sean Steele: The recruitment process is a signal, right? Like it's a signal around the quality of the way you think, but it's also an expectation management process, isn't it?

[00:29:42] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah, it is. It completely is. As much as you are interviewing them, they're interviewing you, you've got to sell yourselves. More and more people are counting onto this now, but I think the old school mindset was; well, if they like us, they'll join us. And if not, then good rid, and that type of thing. I think those who are doing well now, understand that; no, actually we have to sell ourselves because there's so much opportunity out there in, there's competition and someone out there as well. We have to give ourselves competitive advantage in all of that as well. I have to ensure that for the long-term success for this individual to work out, I've kind of given a, A) What’s on the picture and laid everything out for them as much as I can do on the table without going into the realms of NDAs and so on. And really going to give them that transparent view of what they're coming into, but what they need that person to do, but then also how they're going to develop that individual and what they're going to offer the individual. Too many people all the time talk about what you are going to do for us, how you are going to add value, how you are going to grow, how you are going to save us, et cetera, et cetera. Brilliant. People also want to hear about what you are going to do for them, how you're going to help grow them, how you're going to help develop them, where are they going to be stood in over the next sort of two to five years in their professional career? How have they furthered themselves or are they going to have stayed stagnant in all of this as well? So, I think the science and the data behind this, and I am going to paraphrase this very badly, but I remember reading this a while ago. “People make a decision on their third day, the third week, and the third month is what the data suggests as to whether it's the right business for them.” So, what have you done in those first three days to kind of paint, not a false, but the very best picture of your business. How's the onboarding gone for those in that first three weeks? Is it haphazard? Is it well thought out? Is it planned? And then what does the first three months look like in the business as well? I mean, from our side, we are in regular touch. So, we do a first day kind of check-in. Have you been looked after first? Is it good, is it bad? And then again, any feedback either, which way we'll pass it on to the client as well. So, to make sure, listen guys, well done. This has been brilliant. Or FYI, you got a big problem. You've got two days to sort this out. Or, because by day three they're going to be choosing actually whether this is the right place for me. We do it end of first week as long as it's reasonable and it's not the very next day, end of first month, and then monthly thereafter, sort of check-ins with the people that we've placed into the businesses. And then the same one, the client side as well. So how are they getting on? How is their onboarding look like? Have they been up to scratch? And quite often we are asked to play that middleman where they mightn't be so comfortable delivering the feedback themselves. But we're a bit more objective to it, and we can be, it's like; hmm, it's not what they said, it's how they said it, type thing. But if I was you, I'd be putting you in a bit more of a shift at the moment as well. So utilise it.

[00:32:33] Sean Steele: That's really interesting. So, if I sort of summarise some of the key parts I hear, first of all, is, really making sure that in the recruitment process there is sufficient transparency that helps the person make sure that they don't get something different when they arrive. Two is to make sure that you've actually thought and communicated about the opportunities for their professional development. And the thing I always try to remind people of is, nobody gets to a high level of performance without being an avid learner, like they want to grow. So, you're not going to attract great people who all of a sudden have stopped growing and don't want to grow. Doesn't matter how good or senior they are, you might think they're far more technically capable of you in whatever the area is, and they probably are, but that doesn't mean they want to stop growing. To your point, they still want to grow. And if there's nothing in this role for them, like okay, they may not plan to stay forever, I think, you know, the world's changed a hell of a lot, but if there's nothing in this role for them to help them get to the thing that comes after it. Then they're also not going to stay motivated. And so, I think there's a real transparent conversation about how this role fits in and what does it give you that helps you get to the next thing that you want after this. And how do I help enable you to do that as part of this role? So, it's like, it is a clear partnership. Like I don't expect you to stay here for the next 50 years. I want to make sure you can deliver, but I also want to make sure I can help you get to the next thing. And then all of a sudden, you've got this transparent trust that's building. And then I also hear from you, this is almost like if I think about like acquisitions, right? A lot of people put a lot of effort into the due diligence period. And forget about the onboarding period, and it's like; no, no, the a hundred-day plan that that is where all the money is made and lost. So, it's great that you've done the deal and you've worked super hard and everyone's tired and ready to go. Hooray, we've got a business. But it's like the next a hundred days is all gone. You just bought a whole bunch of people. If you do that badly, that's a big problem. So, you are saying like, day one, the first several months in terms of onboarding, how do I help this person? First of all, do I have a clear success profile? Do they know exactly what success looks like for them? Two, how have I made sure that they're set up for success in terms of relationships, information gathering, there's, you know, space and all the rest. And then three, have I got the right communication happening with that individual so I'm also getting feedback along the way so that they ideally don't feel like they can't talk to me about it if it's not working. But actually, there's a dialogue that opens up. Because I may not get it right, but if I've created the right platform and I'm actually checking in that they're getting what they need, they're going to feel more likely to be supported, but also feel likely they're going to give me the real information.

[00:35:01] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah, it's making sure that they're aware that you are giving you everything you can possibly give them and that they need to not just do the job successfully, but feel as part of that business. If you've sold a mission in your business, do they feel a part of it? Do they even understand what that mission is from the very get-go, or you just expect them to have ‘Got it.’ I think especially at the senior as well, there's almost an expectation that; yeah, they'll get it. They're senior. Don't know. It doesn't work like that anymore. I think you've still, just because that person's joined, like you said, with the M&As, right? Just because you've done the deal, that's not job done and everything's going to be perfect and it is going to be adding to the, either the rev numbers or the EBITDA or whatever it is you've got actually the hardest part of the job to do is that the first a hundred days, you've got to think of it in the same thing when you're hiring good people. The hardest part is those first a hundred days, and that's the success part.

[00:36:03] Sean Steele: You guys are really looking at, you've decided to, as a way of kind of moving away from the traditional recruitment model, you've decided to go further up the chain and go, I actually need to work with these people on their employee value proposition, the way they market themselves, the way they tell their story, all those things. Do you think there's a role for recruitment partners to actually then be focusing in partnership with the client on that first a hundred days in a more influential… Like, you know, here's all the data that says you need to be doing these things. Do you need to hold the hand of the client you think in a different way to help stack the deck for everybody that this person succeeds? Do you think that's a change in role for recruiters as to their relationship with clients over time? Or do you think that should still just be the realm of the client?

[00:36:45] Roheel Ahmad: I think it depends on your position in the marketplace. I think it depends on the clients that you tend to work with. I think it's very difficult to do if you are doing high volume sort of transactional with large corporates at the lower end of the job scale. But I think for, we probably do our best business with growth and scale businesses and actually we get the most enjoyment out of it as well. So, whilst we do work with the lights of a Nike and so on, If I'm being honest, are we really going to put somebody in place or the people that we've placed so far, are they about to change Nike? Probably not, unfortunately. But we've placed four of the seven board members of a software business, which has now been valued at a billion pounds. Cool. We've had some influence in that. I'm not saying that's down to us wholly, but for the current seven boardrooms, it's pretty good going. Right? So, with those kind of growth type organisations, depending on how mature they are, a hundred percent, there's more value that we can add. So, you'd be surprised at the amount of people that don't actually know how to interview. They've never been trained on how to interview people.

[00:37:48] Sean Steele: A hundred percent.

[00:37:50] Roheel Ahmad: So, is that a skill that we can actually help you with? Because then your whole interview technique strengthens and then your whole proposition strengthens in the first place. Onboarding, can we help with that? Even look, you've involved with countless businesses and seen countless business advisor and stuff, right? If I asked you now, typically, how would you sum up an offer process from the businesses that you've seen and been involved in? What does that look like?

[00:38:17] Sean Steele: Significant wide variation of the skill in doing so, and the quality in the way that it's done. 

[00:38:25] Roheel Ahmad: How would you say it's done that bit specifically?

[00:38:28] Sean Steele: At the moment, often, just very directly without maybe, probably, it's the part that gets the least amount of thought, I guess, in the process. So, you know, they might think about the interviewing reasonably well. They're probably not thinking about the onboarding as much, and the offer process is probably the least thought of and just very; okay, well we're at the end of this process now, and so this is how much we're willing to pay you. And would you like to start?

[00:38:53] Roheel Ahmad: It's usually a very direct on the phone or face-to-face if it's still in the interview of; brilliant, we'd love to have you on board, this would be your title, here's your kind of salary and package, here's what we want you to do, et cetera, et cetera. Are you in? Right? And that's, people overlooked that so much. That is another touch point with candidates that we are now looking at how do we reinvent that for our clients where a candidate comes off that and thinking, do you know what? That is the best offer process I've ever been through. Irrespective of what the offer is, it might be thousands over what I was looking for. It might be thousands under what I was looking for. I haven't even accepted it because for whatever reason I prefer this other job over there with this other business. But that as an offer process is the best offer process. I felt wanted…

[00:39:42] Sean Steele: Can you give me a couple of just like a few practical examples of what you think a good offer process would look like versus the Joe Blog's average version?

[00:39:50] Roheel Ahmad: So first of all, I would say to any client that we're working with, let us deliver it. Like if I was coming to someone to say how to run a software business, I would go to you or how to run a FinTech business or a retail business. I would ask you that we do this day in, day out, we know exactly what we're doing when we're actually running, so let us run the offer process and actually trust us as your partner to do so as well. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be in the position that we've got to so far. Our process, what it looks like, we actually started this internally and now we're rolling out two clients as well, where… as an example, we put together a presentation, which is looked and branded. It looks like it comes from the client. We produce everything, but it looks and feels like the whole thing has come from the client and it goes through a whole section on actually, for instance, what the business is, and a bit of a recap in everything in the key kind of selling points of the overall business in there as well. Why they like that individual so much as an individual and actually what they think they can bring to the table. What does a business think that they can do for the individual? So, parts of what we were talking about earlier, we feel that you can be developed here, here, and here. So, it's all taken and this doesn't work without the client's interaction and participation. We need to know what the client's feedback is and certain things that have been said through that process by the candidate, but from the client, to be able to put this thing together in partnership and conjunction with the client. So then when we are delivering the offer process to the candidate, we are going through it and saying; listen, this is exactly why they want you on board. You said this, or you have this ambition to X, Y, and Z. Well, actually it lines up perfectly because they see in over the next 18 months, they're going down this route and that you'll then get experience of it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so, we're aligning that. And the whole point for us is, I guess, Northern Star type thinking is, you come off that offer process. It's face-to-face for a zoom, never just on the phone. You've gone through that whole thing. You would've received the financial package and everything, but you must come off that feeling, wanted, feeling, special, feeling as an individual rather than just another hire, irrespective of the level. It doesn't matter whether this is a C-suite or a Director, it shouldn't really matter if it is an entry level role. You've got to make that person feel special and individualised. Because I promise you, that little thing will set you and your business apart and the image of you in your business compared to the other four or five opportunities that they've got. Because they will be just on the phone. Here's your offer on the phone, here's the offer. So, that's an example of what we're doing a little bit different by the clients at the moment, which is working really well. We've not had anyone reject that process so far, internally or externally.

[00:42:25] Sean Steele: That is a great example of, yeah, I remember Airbnb had this sort of six-star customer journey process and so it's like…

[00:42:32] Roheel Ahmad: Yeah, we've kind of nicked that. Yeah. We've stolen that premise.

[00:42:37] Sean Steele: It's perfect. It's like, well, where's the wow-factor? How do I elevate this part that is actually a critical moment, but everybody else is doing a bland job of it. How do I take that and really make the person go; wow, that was like totally different. And it doesn't have to be a huge amount of effort, but that structure. Ah, yeah. I love that. And I haven't seen anybody do that. I think that's fantastic and a great example. Well, given Founders, so some Founders of course want to recruit for themselves and some want to use a recruitment partner. If they are going to use a recruitment partner, what do you think they should be looking for to make sure that they've got a good likelihood of success? Because it is a partnership, right? Like they're going to be working close together. It's a really critical moment. It costs a hell of a lot if you get it wrong. What should they actually be looking for to make sure no one's time is wasted on either side?

[00:43:23] Roheel Ahmad: So, I think the first thing on there is a good. That coming back to that process piece, right? Making sure that whatever that process looks like, you are happy with it, you've agreed it, they're happy with it, they've agreed it, and so on as well. Because probably one of the areas that, it often fails is, if I look at it from our side, if a client's either expecting too much or too little, but not willing to put the commitment in, then naturally any individual on the partner side is looking at thinking; hmm, well is it's really something I want to invest my time into heavily when I'm not really getting much signals from them of even commitment on, and they're valuing this process themselves as well. So, I think that sign of commitment and working in, in a true partnership is probably the one of the most important things that you can do as well. I think it's also a relationship with the individual that you have. So, just because you've known someone for 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more doesn't guarantee you success and results. You can easily build a strong relationship with someone on the first interaction, the first kind of call with them, ensuring that they demonstrate knowledge of their marketplace and understanding of their marketplace. That when you are discussing things, the partner that you're speaking to, is probably listening a lot more than talking because probably a really important thing, but it's able to summarise key aspects back and just demonstrating to you that they understand the business, the journey, the story that you are trying to put out there. Because if they can't understand that when you're going through it in the beginning, how are they going to project and portray that to other people and actually attract people to their business? Do you like that person on an individual basis as well? Because again, that person should be an extension of your business, an extension of your brand. So, would you be happy them representing you? Would you be… Or ashamed or embarrassed for them to represent you, because I think that's really important. You have to have faith in that partner as well.

[00:45:10] Sean Steele: And you've given some great examples of the process, right? Like if that recruitment partner is not going to add value to the process anywhere along that chain, whether it's in onboarding, whether it's in the off stage, whether it's in the way they find people, whether it's in the way that they help you tell your story, or any of those piece, if there's no additional value being added, then are they really going to do a better job than you? Like that's question mark. And you guys have talked about a lot of opportunities where you create value. I know we're running short of time, but I wanted to ask you about what's coming, and of course, what's coming is changing on every, you know, my clock just changed. And so, I know there's about 7,000 new AI companies doing something completely new generative AI. But how do you see the future of recruitment evolving, particularly in the context of how quickly AI is changing.

[00:45:57] Roheel Ahmad: So, I think the beginning elements that it'll have a real impact. We we're starting to see some bits right now, but more benefits to us internally, and that's probably one of the issues I still have with our industry. I love our industry. Been in it for 15 odd years now. But most of the technological changes, including AI, have been almost very self-serving for us, and very little has gone towards adding greater value to clients or candidates or anyone in the overall process in that way, it is tended to be greater communication tools for us. But I do think, where AI is going and I feel like we’re almost at the start of the industrial revolution in this piece as well, and nobody truly understands or knows just where it'll take as people start to fear it now. But I do think that transactional element there, there will be a place for AI platforms to kind of take over that and won't necessarily need a recruiter involved in that. Things like the gig economy type opportunities and so on as well. I'm not as worried about us at our level in terms of what we do just yet. I think there will be tools that will help that and will match things like people's cultural fits into businesses and so on as well. And I think, you know that you get those kind of personality tests, psychometric tests, I think they'll develop incredibly with the addition of AI and so on as well. I think they will, in their current form on what we've been used to over the last few decades, it will kind of bit of die over death of what that looks like right now as well. But I also struggle to see where an AI platform will be able to distinguish whether someone, a senior leader has true gravitas or not, whether they are a good orator and a people motivator in their current roles, short of sticking a platform in there and almost like spying on them or, or assessing them or et cetera, et cetera, or like a Glassdoor review type system, which I don't think will be a very kind of true reflection of the individual anyway, so I worry less about the death of the, we used to hear it all the time about LinkedIn. It would be the death of the recruitment industry. It's not, it just helps facilitate things. So I think that, but at the same time, we are developing our own SAS platform right now, and we're looking and developing and playing around with the AI technology behind it as well. It's more of a growth and enablement platform for growing and scaling businesses. And it's more aimed at the year to sort of NED and advisory piece right now as well. But part of that is where are you in your journey as a business from the information that we can take off the net and from networking and so on as well, et cetera as well. If you are a business that is looking to, for instance, IPO in the next few years, you might need to get technologically ready for it. You might need the ISO standards. You might need a CFO who gets you ready for it, et cetera, et cetera. Brilliant. Here are the kind of people that have been in that industry who have done this, been there before, that you can go and then seek the advice from or bringing as advisement, consult, and so on as well. And then using it to kind of track the path of that business along the; right, you should be roughly at this point right now, or you've taken funding and you should be roughly at this point of your execution piece and your plan and so on it right now as well. So, can our platform then suggest that look, based on all the information that we've collated and the data that we've created on you so far in the AI models, would you potentially need this kind of person to actually take this next step in the journey as well? So early stages kind of playing around with that, but we're in the press of building our own SAS platform as well, because I'm not going to sit here and just…I think I've said it so many times, what has happened before, we cannot rest and just continue and expect our interview to be the same for the next two or three decades as well.

[00:49:38] Sean Steele: Yep. And I think you've articulated really nicely there around the fact that at the moment, actually the AI is been very focused around the productivity of the business. But to your point, how is this actually going to help the customer, being the candidate or the business? How do we take this and kind of turn it outward facing whilst we are always using it, of course, to optimise our own business performance? How do we use it to help them in their process and really create some additional wow moments and six star moments like you're trying to do with the offer process? I love that. So final question for me is, and you know, you've just talked a bit about the software intentions. What are you hoping that Forsyth Barnes looks like in three years’ time?

[00:50:17] Roheel Ahmad: So, the next three years, I'll expect us to have, uh, expanded in terms of our office reach, grow and grown, what we've got in the UK and the US so far as well. We should be in the West coast by then. I'd like to think that we've opened Dubai by then as well. The tech platform should have been launched by then at the same time as well. I'll probably say they're the main ventures as well as strengthening our senior leadership across the business and there'll be more of a group focus as well because we're actually going through M&A. We've got a few offers out for a few acquisitions right now as well as we're growing the business. Big picture is over the next few years, but it probably won't happen in three, is we want to set the business public. So, we're looking at the AIM market over here. We've committed to that. We've given a third of our business away to our people. So, we've put this journey out for them and said; right, this is our event, this is what we're looking to do. We haven't got any exit plans ourselves, but there will be wealth creation over the business over the next sort of four to five years. So, we should be very far on that journey into that before we then look at the next piece.

[00:51:15] Sean Steele: Awesome. Well, we're going to have to make sure that we get you back in a couple of years just to see how things are going and on your path to success. We'd love to do that. Well, look, Roheel, I really appreciate your time today. It's been a wonderful to chat to you and it's been some just absolute gold there for the audience, if people want to get in touch with you or to follow along with the journey, where would you direct them to?

[00:51:35] Roheel Ahmad: So, LinkedIn, probably one of the easiest places to get me on; Roheel Ahmad at business Forsyth Barnes. I am on Instagram and using that a lot more for like business reasons and purposes at the moment as well. So, yeah, can reach out to me on, I think @Roheelfb. So yeah, on either of those profiles.

[00:51:52] Sean Steele: Beautiful. Thanks, Roheel. Folks, I hope you enjoyed today's show. You know, when I'm not hosting this podcast, I'm running ScaleHQ where we of course help seven-figure Founders scale their businesses up to fulfill their potential, step back and install management or prepare for a payday through an exit. And we're doing that through Founder mentoring, Advisory boards, courses on scaling and Founder mastermind groups are coming soon. But if you are stuck in this, you know, you might still find yourself stuck in a kind of incremental improvement mode, and you might be looking to really make a step change. And thinking about; well, how do I really accelerate in the same way as Roheel is thinking about his business and how he's really going to scale that up over the next three to five years was a real step change, that you can hear, they've got a very clear strategy to do that. Have you taken the opportunity to do that yourself? And also given what that plan is, do you know exactly which roles you need to hire next? You know, one of the things that we do in the ScaleUps Roadmap program, which is the course that we're about to launch, is you actually work back. One of the 40 odd activities that you do is to build an org chart for three years’ time and work backwards to the key hires for now, and then look at your EVP, your Employee Value Proposition and how you're going to recruit that person, how you engage them, and all those things. So really purpose fit for the conversation we've had today. Doors aren't open, I should say for enrolment for everyone yet. But I am kicking off a foundation cohort in August with eight Founders. We've got five of those already confirmed. There are three spots left. If you want to know more, you can go to www.scalehq.com.au/scaleupsroadmap or just go to www.scalehq.com.au and click on the education button and register your interest there and I'll have a chat to you about whether it's the right model for you. Thank you very much, Roheel. I really appreciate your time and really enjoyed that and I look forward to chatting to you again.

[00:53:27] Roheel Ahmad: Thanks for having me. Take care.

[00:53:28] Sean Steele: Thank you, mate.