In this episode Matt Alder talks to Jamie Leonard Founder of Reconverse
Reconverse is a successful boutique networking and events company for in-house recruiters that is just about to celebrate 100 round table events. Chairing these round table discussions gives Jamie a unique perspective on the industry and in the interview he gives us his take on the in house resourcing market. Matt and Jamie discuss numerous topics in this area including recruiter skill shortages, what’s new in recruitment technology, categorisation in the ATS market and a potentially terrifying game changer for established job boards.
Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:12]:
Hello, and welcome to episode six of the Recruiting Future podcast. In this episode, I interview Jamie Leonard of Reconverse. Sometimes it can be difficult to get an unbiased view of the in house recruitment marketplace. And as a man who has chaired a hundred roundtable events for senior in house recruitment professionals, I think this is something that Jamie can truly offer us. We had a really interesting discussion and covered a lot of topics which included recruiter skill shortages, what’s new in recruitment technology, categorization in the ATS market, and a potentially terrifying game changer for established job boards. So here’s the interview. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another Recruiting Future podcast interview. My interviewee for the day is Jamie Leonard from Reconverse. Hi, Jamie, how you doing?
Jamie Leonard [00:01:07]:
Not bad, Mr. Allder. How are you?
Matt Alder [00:01:09]:
Very good. Now, obviously we’ve known each other for quite some time, a number of years, but other people might be less familiar with you, less familiar with you and your work. So could you just introduce yourself?
Jamie Leonard [00:01:21]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I run a little company called Reconverse. My background, I suppose, is predominantly job board sales, so I worked at Monster for a number of years. I worked at Fishbow and a few years at a company called the Ladders as well.
Matt Alder [00:01:40]:
Cool. I remember it well. I remember it well. So you currently run Reconverse? I think it’s kind of a really interesting, really interesting business. Tell us a little bit about how that came about and what your sort of philosophy, your philosophy is around this business.
Jamie Leonard [00:02:00]:
Yeah, of course. You were actually at my first event, I think, weren’t you?
Matt Alder [00:02:05]:
Yes, I was, yeah, yeah.
Jamie Leonard [00:02:07]:
Yourself, Izzy, Matt Burnley, Ken Ward, James Smith. So, yeah, all the people we still see at Reconverse today as well, which is. Which is always nice. Reconverse, we started about four years ago, so it’d be four years in April. We’re. We’re actually coming up to quite a big milestone. So we’re coming up to our 100th event. That’s gonna be fantastic. Yeah, March 25th is our 100th event, which we’re really proud of, especially because there was a lot of people that told us we wouldn’t last six months when we first started out, as most things usually have their criticisms when you’re trying to do something a bit different. I got fired basically from the Ladders for various reasons. They were scaling back quite a bit and my boss at the time offered me some money to walk away and go and sit at home for a number of months. My wife was currently working at tmp. She was also made redundant over there and we were about three months away from the birth of our first child. Which puts a level of pressure on you to go out and try and make some money when both of you have just been sort of asked to leave your respective businesses.
Matt Alder [00:03:21]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jamie Leonard [00:03:22]:
We bummed about for three months, just knocking about different ideas. Having worked within the big sort of job board companies, the approach to new business from the sales reps has always baffled me. It’s still very old school in terms of if you make 100 calls you might get hold of someone that’s relevant and out of that you might get meeting off the back of it. And I’ve just always thought it’s a really bad way of doing business. You know, if you were a doctor and you cured one person out of a hundred, you’d be put in prison.
Matt Alder [00:03:55]:
That’s, that’s a very good point.
Jamie Leonard [00:03:58]:
Yet in sales we sort of, you know, we have, we have this metric that we work to, it’s, which is historic and actually not a very good use of time. So we spent about three months talking to heads of resourcing that we knew, which was about maybe 10 of them and just said, look, why is it so difficult for someone from an innovative little app to get their foot in the door with you as an employer? The big bit of feedback was number one, that the heads of resource or recruitment managers understood that they had to stay ahead of the game of suppliers. They knew that they had to understand all the latest innovations out there because that was part of the job. On the flip side, they also were getting 25 to 30 phone calls a day from recruitment consultants and from other suppliers. So they were kind of becoming very, I suppose, what we started to call cold co averse and actually just ignoring everyone. And even the really good people were being lost in the shuffle because they just weren’t picking up the phone. So we come up with an alternative. It isn’t rocket science, it’s a very simple format. We’ve stole the format from speed dating whereby we would have an event with a given subject. So we cover everything from employer brand to recruitment technology, social media, mobile and everything in between. And we would have eight suppliers on one side of the table and we’d have eight in house people on the other side of the table and we’d give them a limited amount of time to speak to each other. The in house guys got an opportunity to understand the market and the suppliers got some much needed face time with potential new clients and it was all kept very casual and you know, there was no hard sell, there was no presentations, it was just a very informal casual effect. As I say. You were at the first one?
Matt Alder [00:05:46]:
I was, yes.
Jamie Leonard [00:05:48]:
Yeah. The weird thing happened after the first event was that all the in house guys sort of, sort of communed together and started just talking and debating and having. And actually what stemmed from it was this really, really amazing little roundtable. So that kind of becomes second half of our event. So to this day, event 100 coming up, all of our standard reconverse events are supply speed meetings in the morning, a lunch. We then say goodbye to the suppliers and then there’s an opportunity for the in house guys to talk afterwards and you know, for a few hours or so. And that’s been a real eye opener for me, having never worked in house or with in house people until we start to do these events. You know, just spending two or three hours a week sat around with different employers of different sizes of different industries and listening to the problems that they’ve all got. Which has been really, really interesting so far.
Matt Alder [00:06:47]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I think it puts you in, in quite a unique position because you know, that’s sort of 99 round tables that you’ve, you’ve sat through and I’ve obviously attended and spoken at quite, quite a few of them. And you, you are very much an observer of what’s going on and sort of letting people speak and all that kind of stuff. So I’m sure you must have heard some very interesting conversations and seen some interesting things. What topics do you think are the sort of the hot topics for in house recruiters at the moment? From what you’ve been hearing at events?
Jamie Leonard [00:07:25]:
I think it’s an interesting market right now. So if you went back maybe three years ago, it was all about how employers could do more with fewer recruiters. So you know, how can we get where we had a team of 10 recruiters? Well, we’ve only got a team of two recruiters now and we need to get them to do more. And that’s actually quite boring when you’re just trying to get people to work harder. There’s not a great deal of entertainment value in that at all. But nowadays what you’re getting is because the market’s coming back, the market’s more buoyant, there are more people, there are more, there’s more money. You know, people are hiring more recruiters, which in its own is A challenge there is. There seems to be a big skill shortage out there of really good internal recruiters. I mean, we’re getting asked literally every other day, do we know a client partner, do we know a recruitment lead, do we know a resourcing manager? There does seem to be a lack of talent out there. So I think that’s an issue for most people at the moment. I really don’t know why that is, but there does seem to be a real lack of fundamental core in house recruitment recruiters in the market. Again, not really sure why, but what it has meant for a market, which is really exciting, is that people are starting to do some sort of more specialist project stuff, which is really cool. So you’re getting employees now look at their evp, they’re starting to take social recruiting seriously again. People are looking at mobile technology’s back on the table. So it’s a very exciting time again because that’s the fun side of the industry, the bread and butter, meat and potatoes. Recruiting is great and that’s the core of what everyone does. But when you can start talking to people about their employer brand or upgrading their ats, that’s when it becomes quite interesting. In terms of hot topics at the moment, upskilling recruiters is absolutely huge at the moment. So, you know, actually how do you make more out of the people you have? How do you create better recruiters internally? Fundamentally because there is, fundamentally because there is a gap in talent in the market and companies like Ingenium, people whose kind of Al Cartwright’s a lot are doing some really good work in terms of. And people like Johnny Campbell as well, you know, doing some great work in terms of upskilling the internal or the in house recruiters themselves.
Matt Alder [00:09:46]:
Yeah, two great guys, both of them.
Jamie Leonard [00:09:49]:
Very well, absolutely great people and great businesses as well, doing a very good job. So that’s a big thing at the moment. I think people are really starting to take a serious look at their ATS at the moment as well, which is interesting. I think you’ve got a three tiered ATS market in the UK at the moment where you’ve got the kind of the big incumbent at the top, maybe the Taleos and the Conexas and those kind of companies. Then right at the very bottom you’ve got the real very, very early on startup companies like Workable and Quandida and those kind of guys. And then in the middle you’ve got people like Tripad and Harbour and the ARCU and Vacancy Filler and you know, for me it’s the guys in the middle that are really starting to see the benefit of, of being able to adapt and actually building ATS’s that are actually built for recruiters. It’s a really weird concept, but building technology that are used for people that are being used by those people. So someone said the other day, you know, ATS are brilliant. They’re built by techies, bought by HR and used by recruiters. In that order.
Matt Alder [00:11:03]:
Excellent. I love that. I love that quote. I’m going to use that. I’m going to use that. Yes, use that everywhere. It’s brilliant. Yeah, the ATS is always interesting. I remember a lot of your early events. There was always a kind of a discussion going on around the table that actually the best ATS people had in house was Excel or Google Docs. And I think it’s also, I think, you know, I think your description of the three tier market is spot on as well. But I think there’s some really interesting things going on. I’ve got someone I know of who’s scrapping Taleo and moving to workable, which is really interesting.
Jamie Leonard [00:11:44]:
So that’s going to be a real culture shock.
Matt Alder [00:11:46]:
Yeah. So really, it’s a kind of a really interesting, you know, really interesting marketplace. So out of the, you know, this might be an impossible question to answer, but out of the 99 events that you’ve done, what was your favorite?
Jamie Leonard [00:12:03]:
I’m going to take the easy option and probably say the first.
Matt Alder [00:12:06]:
Ah, fair enough.
Jamie Leonard [00:12:08]:
I couldn’t tell you to be honest. I enjoyed the first one when it was finished. I remember being very sweaty and very tired and probably nerves of taking over. But yeah, some of the best ones have been recently. One of the subjects that I love covering off is in house executive search. I think that it’s a real final frontier for the in house recruitment market at the moment. And you’re seeing more and more teams start to take on bigger project work, which is good. And you know, we have people at PwC come down and talk and it’s just really interesting when you start to look at actually companies like Coca Cola that are building an entire team around, you know, 500k plus, you know, pounds a year staff, which is, which is really interesting. I love the tech stuff as well. For me, anything around recruitment technology is always really fun. I think you’ve got some real trends that are poking ahead for at the moment. I think video interviewing is as much as I know there are people out there that say it’s a, you know, it’s a fad, it really isn’t. You know, everyone that’s adopting to video interview at the moment is really starting to love that technology. Yeah. And you know, all this arena, what people want to do video interviews. I can show you so many stats and so many case studies. I just spoke to one of our clients a minute ago and they’ve got someone on trial and they’ve had something like 700 video interviews come through over the first two weeks. People are willing to do it. We’re, as an industry, we’re sorry. As a culture, we’re so much better at sitting down and pointing a camera out face than we ever used to be. And I think that’s having a real big impact. Referral, maybe in a few years. I struggle with it at the moment. I think it will be a trend in a few years in terms of some of the referral technology. It isn’t there at the moment. There are maybe four players in the UK, you know, maybe 20 in the US. It needs to start taking a few steps forward for me to ever be a real contender for a trend. I hope it does.
Matt Alder [00:14:14]:
Yeah.
Jamie Leonard [00:14:15]:
Yeah.
Matt Alder [00:14:15]:
I think that’s an interesting one. I’m doing some research for a client of mine into it at the moment and it’s kind of a bit like the wild west out there. There are a few players. I see that LinkedIn acquired one yesterday. Was it career by. Yeah. And I think they have a referral platform. So that’s. That’s interesting. But, but, but, but, but, yeah, it’s kind of like all of these things, sometimes they take a bit of a while to. A bit of a while to develop. So sort of. Second, second, second last question. Last year you ran a great event which you very kindly asked me to speak at, which was Wreckfest, and I believe you’re running it again this year. So in. In true kind of chat show plugging st. You tell us a little bit about it.
Jamie Leonard [00:15:05]:
So, yeah, Wreckfest is born out of my hatred of conferences. I’ve done so many conferences in the past for different companies. I’ve done so many exhibitions and I really don’t like the thought of one person pretty much for the whole day talking to 200 people and there being very little interaction amongst the audience themselves, to the point where we actually go on Twitter now while we’re at these conferences to try and have some sort of interaction between each other, which is ridiculous if you think that the people that are actually at your conference are going on their mobile phones so they can actually engage other people. I like the engagement between People, that’s the best part of a conference. It’s the breaks and the after maybe beers afterwards, that’s always the interesting part. So Rec Fest was a concept we come up with. We themed it as a festival just because we want it to be a bit more relaxed. We wanted to give it a bit of a quirky edge and just make it very clear to everyone when they first saw the brand in that this isn’t somewhere where you’re going to need a shirt and tie and shoes. It’s much more about flip flops and shorts and T shirts, etc. The concept’s a little bit different. We wanted to somehow come up with a way where we could almost guarantee that you’d interact with around about 90% of the total people there. So we have speakers, we have roundtables, and then every time a roundtable is finished, we encourage people to get up, move to another roundtable at random and then start that process again. So the idea is, yes, there are absolutely guest speakers there this year. We’ve got some great guest speakers. RecFest2.com is the website. I won’t bang on about the speakers, but it’s about the interaction between the actual in house guys themselves. It’s a chance to meet potentially 100 other in house recruiters in one day and listen to what they have to say. And that’s the biggest thing that comes out of every roundtable we ever do is that feeling of we’re not alone. That is the first thing that I always get, is what we take away today. I’m not alone. There are other people in this industry going through the same things I am and if we can get them together and get them talking and get them sharing those issues, well, all the better for it, I guess.
Matt Alder [00:17:16]:
Fantastic. Fantastic. Yes, it was a really good event last year and there was some great, great conversations going on. So, you know, last question, what’s your, what’s your prediction for the rest of the year? What’s going to happen? What’s going to be big? We’ve talked about referrals and video interviews and all that, all that kind of stuff. What else do you think? What’s 2015 going to look like?
Jamie Leonard [00:17:41]:
You know what I heard yesterday that Google are launching a job board. So that could be a fairly big thing for a lot of people, I suppose.
Matt Alder [00:17:49]:
Did you, did you genuinely hear that or was it an article from 2008 recycled? Oh, no, no.
Jamie Leonard [00:17:56]:
I spoke to someone yesterday that had apparently been approached for the job to run their job board. I don’t know what that means or what that might look like, but they’ve been approached by headhunter to head. Yeah. To go and talk about the job anyway. Yeah. So that could a lot of people very quickly and change the landscape quite quickly.
Matt Alder [00:18:18]:
Well, I think we can look forward to seeing what happens with that.
Jamie Leonard [00:18:21]:
Yeah. I think people are using social media properly now and people are not bleeding on about how it’s engagement to a conversation. People are actually using it as a sourcing channel, which is great. Long may that continue. I think we’ll just get better as a marketplace overall. I think we’ve got some really strong leadership in the market at the moment with people like Jen Candy and Mel Hayes and Matt Jeffrey and these kind of guys. I think there’s a crop of recruiters coming behind them that will make incredible leaders for our industry in five years time. And that’s good news. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a skill gap at the bottom. We need to fill that. We need to find out where we can find other recruiters that is not just looking at the recruitment consultants themselves. How do we bring through a next generation of in house recruiters? I don’t know at the moment, but they’re certainly going to be challenging for the next nine months or so, I’d say. But yeah, lots of, lots of happy times, hopefully. That’s my big prediction. No more double dip, triple dip, quadruple dip, recession. And yeah, just happy times of recruitment would be good.
Matt Alder [00:19:27]:
Excellent. Well, that’s great news. Thank you very much for talking to me. Thank you, Matt, Jamie Leonard from Reconverse there. Thank you for listening to episode six of the Recruiting Future podcast. You can subscribe to future episodes on itunes or in fact any podcasting app. And you can find out more about the show and listen to past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com. thanks for listening.
