Data and Technology, trends and themes in recruitment

0:02
So hi, everyone, I’m here with Harrison Goode. He works for edge tech, one of the co founders, and they, they’re recruiters in the RPA. Ai, intelligence and machine learning environment. So, Harrison, thanks very much for joining me today. Really appreciate it. All right. Thanks for having me on. Chris, great to meet you. One of the things I wanted to chat a little bit about is what’s what’s going on in the market. And obviously, we’ve had, you know, been through quite a lot of change over the last over the last couple of years. And so how are you seeing the employment market sort of today? And what sort of been the dynamics of what’s changed? And then where did where does it currently set as, as we sit here today? Yeah, absolutely. I guess we kind of classify ourselves as almost like an emerging technology, recruitment business. So work on a lot of new and exciting technologies that are coming through to market, typically technologies, where the skills for those, you know, technologies, in particular, are quite hard to find. That’s where we do our best work. And I think, over the past couple of years, it has changed drastically, obviously, COVID has been a massive impact to that. And I know, it’s probably been talked about quite a bit. But

1:11
coming out the other side of COVID, where the skills were already sort of in demand, I think COVID has pushed a lot of organisations to really look inwardly at their organisations, and actually realise, you know, we’ve probably not that digital, a lot of people working from home, we’ve got things that we were doing, which are, we’re probably considered old school.

1:30
And it’s really, you know, forced those businesses to adopt change quite quickly. And usually, with that comes a lot of these new technologies. So, you know, one in particular robotic process automation is, and has been a very hot topic for the past few years, we’ve seen a massive increase in demand from our side. So in the UK, you know, we work across

1:55
Europe, and we work into the US as well. And globally, the demand for these professionals, has increased tenfold. And I think the availability for those skills hasn’t increased alongside that as well. So there’s more of a war on talent, as we call it for for those types of individuals. So, yeah, it’s, it’s still

2:16
very much in demand. And we can’t see that changing over the next five weeks anyway, from what we predict. And if you look at the emerging technologies, you’ve especially got AI or machine learning, there’s decision science that’s out there, I suppose RPA was another one. I mean, of those, which ones that is the largest sector is that is that RPA is probably the dominant piece, which is talks to, I suppose process automation in the short term. Yes, yeah. Yeah. So I would say, Yeah, you’re right. RPA is probably the most popular, I think, for a lot of organisations. RPA is usually the gateway technology, which opens doors for all of the other technologies that surround that, you know, once a lot of organisations have automated, the, you know, the straightforward rules based processes, they then look at areas that they can automate or become more efficient, or increase, you know, cost savings across their businesses. And then that sort of bleeds into, you know, the machine learning elements, the unstructured data piece, you know, document processing, OCR, things like that. And, yeah, it almost, you know, pushes businesses down that route, and then opens up so many other doors for, you know, for areas of improvement and other technologies alongside that, as well. So, yeah, and what about if we take like an industry cut? I mean, are there some industries that you think are further ahead into, at least from a recruitment point of view in terms of like, you know, you’re at the front end of sort of seeing where people are really investing in this stuff? I mean, there’s some industries that are further ahead than others. Yeah, I think we saw I mean, naturally, you know, financial services in, they’re always a big one. And I think, you know, because they’ve got a lot of a lot of money locked capital. They’re quite often the early adopters of these technologies. Alongside that, there’s obviously a lot of compliance and regulations that come with the work that they do data and things like that. So I think they’re, those types of organisations are probably the furthest along, you know, across the enterprise, a lot of businesses are adopting, but I think they’re, they were the early adopters. And we’re really starting to see that trickle through into other sectors and industries now. So you know, things like sale or manufacturing, healthcare is obviously a big one, I think COVID has kind of forced their hand a little bit with with that, and the increase in demand from that side. So we are seeing it quite a lot, even into, you know, sectors such as hospitality nowadays, as well. It’s quite a bit of a hit. But now we’re starting to see them kind of rebound and come back. So it is across but yeah, I think financial services, banking insurance are typically you know, the kind of early adopters to this was anywhere where there’s data, then you’re gonna, you’re gonna find the technologies in terms of like trying to digitalize it and understand it to a certain extent. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. What about remote working so we hear a lot about sort of remote working and sort of we a lot of us have been working remotely for the last few years and do

5:00
We go back to the office or not, or hybrid or those kind of things, and how are you seeing that on the ground in terms of what employers are looking for, but then also what kind of prospective employees or candidates we are really looking for as well? Is that, is there a tension there? Or is it is that sort of like landing somewhere, do you think speaks? Yeah, I think we’ll find we’ll find ourselves somewhere in the middle. But I think from an employer’s perspective, a lot of those businesses had to adapt anyway, they were forced to adapt to have people remotely, I think we’re starting to see now things that are slowly returning back to normal, I think we’re starting to see these organisations, perhaps want people back in the office maybe once a week.

5:40
Not really, more often than that, to be honest, that might change as things, you know, progress forward. But I think you have to remember, a lot of these businesses have, you know, large offices, it used to be a big selling point, for, you know, for us, for instance, you were proposing a new opportunity to a candidate, you’re talking about the organisation, but one of the big talking points used to be you know, they have a big, you know, swanky office in London, they’ve got a ping pong table and a slide and beanbags, and, and the s and, you know, fruit bowls, and free tea and coffee, but that’s not even a consideration anymore, you know, and that kind of, on the sort of camera side of things, it kind of goes against, you know, what people are looking for now. And

6:20
in the candidate market, their requirements have changed quite a lot, you know, people are now looking at remote first roles. They’re much more interested in that work life balance, that flexibility to work from anywhere.

6:34
Given you know, whatever hours they want to, you know, as long as they hit the targets that they’d be in order certain requirements, that’s kind of what they’re looking for. So in the candidate market, it has changed in terms of what people are looking for, from that perspective as well. Does that change by maybe skill set? Or maybe even so I suppose other demographics like age, or where people run the country or anything like that? Does that? Is there a sort of like a skill set? It’s almost like a in financial services, you’d have almost like this idea of like, well, if you want to insist they’re in a certain location, then it sort of restriction pools, you can’t actually get the best people and the best people sort of they look for working anywhere. Yes, yeah. Yeah. So I think it, I think there is a generation thing, I think a lot of younger people now expect to almost work completely remotely, and not need to be in the office whatsoever.

7:27
I think the slightly older generation are okay with being back in the office.

7:32
And because they have been in the office previously, I do think they missed that sort of interaction, but I think with the younger generation, who perhaps, you know, are in their first or second role, perhaps not having been in an office environment, sometimes I think they almost don’t know what they’re missing. But at the same time, it does really open up that talent pool for for employers. So as whereas before, if we were working for a business,

7:54
London, looking for an RPA developer,

7:58
would search within, you know, a sort of a commutable radius within there, you know, being in the office three, four times a week, maybe even five days a week. So you’d have to find someone within quite a tight location where the skills for that, you know, certain position are really quite niche. But now, for organisations that have said, you know, this best work completely remote from wherever they need to be in the UK, but they can be anywhere,

8:21
just opens up that talent pool 10, you know, 100 fold for that organ,

8:27
and find people a lot easier, perhaps even at a slightly lower price point.

8:33
You know, for instance, you know, someone up north, you know, cost of living up there is slightly less than someone in London, so they wouldn’t need as much. And the skills are, you know, very much the same. So, it allows these organisations to still attract really good talent, perhaps, you know, for, you know, a cheaper cost base for them, and, you know, still get the job done. And you see, the quality is still there, there have been some questions raised around, you know, the level of quality and I think that probably lends itself more to junior positions, I think more senior people in these types of positions are trusted to, you know, go ahead and get on with, with what you’re doing, you know, what you’re doing. So, that’s kind of a big thing as well, do you think it’s going to affect things like London waiting, because that always used to be a thing we used to get, you know, there used to be a higher pay if you actually worked in London, and one of the big cities, you know, and a lot of people sort of moved out from, you know, from from, from one of the big cities into much more rural locations and a certain amount of danger or fear that they’re going to be asked to move back again, but, I mean, do you think it’s gonna affect those kinds of dynamics in terms of like, you know, potentially salaries in cities or, or some of the, those those dynamics? I do, and I think what we’ve seen is, we’ve seen a lot of people move out from the big cities, like you say, moving to rural locations, you know, perhaps areas of lower cost of living to you know, Max.

9:52
But what we’ve seen in the spaces that we work into, we’ve seen the salaries kind of flatten out a little bit. You know, we saw the biggest cities used to pay a little bit more but now everyone

10:00
one’s working remotely, it’s bought the overall sort of salaries down for these types of positions. So even for people who are living in London, there’s almost an excuse for them not to expect more, because the employer could technically find someone, you know, 3050 miles away a slightly cheaper price point because they don’t. And, and so we have seen that sort of flattened out a little bit. And I think it’s, it’s good for the market, because it allows these organisations to gain access to the skills that they wouldn’t have access before. And like I say, as a slightly lower price point as well, although we haven’t seen a huge amount we’ve just seen it sort of flattened out really, so.

10:37
And what about international opportunities? I mean, you seem sort of seem more sort of, like internationally and in either, you know, people looking for people in the UK for overseas roles, or vice versa, where you’re having to source people in different geographies. And is, how much restriction Do you think that is? Yeah, I think it again, that’s a lot of people’s eyes, working completely remotely. So you know, whereas before, you know, people wanted their employees to be, you know, onshore or near the office to be able to get in, but he’s, everyone’s working remotely anyway. A lot of organisations have said, well, do they really need to be in the UK? Could they actually be, you know, in in Poland, could they be in Germany? Could they be in other lower cost locations where the skills are just as good, and they’re, you know, they’re even cheaper. And there’s the control element, whether, you know, you have complete oversight on the work, but, you know, if you’ve got a good internal process to measure and sort of manage that, then there shouldn’t really be a question. I think a lot of businesses have really taken advantage of that and seen some really good ops in tech, the FinTech world, I mentioned, just to let you interact fairly heavily with with a lot of the FinTech world. I mean, how do you sort of see that developing, I suppose, particularly in the UK, but also I suppose, in Europe? I mean, are there are there other themes in terms of where that sort of growing and that’s, you know, obviously, working closely with the with the collections and financial services space? And definitely, there’s some rumblings around? What’s gonna happen with affordability, affordability shock, you know, will that affect investment going forward? Will that affect the way people actually pay their accounts going forward? And so it’s feels like it’s kind of up in the air. But I mean, are you sort of how are you sort of seeing that sort of developing as we sort of go forward into the back end of the year, any impacts?

12:24
From what we’ve seen so far? Not a great deal. I think, if, if anything, we’ve seen probably quite an uptick in those, you know, financial organisations adopting the is because I think they know that the change is coming, and that things are almost like you say, the rumblings are kind of taking place at the moment. So I think

12:44
there are a majority of organisations that are doubling down on their tech. So we’ve seen quite a lot, not just around rpa, but other, you know, machine learning, perhaps data science, skills that are being required, it seems,

12:58
yeah, there hasn’t been a slowdown, there’s probably been an increase in the demand. And I think that will continue until something actually happens. It’s, it’s hard, it’s hard to say, because they usually work right up until those deadlines, and then when something happens, it’s almost instantaneous, you know, sort of overnight, where

13:17
either cuts would happen, or things would take place. But I think, in these organisations, I think the technology teams that work within these businesses are usually quite safe in a way that if the organisation has adopted or invested in these technologies, a lot of the time they want to see it through, and there’s usually an ROI attached to that at the back end. So I think, you know, if they’ve already made those plans to invest, then I think, you know, they want to see that outcome, no matter what happens. So it’s quite hard to predict. But yeah, I suppose to a certain extent, there’s a there’s a certain amount of sort of like investing in digital now. Because that gives you extra capacity for your processes later on, or do you invest in your your product development now? Because that gives you something to sell later on? And it actually become more expensive to buy it later on down? Down the road? Yes, yeah. Yeah, we’ve Yeah, we’ve seen that. And, again, I think that is why people are investing as much as they can now. And I think, because these technologies are, you know, or have been proven over the past couple of years. I think the the stigma around, you know, robots taking your jobs or, you know, the ROI that some organisations promise, you know, these these businesses can seem a bit smoking mirrors at the start. But I think now that a lot of businesses have seen some significant ROI. A lot of people are down and saying, right, we need to adopt this. We need to other people are starting to do this. Now. We need to be doing it as well. And that kind of increases because of that. I think so. Yeah, it’ll be it’ll be interesting to see. But I think you know, the way that businesses go about attracting the talent is is also something that probably needs to change as well.

14:57
Yeah. So

15:00
So we were chatting a bit earlier and of inflation. And you mentioned a little bit around like the supply of people for these roles as well. I mean, I mean, are you seeing that? That because of the lack of supply, and because of the investment that’s out there, that’s that sort of driving up? Potentially wages, which is a great thing from a candidate point of view. Although it might be might be tough from a business point of view. I mean, are you seeing sort of changes in salary levels as a result of supply and demand or inflation that’s going on? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s always quite a hard pill to swallow. When you do put a for instance, let’s just use a an RPA developer for, for example, who’s got two years RPA development experience, which is, you know, a mid weight developer, relatively experienced, and then next to another developer who’s been doing a certain technology for, you know, 1015 years, but that RPA developer is asking for 10 or 15,000 pounds more, purely on the basis that the demand is there, there will be five or six other organisations that would willingly pay them that drop of a hat. So it is pushing it up. And like I said, when we were speaking before, around, the people coming to market with these skills, it is slow.

16:12
And you know, we’d like to see more in higher education around this because there’s not a great deal therapy, and there are, you know, AI and computer science degrees that people are going into, but I think probably more needs to be done before higher education to push people into these routes.

16:31
We do quite a lot, from our perspective, actually around local schools in our area, and doing talks to, to a lot of the students.

16:41
And basically, educating them on you know, what can be done? What are the hot areas that we see at the moment, things that a lot of them would open their eyes to, you know, to IT and technology and how the future is very much focused around technology and development and the solutions that are being adopted by by businesses. It’s a, you know, a very safe bet career wise, if someone was to, you know, go down that path. So, yeah, the demand is definitely outstripping the supply.

17:09
And if you say they were, if there were a couple of pointed questions, if there are top five technologies to learn, if you wanted to get into it, what would you say that that? Where would you put your money?

17:20
Where other people put in the money, I suppose? Yeah, absolutely. So I would say

17:25
RPA is a big one. So you know, robotic process automation, there’s a number of different tools out there. But I think if you have a good general idea around what RPA is, and what it can do for organisations, there’s always going to be a demand there, we see that demand quite a lot enterprise level at the moment, but it is starting to trickle down into small, medium enterprises and will eventually into smaller businesses, I think data science is is is another big thing that people should get to get into or data visualisation and things like that.

17:57
Python is another, I guess, the technology that we would probably recommend, because it underpins a lot of these technologies. So good understanding of that, that can open up a lot of doors into various routes.

18:14
I think another thing, possibly is more around machine learning and machine algorithms.

18:23
And I guess that lends itself a little bit to mathematics and statistics. So I think down that route as a sort of separate spin off to that as well could then eventually open doors into those types of opportunity. Second, I guess that’s boring away. But those are probably the top ones that we see quite a lot of but also that,

18:46
you know, can allow you to go into different areas, you’re not sort of pigeon holing yourself into sort of one route. You know, for instance, if you if you wanted a doctor, that’s fine, but you know, studying to be a doctor, you know, that that’s the route you’d go down, but doing something like that, like a data science or machine learning or statistical analysis that can open up a lot of doors into various, you know, technologies as well. And what about particular packages? I mean, do people request for specific packages or specific technologies? I mean, is there a sort of like a

19:17
top list that you would say that these, these are the ones that are probably most popular in terms of you’re requested to recruit for?

19:24
Yeah, I think RPA is obviously a big thing. I think the broader Intelligent Automation is the the overall package that a lot of organisations are looking at at the moment, and it often starts with RPA. But there are other and even within that, I suppose there’s there’s providers, right? So back in the old days, you’d look at, I don’t know, SAS programmers, or you’d look at those little our programmers or those kinds of things. I mean, there’s specific specific packages or vendors that that people need to experience or is it just much more general? You know, we just need an RPA expert expert.

20:00
Yeah, so certainly for rpa, there are probably three or well for now. So there’s UiPath, who are very much leading the way in this space at the moment, we’ve got an organisation called Blue prism, and their package and their tool,

20:16
automation anywhere or another. And then finally, who I think will really disrupt the space, Microsoft and our automate platform as part of their,

20:27
the power platform and power apps. But power itself, as more specifically around RPA is really going to disrupt the space. I mean, Microsoft acquired a, an RPA vendor

20:39
in 2020, and they’ve started integrating that into their platform. So and, you know, Microsoft clearly had a giant business so they can, you know, they can really disrupt the space if they want to. And I think they will catch up in terms of, you know, the technology and its functionality over the next couple of years. So, probably the main four in the RPA world, at least anyway, that, that we would say to, you know, hedge your bets against. I mean, I’ve certainly seen that the data visualisation side with like, like Power BI, I mean, where that’s come from, and where it’s come to, in such a short period of time in terms of likening Microsoft to quite a big, huge financial muscle and backing behind them to really sort of like catch up.

21:20
Yeah, and I think the vendors that are already operating in the RPA space, I think they’re probably a little bit worried about, you know, what will happen with with Microsoft, obviously, the other vendors have had a very good start.

21:32
You know, they’ve they’ve got some some big clients, they’ve had some, some really big wins seen some great ROI. But we’ve only recently seen blue prism being acquired.

21:43
So they’ve been sort of swallowed up. Could that happen to UiPath? Could it happen to automation anywhere as well? Could that consolidate more? We might just see, you know, maybe a UiPath, and perhaps just a Microsoft in the market. Yeah. So yeah, it’s, it will be interesting over the next sort of five years. I think we’ll see some some some interesting changes, but it’s still early days, I think at the moment. So the latest theme that sort of have been talked about I suppose being run in the media is Metaverse or metaverse. Have you have you seen anything around that yet? Or is that sort of like, is that still sort of in the in the branding and the marketing side of things rather than the actual? So like, here’s, here’s where the rubber hits the road? Yeah, I think it’s Yeah, I think you’re right, it is still very much the softer marketing

22:32
perspective from it at the moment, I think the commercial business applications for that are still yet to be proven. And

22:38
I’m sure there’s a few use cases for it. But from what we see is a softer play that a lot of organisations are entering into at the moment. And I think there’s a lot of opportunity moving forward. Certainly from a recruitment perspective, I think, you know, with everything being done virtually at the moment, I think, you know, there probably will become a point where you’ll be able to go into the metaverse and, you know, interview with someone with you go into a virtual room, you know, with your with your Oculus, or you know, your headset on and meet with the team and do certain things or do certain tasks within that Metaverse as well. So you could even include like a technical test if someone wasn’t developer, to prove their capability within that. So I think that some some interesting applications, but I think at the moment, still quite early.

23:24
And I think, yeah, it will take a bit of time for those businesses to really

23:29
put something into play.

23:32
You have seen some of that some of the banks in the news starting to set up teams, also that ideation stage. But I’m also thinking about all of us who spent like time at home building wireframe models, and all the stuff you do on that on the games and those kind of things. I mean, all of those skills that you saw, like you learn when you’re younger, are the skills that are probably going to be in demand. It feels like in like five years time or 10 years time and the people who’ve done it when they were kids, probably other ones, we’re probably going to know it right. Yes, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I’ve got no doubt that it will be it will be really big.

24:04
Yeah, the sort of commercial application for at the moment is still not not quite there. But it’s great. The the marketing and the exposure. And, you know, for a lot of organisations that are adopting it, I think it’s, you know, I think it’s good. So, yeah, again, that’s another one to probably watch. We’re not seeing a huge amount of it just yet, but we have done some recruitment for, you know, augmented reality or VR as a sort of experts, we’re seeing a massive increase in those types of skills and the demand and it’s also

24:33
an area that we see a lot of people are wanting to get into as well because it’s almost as sexy and interesting because, you know, you get to sort of play around with the headsets and you know, build you know, meta versus or certain rooms and you know, programmes and things like that. So,

24:50
obviously, you can see how attractive it is to you know, coming up in the in the space.

24:56
And how have you found working remotely as the

25:00
irony of this conversation is that of all other people I’ve interviewed, I owe to people all over the world, we’re probably sitting as close to each other as, as any of the people I’ve ever interviewed, actually, really. So just around the corner in some ways, but I mean, how how, how’d you find working remotely? And I mean, the fact that we’re still doing it remotely is kind of interesting, in some ways. Yes, yeah. Yeah. So I think it’s, I think it’s great. As a recruiter, we’ve always worked across various locations into the US into other areas, obviously, our role is very phone and video based on emails. So technically, we could work from anywhere, I think, the biggest impact that we saw right at the start whenever lately well, as Asians, trying to get their head around, offering someone a job that they’ve never physically met. And a lot of these businesses in the past, you know, has done three or four interviews where they’ve met face to face. And then, you know, for the person that job for the first few months, when we went into lockdown, and we were working remotely. The organisations we were working with, were really trying to scratch their heads to figure out well, how are we going to interview? Or how are we going to offer them the job? Can we offer people just over video that we’ve never actually physically met? How can we trust. So there’s, there’s been a lot of changes. And I think for the better because I was talking to a candidate the other day, who was who’s based in Scotland, interviewing for a client based in London, and we were talking about the interviews that have taken place, very quick to stage interview process, video, and we were saying, you know, prior to us working remotely, you would have had to go into the office a minimum of time to meet everyone. So that’s a from Scotland down to down to London, it’s not short journey.

26:50
In the same time, you’ve got to take, you know, probably a day out of your day, but you’re currently working at the moment to go to an interview for a job that you might not get, and then you come back down again. So it’s a lot of commitment from from the candidate. So even though the candidates are still committed to, you know, the roles of the interviews, you know, they don’t have to sacrifice as much within their current job. And I think that’s actually opened up doors for other candidates that may have said no, or turned things down previously, because you know, they didn’t want to take two days off of work to go into your company to maybe get offered the role. Whereas now they can, you know, take their lunch break, have the interview over lunch, or maybe in the morning or in the evening. disrupt their sort of working day as well. So it’s I think it’s really changed things for the better, I hope things will continue like that, I think there is should, perhaps in some cases should still be a personal, you know, perhaps face to face elements. Certainly. I think that for some hires, but where it’s not possible, I think, you know, a lot of businesses now are just completely fine with the fact that they can offer someone a job over video. And that was,

27:54
I mean, in, in the US and North America, in particular, there’s termed the great resignation with a lot of this sort of churn that’s going on. Do you think that’s got its Do you think some of that’s related to, to the fact that people can interview over lunchtime with remote working? Or do you think some of it’s just no moved anywhere from the last sort of, you know, two years. And so now, everyone’s there’s pent up demand, because people just people naturally want to have a new new role? Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s a combination of the two. And I think people are really starting to realise they’re worse. And I think a lot of people before were really tied to their job, and not really committed, but I think now people have realised that, you know, whoever you work for, that can be transactional, your own seeing and, you know, your happiness is, by far more important. You know, your employer is more of a transactional thing now than it ever has been, I think, you know, we always have a conversation internally, you see someone within a within a role for three to four years, that’s considered good longevity. Nowadays, the app, I think the average time in a role is 18 months now, I think, before people started to move on, so I think the way that people work now, and it has changed greatly, but I think, because people have realised that, you know, they can work for anyone work from anywhere, and their requirements are more important, people are more happy to say no, you know, when they do become unhappy, they know I’m going to interview somewhere else, and I’ll find another job. Whereas before, a lot of people would probably just suck it up and just, you know, I hate my job and I’ll stay at my job for another sort of five years and then we’ll see what happens and nothing ever changes. And I think it’s changed for the better because I think organisations now realise that they need to treat people a bit a bit better, not that you know, they were treated badly before but I think, you know, your employees are the gold, the, you know, that runs the business and you need to look after them to ensure that you know,

29:50
you’re going to this business, so you need to do everything in your power to to make sure that they’re happy. On the other side, I do think there is

29:58
on some occasions

30:00
Maybe a greater expectation from, you know, from from the candidate community to expect more than they probably should, you know, I want to a two hour working day where I can work wherever I want and unlimited holidays, and I want, you know, a really good pension plan or you know, unlimited, you know, life insurance for my family and all this sort of stuff. So I think there does need to be a line drawn, but I think we’re getting closer to a better sort of balance.

30:28
So yeah.

30:30
And I suppose this might sound like a strange question to ask someone in the recruitment business, but if you’re, if you’re looking at people are looking for a new job. What’s the reason why people don’t take it? I mean, so if I, if I, if I, if I’m working as a company, what’s the reason what how do I get people to stay and not take jobs? Obviously, the market sort of buoyant? I mean, what do you think is that the biggest draw for people to stay where they are, rather than taking a new role? I think it’s just familiarity and comfort. You know, something that’s familiar, something that’s easy. They’ve done it before, they know everyone, if they do, and they have an offer, and they get counter offered by their, you know, by their employer. But you know, I will give you an extra 5000 pounds more a year.

31:12
Okay, why wouldn’t I stay, I don’t have to move anywhere. I don’t have to get on boarded. I don’t have to do all of this. But in reality, I think there’s a scary statistic, I think it’s 90% of people who do accept a counteroffer end up leaving within the next six months anyway. So we see all the time people who do say, oh, no, I’m gonna stay. They, they come back to us within the next, you know, sort of six months and say, I made a bad choice. Nothing’s changed in my current job, the reasons why I was originally looking to leave, haven’t changed, like to move again. But it’s hard for, for organisations to try and keep people at that stage, because their mind is already made up at that point. So it really starts, before that even happens. So I think retention for a lot of businesses is something that’s often missed. I think a lot of organisations really focus on, what can we do to attract the people. And then when we get them, great, we’ve got them now. We’ll set them on their tasks, there’ll be doing the work, but what are you doing to sort of incentivize them to stay? You know, what’s the sort of culture like, are you having, you know, regular reviews, whether that’d be performance or other things, as well, as, you know, make sure that people are really happy, because I think once people are on boarded, they’re often almost forgotten about ourselves, as when really those are the ones that you want to be, you know, champion, championing within your business and keeping on what you can so

32:31
yeah, it’s, it’s a tricky one. There’s no exact sort of science, people, but it does start way before they’ve even sort of considered looking at other opportunities. So and I suppose the other side of that question is,

32:47
if I’m looking for a new role, and people around me have sort of been finding new roles, and I don’t feel maybe that I’m plugged in enough, and they’re not coming towards me in terms, I’m not getting contacted by them. What what are the best tips to sort of put yourself out there and maybe find some of the opportunities that everyone else is looking at, in what apparently seems like a completely buoyant market? Yes. So I would say, one of the main things would be LinkedIn.

33:11
Something as simple as making sure that your LinkedIn page is up to date, there’s options on there to set yourself as open to opportunities that no one will see on LinkedIn. But recruiters with a specific LinkedIn recruiter licence will be able to see as a filter,

33:27
and just being active and going on there looking at job opportunities, perhaps applying for certain things, looking at recruiters within the space that you work into reaching out to them, they might not have something immediately, but if you register your interest and share your details with them, if something comes up, then you’re sort of on their books, and they posted, they might have monthly newsletters or emails that kind of go out with with hot jobs and things like that. I think that would be a good starting point for people who are, you know, interested to hearing about new things, I think in the spaces that we work into a lot of the candidates we speak to are bombarded

34:06
weekly or even daily by by recruiters or even companies about about opportunities. I even received messages myself, and I’m not a an RPA developer, but I occasionally dropped about a half a role. So

34:19
yeah, there’s, that would probably be the one of the main things. It’s such a big platform at the moment. It’s a place where, you know, a lot of people go to look for potential talent, and there’s a lot of recruiters on their opportunity. And there’s ways that you can interact with people and connect and things like that. So I think that’s a good starting point for someone at least anyway, if you don’t want to be super proactive and put your CV on the job board, for instance, but you want to do something a bit softer. That’s probably the best way to start. Yeah. Okay. Well, fantastic. Well, Harrison, thanks very much for making, making the time today. I really appreciate it’s really fantastic insight there. Particularly in that sector. I think they’re going to get my CV brushed up with RPA and

35:00
Start start start start doing some courses I think come back to what you said so definitely yeah