Spelade
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As a recruitment business owner, how do you balance internal operations while strategically generating revenue? In this episode, my special guest Kris Holmes shares fascinating insights and ideas on internal operations - from rewards and compensation, peer to peer evaluations, and culture.
Kris is an executive recruiter and partner at the O’Connell Group, which is a leading search firm in consumer marketing and market research. She is also the best-selling author of Ignite Your Career! which is a book she launched in July 2020. Before becoming a recruiter, Kris worked for a decade in consumer marketing with companies like Johnson & Johnson and Kraft Foods. She is also a member of the Pinnacle Society which is a consortium of industry-leading recruiters in North America.
Episode Outline and Highlights
[2:19] Kris shared the biggest challenge she’s faced in her 25 year recruitment career. [14:10] Internal recruitment is a major challenge for recruiting firms - what are some best practices and KPIs? [20:06] How to manage internal operations while strategically generating revenue. [23:46] An insightful approach to rewards and compensation. [30:26] Peer to peer evaluation - effective metrics to measure performance. [33:25] The four steps O’Connell Group are taking to face the C19 challenge. [37:30] How to add new revenue streams including coaching services. [40:00] What inspired Kris to write Ignite Your Career? [44:45] The “One-Two punch” business development approach. [48:00] Stoicism - its relevance today for recruiters.Insights on Recruiter Compensation, Company Culture and the Power of Peer to Peer Evaluations
In this episode, Kris was able to share insightful approaches on different aspects of managing internal operations. One of the best practices she shared is the compensation program that they implemented that effectively rewards the “superstars” or their high performing recruiters. She also shared their practice of peer to peer evaluations, on which they evaluate each other’s performance using at least 20 peer metrics! Hear this fascinating idea from Kris.
Although the mentioned practices sound like it would create a very competitive environment, you might be surprised at how O'Connell is able to inculcate a very nurturing and supportive culture for its employees. This has fostered fantastic staff retention and enabled some of their employees to stay with them for more than 15 years.
Game Plan to Address the Challenge of Covid19
How does Kris plan to lead O’Connell Group through the C19 crisis successfully? This is what she said: “I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I’ve seen September 11th, I’ve seen the Financial Crisis. I have never seen anything like this that is rocking everybody to their core… But the steps we’re taking work. Our philosophy is whenever we go into these times of crises, where we cannot control the external market, we can control what we do. And so we have taken many steps.”
Listen to the four steps that they are proactively taking that you may find also beneficial to your recruitment business. Yes, this may not be a good year, but with focus and determination, Kris was able to confidently say: “This is not gonna be a good year at all. But I think we’re gonna come out of it much stronger than when we went into it because we’ve been very strategic and focused on how we streamline, cut cost, and how we increase our capabilities going forward.”
Kris Holmes Bio and Contact Info
Kris Holmes is an executive recruiter and partner at O’Connell Group, a leading executive search firm in consumer marketing and market research. With more than twenty-five years of experience, she is also a member of the Pinnacle Society, the premier consortium of industry-leading recruiters in North America. She is also a best-selling author of Ignite Your Career! which launched in July 2020. Kris has counseled tens of thousands of candidates in setting goals and leveraging their strengths. Before shifting to recruiting, Kris worked for a decade in consumer marketing with major corporations like Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, and Ralston Purina. She’s a graduate of Tufts University and has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.
Kris on LinkedIn O’Connel Group website link O’Connel Group on Facebook You can purchase the Ignite Your Career! Book here: www.igniteyourcareerbook.comPeople and Resources Mentioned
The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius The Pinnacle Society website link Connect with Mark Whitby Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/ Mark on LinkedIn Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby Mark on Facebook Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoachSubscribe to The Resilient Recruiter
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What are the parts of your job you’re best at? What are the things you don’t enjoy or aren’t very good at? How much of your time and focus is devoted to just those few things you’re best at, versus all the other tasks that eat into your day?
This self-awareness of one’s strengths and limitations, together with a conscious decision to specialize with laser focus, have been key to the success of serial entrepreneur Maarten van der Kwaak. In this episode of the Resilient Recruiter, I had the opportunity to talk to Maarten, co-founder at MatcHR, Apollo Executive Search, ConsulantcyExit, Legal Top Talent, and The Legal Bench.
Surprisingly, Maaten started his first recruitment business while still in university studying law, recruiting his fellow students and placing them with law firms. On occasion, he would find himself recruiting people while chatting with them in bars! Later, he kept his recruiting firm going as a side-hustle while working full-time as a management consultant for an international strategy consulting firm. Since then he’s founded or invested in multiple start-up businesses in both recruitment and technology.
Maarten shares his wisdom on self-awareness, specialization, transparency, and really valuable insights about successfully running your business even in this time of difficulties.
Episode Outline and Highlights
[4:41] Maarten’s insight on getting quickly into profit from the startup phase. [10:17] On specialization - hear the big difference between sourcing and recruitment. [16:00] How Maarten successfully applies specialization within his different business lines. [29:02] Thoughts on marketing - lessons learned on video outreach campaigns. [38:22] What made Maarten decide to choose a career in recruitment. [51:48] How MatcHR adjusted when the coronavirus pandemic hit. [1:02:00] What special quality can help strengthen company culture during this pandemic?Applying the Concept of Specialization
Given that there are many different types of activities in a recruitment business, Maarten shared his insights on how to apply the idea of specialization. His analogy is to compare the business in a production facility. “If you would have so many different activities in a production facility, you would have a dedicated person for each activity. But what we do in this industry, we say to one person, ‘These are all the activities, please go ahead and be successful at all of them.’”
From there, he elaborated on the difference between the skills of sourcing versus recruiting which further emphasized his point on the importance of specialization. “If we specifically pick out the responsibilities of the sourcing part, if you look at sourcers and recruiters, very often sourcers have very technical backgrounds, more data-oriented background and what they need to do is very different from that of a recruiter to be successful.”
He continues, “If we look at the recruiting part … you need to turn those candidates into hires, it’s a lot about building relationships, selling the company, managing the process, both on the internal side as with the external side… I do not still understand why many companies still have all these responsibilities within their recruitment team without specialization within the team”How Transparency Contributed to the Strength of Culture During Covid19
In these difficult times when tough decisions had to be made, what helped Maarten’s group maintain a strong culture even if they had to let some people go?
“I’m a big fan of transparency...Everything was going extremely well with the company and then one week after people needed to be fired... I think also research has proven that transparency and having them involved (employees) in the business is also better for their engagement.”
This commitment to transparency led to a strong internal culture. Even when Maarten had to let go of some valuable employees, they understood why. Even when they were leaving, they wore their MatcHR T-shirts supporting the brand.
Maarten van der Kwaak Bio and Contact Info
Maarten is a serial entrepreneur in the recruitment industry and started his first company, Legal Top Talent, while still in university. After five years in strategy consulting including an MBA at INSEAD, Maarten decided to become a full-time entrepreneur. In just four years, Maarten co-founded four other companies. The Legal Bench, focused on contract lawyers, ConsultancyExit, focused on former top tier strategy consultants, Apollo Executive Search, focused on leadership roles for PE-owned and VC backed companies, and MatcHR, a sourcing and recruitment outsourcing company based out of Kyiv, Ukraine. All companies are profitable and, despite COVID-19, growing.
Next to running his companies, Maarten actively invests in technology companies and serves as a board member of several start-ups. Maarten is known for his sharp analytical mind and his vision of the recruitment industry.
As a former skiing instructor, you can find Maarten every winter for multiple weeks on the slopes in the Alps.
Maarten on LinkedIn MatcHR website link MatcHR on Facebook Apollo Executive Search website linkIf you wish to contact Maarten, you may reach him through email [email protected].
Connect with Mark Whitby Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call: www.recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session/ Mark on LinkedIn Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby Mark on Facebook Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoachSubscribe to The Resilient Recruiter
