Recruiting Staff in a Challenging Climate artwork
The Agency Accelerator

Recruiting Staff in a Challenging Climate

  • S2E74
  • 40:05
  • July 1st 2021

Recruitment is such a hot topic at the moment. I know everyone is finding it tough, so today we’ll be talking about the biggest challenges in recruitment.

In this episode of The Agency Accelerator Podcast, we are joined by Ugis Balmaks, who runs his own recruitment company, Recruiter Mill that helps agencies hire great staff. He shares some interesting insights about the current state of the industry, the recruitment process, tips on how to recruit people, and how to give yourself the best chance to be successful.

Time Stamp

[02:50] Ugis Balmaks’ back story on how he started in recruitment: his first hired employee, his biggest learning experience in recruitment, and more about his company.

[6:35] Pros and cons of hiring an in-house staff vs remote worker

[9:00] How to recruit people during these challenging times in the U.K

[11:16] Do’s and don’ts in recruitment

[14:36] The marketing funnel steps in the recruitment process

[18:58] Tips in filtering job applications

[22:22] How to assess cultural competence during the interview

[26:23] Why honesty is the best policy throughout the recruitment process

[27:37] Difference between hiring employees directly and outsourcing through a recruitment agency

[30:11] How to choose the right recruitment agency 

[33:12] Why you should get involved in the recruitment agency decision making in hiring

[36:08] What is Ugis Balmaks’ best recruitment advice?

 

Quotations

“So often in life, learn the lessons in life the hard way and they are the best lessons that we learn.” - Rob Da Costa

“..that's kind of was a huge wake-up call to what can happen if when hiring is done poorly, which it was at that time. And it led me to kind of start and explore how I could hire better.” - Ugis Balmaks

“Hiring is such inexact science that someone can show up really well at the interview, but then they fail to deliver spectacularly once they start working.” - Rob Da Costa

“Yeah, it's almost like any other marking funnel where you see the numbers and when something's not working, you can see exactly where it's not working, and then you go in and I can fix it.” Ugis Balmaks

“You have the opportunity to learn from others’ mistakes and see what this that they're not, including kind of really try to put them into shoes of a person that would want to work with you, or that you would want to hire...” - Ugis Balmaks

“My favourite expression which is ‘Slow down to speed up.’ Like take your time, go through these steps… because you want to hire right.” - Rob Da Costa

“No one else knows your business better than you do… But your gut instinct is also going to give you a lot of safety and security.” - Ugis Balmaks

“Hiring the best people you possibly can afford, so that you can delegate down and relinquish as much control today as possible.”- Rob Da Costa


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Useful links mentioned in this episode:

The Agency Accelerator

Busy agency owners can have a hard time balancing delivering exceptional work with finding ideal new clients - all the while, ensuring the smooth running of their agency.

Every Thursday, join Rob Da Costa, agency owner and coach, as he explores the key topics that affect you and your agency. I share tools and ideas to aid your profitable growth as well as interview industry expert guests, who share their experiences of working in or with agencies just like yours.

Whether you are just starting out or running an established growing agency, whether you run an online or bricks & mortar agency, this is the podcast for you.

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