Season 7 | Ep30 - Alex Woodhead on why recruitment companies that build the best PRODUCT will always win

The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast

This week, I'm super excited to be joined by Alex Woodhead, the founder of a brand new 10-day-old talent and engineering consultancy called Apera.

A business that specialises in recruitment for future mobility, space and clean energy. This is a super niche futuristic market with so much space for growth. And it isn’t Alex’s first time attacking it!

We talk about how Alex started in recruitment: his journey from trainee to Director in his first firm, how he co-founded a company called Strativ, and built one of the fastest-growing recruitment companies on the planet.

Within four years, they had a 100+ headcount and £13 million in NFI.

Find out how they achieved this and why, a year later, he negotiated his exit and started his own business once again.

Alex is one of those founders who has a crazy work ethic, unbelievable self-confidence and belief in what he’s doing.

But what stands out about Alex – and we get into it in this episode – is that his success is not a result of having the best sales skills. It's about having the best product and then building a business around that product.

Takeaways

• Building the best product in your industry is crucial for success

• Confidence is not about being the best salesperson but about believing in what you’re doing

• Leaving a business can be a difficult decision, but you always need to prioritise personal happiness and growth

• Creating something special and having a meaningful impact should be the driving force behind any business

• Focusing on specific markets and going deeper than anyone else is what leads to success and builds trust

• In order to grow sustainably, you need to find the balance between being profitable and scaling

If you want to grow your recruitment firm or just listen and learn from one of the best leaders in our industry, then you do not want to miss this episode!

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Episode sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say, last year was tricky for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in.

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams.

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction.

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management.

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days. You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically, your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark, giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures.

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com

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