Rapidly scaling a company while protecting the culture and values that makes it unique is a significant challenge. But what should the recruiting team be doing to help solve this problem?
My guest this week is Nicolle Sinclair, Global Head of Talent at craft beer producer Brewdog. Brewdog is famous for its unconventional approach to business and, as well as being one of the fastest growing companies in the UK; it is also scaling up internationally with breweries in the USA and Australia. Retaining their unique culture as they do this is no easy task, and I was delighted to get to talk to Nicolle about Brewdog’s approach to recruiting.
In the interview we discuss:
• Brewdog’s recruiting challenges
• Recruiters as “cultural guardians.”
• The history of the Brewdog Charter
• The importance of developing specialist knowledge within an in-house recruiting team
• The role of technology and choosing the right platform
• How to communicate with candidates and give people a world-class experience even if they have been unsuccessful
Nicolle talks about the role of employee and customer advocacy and give us a taster of what’s next for Brewdog
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:17]:
Hi, everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 113 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Rapidly scaling a company whilst protecting its culture and values is undoubtedly a challenge, but what role should recruiting be playing in addressing this challenge? My guest this week is Nicolle Sinclair, global head of talent at craft beer producer Brewdog. Brewdog is famous for its unconventional approach to business and as well as being one of the fastest growing companies in the uk, it’s also scaling up internationally with breweries in the USA and Australia retaining their culture as they do. This is a fascinating challenge and I was delighted to get to talk to Nicolle about their approach to recruiting.
Matt Alder [00:01:06]:
Hi, Nicolle, and welcome to the podcast.
Nicolle Sinclair [00:01:08]:
Hi, Matt. Thank you for having me.
Matt Alder [00:01:10]:
My absolute pleasure. Could you introduce yourself, tell us who.
Matt Alder [00:01:13]:
You are and a bit about what you do?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:01:15]:
Of course. So my name is Nicolle Sinclair. I head up global talent for Brewdog. So I have a lovely team of five in house recruiters and we very much class ourselves as cultural guardians for Brewdog across the world, rather than your stereotypical in house recruitment team and very much kind of pioneer what we’re trying to do as we grow globally and still remaining true to our culture as we continue to scale at quite the rate of knots.
Matt Alder [00:01:40]:
Now, for the few people that are out there who may not have heard of Brewdog, could you just sort of give us a bit of background on the company and what it does?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:01:49]:
Of course. So we are currently one of the fastest growing companies in the UK. We were founded in 2017 by two lovely men and a dog in the northeast of Scotland in a wonderful little town called Fraserburgh, which is definitely known more for its fishing than it is for its beer. And basically what they did was they acquired a dream of after visiting the United States and realizing that there was such an amazing beer scene out there with regards to flavour the community and really what those guys were trying to do with craft beer, they came back very inspired to kind of do a similar thing. So basically they founded Brewdog. They kind of essentially forced themselves into a beer dinner and met one of the most famous beer judges, a guy called Michael Jackson. Not the one that everybody initially jumps to, but a very famous beer judge. And he basically said to the boys that you both should quit your jobs and do this for a living. The beer that you’re making is fantastic. So, needless to say, 10 years later, we are now a company that employs over a Thousand people globally. We have two breweries, one in Ellon in Scotland, just up in the northeast, just little bit further south from Fraserburgh, where we initially started. This year, in 2017, we opened a brewery in Columbus, Ohio. We have over 30 bars in the UK and 15 internationally. So a very exciting time for us. And we’ve just announced we will open a brewery in Australia in the next couple of years. So all exciting right now.
Matt Alder [00:03:18]:
Fantastic. Now, I’m an absolutely massive fan of craft beer and of Brewdog, so I’m really resisting the temptation just to talk about craft beer for the next half an hour, but moving back to recruiting. So, I mean, that’s, you know, that’s obviously a lot of growth that’s happened in a fairly sort of short space of time. What sort of recruiting challenges have you had to face in your time at Brewdog?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:03:50]:
Yeah, so we definitely have had a few different challenges. I guess. The first one would definitely be very much about. We talk about the two main things that are important to us are definitely our beer and our people. And when you’re obviously going on quite an aggressive growth journey like this, it’s really, really critical that if your people are your focus point, that you continue to be very transparent through that process when you’re onboarding people and making sure that people are really ahead and know what they’re coming up against when they join the business as well. So, from a recruitment point of view, we definitely were kind of, I guess, hindered with technology. So when I first joined, it was just myself in an inbox and I was employee number 350th at that point, and very much the Brewdog brand. And our beer very much carry itself. So we had a huge amount of interest and sometimes we would be honest and say, look, we’ve maybe missed some amazing talent through not having the capabilities, through technology to really be able to talent bank efficiently or really be able to engage with people that maybe we didn’t have a role for them right now, but there was maybe one in the feature pipeline. So a big focus for us was very much about how do we stay true to our company culture and how do we get the right people into the business that are very much kind of almost entrepreneurs in their own right, who really are stimulated by challenge and stretch and really want to drive something really quite unique and special. So from there, we actually did basically an employee engagement survey almost to say, hey, guys, what does it mean to you to. To get up in the morning and come and work for Brewdog? And what do you say to your friends when you’re in a bar, sharing a beer or whatever that might be. And the key kind of words that came back were amazing. They were very much about the beer. It was about the people, it was about the opportunity, it was about being uncompromising and really kind of challenging the norm. So from there we were really fortunate that the brewdog charter that was born, so for those who don’t know what that is, it is essentially, instead of calling it your company values, it’s something that was very much driven by our team who fully invest and really believe in what it stands for. So the first line in the charter is we bleed craft beer. So it kind of comes back to those pillars that we talked about earlier. So very much about craft beer, very much is our true north. Every decision that we make in the business is about making phenomenal beer globally and making sure that we never deter from that and never cut any corners to compromise on that quality. The second piece is we’re uncompromising. So talking about very much trying to continually do things slightly differently and not just doing it as, I guess, the status quo, so not just thinking that’s the easiest way to do it, but if you’ve generally got that gut feel of something isn’t right, then actually challenging it and feeling empowered enough to challenge that and maybe apply something that’s different to really kind of force that forward. The third one, which is always a Marmite situation, depending on what background you come from, is very much we blow shit up. And that is one of my favorite ones. That’s very much about being an entrepreneur, being driven and really trying to change the norm and people’s perceptions of whether it’s set processes, whether it’s people’s, what they stereotype as beer, and very much trying to drive the growth. So if you look at the growth, I guess, trajectory for us over the last 10 years, there’s a lot of people along the way that told the boys they wouldn’t be able to do this. And they very much have been able to turn around and say, look what we’ve achieved now, regardless of whether it was through financing or if it was through going into international markets. So extremely exciting for us. And really one of the things that we talk a lot about is our people as well. So we are extremely relentless in what we do. And without us we are nothing is very much around our people. So talking about the fact that we really are a people focused business and if it wasn’t for the person beside you, if it wasn’t for the person working with you alongside you, regardless of what you do. We’re under no illusion that without the people that work for this business, we would be nowhere near where we are today. And the last one very much is we are geeks. So for anyone that knows or follows Brewdog, we’ll know that there’s a lot of association with Star wars, ship references, dogs and all that kind of good stuff. So we have a lot of people that truly are extremely passionate about whatever they do. And we’ve been very fortunate with that one actually to be able to really put that into our process. So as part of our hiring process, we really try and figure out people’s passions and if they’re passionate about something, do their eyes light up and they really want to tell you everything about them? And can we actually kind of direct that passion into learning things about beer and actually carrying the business mission forward of making other people as passionate about great craft beer as they are by really channeling that energy and that passion down that route as well.
Matt Alder [00:08:38]:
I think that’s absolutely fascinating and I think the way that you, you’ve kind of taken that, that, that, that core culture that you have as an entrepreneurial business and you know, translated that into, into a way of defining the talent you need is, is, is just absolutely fantastic. Just a bit more around the sort of practicalities of it all. I, I suppose so, you know, you’ve, you, you’ve scaled up quite, quite dramatically and I know you, you, you don’t spend a huge amount on rec and things like that. How does that work in practice? How have you been able to sort of recruit so many people who have the right talent for the organization?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:09:19]:
Yeah, so it’s a great question and I think one of the big things when I first came in was looking at is it a case that we look at really heavily using agencies and actually really kind of bringing them on board and making them brand advocates of Rudolph and going out to market? Or do we truly talk about the fact that people to us are our community? So that is, anyone that comes through our recruitment process, we see them as potential customers in our bars, we see them as potential investors or actually some future colleagues regardless of whether they’re successful through that process. So for me it was a bit of a no brainer when I was speaking to the boys about what we needed to do and really growing an in house recruitment team. So not growing an in house recruitment team to then deal with external agencies, but growing an internal team that very much were set up in an agency kind of style. My background was I essentially cut my teeth at Michael Page. I did their graduate program and went up to manager within that organization and left to kind of focus on small startup businesses. So understanding that really great way of looking at recruitment in a kind of commercial sense and really understanding how important it is to be a specialist in your area and growing that network and really kind of growing that brand awareness as well was really important to me. So we started to scale this team. So we recruited a production recruiter. So obviously looking at a lot of the technologies that we use here and looking at some of that amazing talent pipeline, working with the likes of Harriet Watt in Nottingham, who do the brewing and distilling degrees all the way through to looking at how we really build retail as a career choice rather than just what is deemed as a student position. So really looking at how we stand ourselves apart and really growing some amazing organic talent within our retail unit as well, which then led to hiring a retail recruitment consultant as well. From there we’ve naturally kind of expanded out. So we now have a wonderful team of five who very much have key areas of specialism. But anyone will tell you if you come up to the brewery and have a tour with our amazing production recruiter that you would honestly forget that he isn’t a brewer. His technical knowledge is outstanding and to be able to inspire other people, including the brewing community when they come up to visit, to know that he can do that level of in depth questioning. And actually it’s not just the typical competency questions and people don’t get a real feel for the culture. We really want that to come through the process as well. And then I guess from there the ATS was born, which was lovely, which was a massive weight off of our shoulders in the sense of nothing was doing through the inbox anymore. So we went out to tender and had essentially what every recruiter has is a wish list and really figured out that a lot of our employees are actually remote operators. So really wanted something that was functional through actually using it on a tablet or an iPhone or any other Android kind of device as well. So for us it was really important that we had that connection. So we went out and did a tender process and the ATS system that we decided to go with was Greenhouse. And they are a software company that are actually based out of the US and instead of it being a kind of system that’s built by recruiters, it’s actually a system that’s built by software developers and they do a lot around trying to make their system fit for purpose for the specific clients. So we’ve been able to build in our charter and really be able to develop a scoring matrix from a culture perspective through that interview process, which allows both the hiring team, the recruiters, and any peers that are involved in that process of bringing someone on board to really be able to engage with the tool and actually be able to visibly see how other people have felt that specific person has went through the process. So it really encourages really open conversations that make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to what we’re actually hiring for, for that role and what we need specifically from that person. So that has been a phenomenal tool. And the level of engagement that we’ve had from the team has been great. And especially just some of the intuitive things of the system, being able to send reminders of filling in scorecards or if candidates have been on, on the site without any kind of updates. And five working days, it can send us a notification to make sure that everybody still feels up to date and involved in what’s going on, essentially.
Matt Alder [00:13:29]:
So as a, as a B2C company, presumably candidate experience is going to be something that’s very important to you because, you know, I’m sure a lot of the candidates you have are consumers of your beer. How. What sort of focus do you have on candidate experience and, you know, what’s your strategy there?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:13:50]:
Candidate experience is my team’s reason for being so for them, they want people to love us as much as they did coming into this process is leaving the process. So that is whether you’ve been successful in getting a job with ourselves, whether it’s, you’ve got some key areas for development through the process that maybe when they want to apply further down the line, they know exactly the areas that they need to focus on or if it is. Actually, we’ve had really honest conversations through the process and actually the, the role or the responsibilities or the dynamics of the position are quite different from what that person initially thought. It means that we can really be true to ourselves and know exactly what the end goal is with that. And for us, we want people to leave thinking that they’ve had an amazing experience, it’s been a different experience, and they truly get a real feel for the type of organization that we are and the type of culture that we’re trying to grow as well. So it’s really, really important for the team to have not just talking about the amazing place that is brutal, talking about some of the challenges that come with a Fast growing business and really some of the amazing challenges, but opportunities that are ahead and for some people that is going to be a phenomenal opportunity. And for people that really are quite process driven and like to work in specific silos, this place definitely wouldn’t be for them. So it’s about making people understand the Brewdog brand and the perception versus coming inside and realizing some of the stretch that we have and some of the challenges that we face. Because I think it’s really easy to look at Brewdog and look at our amazing bars, the amazing beer and actually the fact that we distribute to over 60 countries internationally and we’re still constantly trying to develop our technology, we’re constantly looking at continuous improvement programs through whether it’s our it, whether it’s actually our brewing process and equipment. So from that perspective we’re ever evolving, we’re ever growing as we’re trying to, to grow and expand. And it takes a certain person with that certain mindset to feel comfortable with that. And that whole idea of the process is really allowing that individual to make a decision as well as us, if this is the right place for them. And it’s a two way street and we really try and empower people to do that. And we’ve also just launched a How we hire page in the last month, which is really to kind of talk people through a little bit around the different phases and what to expect because our process isn’t definitely going to be. You’re only going to have four stages. It could be the case that we actually maybe want you to have six different touch points because we want you to meet not only your manager, someone from our recruitment team, but also some peers and possibly some of the juniors within that team to really get a flavour and a feel for who you’ll be working with on a day to day basis and what their experience has been, possibly coming from a similar background to themselves as well. So we really feel that that’s part of the onboarding. But also everyone feels like they’ve had a fair process as well.
Matt Alder [00:16:32]:
Is there obviously with that much time taken in the recruitment process, is there a specific way that you sort of deal with rejected candidates who might have invested quite a lot of time in the process but ultimately not been successful?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:16:47]:
Yeah, definitely. So it’s really quite. Through Greenhouse, we ask quite a lot in the sense of asking people to submit, whether it’s a video, a presentation, an algorithm, whatever that might look like, to be able to showcase their skills that they think is going to be relevant for this position. And it’s really to see how much time people have actually put into their application. So we generally pride ourselves and if people really have went the extra mile, we’ll send them a case of beer or we’ll send them some brew box to say thank you so much. This maybe isn’t the right opportunity for you at this point, but here’s a couple of beers on us. And there’s also some people that just generally really want to work for us who will apply for any roles on the website, which is great. And when we get that flag, we also want to pick up the phone to them to explain, hey, we’ve noticed that you’ve applied for lots of roles and what we really want you to do is have a think about what is right for you are the skills that you have and maybe keep your eye out for this specific role rather than applying for every role, which we can obviously see on our system. And it really allows people to kind of take control of their experience rather than feeling like they just want to work for Brewdog, but trying to kind of talk through that process of how we onboard people and really trying to explain where we currently are with specific roles as well.
Matt Alder [00:17:58]:
So with such a strong and unique culture in the business, is there an opportunity for you to use your employees as advocates during the recruitment process for content and things like that?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:18:11]:
Oh, definitely. We have a brilliant in house kind of weekly newsletter that goes around called Dog Tales. And through Dog Tales, we put up roles that are currently live and we have a really great referral system and we really empower our employees to be part of that process as well. So we want them to talk to their friends and instead of it just being a referral process of sending an email to say, my friends applied for this and here’s their name, we actually ask them to upload it. So each employee has a profile on Greenhouse, so they will physically submit that candidate onto Greenhouse and explain a little bit about why they think they would be right for that role. And we try to explain to the team as well that they are part of the hiring team. They’re the guys that are obviously referring and obviously if you’re referring, we want to give that person an interview as well. So we want to basically empower that payment by actually saying, hey, you’re actually doing part of the recruitment team’s job. Thank you so much. Here’s a reward if that candidate’s been successful and the team engagement has been absolutely phenomenal. So obviously Brewdog is very massive on social media as well. So we’ve been very fortunate that things like Facebook, they can generate their unique tracking links for their specific greenhouse profile and if they share it through their networks, actually automatically links to their profile as a referral as well. So we can generally see the kind of reach that that individual is having through kind of speaking to their friends and their network as well. So there’s a lot of really intuitive things that actually allow our team to engage with that system. So they really feel empowered to be part of that process. And it’s really quite amazing to see when you’ve got your team sharing, come and work. For me, it’s the best place to work ever. Or come and see what these guys are up to. And really, you know, from that, the feedback that you’re going to get from the team is that people are super proud to talk about it on their own personal social platforms, that it’s generally true, rather than just a campaign, if that makes sense.
Matt Alder [00:20:01]:
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And that sounds like a fantastic strategy, basically. Final question, what’s next? Where are you taking things during 2018? What’s next for BrewDog?
Nicolle Sinclair [00:20:20]:
So the big pieces for Brewdog are definitely our international growth. So when you look at even some of the terminology that we’ve talked about today, we are looking at how we translate that into different languages. Some key markets for us are very much Germany, Italy, Spain and France. So how we translate some of that kind of tone of voice in the Brewdog culture and ethos, it’s not the case of it being a cookie cutter operation. We want to do what we did in America and send some cultural carriers, as we call them, in the sense of a couple of key people, to really go and explain Brewdog in the background, but actually allow them as a team to grow that organically. And that’s really important and we’ll continue to do that as we kind of expand as well. And Australia is definitely a massive, massive focus for us. So really looking at obviously the brewing operation and what that’s going to look like from a retail perspective as well. So definitely some very exciting times. And one of the big pieces that we’re also doing is trying to continue with how we evolve that recruitment process as well. So more and more collaborative hiring, really being able to upskill even some of our juniors to feel empowered to be part of that process, so that when they become hiring managers themselves, they’re so comfortable at conducting interviews that it doesn’t faze them and it’s really part of their personal development, which they then feel very engaged through that process as well. So definitely a lot of really exciting things to come and some interesting ways to advertise roles in the next couple of months as well. So it’s a very much a watch this space at this point. Matt.
Matt Alder [00:21:47]:
That intriguing and I will indeed watch this space. Nicolle, thank you very much for talking to me.
Nicolle Sinclair [00:21:54]:
Thank you very much Matt.
Matt Alder [00:21:56]:
My thanks to Nicolle Sinclair. You can subscribe to this podcast in itunes, in Stitcher, or via your podcasting app of choice. The show also has its own dedicated app, which you can find by searching for Recruiting Future in the App Store. If you’re a Spotify user, the podcast is also available to listen to there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about Working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
