Full Transcript for Becoming a magnet - with Vicky Short

you. We'll, we'll in effect do tech admin for you. And as you say, we can drop a lot of that and take the more interesting stuff, but you've got to be good. Like there are less hiding places. It's not. Right, follow this script or press these buttons. It is get to the bottom of your client's problems. Which is, which is scary if, you've not been in. Vicky Short: Yeah. Yeah. It's also exciting. I think you're right. I did skirt around a bit. It's something that I think about and get excited about, about the possibilities for people entering the recruitment market or who already really skilled in the recruitment market now. But also the flip side of what's going to happen to people who that's really outside their comfort zone. So I think there's this sort of two-dimensional thing here where those of us that have been in recruitment who are, you know, they love talking to people. They're curious about organizations. know, they're sort of on the customer service sales angle of recruitment. There's a real opportunity to hone those skills and thrive and really how you drive real value an organization by providing those insights and asking deeper questions and so on. But what about those people who aren't? Because there's a lot of people who are great in recruitment at the moment, who are perhaps a bit more introvert, who are perhaps a bit more, know, have hidden behind the keyboard over the last few years where, you know, it's been, you you've had to do a lot of work on LinkedIn or job boards or whatever, but a bit more keyboard warriors. Well, you know, how do we support those people in this transition and what's going to happen to the work that they're doing? ⁓ you know, can they make that leap or will there need to be a, you know, will they become the people behind the data and drive in the insights for the, for the other recruiters to take those insights to clients maybe. there's, there's not everybody's ⁓ for that sort of front end customer facing role in recruitment. Jon Brooks: Yeah, absolutely. A trend I'm seeing, I've worked with a few recruitment leaders recently who I think don't fit the classic stereotype. They're not, mean, they're still people, people, but they would, they have described themselves as introverts. But this is a great time for them because, ⁓ mean, they are leading their businesses, but they are, because they're experts in recruitment, including the process and they're spotting Vicky Short: Yeah. Jon Brooks: ⁓ the opportunities with AI, they were able to marry that together. and I like the people, the idea that, yeah, people even lower down ⁓ the organization can say, hang on. There's a lot of data here and AI can gather that data and bring that data together, but actually add the human cherry on top, ⁓ real added value that then backs up the. Vicky Short: Yes. Jon Brooks: the outgoing people who are ⁓ ⁓ hope there is room for everyone in this. Vicky Short: Yeah, I think you're right. I think that that sort of, you know, AI

can gather the data and indeed give you some insights, but you do need the human eye on it to make sense of if it's a hallucination or not. it, know, have we, have we indeed as an organization given it the right data sets to look at and so on? So I think there's some great new for people that are evolving. think that's where recruitment will come into its own because we'll have those really great insights to share with our clients where some organizations are already there and have been for years, but let's face facts, some organizations have been flying by the seat of the pants and haven't had that insight. And I think that's going to be much more accessible to in general. Jon Brooks: Yeah. Something you mentioned earlier, said some internal recruitment teams are creating some really good best practice. ⁓ you, don't need to name names, but can you share some examples of what that looks like? And importantly, how do good recruitment agents plug into that? How do we add value to, to good, interesting internal recruitment teams? Vicky Short: Hmm. Yeah. think you look at the way internal talent teams have evolved, many years ago, ⁓ face facts, some recruiter saw it as if you can't make it in recruitment, you go and work in internal talent. And that's the sort of elephant in the room ⁓ that's no longer the case. And I think if you, ⁓ there's organizations where the internal talent teams have... really good strong leadership, they have better tech stacks. mean, they have access to all the tech stacks recruiters have got. Let's, know, LinkedIn, the job boards, should you need job boards these days? You got, if look at some of the ATSs and CRMs and, ⁓ you Workday, etc. They've got the technology there at their fingertips to be able to do this and have better people over the years so that And a lot of them are now have better tech stacks than some companies. So I think there's some, as always, there's a whole range of in between that. But I met with an ex colleague a few weeks ago who's run some big global ITA teams and gone in and sort of either helped set them up or turned them around when they weren't doing so well. And we were having a conversation about this and he was saying that, you recruiters now have to really step it up because you can't assume that the ITA team is going to be average because quite often they're pretty good. And where is the opportunity for recruiters? Well, I suppose it's understanding. Well, one showing some respect two understanding, well, you what are they trying to achieve with that internal talent team? So, you know, where does it sit in the organization? What is the setup? How are they KPI'd? Jon Brooks: True. Vicky Short: what are they focusing on? Because they quite often won't be trying to do everything. Some of them are focused on the volume roles. Some of them are focused on niche roles. And they can quite often be in larger enterprise organizations set up in different segments. understanding ⁓ the gap? And can I fit into that gap? And where can I add value? But also not feeling like they're in competition with the internal talent teams. It's about being in partnership and how can you make them look good to their boss and seeing them as the customer rather than a competitor. ⁓ think of many conversations I've had with teams where, ⁓ well, we can't get through the ITA and they've not taken the time to really understand what they're really doing, what they're trying to achieve, how they're being measured, what their pain points are. Jon Brooks: Mm. Vicky Short: how they choose to partner with recruiters and then coming in from a, well, that might not be working for you because of and being a more advisor to them and helping them solution that. There's big opportunity there still. And I think, you know, quite often recruiters will see it as a competitor or just see it as a barrier and a challenge rather than a real opportunity to think, well, they're doing that really well. I'm great at this. ⁓ I can really support that team to be even more successful by being a proper recruitment partner. Jon Brooks: Yeah, I was working with someone recently who is, X internal talent. And so she really knows ⁓ challenges and ⁓ strategic decisions. You know, what do we do? What do we not do? So she's been, now she's running an agency. She's been able to say, hang on, we can really create services that meet the different needs. So, as you say, they might, ⁓ know, an internal team might say, right. Vicky Short: Thanks. Yes. Yes. Jon Brooks: We're going to focus on 80%, the 80 % roles, the core and not do the specialist roles, or we're going to focus on these specialist roles, leave, but outsource the senior roles or whatever. Yeah. I guess, yes. The mindset shift from, if you treat someone as a competitor, you won't do like a customer analysis of them. You'll do a competitor analysis of them. Vicky Short: Yeah. Yeah. Jon Brooks: But if you say, on, if you can shift that mindset and say, hang on, this is a potential customer, what do they value? Then you can serve them. Vicky Short: play. I think so. And I think the other thing there as well is if you, if you think of one of the real benefits you bring as an external recruitment to that partnership is, you know, the, the, the internal talent teams are recruiting for their brand. And like you say, quite often they're recruiting the 80 % role. So how was a recruiter? you bringing the external market? What's happening in that external market and what are their competitors doing? that that client might benefit from the insight you can bring as a recruiter, that because they're so embedded in their own organization, so on, they're not seeing that. And again, I think that's where there's an opportunity for recruiters. Now, some internal talent teams are great at having that network and having that outside in but there's quite a lot of them that just don't have the space or time or network to be able to do that. So I think again,

where... you can support them by giving them those nuggets and that outside and inside that builds that partnership even deeper. Jon Brooks: Yeah. I think it just a practical idea is rather than going to TA, you've got to the point where you want to talk to them, rather saying, do you with agencies? Actually saying, what's your strategy? What are you, ⁓ what are as you say, what are your KPIs? What are you focused on? And what aren't you focused on? Vicky Short: I don't Jon Brooks: And then if there's that synergy of saying, ⁓ hang on, you're not focused on this. Well, I'm really good at that. Then that brings you together. Yeah. Rather than butting up against, well, can I have as many jobs for me as possible? And they say, well, actually aim is to fill as many jobs as possible internally. Interesting. One I'm fascinated by how Vicky Short: Yeah. Jon Brooks: recruiters stand out from other agencies. There are, as we know, so many agencies out there. And I get a bit depressed when people say, ⁓ aren't we all the same? It's fine when clients say it, we can work on that. when, recruiters say, ⁓ aren't we all the same? Now, obviously for a long time, you ran teams and then in ⁓ RANSTAD. Vicky Short: you Jon Brooks: Now that's a big brand, but it's also a big organization. How did you define who you were and make sure you stood out? Vicky Short: a very big question. I suppose, you know, over the years we evolved and that, you know, that's, that's part of how you stand out is by continuing to evolve with the market. know, as an organization, you can't stand still. And, you know, if you, if you look at the labor market, the recruitment market, the economy, it's changing so much. So as a recruiter, you've got to be constantly aware of. ⁓ how that's evolving and what the customer needs are, how that's impacting customer needs and evolving with it. But so at Randstad, we really focused on, know, how do we, whilst being a big company, how do we be a specialist within that? I think recruiters stand out by understanding clients' ⁓ market, clients' organization and culture and values. And then... ⁓ really trying to align as closely as they can do with that. I suppose you can look at it through a number of lenses, know, industry sectors, but you can also look at it through talent ⁓ as well. So clients these days being a specialist, I think is just a, it's a basic level. They want you to be a specialist, understand them, the sector they operate and the type of talent that they're looking for. But then there's also the, you know, what's service that the customer's looking for. So you've got to look at, you am I seen as a specialist, particularly for larger organizations like Randstad as a managed service provider, as an RPO partner, as an advisor, not just Tempol Perm. So I think, you know, we chose the, I suppose the industry sectors where we wanted to play. we chose the types of services we wanted to offer our clients based on what was happening and where we saw the growth. But based on what we were good at. There were certain areas in the market that we knew were going to grow, but we just didn't have in our portfolio. And actually to ⁓ do there, we knew that would need to be a Jon Brooks: Yeah. Vicky Short: startup or an acquisition strategy. So we chose to focus on, know, where can we be great and do a great job for our customers. And really focusing in each of the specialty divisions that the company had on trying to be as close to that client and meeting them and the talent where they were, I think that's how we stood out. So whether that was in our healthcare business or our education business or our manufacturing division or... ⁓ finance business, got to meet the client where they are and want to deeply care about it, but have those, have insight, know, do you really understand what the challenges are that they're facing? And you at what's happening at the moment in the economy and so on. And each sector is going to have different challenges ⁓ based on, know, what's in the Middle East. based on what's happening in the labor market. And as a recruiter, you've got to be able to bring that to your client or they don't see the value in having you because it is so crowded. There's so many recruiters there. And I've seen that, I knew it when I was in Randstad, but I've seen it even more now I'm not in Randstad that there are some phenomenal recruitment businesses the UK and Ireland. the ones that are doing well when the market's tough are deeply specialist and really close to their clients and really care about delivering a great service to their clients. And I see that consistently and I think that's hugely exciting, but I think there's a lot of recruiters that are struggling to find that. But you look at Jon Brooks: Yeah. Vicky Short: You look at the ones that are doing well and they're all really clear on who they are and how they bring that value to their customers. Jon Brooks: Yeah. And yeah, it's wonderfully put, hard to do. ⁓ reminds me of, yeah, the definition of strategy is what you don't do, right? How, you any examples of, to me, I that's a really challenging thing to do. Did you, I'm guessing you had times where... Vicky Short: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Jon Brooks: It was difficult to say no to an opportunity because it fell outside of the strategy, but there's opportunity there. Vicky Short: Yeah. Well, remember not after being appointed into the chief executive role, we did big review of our strategy because we, you know, we'd... We were wanting to think, right, how do we grow the business, but also at the same time, how do we improve our profitability? And we did a big review of the market. outside in that was the market as in the, you know, which industry sectors are going to grow and which job types are going to grow in the next 10 years. We looked at all of our competitors. ⁓ you know, the top 20 players in the UK. And then we looked at our internal. ⁓ and did a ⁓ total review on that ⁓

made some decisions that there were certain parts of our portfolio we were just not going to continue with because we at through a, is it going to grow? Are we good it? And can we become a top five player in that space? And if it didn't meet those criteria, ⁓ that was a we made. Then we took that out into the business and that clarity helped us make choices on, you know, where we put our marketing dollars, where we put our headcount investment, where we put our training and so on. And like you say, when opportunities came in, because we were lucky enough to have business that came in for tender, we would look at that lens of, we do a great job for this client and does it fit into... to sort of our portfolio mix in terms of industry sector talent type and service solution that we wanted to sell. that did disappoint some people and it did mean that we went to some parts of the organization and said, know, we're either gonna exit or wind down, offer people opportunities to move into growth segments. And that's but it also creates clarity and assurance for people. and certainty for people. And I think once people saw that that was paying off and where we were putting our bets on growth was paying off, that gave more confidence in the strategy. Jon Brooks: Yeah. And just mentioned the word confidence. Something you said there made me think it also gives you more confidence in your value. So if you said we are going to be a top five player, then that means that any new business you're going for, you're saying we're going for this because we are one of the top five people, ideally top three, top two, top one, to, win this. Vicky Short: Mmm. Jon Brooks: So, you whoever in the team is sitting, well, everyone in the team who's going for that says, yeah, we, we have the right to win this and our clients should choose us because we are one of the best for this opportunity. Not that this is just another random opportunity. Wouldn't it be nice to win some of them? Vicky Short: you say that feeling of being, you know, People want to feel successful. They want to feel valued both internally and by their clients and by the talent. And I think that clarity on, you want You want to be magnet as a recruiter, I think. You're sort of, but if you think of it as a magnet, you're the recruitment business. You want to attract the best recruitment consultants. You want to attract the best employer brands and you want to attract the best talent for those employer brands. And the clearer you be. ⁓ I think your magnet becomes stronger and it becomes a bit of a flywheel of success. But that's hard. think it's hard to, like you say, it's hard to say no, because you don't want to disappoint people. But the more you can show them that the no's lead you, I think there's a book called Getting to Yes. The more no's you, it gets you closer to the yes. It does give that clarity and assurance and the confidence to the... Jon Brooks: Yeah, yeah. Vicky Short: We're doing this because we

want you to be successful and we want the business to be successful. Jon Brooks: Yeah. I that magnet analogy. I'm trying to go further with it, but I'm not an expert in magnets. I was of someone. Yeah, ⁓ I lost daughter. Yeah, someone waving a around, hoping they attract something versus actually pointing it in the right direction and ⁓ turning it up. don't know. There's something there, I think. So. Vicky Short: Last make is on the way. Jon Brooks: recruiters are often seen as all the same, yeah, in my experience, there are a lot of agencies, often specialists who add different things. Yeah. They might call it added value or additional services, things like that. Sometimes that's, kind of the catalyst is the client asking for it. sometimes it's because, yeah. Vicky Short: you Jon Brooks: The agency leader says, well, I'm also fascinated in this and they bring their interest in to drive that. it a kind of psychometrics or whatever. Can give us examples of things that or the agencies you now work with and Things that they're, the added value that bringing to their clients. Vicky Short: I think, you look at ⁓ market, like you say, some of this has been driven out of necessity or client need, ⁓ indeed, I think as the market's evolving. I think now, suppose I started in recruitment, it was largely temp or perm. And then you had MSPs, neutral Jon Brooks: Yeah. Vicky Short: And then you started to get some SOW, which largely started, I guess, recruiters, you know, would get an SOW, but then it evolved into, you get SOW in all different sorts of spaces. particularly if you're running a program now, you're asked to look at that, but also, you know, looking at in ⁓ sector and so on. So it's evolved over the years. And I think this is what's one thing that I find brilliant about recruitment. It's so resilient. But I see a trend now moving to more advisory services and not just in the big recruiters. In the, I suppose the smaller and more medium size recruiters where I think some of it's been driven out of we need to improve our margin because as much as, you know, people in the UK thought that the margins had sort of hit a floor, I think they've come under pressure again in the last couple of years where you know, it's becoming more highly procured again. So there's a need to where your costs are increasing on your head count and your tech costs, your tech stack costs are going up and so on. You how do we make our business viable and more profitable? organizations are In the wonderful way that recruiters are entrepreneurial are looking at ways to enhance that. But actually realizing as well that there's a space to be. offer advisory services and clients pay for it. And I suppose in an organization like Randstad, you know, we have the benefit of working with the likes of McKinsey and Soham where you see what they're doing and how they're selling and how they're operating. And they're not selling widgets or an hourly rate or a placement fee or whatever. They're selling to the C-suite and they're, they working on strategy, they're working on business growth, and they're not thinking, well, I'll place a person in for a day and that's how ⁓ my money. And I think there's opportunities there and ⁓ and more recruiters are seeing that. Well, ⁓ embedded in the talent of the organization anyway, but actually I need to move up the value chain to get... more of the wallet share, be sticky with my client, really understand their business strategy and starting to add some of those services to their clients. So some of that is more advanced and actually moving into a space where some recruiters are competing with the McKinsey's Accentures of this world or some of the tech service providers. And some on a lighter touch where they might be advising on a recruitment process or employer branding or those sorts of things. there's a whole scale of that, but I'm seeing that much more, again, I'm in the outside world. I'm seeing more and more recruiters in that space and of their revenue coming that. I met with a lady the other week and she's got a a 10 million pound recruitment business and 40 % of her revenue is coming from advisory now. Whereas she wasn't even doing that three years ago. I think there is opportunity for organizations, but again, it depends on your own skillset and the customers. And it usually comes, starts with a necessity. Jon Brooks: No matter where you want to up and what type of services you want to offer. The way in is to ask bigger questions. So if you're saying, do you need someone? your finance manager just left. Do you need a new finance manager? Vicky Short: Yes. Jon Brooks: staying in recruitment. There's nothing to that. ⁓ you can't price or then negotiate on ⁓ real point and the real need there. Whereas if ⁓ you deeper questions and they say, well, actually we're aiming an exit in three years if we're talking about, yeah, and our finance function needs to have these skills in it in order to get that exit. And that exit is worth a hundred million dollars. Vicky Short: Absolutely. Jon Brooks: Okay, we're getting somewhere. Now on its own, that allows you to justify your placement fee more effectively. But what I've seen time and again is what you just said is it then opens up questions that you find you can answer. If you've been in recruitment, if you've been in that sector, if you are a specialist, say, well, actually I worked with someone two years ago who went through this process. Vicky Short: Yes. Mm. Jon Brooks: They hired a few people, some of worked out, some of them didn't. That is incredibly valuable information. And the prize we're talking about is a hundred million dollars. So it's not just a 15 K placement fee is a lot of money. It's suddenly like, hang on. I'll happily pay you if you give me the answer to unlocking a hundred million dollars or whatever the, the big picture is. Vicky Short: Yeah. Yeah, and you're right there, Jon, think that, you know, that's the critical

thing that I think a lot of recruiters forget is not just finding the person to work in finance. It's about really understanding what are the skills that organization needs to the exit or the business growth or whatever their ⁓ strategy And what's the gap at the moment and what's the next critical hire or critical free hires that are going to help them fill those gaps rather than I need a finance bod. And quite often recruiters get stuck on the job description rather than really understanding the strategy and the skills that are required. And if you look at now, how many... Jon Brooks: you Vicky Short: can't remember the stats, but yeah, something like 70 odd percent of roles are going to need to be re-skilled in the next two years. Well, if that's the reality, what are the skills of the future that client's going to need? You know, it's not what they have in the business now. What are they going to need? that's, you know, the thing of ⁓ AI or what do you mean by that? But actually by bringing AI into the organization, that puts more criticality onto the other. I think a real conversation there where, like you say, if you ask bigger questions, ⁓ It's really going to support you as a recruiter to one, justify your fee, but potentially open up other opportunity to sell more advisory services to clients, particularly linked to big business outcomes like a hundred million exit, for example. Jon Brooks: Yeah. And then that opens up. mean, I think we've all been there. Clients who say, ⁓ wow. Yeah. I didn't realize. ⁓ let's, let's hire two finance finance managers or great. Let's bring in ⁓ a data person to the finance team. know, I we spend a lot of time or we've had a lot of experience as recruiters in a zero sum fight with clients and actually. ⁓ Vicky Short: Mm. Jon Brooks: we need to remember that we can have times where we get to sit on the same side of the board table as the client and help them plan things and help them build things. And that leads to incredible outcomes. Vicky Short: Yeah. It does. And I think as well with that, Jon, I think there's also a, you know, if you think you're a, don't know, say you're hiring that mid-level finance role and that's, that's all you do as a recruiter. You know, you're, you're speaking to many more organizations hiring those sorts of people and you're speaking to many more, um, candidates than that client will speak to. So your ability to advise and give real insight as to. how those rules are evolving and what are the real skills that our organisations are looking for. So it's not just, well, that's what I think I need. Well, it's, well, have you thought about these other things? And that's where you bring the insight and guidance. There's a real opportunity for recruiters there as well that I think is often overlooked. Jon Brooks: Yeah. as you say, it's a skill we don't, we don't talk about it so much ⁓ the day to day, but yeah, recruiters generally are very adaptable. they evolve quickly. So I think we can, if we recognize that skillset that we have, that allows us to then say, hang on, let's, let's find ways to get in the room and let's talk strategy. ⁓ Vicky Short: Absolutely. Jon Brooks: And when we pick up that information, we can then evolve with that. yeah, there's, I'm big believer that recruitment is a professional service. It's not, you know, the, the black sheep of ⁓ professional or business services. It's, you know, it should be up there with, I know we're not the same as McKinsey, but I think we can add as much value as McKinsey some of the time. Vicky Short: Hmm. Jon Brooks: Sometimes McKinsey doesn't add much value, but I'm not going to go into that. Another day. Yes. A non-public discussion. But yeah, we can get ourselves in the room, we can those professional services. And I think you said earlier, the margins can be much, much higher on that and we can tie it ⁓ to much value. Vicky Short: I'm going to ahead and Yeah. And I think as well, coming back to a point we discussed earlier, Jon is, you know, as the tech stacks in recruiters are improving the access to data, better data, of AI across that data, we get much deeper insights that are factual than we've had before. And I think that there's real power in that as well. And, and, and, ⁓ know, back to what we said earlier as well. the fact that we're going to have more time or a career is going to have more time to have these great conversations with clients rather than the sort of transactional work that they were doing, I think is, you know, that's where it becomes very exciting as a role in the future. Jon Brooks: Yeah, I've got a theory that way of adding value is just almost selling our obsession. And what I mean by that is AI just generally allows everyone to access everything. Vicky Short: Mm. Mm-hmm. Jon Brooks: So you can go to any of the AI tools and say, me a report on this. You pretty much say, get me a salary survey on this or salary report on this. But people don't know what to ask for. If you're a business of any size, you're not only thinking about recruitment, you're thinking about your finance function, marketing, sales, manufacturing, ⁓ product, whatever. no, everything, not whatever. Absolutely everything. So you don't have the time to think, ⁓ hang on, I could really get some insights into this. And then you've got the hallucinations or the asking the right questions or the challenges that come with AI. So in a sense, as specialists and experts, what we're able to do is just say, if this is public information and we should have proprietary information as well, but we can really. ⁓ Vicky Short: Mm. Jon Brooks: dive into an obsessive level and say, wow, I just keep asking more and more questions and more and more of the right questions of this data and interrogating it in the right way. And then tying it to your specific business as a client. And here are the answers. It's almost like they're outsourcing the thinking, but it's thinking that they're not able

to do themselves. Vicky Short: Mm. Jon Brooks: The danger is we would say, ⁓ anyone could ask this question. And my answer is no, they couldn't. too overwhelming to, there's too many questions, possible questions to ask to actually ask the right ones specifically of recruitment. Vicky Short: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. lot of it, you know, I love AI and use it all the time, but... It only takes you so deep ⁓ know, depending on the data sets it has access to, ⁓ only, you know, particularly on things like that. It be quite out of date and very generic. Now that get richer over time. And if, course, if you're a Ransdell or in a Deco or whatever overlaying that across millions of data points, you're going to get much richer data than. you would if you were doing it through an open access AI. But it's the curiosity and the specificity of those sorts of queries that are going to drive the value. Jon Brooks: Yeah. So yeah, I think there is that role for ⁓ specialist expert still, ⁓ despite that. I'm intrigued. I mean, I'm interested in all of this, but where you are and where you've come from, obviously you've got this... Can compare you to an AI? I'm not sure. ⁓ You've this huge data set of your experience. Vicky Short: We have. Jon Brooks: And you're now coaching recruitment leaders. you've got so much you could offer. What do you focus on? What, what do you specifically focus on? Cause you've covered everything I imagine in your time at Randstad and other places. So what, what do you think is most important or most valuable to recruitment leaders that you say, right, this is what we focus on. This is what we take out of everything I know. Vicky Short: Yeah. Well, I don't tell them what we're going to focus on. They bring what they want. I'm, you know, I... depending on what they're working on at the moment, you know, I've coached somebody through their first acquisition, which is really interesting to do that with somebody. I've coaching somebody who has just been promoted into their first board level role. I'm coaching a number of people who wants to become a board level leader. they're at that sort of ⁓ MD level, want to become a... a C-suite and the consistency throughout is I suppose there's a few themes. need to have this conversation with somebody or I need to approach this issue with somebody and I really want the space to chat that through and talk that through and how I approach it. Because I want to do it in the right way. I want to get the right outcome or I want to treat that person with respect or whatever. Or I've this... I've got this challenge and I want to chat it through with you or want to chat it through in a safe space where I'm not getting judged or my career doesn't depend on it. The more senior you get, the lonelier it is. And particularly if you're the CEO, you've no peer group, you've no natural peer group to chat stuff through with. So it can be a really lonely space for people. Jon Brooks: Yeah. Vicky Short: I've really enjoyed and really valued having that opportunity to be the safe space for people. And sometimes they do want, ⁓ know, my insight and experience of what I've done. But often they come up with the answer themselves. They just need the space ⁓ for to hold with them ⁓ to things through. And I feel... ⁓ I feel really privileged that I'm able to do that now and give back to the industry in a way where I'm helping people in the big jobs time where it is tough out there and it is changing really quickly. ⁓ you know, they're not sure how to approach some of these big questions that they've got to ask themselves. and I'm able to help them and be there for them. And I think that's a really privileged place to be. Jon Brooks: You're right. It does feel overwhelming, doesn't it? Like ⁓ the number of decisions and I think the speed of making that you need to have, or it feels like you need to have, just ratcheting up. Vicky Short: Thank Yeah. Yeah. Jon Brooks: Nice. Well, thank you for giving back to the industry, as you say. is. I don't know if, if I just didn't see it when I started in recruitment, but I feel like recruitment is more, more of a community. ⁓ And there is more sharing and support than, than ⁓ I previously. ⁓ Vicky Short: Yes. No, I think you're right there, Jon. think there's more collaboration I've ever seen in way where people recognise there's enough of the market out there for everybody to be successful. I think we're at a pivotal point again where... where will the market go? Where will the recruitment sector go? And what will be the jobs of the future? And that will look different by the parts of market you're in and so on. people some help. They want some ideas. want some, know, what are you doing about this? And they're really curious and thank goodness people that are generous enough to be able to share their best practice with people in the industry for the benefit of the industry. And I think that's great to see. that collaboration and I think that the sector will be stronger as a result of that. Jon Brooks: Yeah. And we joked earlier about gazing into a crystal ball to make predictions. Yeah. As we know, the game is not to make the right prediction. The game is to the right strategy that will help you win and help your business grow and be able to evolve into ⁓ comes next. Vicky Short: Very much so. And I think if you put, I've been, always been a great believer. If you put the customer at the heart of your decision-making, you can't go far wrong with that. Jon Brooks: Well, that is a great point to end on. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise, insights, ideas, and so much more.