The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast, I was joined by Toni, the Managing Director of Digital Gurus, a specialist Tech & Digital recruiter with 66 staff across offices in Manchester, London, Bristol and Birmingham. Toni joined the business as a Senior Consultant 11 years ago. She’d had a successful career in recruitment in Leeds and fancied a change of company and city. Little did she know...

On this week’s episode, I was joined by Kyle Winterbottom, the Founder of Orbition Group, a specialist Data & Analytics recruitment agency with 10 staff based in Manchester. Kyle first came on The RAG Podcast in November 2020 when his agency was less than 3 months old. Kyle was a member of the Hoxo Academy back then and was beginning to win business using his daily Linkedin content in addition...

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast, I was joined by Lawrence & Elliot, the founders of Arto Recruitment, a specialist life science recruitment agency. The business is headquartered in Canterbury, Kent and expanded to more than 23 staff in just over 2 years of existence during the pandemic! Lawrence and Elliot have been best mates since they were 3 years old! Their story is one of real t...

On this week’s episode, I was joined by Matthew Baird, the Founder of Baird & Co Recruitment, which is part of District4.  Matt has been in recruitment since 2012 and has worked for a number of agencies recruiting into the social housing sector. During the pandemic, he became disillusioned with working for other people, and at a time of real uncertainty he made the bold and scary decision...

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast, I was joined by Jamie & Tony, the founders of The Just Group, a specialist group of construction recruitment brands headquartered in Bromley, Kent with 24 staff which launched in 2012. Jamie & Tony launched the business with a 3rd partner Alan, and up until the pandemic things were going great! However, Covid hit the business for six and they quic...

On this week’s episode, I was joined by Anthony Webster, the MD of DVF recruitment and Board Member of Career Legal Group - which has several recruitment entities in London with a collective staff of 50 people.  Anthony was my colleague for almost 5 years and is also a true friend. Anthony, alongside Amar and I, was originally going to be a founder of Hoxo - the recruitment agency - in 2017....

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast, I was joined by Jez Heard, the founder of Scale-Genesis, a specialist Blockchain & Crypto recruitment agency launched in November 2021 Jez is a 24 -year old lad from South Wales who is direct and honest! He only started in Recruitment in 2020 during the pandemic, and within less than 1 year decided to set up his own business He worked 14-hour days, 7...

On today’s episode I was joined by Nader Beshara, the CoFounder and Director of Ingham Jones a start up financial services, risk, technology and compliance global recruitment search firm with 10 people headquartered in Brighton UK. Nader has been an avid listener of The RAG and I was delighted to hear that listening to the show has helped him a lot since launching in November 2020. We discussed th...

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast I was joined by Harry Bigwood and Rex Rusling. Along with Ben Leeson, these guys founded The Rec Hub at the end of 2018 originally as a contingent agency. Soon they decided to flip the model to become an “Embedded Talent Partner” to Tech start & scale ups and have since grown to 50 people! In this episode we break down their decision to change the mode...

On today’s episode I was joined by Matthew Eames, the Founder and CEO of Eames Group, a global insurance and financial services recruitment agency with circa 140 people across UK, EU, Asia and now the USA Matthew was a guest on The RAG in Feb 2019 and whilst the business was a similar size back then, things were very different. Most notably: - Matt was not the CEO at the time and spent 50% of his...

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast I was joined by Jake , my little brother. One of the most charismatic and successful guys I know (and annoyingly good-looking!) We got into recruitment in Melbourne together in 2011. Later in Sydney, Jake became a recruitment owner in his mid 20's, but in 2016 he sold his shares in TheDriveGroup. He was building a great business but, for some reason, he wa...

On this episode of The RAG Podcast I was joined by Joshua Rayner, the Founder & CEO of Rayner Personnel, a specialist in UK Property Recruitment. I originally interviewed Josh in February of 2019 in my first Hoxo office in London. At the time, Josh had a team of 13 who were all operating as franchisees. This involved buying into the business and scaling a branch of RP in their specific geograp...

On this week's episode, I was joined by Dan Taylor, MD of Morgan Hunt, a UK Public Sector specialist agency with 150 staff. Dan started at Hays in 1996 and has worked his way through many positions in his 26-year career. In 2018 he became MD of Morgan Hunt and has been on a journey to change the business for the better. Dan shares his unique insights into leading a large recruitment agency on a da...

On this episode of The RAG Podcast, I was joined by Emrah Baykal, the Founder & CEO of RO, a specialist energy-focused recruitment agency. The agency is based in London & Houston with 10 staff, and is part of the Tempting Ventures Group of over 80 recruiters. Emrah is the first to admit that in the early days of his recruitment career, he loved a billers’ lunch or two. In the first couple...

On this week's episode I was joined by Chris Sheard, the founder of SR2 Recruitment, a 54 person agency with offices in Bristol, London and soon to be opening in Austin TX. Launched in the middle of 2017, the business is almost 4.5 yrs old and has grown extremely well in that period. In this episode Chris shares the story of why he decided to build a rec agency that gives 5% of operating profit to...

On this episode of The RAG Podcast, I was joined by Ed Stevens, the Founder of 94 Group, a specialist group of recruitment agencies in London with 50 staff. This isn’t the first time Ed has built up a successful recruitment business. He launched, grew, and sold his shares in Eximius Group over 8 years between 2008 and 2016. Ed is honestly one of the most impressive recruitment owners I have ever m...

This week's episode was one that I wanted to have but was also really nervous about. It is without a doubt the most emotional and heartbreaking conversation I have ever recorded. I was joined by Liam Thomas, the Founder of Highfield Professional Solutions & Data X Connect, a specialist recruitment agency headquartered on the South Coast of England with 45 staff. Liam launched the business with...

On today’s episode of The RAG Podcast I was joined by Adrian Carboni, the founder and CEO of Masento, a specialist technology recruitment agency in London. Adrian launched Masento 5 years ago after a 15-year career with his previous employer!  From being one of the top billers in the company to leading the most profitable division, Adrian was granted shares in the business that were projected...

In this week's episode, I’m excited to be joined by Spencer Knibbe, the Founder of MBK Search. Headquartered in NYC, the business now has 13 staff and has just opened its UK operation in 2022, intending to expand into APAC next year. As a listener of the show, Spencer and I connected recently and I was blown away by his story! Spencer never worked in recruitment for anyone else. After a successful...

On a special episode of The RAG Podcast this week, I am joined by fellow Recruitment Podcast Host - Lysha Holmes! Lysha is a great friend of Hoxo and myself and we were deeply saddened to hear the news of her father passing away to cancer in October last year! He was diagnosed at such a late stage that the family did not get the time with him that they would have wanted. On 29th April this year, a...

On this week's episode, I am excited to be joined by Stuart the Co-Founder and Director of Provide With 21 years since starting the business, Stuart has seen pretty much everything there is to see in a growing recruitment agency Most interestingly, post acquisition by TXM Group, Stuart moved into a new role as Director of Strategic Partnerships - leading their RPO division. I am super excited to h...

On a special episode of The RAG Podcast this week, I want to share with you my talk at the Recruitment Agency Expo 2022 in London. “The 5 Weekly Habits All Recruiters Need To Build A Winning Personal Brand On LinkedIn” Company pages don't get a lot of engagement on LinkedIn. The recruiters in your business are the best way of getting your brand's message to market. Every consultant you employ has...

I was joined by Tom Hibberd - Founding Director at Precision Resource Group (PRG) parent company to Panoramic Associates, iO Associates, Panoramic Care and Finitas. With 20 years in the recruitment industry, like so many other successful owners, Tom started his career at S3 before going alone. In 2009, Tom jointly founded Panoramic Associates and spent the first 2 years enjoying life as a small an...

This week's episode sees the return of a great friend and one of the recruitment industry’s most trusted advisors: the one and only James Osborne is back on The RAG Podcast! James is the Chairman of The Recruitment Network, a global community of almost 9,000 active recruiters, managers, and business leaders. We discussed how mad the market was in 2021, what James expects to see as the next big thi...

This week we welcome Clare Cooper back to The RAG Podcast for a third time!  Clare is the founder of Storm3, the second brand in the Levin group. I first interviewed Clare when she was a global lead for one of the world's most recognised recruitment brands.  Clare launched Storm3 in Feb 2021, and I interviewed her for the second time just 4 weeks later - when she was the only employee of...