9 years in - What have I learnt?
9 years in - What have I learnt?
9 years ago this week, I started the new venture that was / is Hunter Reid Recruitment Solutions. A bit of a leap of faith with, at the time, 2 daughters aged 5 and 1 and having relocated to Suffolk a couple of weeks before as my wife Camilla was also starting a new job. Is there ever a good time?
Throughout my recruitment career I’ve steadily move down company sizes – not consciously – until becoming a team of one. Until that point, I’d always had a support mechanism around me – researchers, support staff, accountants, payroll, managers, directors - and now found myself wearing all of those hats.
The trickiest part for me is correctly allocating time for client development, database enhancement, sourcing and interviewing candidates(the actual job), brand marketing, LinkedIn strategy, admin and more and I think I’m onto about the 9th iteration of a weekly planner. Do I get it right every day? No. Do I try to? Yes.
Each year has been a work in progress, learning more about how I work by myself, striving for the balance of tasks in work and also in life. I’ve had various offices realising that it’s important for me to be able to separate work and home, even if at times they exist in the same building.
While working for yourself can, on the face of it, be a lonely existence, I’m fortunate that my job is all about speaking to and interacting with other humans every day. Outside of that “day job” part of it, over the past 18 months I have also worked with a marketing agency and a web developer to rebrand and refresh the look of my business (as you’ve asked it’s www.hunterreidrs.com)
More recently I worked with a training company who specialise in the recruitment CRM I use. Turns out being self-taught is not necessarily the best way forward! and I think that will be the best investment in me and my business this year. The great side effect of engaging some outside expertise is that it also allows you to sense check what you’re doing and how you’re doing it as you look to try and improve.
My strapline to myself when I started this was “pace without compromise” which remains the same. In more normal speak, introducing the right candidates to the right roles in the shortest time possible without cutting corners.
A key lesson from the past 9 years is I’ve realised that it is hugely valuable in gaining efficiencies when doing it all yourself. I readily embrace the technology now available to me to find those efficiencies (AI is a work in progress for me) but haven’t lost sight of the fact that recruitment remains a people and relationship business which is what attracted me to it in the first place and remains the best part of the job.
What has changed in those 9 years?
In many ways not much – Norwich City are still in the Championship, my golf has not really improved and I’ve barely aged a day.
In other ways, everything – 5 Prime Ministers, 6 offices, 5 house moves, 2 lockdowns and 1 family dog.
What is constant however is the resilience and drive to succeed that the sectors I support display at all times – characteristics I try to mirror.
If we’ve worked together in the past 9 years – thank you. If we haven’t, I hope we get to in the next 9 and beyond.
Steve.
