In 2020-22, the world of work was flipped upside-down and back to front. Now, more than ever, candidates are prioritising their mental health and work-life balance over promised “Pizza Fridays” or pool tables in the breakout room. In fact, work-life balance is a more important consideration than salary for 65% of brits. (<a href="https://www.randstad.co.uk/about-us/reports/work-life-balance-more-important-salary-two-thirds/">Source</a>)It’s a time of systemic change for the world of work - and we’re seeing start ups and scale ups at the forefront of this exciting cultural transition. But you can’t do it alone. While you’re promising top-notch working conditions, you need to build top-notch teams to take your business to the next level. So, once we’ve searched high and low for your ideal fit and presented you with a shortlist of great candidates, it’s down to you to conduct an interview process that leaves candidates desperate to work with you - for both their professional development and your cultural practices.But how do you do this successfully? Keep reading for our top interview tips for hiring the best talent.<h3>The Candidate Experience</h3>Let’s create a scenario…As the owner of Company A, you’ve worked on transforming your company culture since the pandemic. You’re hiring for new roles and you’re offering unrivalled flexible working, mental health support, an above average salary, and a fantastic benefits plan. All of which are promises you actively implement.You’ve had a conversation with a perfect-fit candidate and you’ve explained all of these great benefits to them. But they still choose to join a competitor business instead of yours. Why?It’s simple really. The candidate had a better experience during the competitor interview process.Gone are the days where promising the highest salary will secure you the best talent. You need to be investing in the candidate experience throughout your Talent Acquisition process.Wondering how to create a great candidate experience? Read on!<h3>The Interview Structure</h3>Our first piece of advice is to break down your interview stages based on what you want to achieve and make the purpose of each stage clear to the candidate. Though the ideal structure will vary based on the company and role-seniority, in general an ideal interview structure looks like this: <h4>Stage 1: Screening Call </h4>This call is your chance to ask qualifying questions around technical skills, salary, location, willingness to travel/work remotely, and communication skills.You’ll ask questions around what the candidate is searching for and sell all the best parts of your company, explaining your culture, employee support and development, and requirements for the role. Remember, interviews aren’t one-sided. While you need to be sure you’ve found the right candidate, they’re also judging you, so make sure you sell your role appropriately and make the candidate feel valued. <h4>Stage 2: Follow Up</h4>This stage is a more detailed meeting with the hiring manager and other relevant team members. Typically this is a longer conversation, usually held face-to-face, though it can be conducted over video call. In this session, you’ll deep dive into the CV, discuss the skills needed and explain why they’re needed for this role. Be honest and open - if you can give a candidate context before asking certain questions, it allows them to prepare an answer that’s relevant to your needs.For example: “Here at Company A, we need a tech developer who can reevaluate our coding processes. Since we’ve always done things a certain way, we would love a fresh pair of eyes to transform our processes and make them more cost and time efficient. Have you had experience analysing and refreshing coding practices?”[C1] This is also a chance to do a deep-dive into the culture and make sure both parties are happy with the cultural fit. Again, remember to explain why the candidate would benefit from joining your company and what you have to offer - don’t just bombard them with tough questions, this should be a back-and-forth conversation.<h4>Stage 3: The Close</h4>Whether you hold an informal closing session in a restaurant or pub, you invite your candidate back into the office, or you simply follow up with a phone call, the close is the final meeting to offer the role to the successful candidate.In this final conversation, you want to use the information gathered in the earlier stages to sell the opportunity back to the candidate based on what’s important to them and the great benefits you have to offer.This structure not only allows you to pitch to the candidate early on, but it gives you time to evaluate their needs and make sure what you’re selling is what they truly want.<h3>Top 4 Interview Tips</h3>Once you’ve nailed the structure, there are some more great practices to weave into your process to maximise the candidate experience: <h4>1. Create an open, honest, conversation</h4>As we explained above, interviews are about back and forth. Both parties need to be happy and have space to ask questions. So, don’t just batter candidates with questions that meet your checklist requirements for skills and experience. Not only is this super off-putting for candidates as it reflects your lack of care towards them as an individual, but it also is a waste of your time as the likelihood is, all this stuff was covered on their CV or screening call with the recruiter.Trust that by the time you’re interviewing them, the candidate has proved they have many of the relevant skills needed on paper. So, instead, go in with 5-10 themes that you need to know about this person: What motivates them? What are they passionate about? How capable are they at strategic thinking? You can then hold a back and forth conversation around these themes to gauge the candidate’s willingness and fit. This will naturally generate interesting conversation about their background and experience without being a quick-fire Q&amp;A.Make sure you also allow the candidate time to ask any questions they have - and answer these openly and honestly. Like any relationship, you need to create a secure, trusting starting point if this is going to work for the longterm.<h4>2. Explain the need for this role</h4>A sense of fulfilment is a key factor for every candidate looking for a new role. This often comes from feeling like a valued addition to a team trying to achieve a goal.Help create this feeling of value by explaining the business’ overall goal and how this role fits into the greater strategy. This will naturally help the candidate see where they’ll immediately add value, creating a sense of anticipated fulfilment. <h4>3. Office tours/team introductions</h4>Another way to help the candidate judge whether they’ll be a great cultural fit is by introducing them to the day-to-day of the job. Walk them around the office or introduce them to some key team members to help them see how they’d fit into the company and how their work life will look.<h4>4. Provide honest feedback</h4>Whether or not the candidate has been successful in the interview, make sure you give them feedback. This is vital for the longevity of your brand’s reputation and will help you earn the candidate’s respect. Even if the candidate is unsuccessful, providing respectful feedback could potentially result in them recommending a candidate they think would be a better fit or even applying for a different role at your company later on.<h3>Let’s start hiring!</h3>These tried and tested tips are a sure way to see an improvement in your offer to acceptance ratio, helping you avoid bidding wars with your competitors and secure the best talent. Of course, these are just a few key interview tips for hiring start ups and there are plenty more tactics and strategies we can help you with.As your growth partner, (LINK) we take pride in supporting you wherever we can - from creating tailored cover sheets and detailed shortlists to enrolling you in investment accelerators and providing feedback on your pitch decks.Get in touch to see how we can help you!

Top Interview Tips for Hiring the Best Talent

For the first time in history we’re seeing more open jobs than job seekers in the UK. “No end in sight for the ‘Great Resignation’ as inflation pushes workers to seek better-paid jobs”and“Hiring crisis hits firms with more vacancies than jobseekers for the first time”Are just a couple of the headlines we’ve seen in recent weeks. Reading this as the CEO or Hiring Manager at a start-up/scale-up may feel like you have a BIG problem on your hands…You have vacancies. You need talented individuals to fill them. But there just aren’t enough pegs to fill the holes.In some industries, the competition over great talent is unprecedented. In fact, if you search for a Software Engineer role right now, LinkedIn will populate over 51k jobs. While searches for Business Development roles are exceeding 151k results! How are you EVER going to lock in the best candidate with that much competition?But, don’t worry.We’ve been helping our clients overcome this national hurdle with our tried and tested tips – which we share with you below. <h2>Qualify High, Hire Fast, Fire Faster</h2>Times like this call for out the box thinking. There’s limited talent out there so when it comes to hiring, you don’t have time to waste.In the past, hiring methods have typically followed the mantra: Hire Slow, Fire Fast. But hiring slow brings risks of losing top quality talent in this competitive market. So, we had a bit of a rethink and devised a new strategy to help you secure top talent: Qualify High, Hire Fast, Fire Faster.We based this new method on a school of thought made popular by Former United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell: the 40-70 rule.Powell states that every time you face a tough decision, you should have no less than 40% and no more than 70% of the information you need to make the decision. If you have less than 40% of the information, the decision will not be an informed one and further research is required. However, if you surpass 70%, it’s likely you’ve spent too long pondering and the decision will end up being made for you. In the context of our current hiring market: if you make a decision too quickly, you risk knowing too little about the candidate and hiring someone who is a bad fit for your company. On the other hand, waiting too long could mean you losing the perfect candidate due to drawn-out processes, hesitation, and over-thinking.This new hiring strategy – Qualify High, Hire Fast, Fire Faster – takes Powell’s 40-70 rule to build a process that allows you to find good talent, qualify them to ensure they’re the right technical and cultural fit, and secure them before it’s too late. And, sincewe know that sometimes your first decision isn’t always the right one, along with all the strong, fast decisions, we also suggest building key fail safes into your hiring strategy to ensure that, on the off chance you make a mistake with a hire, you can protect your business by getting them out quicker than they came in.<h2>How It Works</h2>Before we entered this unprecedented hiring shift, it’s likely your hiring process looked a bit like this – maybe it still does?1. Applicant CVs are screened and shortlisted2. Short screening call with member of HR/recruitment agency3. 1 hour call with manager for introductions and further screening4. Technical qualification round (possibly a take-home task)5. Final, cultural stage with manager &amp; C suite member6. Offer, acceptance, contract negotiation 
This is a lengthy, multi-step process that usually spans over 2-3 weeks and can sometimes even include more steps depending on the seniority of the vacancy.The problem with this process now is hiring companies don’t have time to waste. You need to act fast while being sure you have between 40-70% of the information required to make a confident hire. So, our new model looks like this: 1. Applicant CVs are screened and shortlisted2. Screening &amp; technical qualification call to determine skill fit3. 2 hour call with manager &amp; C Suite member for cultural fit4. Offer, acceptance, contract negotiation This new process allows you to extract all of the information from the candidate that you require to make an informed decision, giving you the same number of hours with the applicant, but reducing the number of steps into a process that can be carried out over a week.You’re qualifying high and hiring fast – giving you a much higher chance of securing top talent before great candidates get snapped up by your competitors. A Note on Technical QualificationsOver years of working with high-growth start-ups, we’ve learned that typically take-home technical qualifications don’t perform well – especially not in this climate. Candidates have to find time outside their daily routines, busy work schedules and family responsibilities to do a take-home aptitude task that can, for busy in-demand candidates, push them in the opposite direction. We’ve found incorporating technical qualifications into an interview round with platforms like Codility results in a much quicker and fluid hiring process with higher satisfaction for all parties.A Note on the Cultural RoundEvery company has their own set of values for their team to live by and the best way to determine whether a candidate fits these isn’t to ask them questions like: “Are you hardworking?” This line of questioning generally results in candidates telling you what you want to hear based on everything they know about your company so far.

Instead, phrase your questions in your cultural round like this: “Can you tell me about a time when you went the extra mile at work to help the company win”. This nudges the candidate towards giving an evidence-based answer that’ll help you clearly determine if their values align with yours.<h2>The Fail Safes</h2>Of course, following qualifying high and hiring fast, we have to also address the third part of this strategy: Fire Faster.In the rare occasion where your hire isn’t right for your business, you need to have fail safes built into your hiring system, allowing you to efficiently handle a less-than-perfect hire. Fail safes are insurance policies when hiring fast. We suggest you work on building the following four into your new hiring strategy to help you navigate potential wrong decisions: 1) ReferencesEven after you’ve done your due diligence, qualified high, and interviewed fast, don’t skip collecting references in the haste to secure top talent. References are an important fail safe that provide valuable evidence your candidate can meet the skills and cultural standards they’ve set in interview.2) OnboardingCreating a solid onboarding strategy is one of the best ways to ensure your candidate is set up for success and can hit the ground running in their new role.3) Realistic, Clear &amp; Stringent ProbationAll new roles have a probation period. Make sure yours is structured in a way that sets realistic and fair goals for the new candidate, expresses these clearly from the outset so they know what they’re working towards, and you’re stringent in sticking to them – if targets aren’t met (unless there’s a reasonable explanation why), the candidate doesn’t pass their probation period. This way, you can ensure you have a fail safe measure to determine if a candidate is right for you while it’s still easy to revoke the agreement.4) RetainmentFinally, once the candidate has received an offer, has been successfully onboarded and passed their probation period, you need to make sure you’re regularly reviewing your culture, management, and pay scales to retain great talent. There’s no use making an excellent hire if they’re going to be dissatisfied and begin to look elsewhere.<h2>Ready to Hire Fast?</h2>We’re seeing companies we’re working with putting these guidelines into practice, acting fast, and scoring great talent. The companies hitting the best candidates right now are those that are acting fast. So, if you’re ready to Qualify High, Hire Fast, and Fire Faster <a href="https://findrs.co.uk/about-us">get in touch</a> with our friendly team – we’ll be happy to help advise you on your hiring strategy and support you every step of the way.

How To Secure Talent Once You've Found It

Following our recent article on <a href="https://findrs.co.uk/how-to-secure-talent-once-youve-found-it">securing the right talent in a candidate-led market</a>, we’re seeing a change in our global economy and as a result, the recruitment landscape. At the beginning of July, the Euro dropped to the same exchange rate as the dollar, emphasising the decreasing confidence in the UK economy. This newsworthy moment has prompted predictions of a recession on the horizon; predictions that have flipped the recruitment market on its head.While this may sound concerning, don’t panic.Although the recruitment landscape looks different from before, it’s not necessarily bad for start-ups. BUT, it is important that you keep up to date with how the market develops so you can prepare accordingly - and we’re here to help.<h3>The Recruitment Landscape</h3>Over the next few months, we expect to see the recruitment landscape shift from a candidate-led market (in which there were more jobs available than candidates) to an employer-led market (where we’re seeing more candidates than vacancies).Both of these markets have their pros and cons, but since we’re shifting from one to the other so quickly you must be prepared to adapt your hiring strategies to accommodate this flux. For start-ups hiring in this predicted recession, the pressure to hire the right person FAST will reduce. While there’s still competition and you’ve still got to act efficiently, there’s less pressure and less haste. You’ll find you need to move away from fighting your competitors for the top candidate, and you may instead find yourself flooded with applications. In these situations, you’ll need to adapt your recruitment funnel and employ enhanced sorting techniques to continue hiring the top 10% of talent for every role without wasting time.All this to say, the market is ever-changing so you’ll need to adapt your hiring strategy on a role-by-role basis, thinking creatively about how to attack each hire to ensure you’re finding the best talent efficiently.<h3>Your Next Steps to Recruiting In A Recession</h3>Ok, so, the economy and recruitment landscape are changing - now what? Now it’s time to adapt your recruitment strategy so you’re prepared for what’s to come. Here’s our top three tips to get you started:1) Build A Robust Recruitment PlanStart by reviewing your organisational chart and ask yourself the following questions:<ul><li>Where are the gaps?</li><li>Which roles are you trying to fill? </li><li>Which vacancies are most important for revenue generation?</li><li>Which roles can you survive without for a while?</li><li>Are there any roles you can combine for the time being?</li></ul>Have a think about these questions and make sure to map your revenue generation against your outgoing employment costs. This is vital in times like these where you need to be focused on lean operational costs to ensure you’re profitable early and continue to grow where others will fall. And remember: this period is all about profitability over revenue. So take a step back, think critically, and determine where you NEED support vs where you would LIKE support in the future. We can help you review and restructure your org chart, just like <a href="https://findrs.co.uk/holland-and-barrett">we did with Holland &amp; Barrett</a> to save you money and time by hiring for fewer roles while ensuring all necessary functions are fulfilled and you’re remaining profitable.2) Focus on Efficiency &amp; Candidate QualificationOnce you’ve reviewed and refined your org chart, it’s time to get hiring. While there’s less pressure for speedy hiring processes, your strategy should still be centred around efficiency and qualifying high. No matter the recruitment market, no candidate likes a long, drawn-out hiring process where they’re made to complete at-home tasks and wait weeks for answers and interview slots. So, the motto still stands: <a href="https://findrs.co.uk/how-to-secure-talent-once-youve-found-it">Qualify High, Hire Fast, Fire Faster</a>. Since you have a lot of candidates applying for each role, you need to develop a screening strategy that allows you to qualify high so you continue to identify the top 10% of talent within your applicant pool. Then, follow this simple strategy: Step 1: Screen &amp; shortlist applicant CVsStep 2: Screening and technical qualification call to determine skill fitStep 3: 2-hour call with manager and C-suite member for cultural fitStep 4: Offer, acceptance, contract negotiation We’re on hand to help you <a href="https://findrs.co.uk/clients">screen CVs and determine technical fit efficiently</a>, by taking the time to get to know your requirements inside-out, conducting initial screening calls, and providing tailored cover letters for you to easily scan and qualify candidates ahead of Step 2 interviews. 3) Don&#39;t PanicOne of the most important things to remember when times get tough like this is don’t panic. It’s easy to start doom scrolling through news outlets and thinking this recession will take over - but we challenge you to view this as an opportunity. Depending on the severity of the recession, tech-giants may be reducing their teams and making redundancies. This is a great opportunity for you to step in and sweep up the market share of top talent, accessing experienced individuals who have already been qualified by top companies. By working with the right growth partners (us!), you could be hooking in seriously talented individuals who have had insight and experience at leading tech organisations like Strategic Blue.So view this as a time of opportunity - not despair.<h3>Here to Help</h3>As always, don’t forget we’re here to help! As a start-up ourselves, we know talk of recession is frightening and there are times when your budget is tight. So, to help you on your growth journey, we operate two pricing models to choose from:Option A) Shared Risk Split Payments — your fee to us for securing your dream candidate will be 23% of their starting salary paid over 6 months from their start date. If the candidate leaves or you have to let them go, you just stop making payments… We win &amp; lose together. Option B) The Traditional Model — your fee to us is based on 18% of your candidate’s starting salary paid on the candidate’s start date. If the candidate leaves within 3 months, you’ll get a fee replacement or sliding scale rebate. This is just one of the great benefits we’ve implemented to help start-ups and scale-ups build the right team, with help from the right team. Find out more about <a href="https://findrs.co.uk/clients">how we can help</a> you hire through good and bad times or get in touch with our team of good people people <a href="https://findrs.co.uk/book-a-call">here</a>.

Recruiting In A Recession: Our Top Tips

<h4>With 350 new founders joining their platform each week, leading legaltech firm, SeedLegals, partners with start up recruitment agency, Findrs, to enable and empower founders through key stages of their Growth Cycle. </h4>SeedLegals is a leading legaltech platform designed to automate legal solutions for startups and small businesses. Offering a range of easy-to-use, intuitive systems, the company aims to enable founders to easily manage shares, raise investment, and grow their business more efficiently than ever before.Fundraising and recruitment are two of the most daunting areas in a company’s growth cycle; both of which can be make or break for startups. The partnership between the personable, left-field recruiters at Findrs and the forward-thinking tech functionality at SeedLegals aims to simplify these aspects of the growth journey for founders by removing all unnecessary hassle and risk.Through the SeedLegals platform, founders can access a range of key functionalities that enable them to save time that was previously wasted filing fundraising paperwork and managing the legal admin that comes with owning a business, a goal shared by the team at Findrs. <blockquote>Findrs founder and CEO, Chris Booth, stated about the partnership: “Our goal is to be the no-brainer recruitment partner for tech startups and scaleups who are looking to expand their teams both globally and within the UK. We aim to reduce time, cost, and risk of startup recruitment with a range of different benefits that we offer both clients and candidates. Becoming SeedLegals’ first recruitment partner was a natural next step for us since we both share the same value proposition: to make tasks that have previously been arduous, risky, and time-consuming for tech founders easier and more efficient than ever.”</blockquote>As part of Findrs’ mission to become the strategic growth partner of choice for tech startups and scaleups nationwide, the recruitment company goes above and beyond to support founders with appealing shared-risk commercial terms and endless support with investment planning and pitch deck reviews. The human and personal element brought by Findrs fits hand-in-hand with SeedLegals’ tech-led solution that offers founders the space to raise investment using a variety of digital tools including Shareholder’s Agreements, Cap Tables, and SEIS &amp; EIS Certificates.<blockquote>Commenting on the partnership, Vasu Sarin, Head of Partnerships at SeedLegals said: “&#39;We are looking forward to Findrs supporting our startups with their hiring needs as they continue to start, run and scale.&quot;</blockquote>Following the partnership’s launch on June 1st, the two companies will be working together to help educate founders on raising investments and growing successful teams. The first step on this journey will be an <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-strategically-build-a-highly-scalable-team-tickets-350442732647">upcoming webinar</a> from Findrs’ founder, Chris Booth, on “How to Strategically Build a Highly Scalable team”.Find out how <a href="https://t.sidekickopen01.com/s3t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8cFJgTVh3-PS59hl3kW7_k2841CX6NGW36PLlp7vB3RXW2RpvRt175lLwf197v5Y04?te=W3R5hFj4cm2zwW4cJ1Lz3ZVcnJF3Z-Z1kmLXp1&si=8000000021360975&pi=11ffeb9a-49b6-4ee9-983b-4b82f6f8de32">SeedLegals</a> can help your startup grow, or if you’re interested in partnering with SeedLegals, check out the <a href="https://t.sidekickopen01.com/s3t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8cFJgTVh3-PS59hl3kW7_k2841CX6NGW36PLlp7vB3RXW2RpvRt175lLwf197v5Y04?te=W3R5hFj4cm2zwW4cJ1Lz3ZVcnJW3Z-Z1k43T4P4W3zgF8K3K8R3wW3Fbt6_4hJVmT34932&si=8000000021360975&pi=11ffeb9a-49b6-4ee9-983b-4b82f6f8de32">SeedLegals Partner Community </a>

Findrs, partners with legaltech platform, SeedLegals, to offer startup growth support

<h5>Good news! After applying for a variety of jobs, you&#39;ve been offered an interview. This is an extremely exciting time but for many it can be daunting too - but it doesn&#39;t have to be.</h5><h5>There are hundreds of tips all over the internet on how to nail a job interview but having worked side-by-side on recruitment strategies with the start-ups and scale-up you&#39;re interviewing for, we have the inside scoop on what to do to give your interview a competitive edge.</h5><h3>The decision</h3>There are usually three main criteria for any job that’ll influence the interviewer’s decision: <ul><li>Skills and knowledge – what is needed to progress the business? This might be a technical skill (C#, Azure, Hadoop), soft skill (sales, negotiation, organization), leadership skill (influencing, creating vision, leading a team), or specific industry experience.</li><li>Cultural fit – are you the “type of person” the hiring manager is looking for? This doesn’t necessarily mean that you fit the current culture, but that you fit what the hiring manager wants you to be – especially if they’re promoting a cultural shift within the business. </li><li>The details – salary, location, willingness to travel, availability to start, etc.</li></ul>The tips below will help you check the first two boxes, leaving only the practical details up for negotiation.<h2>Here are our top tips on nailing your upcoming job interview: </h2><ul><li>Understand what the interviewer is trying to achieve</li><li>Generate a conversation</li><li>Balance push &amp; pull</li><li>Give evidence-based answers</li><li>Be enthusiastic/passionate</li><li>State your interest</li><li>Ask for feedback
</li></ul><h4>1) Understand what the interviewer is trying to achieve</h4>The interviewer is looking to fill a skills gap in their team. Understand this gap &amp; explain how you can fill it.Although for you, this interview is a crucial step on your career path, put yourself in the interviewer’s shoes before you prepare for the day. Realistically, the interviewer has a requirement on their team that they’re trying to fill, and they simply want to know if you can fill that gap. It’s not a personal judgment on you, but on how well you can help them. So, gear every interview answer towards showing you’re the perfect person to help them meet the requirements stated in the job description. <h4>2) Generate a conversation</h4>Build a rapport with the interviewer by being personable and friendly. Prove you’re the type of person they’d enjoy working with day-to-day.These days, interviews aren’t about a quick-fire round of Q&amp;A where you have to answer the question correctly. Interviewers, especially in start-ups and smaller teams, want to be sure you’re the “right kind of person” they can work well with on a daily basis. Try to make interesting conversation with the interviewer to build rapport – for example about a great work experience, interview task, or piece of software you’re really passionate about.<h4>3) Balance push &amp; pull</h4>While you’re selling yourself, ask questions that encourage the interviewers tosell the job toyou.Think of the ‘push’ as selling yourself, and the ‘pull’ as qualifying them. Ask your interviewer questions about the role to lightly challenge them and get them to sell to you. This automatically generates a psychological response where the interviewer wants you a little bit more as no one likes the feeling of rejection. <blockquote>For example, if an interviewer asks you: “We code the majority of our apps on .NET/C#. This is working well for us, but we may look into opensource technologies. What technologies do you like working with?”</blockquote><blockquote>You can answer: “I’ve coded with .NET/C# for a long time and I do enjoy it. I understand what you’re saying though, with more opensource technologies becoming mainstream, I want to learn more about them. What kind of technology are you thinking of bringing in?”</blockquote>Be careful with this though. Make sure you find the right balance between push and pull because if you pull too much, you may come across as disinterested or challenging.<h4>4) Give evidence-based answers</h4>Focus on backing up your claims, not providing theoretical answers.As part of your ‘push’, sell yourself with evidence-based examples. If you’re asked whether you have experience using certain software, go above and beyond the standard answer by offering details about when you used it, why, what you liked about it, and any metrics-based or tangible lessons you’ve learned. Follow this up with a question about other software they use or openness to integrating X software and you’ll have an answer that’s far more impactful than simply: ‘Yes, I have experience using X software in my previous role.’<h4>5) Be enthusiastic and passionate</h4>Prove you’re the kind of person who has some fire beneath them. Enthusiasm and passion are always remembered by interviewers and make a great first impression. While enthusiasm for your job/project is helpful, showing enthusiasm in an interview doesn’t need to be related to the role you’re interviewing for, it could be about the sports team you play for or your family.The key is not to come across as apathetic - who wants that on their team? <h4>6) State your interest</h4>If you’re interested – say so.There are countless people who don’t get the offer they really want purely because the hiring manager “didn’t get the feeling” they were interested. So, if you’re interested, openly say so.<blockquote>For example, sign off the interview with: “I just wanted to say it was great speaking with you today, if I’m lucky enough to get an offer, please know I’ll be seriously considering it.”</blockquote>Beware though – it’s important to find the right balance here. You don’t want to come across TOO interested, as this may put interviewers off or diminish your negotiating position later on.<h4>7) Ask for feedback</h4>Find out about the interviewer’s doubts or lingering questions before you finish the interview so you have a chance to put these to rest. Asking for feedback is vital, but people often forget this in an interview. Before the interview ends, you need to know if there are any doubts in the hiring manager’s mind, so you can act on these.<blockquote>In the “what questions do you have for us” part of the interview, let this be the final one: “based on our conversation, I feel this role suits me really well and sounds great. Do you have any concerns about my fit for the role?”</blockquote>If the interviewer comes back with nothing negative, this is a great sign – you’ve likely nailed the interview while proving you’re confident asking for feedback. Or, if the interviewer does have concerns, this is the perfect opportunity to explain why you would be a good fit and put right any misconceptions.Make sure you show some empathy as to why the interviewer has come to certain conclusions about you, though. This way, you won’t come across argumentative or pushy.<h2>The best way to nail a job interview?</h2>These tips are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to nailing your job interview.As part of our candidate plan, we help you put your best food forward with every application by supporting you with everything from reviewing your CV, to giving you tailored interview tips, and helping build your confidence and interview style.If you&#39;re already signed up as part of our candidate plan, be sure to get in touch with your consultant if you have any questions or concerns and we&#39;ll be happy to help.Or, if you&#39;re new here, we&#39;d love to help you take the next step on your career path! Whether you&#39;re considering a new job or already deep into the application process, get in touch on 0113 833 5855 or email hello@findrs.co.uk for a no-obligation chat with one of our friendly consultants to see how our candidate plan can help you.<h4>Good luck!</h4>

Top Tips for Your Next Job Interview

We find good people to build solid teams that create the conditions for everyone to succeed.

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<blockquote>“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed – for lack of a better word - is good. Greed is right. Greed works.  Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.  Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed – you mark my words - will not only save Teller Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”Gordon Gekko, Wall Street – 1987</blockquote>Gekko’s speech signified a turning point in business culture. Companies driven by greed could suddenly justify making any decision, no matter how immoral or unethical, for the purpose of profit and power. Mass layoffs? No problem.Insurance firms refusing to pay out on claims based on trivial technicalities? Sure!Banks lending subprime loans risking the world economy? Why not!<h3>The Greedy Recruiters</h3>From the 80s until the 2008 recession, recruitment boomed, motivated by Gekko’s mantra: “greed is good”.Unfortunately, many recruitment malpractices were born from this era of power and greed…For example, Recruiter A won’t “waste their time” giving feedback to an unsuccessful final-stage candidate. This is 5 minutes of their time they could spend finding new candidates for new clients! Time is far too important a commodity. Meanwhile, Recruiter B, will never be upfront with all the facts about a role - especially if it means they might not get their fee. Unfortunately, this slimy salesman rep still lingers over the industry like a bad smell. And it’s not just individual consultants that perpetuate this negativity.Management teams from huge recruitment offices are adding fuel to the fire with things like:<ul><li>Unrealistic KPIs (call times, CVs, vacancies generated) focused on making more money</li><li>Commission-driven assignments based on speed and profitability rather than hard work, creativity, and cultural values</li><li>Threats of letting employees go if they don’t perform financially. (In these situations, employees work themselves to the ground, experiencing burnout, demotivation, and a range of other potential mental health issues until they pack it in all together and find a new role themselves!)</li></ul>Ultimately, these “traditional” recruitment practices value revenue over brand reputation (and humanity!).Fee &gt; Brand <h3>The Consequences</h3>Prioritising revenue over employee and candidate health, and ultimately brand reputation, can have some pretty devastating consequences for candidates, consultants, and companies.Most individual consultants work in fairly small markets like “perm C#/.NET development, NW England” or “Contract Cloud and Infrastructure, London and M4 Corridor”. The markets are split like this to give individual consultants the opportunity to get to know everyone and immerse themselves in the market.So, if the individual is forced into making certain decisions for the benefit of the profit-hungry agency, it won’t be long before most of their specific market know their name. Meaning they ultimately gain a bad reputation for themselves and their agency until they’re forced to move into a different market - either within the same agency or another.This hinders the recruitment process for the companies they’re working with, earning them a bad reputation for things like ghosting final stage candidates or disregarding great candidates early on - when these practices are undeniably out of their control. <h3>So, What’s the Alternative?</h3>We’re agreed. The “traditional” recruiters have it all wrong. Greed is, in fact, not good. Greed creates a devastating short-sightedness that in the long term stunts growth for individuals and entire organisations - a ripple effect that ultimately impacts the clients working with these agencies too.So, what’s the alternative? When we started Findrs in 2018, we dared ourselves to be different. We’ve built a different kind of recruitment agency; a group of left-field people-people helping grow start-ups and scale-ups. We’re motivated by something completely opposite to greed - generosity. We believe good people aren’t hard to find. So we only work with good people. And we put all our time into matching good candidates and clients to build even better teams. Our vision is based on hard work and transparency, we aim to save you time, risk, and money. In fact, we’re so far from the “greed is good” mantra that we operate flexible shared-risk payment plans [link] that allow clients and their teams to grow and be the best they can be - especially in their formative years where cashflow can be tight. Our aim is to push recruitment in the right direction by going above and beyond to help clients and candidates scale and build teams that are out of this world. If there’s a way we can help a client or candidate, we will - even if there’s nothing immediately in it for us. <h4>Just a couple of practices we pride ourselves on include: </h4><ul><li>Taking the time to provide feedback to every candidate that interacts with us</li><li>Dedicating our time to support candidates struggling to find new work - providing coaching &amp; advice with our Candidate Plan [link]</li><li>Supporting clients with investment strategy, offering access to start-up accelerator workshops</li><li>Listening to clients’ pitches &amp; providing constructive feedback to ensure your decks are as effective as possible</li><li>Providing clients with access to our learning and development partners: Skiller Whale &amp; Sales Academy [link]</li></ul>This isn’t some hippy, millennial, spiced-pumpkin latte drinking business model. We truly believe what goes around, comes around so if we’re in a position to help - whether candidate or client - we will. <h3>Build the right team, with the right team</h3>If you’re recruiting and looking for your strategic growth partner, get in touch.Or, get to know us better and by browsing through our values, flexible pricing terms, and incredible team.

The Battle Between Profit and Reputation

If you’ve ever worked with a recruitment consultant, you’ve likely had a conversation about exclusivity which has left you feeling skeptical. When you have no history of a successful relationship with a recruiter, how can you justify giving away total rights to an assignment? After all, surely “many hands make light work”, right? Wrong.While an exclusive recruitment relationship isn’t right for every role in every company, there’s much more to it than simply safety in numbers. In fact, the way a recruitment consultant approaches an assignment is completely different depending whether its competitive or exclusive.So, before you write off exclusivity on your next assignment, take a moment to weigh up the pros and cons of both approaches. We’ve outlined them for you below.<h3>Competitive Recruitment</h3>Competitive recruitment is often about urgency. It’s a race to the finish. Who can send over the first candidate CVs?Typically, this means quantity and speed are prioritised over quality candidates, which can make the process messy and inaccurate. In our experience, a competitive assignment will rarely afford you the time, space, or strategy to discover the most high-value talent on the market. In fact, it often wastes the hiring manager’s time, having to sift through useless CVs that leave you feeling exhausted and discouraged.<h4>How It Works</h4>To kick it off, a group of consultants will attend a call with a wider PSL. The hiring manager will likely run this call, where they will brief up to six consultants, who will then eagerly rush off and start their urgent search for the “best” candidate they can find.You may be thinking: “this doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. I’d love to have six people urgently searching for a candidate to fill my vacancy.”But, urgency can quickly become problematic…The consultants will get their job ad up urgently, start hurriedly speaking to candidates on job boards, and urgently check if their “hot candidates” from the last few assignments are still searching for roles. Then, any candidates who fit on paper are rushed to an interview with a consultant with an urgent request to urgently send their CV across to the company as their representative - whether they’re truly a strong fit or not. (And that’s IF consultants follow proper protocol and receive confirmation of representation before rushing to send over the first CV.)You, the hiring manager, then have to sift through an unqualified pile of loosely fitting CVs, of which very few candidates will be worth interviewing - wasting your time and leaving you disheartened. Meanwhile, the other five consultants have found the same best-fitting candidate from the database. They’ve realised the candidate is already being represented, and all is lost… Their possibility of winning this assignment and generating their commission is gone. So they lose interest. It’s at this point when work ethic dries up and market coverage starts to slow. Consultants don’t put in the time to find the best candidates because in their minds they’ve already lost the assignment. CVs sent to the hiring company are drastically reduced, great candidates are missed, and you’re left with a choice of candidates who fit 50% of your needs (at best!) while the consultants urgently move onto the next assignment where their chances are higher.<h4>In summary</h4><h5>Pros</h5><ul><li>More hands &amp; eyes on your search</li><li>Speed and urgency</li></ul><h5>Cons</h5><ul><li>Inaccuracy </li><li>Time wasted sifting through irrelevant CVs</li><li>Low motivation</li><li>Missed quality candidates</li><li>Low CV to interview ratio</li></ul><h3>Exclusive recruitment</h3>Let’s compare this to an exclusive arrangement. With one consultant working on your assignment, their approach will be more considered. They need to work fast, yes. But, as only one pair of hands, they have to think strategically about how to use their time efficiently to find the best candidates. No matter what anyone else does, this is their sole responsibility. So, after a consultant takes a brief for an exclusive assignment, the approach is vastly different to the scattergun approach above. It values quality and efficiency over quantity and urgency. <h4>How it works</h4>After receiving a brief from the hiring manager, in which the consultant will have time to gain a thorough understanding of the role, company, and culture, the consultant working on an exclusive assignment will take the time to consider the best approach.Even in situations where there is a time limit on the placement, the recruiter will take their time to build a shortlist, screen out ill-fitting candidates, conduct in-depth pre-interviews, and send quality write ups about the candidates. You, the hiring manager, then receive a shortlist of relevant, high-quality candidates, (with tailored cover letters if they’re coming from us) where you can have your pick of who goes to interview.The thought and dedication consultants put into an exclusive assignment typically means the talent acquisition is much more accurate and efficient, saving you hours of sifting through irrelevant CVs and improving the likelihood of sending these candidates straight to interview.Plus, exclusive recruitment is not only clean and efficient, but it can also be highly discreet in situations where you’d rather keep an assignment as quiet as possible.<h4>In summary</h4><h5>Pros</h5><ul><li>Better market exposure</li><li>Time saved reviewing CVs - you receive a shortlist of quality candidates</li><li>Qualitative approach</li><li>Increased discretion</li><li>Potential decreased cost (some agencies offer reduced fees based on exclusivity)</li><li>Increased control on public visibility</li><li>Consultant efficiency &amp; focus - willingness to go the extra mile &amp; consider more advanced tactics knowing they own the responsibility for the assignment</li><li>Happier candidates - saving time on roles they don’t fit &amp; a more realistic picture of the competition </li></ul><h5>Cons</h5><ul><li>We can’t think of any! </li></ul><h3>Let’s be exclusive</h3>At Findrs, we believe in monogamy. We rarely take on competitive work because we think it benefits no one: candidates, consultants, and hiring managers alike waste time and are left feeling discouraged from rushed quantitive searches that reduce the rate of high-quality, satisfactory placements. We pride ourselves on providing a high-end service and we will never compromise on that. If we can help someone, we will - and we always strive to go the extra mile. We value honesty and transparency above anything, so if we’re offered an assignment that we think we can’t fill with the perfect candidate, we simply won’t take it on. Plus, when we’re given an exclusive assignment, we promise: <ul><li>Increased CV to interview ratio</li><li>Increased market exposure</li><li>Undying commitment - we won’t rest until we find the right candidate(s) </li><li>Reduced cost per hire</li></ul>There’s a range of other benefits to working with us as your growth partner including reduced risk, flexible pricing, and dedication not only to identifying the best candidate, but taking a holistic approach to your recruitment strategy to help you build unrivalled teams.Get in touch with one of our fantastic recruiters to start your dedicated search.

Competitive vs Exclusive Recruitment

Ideas & Insights

For queries and support, please email hello@findrs.co.uk.
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Ideas & Insights

Recruiting In A Recession: Our Top Tips

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Findrs, partners with legaltech platform, SeedLegals, to offer startup growth support

Top Tips for Your Next Job Interview

The Battle Between Profit and Reputation

Competitive vs Exclusive Recruitment

Top Interview Tips for Hiring the Best Talent

Recruiting In A Recession: Our Top Tips

Recruiting In A Recession: Our Top Tips

How To Secure Talent Once You've Found It

Findrs, partners with legaltech platform, SeedLegals, to offer startup growth support

Top Tips for Your Next Job Interview

The Battle Between Profit and Reputation

Competitive vs Exclusive Recruitment

Top Interview Tips for Hiring the Best Talent

We work hardWe search hard

We find good people to build solid teams that create the conditions for everyone to succeed.

We work hard
We search hard