It’s Wednesday mid-morning, hump day as many people call it. The snow is coming (surely not,) April starts on Friday, I am at a family ‘barbecue’ on Saturday, and it’s now actually starting to snow.
As weeks go, this is already looking like an interesting one!
11.53am then it happens. E-MAIL PING!
‘Hustler recruitment brief’ is the subject line.
Things are already looking up, then I see the sender, YES!
The e-mail is from a client I adore to work with, a business I love to find people for, and this is for a once in a lifetime role. A genuine opportunity.
I start to fizz, buzz, and bubble with excitement, I open the e-mail, it does not disappoint!
Everything from; how you doing, catch me up, I’m off on holiday (again,) in two weeks time! This is why we work in partnership at Digital 51. This is why I love and openly admit we work with less businesses than other recruitment agencies. We want the relationship, we want the insight, we want to feel everything our ‘clients’ feel when they come to recruit.
60 seconds later I have read the e-mail and the brief. I physically shout, YES! I read the brief again, my mind starts to whirl, this is different, this is new, this is exciting, does this person even exist!?
I fire off a ‘BOOM LET’S HAVE IT!’ message to the Digital 51 crew on our TEAMS chat. It’s where we live and breathe our good news when the team are apart. Today we have people working across 4 locations, with me in London, so this needs to be shared with the team, this is the definition of good news.
A call is booked for 24 hours later to catch up with my client, hear more about how things have been since we last worked together in January, and bring this brief to life.
I literally fizz for 24 hours thinking about the role.
We do the brief, it sounds amazing, my client swears numerous times during the call, I say this not because I have any issue with swearing (you know me right?) It’s more that she is not the swearing type, or has not been historically with me.
They are buzzing about this role, my client is a Director of a fantastic communications agency, but the stakes get upped even more when she utters the words ‘XX has read the brief and is buzzing for this hire too.’ XX is the owner of the business, lets just say PR, Comms, Agency legend. Now shit is getting serious, yep I am now swearing.
The gun is fired, I am off on an exclusive brief to find a key hire for a business I adore. Is this going to be easy, do names instantly spring to mind? Yes, and no if I am honest, this role does not fully exist in one person at many agencies, plus my agency client is so different, one of a kind, and they want a hustler. They want someone who is just going to get it done. Someone who is a ball of excitement and opportunity. It’s not about level, experience, etc etc, it’s about someone who will get the job done; someone who will hustle as they say.
Do people still exist like that?! Do people still want and work in that way anymore?! Check our my last article on the entire topic of ‘drive in the work place’ if you want to know my thoughts on this.
So why am I sharing this? Is this just the worlds most indulgent ‘JOB ON!’ shout ever? Is this me saying ‘ha ha!’ Look how amazing my clients are, how great I am that I love them?!
No, this post is a shout out to all businesses, and all organisations looking to hire right now. In a world which has never been more competitive when it comes to hiring, attracting, recruiting, and engaging people to join your business, this feeling, the YES feeling, is how you want your agency partner to feel when you brief them on your roles.
I won’t sleep until this role is taken care of now. The weekend barbecue party is already going to take a different form for me now. Not because there is snow falling and it’s going to be freezing, but because I am going to throw my Sunday at this role. My Friday is back to back with pre-planned meetings which I can’t move, so I am determined to impact this on Sunday ready for next week.
That is how you want your recruitment partner to feel, that is what your business needs if it is going to succeed right now.
Does your current recruitment partner feel like this about the roles they are working on for you?
Oh and I do have someone in mind……………………now I just have to get hold of them!
This article was written by Simon Brown, Founder of Digital 51. If you want to reach out to Simon to find out more about why he feels like this about a certain business, or how he could help your business work with someone like this, then drop him a line on . It sounds like he will be in the Hub on Sunday, so why not reach out then!?