Facebook Groups

• “Flexible Working for People Like Me”, they have a career newsletter and tons of great advice

Job Boards / Job matching

• https://www.juggle.jobs/ The fastest easiest way to find flexible jobs. Juggle enables outstanding talent to work with the most forward looking companies.
• https://daisy-chain.com/ Daisy Chain is a free online platform for parents where they can match + connect with employers to enhance their careers and work-life balance.
• https://www.2to3days.com/about
• https://mummyjobs.co.uk/ Offering a Flexible way to Re-Train, Get Confidence and Search the BEST Flexible job in the UK.
• https://www.workingmums.co.uk/jobs/ Work from home and find part time jobs, full time jobs and flexible jobs here at Working Mums. We offer flexible jobs for mums wanting a new challenge & mums returning to work.
• https://www.attunejobs.com/ Flexible working and part-time jobs for business service professionals

Recrtuiment Agencies

• https://www.923jobs.com/ 9–2–3 specialises in finding flexible jobs for experienced professionals looking for flexible work, including Returners who have had a career break. Some roles fit into school hours.
• https://capabilityjane.com/ Specialise in recruiting flexible & part-time working talent. A recruitment consultancy who finds perfect employees for businesses across all industries. https://twitter.com/CapabilityJane
• https://www.ten2two.org/ Ten2Two is a recruitment agency helping local companies recruit experienced professionals and executives for part time and flexible working jobs.
• https://www.gpsreturn.co.uk/ We are a recruitment company that specialises in helping parents return to work.

Other

• https://www.successfulmums.co.uk/ They offer free trainings and have a job board. Take part in fun, friendly career training and coaching from Successful Mums
• Teach English to Chinese Students over Skype? £20 PH

I’m sharing this in an unfinished state so people can provide feedback, ideas or simply call BS.

For some context. This borrows very heavily from the Pragmatic Marketing Framework. The general concept is that you can’t do the things on the right (Execution) well if you don’t start with the things on the left (Strategy).

Diverting a little from the PMF I’ve tried to split the items into those more focussed on your Company (lower) and those more foccues on the Candidate (higher). I don’t think that part works so well yet but this is a work in progress I wanted to share to get feedback on, ideally from practitioners.

I’m not suggesting that every company should spend days/weeks on each item. Even the Pragmatic Marketing Framework doesn’t suggest every item is as important for every company. What I suggest is that you score the items based on importance to you (1–3) and consider how well you are doing on each item (score 1–3). Focus on the ones with high importance (1) where you’re not doing so well (2 or 3).

Boiling down each stage from Strategy to Execution, you get an overview like this:

Sounds simple enough, right? You’re probably thinking along these lines generally already even if not consciously. So why bother with a framework? I thought the same as I scrambled for a reason to justify to the powers that be why I had spent my time on this, so I’ll cop out:

The Pragmatic Marketing Framework provides a standard language for your entire product team and a blueprint of the key activities needed to bring profitable, problem-oriented products to market.

That’s how Pragmatic Marketing explain the value of their Framework. It’s not a silver bullet and you’re at risk of being trapped by dogma if you decide to make it an almost religious or cult-like belief.

Job boards are not dead. Free job boards are not a waste of time.

I’ve heard it said that recruiters shouldn’t use free job posting sites because:

• the candidates from them aren’t qualified;
• it’s simply too time consuming to post to free job boards; and,
• it’s difficult to manage responses to candidates.

This is wrong. It’s poor advice. And if you follow it, it could damage your business.

Free job posting sites should absolutely be part of your recruiting strategy. Let me explain why and debunk some of this harmful rhetoric:

You will find qualified candidates using free job sites.

It’s often said that you can’t rely on free job posting sites to bring you qualified candidates. One recent stat I read claimed over half of candidates from free job boards are underqualified. But, wait a minute, that means nearly half of the candidates I get (for free) are qualified for my job? That seems like a pretty decent return on zero dollars.

You don’t have to be overwhelmed by all the applicants.

If you’re screening resumes using your inbox or spreadsheets or a clunky Applicant Tracking System (ATS) with a poor user experience, it’ll be overwhelming and time-consuming to review all the applications you’ll get.

But this is why your recruiting software should be easy to use. An ATS should enable you to screen resumes faster, spend more time evaluating candidates and spend less time clicking buttons and switching screens.

You can notify all applicants of your hiring decision, and rejections don’t have to be cold and impersonal.

Since you will get so many applicants from free job boards, some say:

• You won’t be able to notify all of them of your decision, and this will damage your employer brand.
• If you do send rejection emails, they’ll come across as cold or impersonal, and this again damages your employer brand.

I think I’ll file both of these arguments under ‘P’ for patronizing.

The answer to this is simple. Send notification emails. Don’t be in the 39 percent of companies who aren’t notifying candidates when they are rejected. It’s not the free job boards’ fault when companies don’t notify candidates. This doesn’t mean you have to write an essay to each applicant. Above all, they will appreciate hearing back in a timely fashion.

Good recruiting software should make sending rejection emails to every candidate easy so it isn’t a draining chore that prevents you from maintaining your employer brand. If you’re struggling with how to write a rejection email that people won’t hate, we have some templates that might help.

A lower conversion rate is no reason to avoid free job sites.

I’ve been a recruiter. Even with all the drip mails and automation in the world, it still takes longer to find, reach out to, hear back from and engage one great sourced candidate than it takes to screen two job-board applicants. I could probably screen 152 in that time.

I’m not saying don’t source candidates (I’ll get to that later.) But to only source, just because the conversion rate of sourced candidates is higher, is nonsense and means you’re missing out on qualified applicants.

Free job boards help you build your candidate database.

When you’re using spreadsheets or a clunky ATS, it’s true that having more candidates makes hiring more complex. The answer to that isn’t to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

If your recruitment software is preventing you from getting qualified candidates from free job sites because it’s too hard to separate them from the under-qualified ones, take a look at your recruitment software, not the job board.

And finally, I’ve heard:

“Avoid free job sites and focus all your time on sourcing.”

No. Just no. This is the worst.

No channel reaches every candidate, passive or otherwise. You’re better off having a mix of channels in your recruiting strategy, where you don’t say “no” to candidates from free job boards who could be relevant and are actively seeking jobs (which is good.) Good people look for jobs, too. And good people look on job boards.

Absolutely get referrals, they are a brilliant source of hires.

Absolutely do some sourcing, some roles may need it.

Absolutely use recruiters when you need their support, maybe for tough roles or a temporary boost in hiring capacity.

Absolutely use job boards. Absolutely use free job boards. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Your recruiting software should let you to do all of those easily in one place.

If your recruiting software is limiting your recruiting strategy and you’d like to find out why 6,000 companies have already switched to using Workable, we’d love to speak to you.

Originally published at resources.workable.com on November 21, 2017.

Why you should use free job posting sites was originally published in Work and Progress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I often get asked by startups and fast growth companies if I can recommend good London based recruiters. Recruiters who really understand startups and the roles they are hiring for. So I have created this list of recruiters that I recommend.

To be included on this list I have either worked with the recruiter myself or they have been recommended to me on more than one occasion by people that I trust and know well and they have worked with the recruiter i.e. it’s not just their mates.

This isn’t a directory. There are probably a lot of other good recruiters out there who deserve to be on the list. This isn’t Workable’s recommendations either. This is a curated list of the recruiters and talent folk I recommend (but if you are hiring you should use Workable’s recruiting software to help you find and hire better people, faster…).

If you’re looking for a job yourself here is a job board for you → https://jobs.workable.com/

Recruiters for hire:

Charlie Rawstron (marketing & digital roles)

One of the founders of 3search. They have built one of the most highly regarded and best-reviewed Marketing, Digital and Product recruiters. Covering both the UK and the US they build teams for a lot of the world’s most renowned companies, as well as early-stage start-ups looking to make their mark.

Best for being an Usher. Contactable at charlie@3search.co.uk

Phil Blaydes (all roles but specialism in tech)

A top recruiter (previously Forward3D, Mind Candy etc) who has set up Talentful alongside Chris Abbass (previously Shazam, Audible). In their words “Talentful is the internal recruitment company which offers a fixed fee inclusive of all costs (onsite staff, tech, advertising and any agency fees).” In my words “an internal recruiter or internal recruitment team for your business but only when you need one and with no surprise costs.” Phil is a top guy so I definitely recommend speaking to him.

Best for saving you from surprise recruitment fees. On twitter @wearetalentful

Salim Hamid (Tech & Product roles)

Salim hates recruitment but don’t let that put you off. He gets most of his business through word of mouth, lucky really because he makes bad websites (but great hires). Prior to going solo Salim single handedly hired Deliveroo’s eng team, scaling it from 12 to 70 in 9 months and then from 70–280 when some other people joined and started taking credit for Salim’s work. Available for all your Ruby, Python, React etc etc hiring needs.

Best for, well, just being Salim really. On twitter @team_salim

Peter Chatterley (all roles)

Working to break the traditional recruitment agency model. Works with growing tech companies like Whisk and Victor on a variety of positions (tech is a specialty).

Best for not charging you like a normal recruiter: On twitter @chatterleyp

Rodney Crouch (commercial roles)

MD of London based Grey Matter Recruitment. Recommended by Tris Revill (also on this list). “An expert for senior commercial hires within tech, digital and Marketing. He is supported by a great team who can take care of mid to junior level roles.”

On twitter @RodneyCrouch

James Mayes (product roles)

Product evangelist and ‘top bloke’ (my words not his). CEO of MindTheProduct and the monthly ProductTank meetup but could help build your product team if you ask nicely.

Best for building product teams. On twitter @james_mayes

Rhys Evans (ruby roles)

Founder/Director at AdRoc Group who can help with more than just Ruby roles but Ruby is what Rhys was recommended for.

On twitter @rhysevans

Adam Bolton (.NET roles)

Runs CurlyBraces.tech which is a combination of tech focused meetup events and tech hiring. Strong in .Net and Javascript, available to help you hire for roles in Ireland, England (London mainly) and Germany.

Best for supporting an awful football team; on Medium Adam Bolton

Barry Cranford (java roles)

MD at RecWorks. Can help with more than just Java roles but that is what he was recommended for.

Adam Jonas (data science roles)

Consultant at Fyte. Recommended through the DBR group.

Matthew Jones (data science roles)

Consultant at Xcede. Recommended through the DBR group.

James Everett (sales roles)

Executive Consultant at Sphere Digital Recruitment.
Specialises in placing commercial candidates into technology businesses across MarTech, AdTech and SaaS. Experienced in helping businesses launch and scale in the UK.
Recommended through the DBR group.

Andy Selway (HR & Talent roles)

There comes a time when you’ve grown to the point where you need HR. Andy will help you find your first HR hire or your first internal recruiter. With 15+ years of working in HR, Andy understands the role you’re going to hire.

Best for really (I mean, really) liking HR: On twitter @corpcocktails

When you‘ve hired people and now need to look after them:

Matt Bradburn, Al Fraser & Kristian Bright

Matt, Al & Kristian make up People Collective, an HR consultancy that helps companies reach their full potential to create great . They bring years of Recruitment and HR experience with them from working at companies like Qubit, Lyst, Peakon, Deliveroo, World Remit and StackOverflow.

Best for getting the most out of your biggest asset. On twitter: @brdbrnm

In-house recruiters who really know their stuff:

Matt Buckland

Matt is Head of Talent @ Rainmaking Venture Studio and previously worked at Workable, Lyst, Forward Partners, Facebook, Criteo, ThoughtWorks, Bloomberg… he might not be able to help you find your next hire but follow him on twitter and read his blog for sage words of advice about hiring.

Best for doing magic tricks. On twitter: @ElSatanico

Michelle Coventry

One of my favorite people in London. Leading the hiring charge at Five.AI. Has also worked with companies like Transferwise, Forward Partners, Thread, Depop, Driftrock, Hassle and VCs like Kindred Capital…I could go on, for a long time…to build out high performing teams in fast-growth companies. Senior talent acquisition strategy and implementation. Co-organiser (with me) of the Workable sponsored #TalentHackers events.

Best for being excellent. On twitter: @michcov

Steve Jacobs

Widely regarded by his peers as the go-to person to get advice on hiring sales teams, Steve is truly experienced recruiter with nearly 15 years of experience hiring in SaaS, Mobile, Digital Media and Digital Transformation industries. Steve’s worked for companies including Criteo, Bazaarvoice, InMobi and Freespee as well as global brands like McDonalds and HSBC.

Best for when you’re building sales teams. On twitter: @_SteveJacobs

Tris Revill

Friend and self-styled #TalentHacker. Previously headed up Global Talent Acquisition at Blippar, then Osper, before moving to Lyst to help their team scale in 2015. After a stint in the sourcing team at Indeed, Tris is now consulting with companies to bring his sourcing skills to more companies. Happy to provide advice and assistance where necessary.

Best for talent hacking / sourcing advice. On twitter: @trisrevill

Ken Ward (all roles)

Through his consulting company (Winter Court Consulting) Ken works with fast growth, entrepreneurial companies enabling them to transition to the next stage of their growth cycle.

Best for cutting through the bullshit. On twitter @kward69

Nick Yockney

Head of Talent at SuperAwesome. Prior to Kalo, Nick helped to build and grow three in-house recruitment functions at companies including Chelsea Apps Factory, PropertyPartner and Kola. One of the new breed of Head of People, Nick comes from a recruitment background but looks after recruitment and HR in his roles.

Best for many things. On twitter: @yockandroll

Stevie Buckley

Organiser of HNLondon and previously ran Talent at companies like Lyst and StreetTeam. Just don’t call him a recruiter, he’s a “Freelance Head of Talent”. I’ve warned you. He’s also the founder of honest.work (a job board for startups and tech companies) — check it out if your a startup or tech company.

Best for being himself. On twitter @StevieBuckley

Hung Lee

Hung is the Founder/CEO of Workshape.io a new way to find talent, check it out or contact him to find out more. He’s probably best known for curating the hugley popular Recruiting Brainfood newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed already I highly recommend it. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience on hiring in startups having been a recruiter prior to creating Workshape.

Best for his wealth of experience. On twitter @HungLee

Willem Wijnans

Proper talent hacker. Innovative, creative, globetrotting Dutchman. When he’s not busy being far cooler than I am he is building tech teams. Currently advising startups on hiring he previously worked at improbable.io. You can follow his blog here.

Best for being cynical about traditional hiring methods. On twitter: @willemwijnans

For the senior stuff…when you’ve got the funding or revenue to afford an executive search firm

Ann-Christin Roope

Ann-Christine is the Managing Partner at Ethan Partners, executive search and assessment. In their words “We have successfully supported some of the fastest growing companies in more than 50 markets including some of the world’s greatest startups.” Ann-Christine has been Global Head of International Recruiting for Rocket Internet and Groupon so she knows a thing or two about scaling companies.

Best for being really quite smart and down to earth. On twitter @ethanpartners

Pete Alexander

Director at The Up Group, an executive search firm that has worked with the best known names in digital/tech to hire Director, VP and C-level roles across all functions.

Best for senior level product and tech roles. On twitter @PeteUpGroup

Hugh Marshall

Hugh is an Associate in the digital practice at leading international exec search firm Heidrick & Struggles. Hugh recently moved to San Francisco with his job but can put you in touch with the right London contact.

Best for senior level commercial roles. On twitter @HughHeidricks

Know a recruiter in London that should be on the list? Contact me at rob[at]workable[dot]com.

It seemed sensible to add Job Boards to this list, not as an alternative to recruiters per se but as another route to finding the right candidate. So…

London Startup Job Boards

Workable Job Board (free but for Workable customers only)

Global job board but with a lot of startups in London using Workable it is a great destination for candidtaes looking for startup jobs in London.

Honest.work

A job board for startups and tech companies created by Stevie Buckley of “higher up on this list” fame. In Stevie’s own words:

“We want to encourage more honesty and transparency in job adverts.
We are launching a job board for tech and startup companies, where every vacancy advertises real salaries and real insights into the company’s interview process. Honesty is the new game changer.”

Unicorn Hunt (paid but choose your own discount)

London centric job board for startups. Use it for any type of job whether it’s tech, sales, marketing…

Escape The City (paid)

In their words “Unfulfilled and ambitious, we wanted to escape our corporate jobs. We looked for a service to help us find genuinely exciting new opportunities. There wasn’t one… So we built our own.” According to internal recruiters I know it’s a great place to attract high calibre analysts/consultants etc who want to do something different. Save those corporate types from the rat race!

WorkInStartups (paid)

London centric job board for startup jobs. Use it for any type of job whether it’s tech, sales, marketing…

Some people are also surprised to hear that generic/global job boards like Indeed (free and paid options) and Monster (paid) generate good candidates — Indeed is in a league of it’s own when it comes to filling roles (we can see that from the data). They might not be the best for attracting candidates for your senior full stack developer role (try Reddit, HackerNews, StackOverflow) but for a lot of roles they are very effective. Don’t rule free options out, sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Events that help with hiring

Whilst I am at it might as well add some events you might want to attend where you can participate and/or let people know that you’re hiring. A quick note on using events for hiring:

Attending = free & useful / Sponsoring = paid & better / Being a speaker = free & best.

#HNLondon (free)

Started by Dmitri Grabov and Ben Dowling in London with Stevie Buckley (mentioned above) joining later and now part of the family. What they say; “Regular meetup for readers of the amazing Hacker News, as well as assorted tech and startup junkies. Come along to meet your online buddies in person, catch up with old friends and make new ones. The meetup is pretty informal and is a great opportunity to chat about your projects, get feedback and possibly find co-founders.”

Silicon Milkroundabout (paid)

Run twice a year (maybe more often now it’s getting bigger but I’m not sure to be honest). What they say; “With thousands of pre-screened candidates attending, your team can have literally hundreds of conversations with the precise type of people you’re looking to recruit. Most companies end up making several hires by the end of the weekend. Our buzzy coffee shop and free bar are also great spots for informal networking.” Still the most popular startup hiring fair in London.

Design+Banter

If you’re hiring designers get yourself along to the next Design+Banter. In their words: “Over the last 2 years, we’ve brought 18 design events to over 4000 attendees, featuring more than 50 great speakers. If you want to get involved in the future of Design+Banter (speak, sponsor, host, or helping on the night), just drop us a line. We’re dead friendly.” In the words of Stevie Buckley (on this list) “Still hands down the best event to find great designers.” Get in quick to get your ticket, they go fast.

PyData London Meetup

Over 200 attendees at their monthly meetups. In their words “This is a group for users and developers of data analysis tools in Python. The goals are to provide Python enthusiasts a place to share ideas and learn from each other about how best to apply the language and tools to…”

To read

The Hiring Guide every startup should read.

A note for InHouse/Internal Recruiters:

Find your way in to the DBR community of inhouse recruiters, the group now has nearly 3,000 members sharing ideas and knowledge so don’t miss out. It was started and run by some of the inhouse recruiters on this list and is the best community of inhouse recruiters there is. Request to join DBR.

A note for Agency Recruiters:

Feel free to connect with me, more than happy to. But to be on this list I either know the recruiters or they have been recommended to me on more than one occasion by internal recruiters I know. That is the only way onto this list :)

Recommended Recruiters In London was originally published in Tech London on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

People say that “recruiting is just like sales” as if it’s an obvious fact.

It isn’t.

It’s reductive rubbish.

As a former recruiter and salesman, the “recruiting is sales” buzz-phrase is particularly annoying, because it suggests that a salesperson can easily replace a recruiter, as if a candidate is just another interchangeable thing to sell. This idea is wrong and it insults both candidates and recruiters.

People can’t be sold

Apart from the obvious fact that historical progress has outlawed the literal sale of humans, the selling metaphor just doesn’t work for placing candidates in jobs.

Yes, both sales and recruiting rely on pipelines and funnels.

Yes, both sales and recruiting involve a lot of chasing, calls and pitching.

But no, recruiters don’t “sell candidates to companies.” And recruiters don’t “sell jobs to candidates.” Because neither candidates, nor jobs, are saleable in the same way cars are.

Cars don’t have a say in who buys them. A car sale is a simple, one-way transaction that transfers a car from one owner to another. Deal done. Relationship over.

But candidates need to actively agree to enter a work contract with a company. Because candidates are people who have agency. They aren’t like cars, passively sitting in a parking lot.

And companies need to actively agree to offer jobs to candidates. Because jobs are relationships, not a simple, one-way transaction.

Recruiting is a complicated, bi-directional matching process. Not a sale.

Assuming anyone’s job is easy is a recipe for disaster

The “recruiting is just like sales” idea isn’t just annoying because it’s wrong. It’s annoying because it assumes there’s nothing particularly unique or challenging about recruiting.

It assumes that salespeople can pick up recruiting quickly and easily, without having to learn anything new. True, some sales skills are difficult to learn. And they can definitely ease the transition to recruiting. But they’re not the same as recruiting skills.

I’m not the only person who thinks the “recruiting is just sales” sentiment is unfair:

Rob Long on Twitter

Is recruitment just sales?

Saying that any job is “just like” another one reduces the unique challenges of that job and insults the people who work in that job. It’s about as insulting as referring to certain jobs as “low-hanging fruit.”

A lot of the “recruiting is just like sales” articles floating around the internet are published by companies who want to sell products and services to recruiters. But, implying that your customers’ jobs are “just like” someone else’s is a terrible way to get anyone to like or listen to you. And it’s one of the strangest ways to sell anything to anyone.

Originally published at resources.workable.com on July 13, 2017.

Recruiting isn’t “just like sales” was originally published in Work and Progress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.