10 years in business - time for reflection

As we celebrate 10 years in business here at 325 Consulting, we have taken this time to reflect and appraise where we are as a business and in particular, where we are in our role as recruiters.

Whilst reflecting on our business and our roles, we came across a post by the globally renowned interviewer of recruiters, Hishem Azzouz, asking "What common traits have you seen in successful recruitment professionals that you have interviewed on your podcast?"

In answer to this question, Hishem, and the wisdom of the crowds, provided the following list of traits.

• Work ethic - consistency of effort over a long period of time
• Resilience - the ability to bounce back from rejection, and to help others do the same (remember we reject a lot more people than we place!)
• Self-Awareness - knowing your strengths and weaknesses and how to work with them
• Humility - being willing to learn from anyone and every situation, irrespective of how much this may hurt your pride
• Always learning - recognising that you can always learn more and there are always opportunities to improve
• Curiosity - despite having a lot of expertise, continuing to ask questions and be genuinely curious about the answers
• Listening and communicating - continually honing these skills to communicate and listen effectively
• Empathetic - being more than willing to understand another person's perspective and being good at thinking about things from others point of view
• Integrity and honesty - these create character and define who you are to both candidates, clients and team members too
• Being innovative - introducing new ideas and new ways of working
• Perspective - being aware of new and emerging market trends and building these into your thinking and messaging
• Work in the grey - developing a sixth sense of interpreting what is being asked versus what is actually needed; finding the key point in the noise
• Paranoia - the fear of being average, which drives performance
• Commercial - balancing short term objectives with the pursuit of long term goals
• Providing guidance - educating others on market trends, career choices, salaries, etc
• Taking people on a journey - and making it a positive experience along the way
• Organisation - focusing on the important tasks that need to be done

Using this list and taking a look at ourselves, it appears that after 10 years in business, and 20+ years recruiting, we remain far from the finished article - there is so much more to do and learn from every interaction we have.So, in the interest of self-improvement and always going further for fewer, we want to use this opportunity to ask you, our clients and candidates, two questions:

• How are we doing?
• What can we do better?

All ideas and comments are welcome.  There is no such thing as bad/honest feedback.  If you want to send your feedback directly then please do so via dmoore@325consulting.comIf you would prefer to remain anonymous then please do so via our website (using a made-up name and email address of course!) - https://www.325consulting.com/connectThanks in advance to those who get in touch and best wishes for FY22 and beyond to all.