The Art of Retained Search with Louise Archer

Intro [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the elite recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:20]:
Started with this amazing interview. I just wanna say thank you guys for everything that you guys have done for the Recruiter Growth Summit. Over 500 people have registered. So many people have picked up the VIP where you can actually get a copy of also relays. It has been an absolute game changing of a week. We are 2 days down. The when this recording goes live, we're going into day 3. So make sure to pick up your tickets and register.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:45]:
Also, make sure to sign up for the elite recruiter community. It's, like, I'm just so excited about everybody growing together this year. So you guys are gonna love this podcast. It is going to be awesome. One of the biggest things that recruiters deal with is unpredictable revenue. I have my guests here to share some of the secrets on how to actually have predictable revenue when it comes to your recruiting business and how to get off the up and down roller coaster of revenue. 1 month, everything's amazing. The next 2 months, everything sucks.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:19]:
So I have my special guest on the Elite Recruiter podcast, Luis Archer, who is the founder of retrain search to talk about the secrets of, you know, retained searches and how you can implement it in your recruiting business no matter where you're at. So excited to have you on the podcast. Welcome to the podcast.

Louise Archer [00:01:38]:
Thank you very much for having me. When I call you Ben, or is it Benjamin, or is it only your mother that calls you that?

Benjamin Mena [00:01:44]:
It's I'm okay with both of them, but if you want a good laugh, my last name is Menna. And sometimes as a recruiter, I talk fast. So if you say Ben and Menna together really fast, people are just like, wait. What'd you say? Really?

Louise Archer [00:01:57]:
I wouldn't try that.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:00]:
We are halfway through the recruiter growth summit 2024. It has been phenomenal. So make sure to pick up your tickets. Make sure to get registered. In the show notes, you could see the link for that. Over 500 people have registered. It has been an absolute game changer, the 1st 2 days, and I am so excited about what's happening today. But, also, make sure to join the elite.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:25]:
So the Benjamin Elise slows me down half the time.

Louise Archer [00:02:28]:
Okay. Alright. Cool. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me here.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:32]:
Well, definitely excited to talk about an important thing that, you know, I think a lot of recruiters wanna do. They think about doing, they just don't understand how to actually implement it into their business. So before we get started, we we ask everybody, how did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Louise Archer [00:02:50]:
I think I might have been destined for it. Actually, I think it was my destiny. My mother was in recruiting and she had her own recruiting agency. And from the age of about 12 or 13, I was filing CVs. Back in the days when they smoked in the offices and there were fax machines and then no such thing as emails. And every summer I helped in the office and I helped the girls. And then it was secretarial temps. And then each summer I just did more and more really.

Louise Archer [00:03:24]:
I started interviewing candidates and putting them on the typing test machine. And my first job was candidate controller. Can you believe that? Like controlling candidates. Like that's an interesting concept, isn't it? But yeah, that was my job title. And I've tried to get out of it out of the industry several times when I've been that frustrated that I thought I need to get out and do something different and done a few other things, but basically always ended up coming back as so many people do. And my brother's in recruitment, in talent acquisition. So, yeah, I think it's been in my blood in the family.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:57]:
That is so funny. Like you grew up in it, you've tried getting away and you're you're back in it. Like, I, I, there's been a few guests recently. Their, their parents were in it and they just like, they wanted nothing to do with it. I coming out of college and all that stuff. And now they're like, you know, have their own firms building their own teams and even having their kids help out. So I just love that. You know, exactly.

Louise Archer [00:04:22]:
The thing is like, once you get, I think it's like a bug, isn't it? I think I think it's like a bug and it never really leaves you and your ability to be able to do it never really leaves you. Maybe it's kind of addictive. I don't know.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:33]:
I don't know.

Louise Archer [00:04:34]:
Most people kind of end up in it forever, don't they?

Benjamin Mena [00:04:38]:
It it's one of those places where you're like, many people just accidentally fall into this space and then they just stay there, whether they love it, whether they hate it, or whether for whatever reason it is.

Louise Archer [00:04:48]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:48]:
Great. Well, so let's just go ahead and jump right in because I think we have a lot to talk about. First of all, a lot of recruiters, they either do contract work or they do contingent work and contingent where you're half a time racing against other recruiters out there. It's, there's not like no skin in the game for you. What is a retained search?

Louise Archer [00:05:09]:
Okay. So for me, Alan, this might be different from other people, but for me, retained search is some financial commitment from the client, which enables you to put in place a rigorous and robust search process, and enables you to commit to working with that client until you reach a result.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:32]:
And why are retained searches?

Louise Archer [00:05:35]:
I don't necessarily think I would say that they're worth it compared to the contingency model. In my experience, it's more that each has its place. So I, in my experience, the contingency model works really well in lots of situations. Right? It's perfectly adequate for straightforward, low level, easy to fill positions or where there's lots of talent available. And, you know, you can stick an advert on field, some response, send a handful of CVs and happy days get a higher, like that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that on either side, on any, from anybody's perspective, if it works. But there are lots of instances where the contingent model doesn't work particularly well. And that normally, if it's a niche position or if it's a really sought after skill set, or if it's an awkward location or if it's senior and really critical or maybe confidential, then the contingent model starts to fall down.

Louise Archer [00:06:40]:
And in those situations, the financial commitment from the client enables you to solve the problem that the contingent model isn't solving.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:52]:
Okay. And when you talk about a financial commitment from the client, like, what do you, what do you mean by that? Do you mean like they're just sending you like $500 or is it like, what's the breakdown for this?

Louise Archer [00:07:02]:
Yeah. So, well, traditionally, we're taking searches build a third of total compensation, and it's broken into 3 stages. And I will sometimes fall, but I can come onto that if you want to talk in real detail about fees, which is fine. The 3rd stage is normally paid on commencement. The second on agreement of shortlist and or acceptance of shortlist and the balance of completion. So that's traditionally or typically how a classical retained search firm would charge. And for senior hires, that are gonna take a substantial amount of time and care through the process, I normally stick to that model. But what I found is, especially as talent and skills are fought over in so many industries, you know, I've been in traditional oil and gas, in, in renewables, in energy, in tech, in life sciences and pharma, and all over all of those industries, there are skill sets and niches that are not necessarily senior, but they are challenging.

Louise Archer [00:08:05]:
And you don't necessarily need a full executive search process And therefore you don't necessarily need a full breakdown of a 3rd, a 3rd, a 3rd. So I'll often weight a project that is a slightly lower level, in favor of the completion and, and skip the middle stage and, and just carry it out on the basis of a third or commencement and 2 thirds on completion. But what I found is, and I have experimented with, you know, just an engaged model, always like £500,000,000 or a grand or whatever, at, at all commencement, is that there are dangers to going too low at the front end. Several reasons. Like firstly, what sometimes happens and it's happened to me is if the fee isn't big enough at the front end, it's too easy for another recruiter to swallow it. If you see what I mean, you know, they can, they'll smack a candidate in and say, well, we've paid a retainer on it. Okay. Well, I'll just discount our fee by a grand.

Louise Archer [00:09:00]:
And therefore it's almost like they haven't paid a retainer at all. They they're not, you're not actually getting that commitment or exclusivity. And if you are only taking 500 quid or a grand or a token gesture at the beginning, and the client then, you know, uses you to source CVs for several weeks and then goes, actually, thanks very much, but we're not gonna go ahead. It hasn't actually de risked it for you at all. And you're not really in any better position. In fact, it's sometimes worse because you've put more effort than you would've done normally into it because you've got a token gesture. And actually you're significantly out of pocket compared to the opportunity cost of what you could have done during that time for somebody else. So my guidance after years of getting it rolled, I frame it with different things, is that you don't, you can't take less than a 3rd on commencement.

Louise Archer [00:09:45]:
That's my rule for myself now. So I always take a minimum of a 3rd on commencement, but if it's a lower level projects, I'm happy with 2 thirds on completion.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:53]:
Oh, that's that's phenomenal. Because I know, like, one of the things, like, people are talking about is, like, an engaged search where it's have the 500 or a 1000 or like, you know, dollars 5,000 where it's just enough to skin in the game, pretend that you're committed to me compared to a true retained model where we're married until this is done. Exactly.

Louise Archer [00:10:11]:
Yeah. And, and the engaged model can work really nicely. And what I always say to people that say, well, I work in engaged model. And I would say, brilliant. If that works for you, happy days, like carry on doing it. But what I see is those are the challenges that people face that it isn't actually enough and you still end up in a situation where it isn't actually properly committed and it isn't enough to commit them. So there's a nice middle ground between the 2, as long as you, you know, you and you find where that is for yourself. And that's where I found kind of minus.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:43]:
Okay. And I know when we we started off the podcast, we're talking about the revenue roller coaster. Well, how can a retained model, right, search model help even out that revenue roller coaster?

Louise Archer [00:10:58]:
What's the lovely well, several lovely things about working on a retained basis as I found out and I wish, and I swear by the way, I need to check that because I would swear quite a lot and I don't want to get in trouble. I won't do now because I've just caught myself doing it. But what I, I wish that I'd known earlier on in my career. And I wished that somebody had taught me about retained work years years years before they did is it's broken in stages and that's really nice. So you're not, it's not lumpy. It's not as lumpy as contingent one off fees. When you, it takes a little bit more work to win a retained project, but when you win a retained project, you win the fee. When you win a contingent project, you win statistically, and this is studying years of years of contingent fill rates, about a 20% chance of making a fee.

Louise Archer [00:11:49]:
So you win a project that has an 80% chance of you not making anything at all on it. So, okay. It's easy to win a contingent job, but you haven't actually won anything. It's actually the opposite if you like of winning. Anyway. So the nice thing about winning retained work is once you win, once you've won the work, you can predict those 3 stages, as long as you carry out the process that you set out, that you know is going to be successful for you, then you can predict that revenue that is now predictable revenue. So that's one of the main benefits to working on a retained basis It's with a contingent position, you can work for weeks and have no idea. Well, statistically an 80% chance of not

Benjamin Mena [00:12:25]:
getting anything at all.

Louise Archer [00:12:27]:
That's the most important thing. The other thing that happens that's really nice, and it'll take me a few moments to explain this, so bear with me while I go to the end and then come back to the start again. When I first started teaching people how to do what I'd figured out how to do over several years, which is basically convert contingent work into retained work, I looked around because somebody asked me, Jesus, you're doing this really well. And you're obviously doing it really easily. Can you please start showing other people in the business how to do it so they can do it too? So I thought, well, I don't know. Okay. So I did. And then they started asking me to teach more people and, carried on doing that.

Louise Archer [00:13:02]:
And, and then they started winning their work on a retained basis and, and it's kind of snowballed. And then someone said outside of the organization, will you come and do it for us? And I thought, well, Jesus, like I'm just a recruiter. Like I'm not qualified to be doing this. Surely there's other people that can, you know, I've only, I've learned this myself. Do you know what I mean? I'd only been doing it for a couple of years myself. There's surely there's other people that have been doing this for years that can teach you how to do this. Like, I didn't know all the answers, no way I'm still failing, you know, fast. So, but I looked around and you know what? There really aren't that many people doing it and there aren't many people doing it well, like hardly any, there's a handful of people most people, people go, yeah, no, that is a bit of a snake oil, your guy, you know, don't stay away from him or whatever.

Louise Archer [00:13:46]:
And the reason, and the reason that I've gone to that, and I'll come back to the question, is the reason for that is because most retained search consultants that, that work on a retained basis, the way that you deliver the project, not just the way that it, it produces a relationship and it, it fosters a relationship that is deeper. It's more meaningful. It's more strategic. It's more embedded and it's, it's stronger with the client, not just the client, but the candidates as well for loads of different reasons. Because the process is more rigorous. You, you get to spend more time with people. They respect you more for all of those reasons. You end up with much stronger relationships, which means you get more repeat work.

Louise Archer [00:14:28]:
And through not only that, but through the process of carrying out a retained search, the way in which you interact with all the people through that process, all the candidates that you come across and all the other prospective clients that you come across, taking references on those candidates and so on is so impressive and strategic and well timed and well placed and considered that business comes from that as well, which means that retained search consultants don't have to do much cold B day. They business development. They don't need to go from scratch and go, oh, I need to get some new clients. So most retained search consultants don't have a process for sales and business development, so they can't teach it. So when you say, how do you sell retained search? They go, well, I just say that's how I work. And you're like, yeah, but what about the bit before then? How do you find the fucking client in the first place? And they're like, oh, well they just come to me. And you're like, oh, right. Well, that's helpful.

Louise Archer [00:15:26]:
Thanks very much. And that's why, like, they don't, you know, they don't, well, the reason that I'm bringing that into the answer is because that is one of the beautiful byproducts of having like retained projects and this just mechanically predictable revenue is the longer term impact of less lumpy revenue and a more a more consistent income.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:51]:
I I think that's phenomenal just for the fact that, like, if you think about that, like, a lot of great recruiters, top billers, it's a referral base. And when you're sitting there doing these like in-depth research, in-depth conversations, in-depth reference checks, you're you're you've already done spent more time as with that person than probably almost any other recruiter in their lives. So now they're thinking of you.

Louise Archer [00:16:13]:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You make such a different impression on the talent pool, on the, the peers in that, in that space, the competitors in that space, when you work in partnership on a retained basis than you do when you're working consignually, such a different impression that different things happen. And it changes the course of your, well, for me, my career, my whole career.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:40]:
Well, and I, and I got a few questions that are gonna lean up for this, but it, it the first one in the in this is if you like, a lot of people, when they think of, like, retained search, they think of executive search. They think of, like, these gigantic executive search firms, like a Korn Ferry. Like, how does a a small boutique agency even compete with some of those? Like, so how do you even sell a retained search to one of your clients that you already have or a new client?

Louise Archer [00:17:05]:
Yeah. I mean, firstly, just to touch on the first point, how do you compete with the big search firms? I never tried to, I never set out to try to, and what they do, and they are exceptionally good at what they do, at the level that they operate, they've been doing it for a very long time, and they're very, very good at it. But they do tend to like to operate at the top, at the top. And they're not really that concerned with fees that are less than, you know, a 100,000, for example. And I mean, that's real bottom end of the kind of work that, that they'll do. So there's plenty of room for us to play where they aren't always that, that keen to chase it. Having said that, and they are very, very good at the level that they operate, I know lots of firms and I have competed and won against the Shrek firms several times myself. So they're not cofact of what they do, nobody is.

Louise Archer [00:18:08]:
And sometimes, well, I think in any walk of life, your biggest strengths are often also your big sweetnesses, right? The fact that they're very, sophisticated, but also that they scale, you know, they're large firms. They have a structure and a process that, that means that they, they, they don't necessarily place the value of individual smaller clients as they do with some of their bigger clients. So when you meet clients that have worked with the Schreck firms, you often find that the smaller ones haven't had the kind of attention and time, that the bigger firms do. They're obviously then not as competitive, as some of the boutique firms. So pricing is an easy way to, you know, to differentiate yourself. And we don't have as many overheads as a big firm does. So we can often be a bit more nimble. But also the way that the, their businesses are structured, it's very much, sales and, and execution.

Louise Archer [00:19:09]:
And the research side is a whole structure of its own and the researchers, you know, grow. So the person that wins the work isn't the same as the people that, and deliver it. And that can cause, a difference and friction sometimes in delivery and clients don't always understand that from the beginning and I could've done well. Right. There's loads of, so I, or the point I'm making is there are ways, there are ways of, of, of differentiating yourself and you do find lots and lots of clients that have had a poor experience. They, they released a figure actually, and it's interesting, through the Association of Executive Search on their completion rates. Have you heard about, have you heard about this, the Shrek firm's completion rates? So, the last time they released it, it was 67% Collectively and that's quite low. Right? So you quite, you quite often come across clients that have had search is failed on.

Louise Archer [00:20:02]:
But in fact, there was someone in one of my coaching calls the other day, who's just picked up 3 searches because they've all just been failed on, by Spencer Stuart. So I'll name them. So they, it does happen. And the reason it happens is because, you know, there's sometimes a difference between the sales and the delivery. There's often in these very well networks and the black box been used for many years, really well networked industries. And that's how it all used to work really nicely without the kind of tools that we've got now to be able to unearth people. Right. And if you didn't have that black book in those days, then you're pretty screwed.

Louise Archer [00:20:36]:
It's very difficult to get that kind of information, but it's different now. With the tools that we've got, we can actually get the same information, but in a different way. But they've been relying on those black box for quite a long time. So you can find that there's a preordained idea of what they're gonna find, which means there's a lot of stones unturned. So when you pick up a failed search, which I've done several times, there's often quite big holes in it. Yeah. There's that. The other thing that you get is because they're large and they've got, lots of agreements, there's lots of off limits and they're not always upfront with their client about it.

Louise Archer [00:21:12]:
So again, when you pick up the mail searches, you can see the off limits and you can see that there's, there are several opportunities there that haven't been explored, because they have clients of theirs. So anyway, I'll go back to the original question, which is, how do you actually sell, retain, search? If you're going to go for the big stuff and you're going to go for the executive stuff and go after those, then those are all the things that I would, I would be positioning myself as, but you don't need to. And where I started was simply by looking for the opportunities that the contingent model wasn't solving. So if the contingent model is working well, happy days, fine. Carry on doing what you're doing. You can still operate on a contingent basis. You can still do the 2 things at the same time. There's nothing to stop you from doing that.

Louise Archer [00:21:56]:
I did that for a while. I actually then moved away from contingent just because I prefer retained, but you don't have to. And, and it works perfectly well in lots of situations. But if it isn't working well and a client is coming to you saying, I've got a position. I've had it out for, you know, 3 months or 6 months, and I can't get the people that I want. Can you help me? It doesn't make sense for you to then put the same model in. It actually makes sense for you to do something different. And the financial commitment that they can make to you enables you to put a play in place process, but importantly, to put a play a process in place, that means that you will reach a result where you might not necessarily be able to on a contingent basis.

Louise Archer [00:22:35]:
Well, obviously people haven't and they've been failing on it, because other things take priority, right? Because we're always working on 5, 10, 15 jobs at the same time. And if there's somewhere else I can make a fee, I'm not going to spend time on something that's 6 months old and I've had enough of. So that's where I started, frankly, by solving problems that the contingent model wasn't solving and clients that needed those problems solving.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:59]:
And so typically when it comes to, like, a contingent search, you're just pretty much, you know, you have your intake call. You know, I'm just breaking you down super simple. You in your intake call, you go out, you do your searching. You get your candidates, you know, you present the candidates, the candidate gets hired. The retained search, there's a lot more process involved. What are some of the other parts of the retained search process that you need to deliver to your account, to your clients?

Louise Archer [00:23:22]:
Yeah. I noticed it. Yeah, I noticed it's quite a big difference, really. I mean, I can talk through the main differences for me. Firstly, the briefing meeting in the 1st place was just so much more thorough. The definition of the scope of the project is more thorough. So to write down to defining the competencies, and that's partly because you need to be certain that you know what you're looking for, but it's mainly because you need them to be aligned so that there's no danger of someone coming in, you know, and then saying, actually I want this, or that them being a difference of opinion on their side, which can cause a problem. And so the definition of the, the functional behavioral competencies was new to me And people do it in different ways, but essentially, it's it's for the same reason.

Louise Archer [00:24:09]:
And the definition of the parameters of the search, you know, defining the the geography, the target companies, the off limits, target individuals, and actually discussing, you know, who they don't want us to approach and who specifically they do, because you work really closely together. You end up in a situation where they say, oh, do you remember that guy that we met 6 months ago? I think we should put him in or, this firm in particular is very interesting to us, but the individuals and from their network, they'll voluntarily give you referrals, which is very different for me on a contingent basis. On a contingent basis, it's like, here's the brief, good luck. You know, it's almost like I challenge you and they don't help you at all. Whereas I never attained those, they actually help you because, you're all as one of my, great mentors says, slaves to the problem. You know, like the, the Buddhist saying you become slaves to the problem together. Anyway, so that's very different. The actual search itself, probably the same, really, you know, you're searching for candidates, your identification of candidates.

Louise Archer [00:25:07]:
I mean, you go a bit further because you've got to find them, right. You've got to turn over every stone. So maybe an avenue that you might not have gone down on a contingent basis, you will go down on a retained basis. And you'll go through all the websites and through all the industry publications that through, you know, we're always targeted with, shall I carry on? Yeah. We'd like 10 sources. So people who, aren't right for the job, but, but might know some more that is. So we have a minimum target of 10 sources on each search. The transparency of process is very different.

Louise Archer [00:25:37]:
I don't remember sharing my workings with my contingent client because the danger is they kind of go after them themselves. Whereas on a retained search, I share everything and I share every week. This is who I'm talking to. This is what they've said. This is in to who's interested, who's not interested. Here's all the salary data. The data as well, like, you're collecting intelligence, like, competitor activity, team structures, of course, salary, bonuses, benefits, perception of their brand in the market. I've never done that before.

Louise Archer [00:26:09]:
I've never done that with, on a contingent basis. And sharing that with the client every week. The resteering was a bit different as well, like, giving the opportunity for the client to reset, here's what we found in accordance with the brief. Would you like, it's not quite what you expected to find? You know, the salaries are higher. Would you like me to carry on looking for the skill set that you want even though the salaries are higher, or would you like us to adjust the parameters and bring down the skillset to match the salary? Which would you prefer? And that was new to me. Like normally it's just like, well, if you don't get them in budget, you failed. Like that's mental, isn't it? Because how can I fail when it should, this is just what exists, you know, that whole concept of it not being my fault anymore? It's just, this is what exists in the market. And it's a much nicer process.

Louise Archer [00:26:51]:
It's much more enjoyable. And then through to the candidate interviewing, the candidate referencing and learn how to competency assess candidates, which I've never, I've never known how to do before. It's so simple, but I'd been working in contingent agreement for, I dunno, 10, over 10 years and no one, no one used constant based assessments as you know, for projects, which I'd met because how can you, when you're at risk of someone else sending a bloody CV and before you, like you come on, you can't afford to spend time doing that. So that was the proper reference tracking as well. Like I'd never done formal reference tracking, which is phenomenal for sales and business development. Like, it's one of my favorite business development tools, formal reference checking. The short listing process, like sitting down together with a long list of candidates that have been assessed against the brief and talking through them in collaboratively and choosing together which ones we're gonna take to interview, that was different. I'd say probably in at least half my searches, the client asks me to come to the interviews too.

Louise Archer [00:27:46]:
So that was new for me. I'd never done that before. I really liked that. I guess the outcome as well. I mean, the outcome for me was, I mean, you don't really fail. There is no failing. You, you, you, you compromise along the way because you, you resteer it and you end up with a result. That result might not be what you set outside, but you all will know that it's the best result that's available to you.

Louise Archer [00:28:10]:
Even if they say, actually, we've decided on this basis, we're not gonna make hire. We're gonna promote Mary, but we've been able to do that because of the process that we've been through. So thank you very much. And here's your fee. So done right, the whole experience is completely different, really. But and lots of components of it are the same, if you see what I mean. I think the other thing that people forget to do, any even experienced search consultants that I meet don't do, is the retrospective or lessons learned at the end. And those feedback sessions are lovely for, again, I'm you can tell I'm a very sales focused person, but I like, you know, winning the next piece of work straight away.

Louise Archer [00:28:51]:
Or even if they're referring me to 2 or 3 people in their network that will benefit from the way that I work, then I'll get referrals from outside the organization and inside for the next project.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:01]:
That is awesome. Thank you, Frank. You did such a great job, like breaking down, like the differences between like what goes into a contingent search where you're like, you said it perfectly. Like if you want to do something extra, that little extra 6 hour window, the extra day that would take for an assessment, like somebody else can toss a CV or resume over there and you lose, you lose that, that placement fee.

Louise Archer [00:29:22]:
Yeah. It's 2:50. I do all those things on that on a contingent basis, because you run the risk at any point of the client saying, oh, I've just got a CV in from someone and we've offered or actually just adding, not to do this anymore. Or, you know, we're just, we're not going to make this higher. It's too risky. It is too risky to do that without any financial commitment from the client.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:44]:
Man. Well, before we switch over to the next part of the podcast, is there anything else that you would love to share about retained searches?

Louise Archer [00:29:52]:
I'm I mean, I think there's a con there is a conception that there's several conceptions that it either it's just for executive positions, which it isn't absolutely isn't. I just did 5 telesales positions at 25 ks, like really low on a haul, but that's because they weren't getting sold on a contingent basis. So that's the first thing. If you want to be able to do it and you're a decent recruiter, you will be able to, you can, like, I haven't yet to meet someone that isn't able to do it and do it successfully and do it really well. So if you want to move to retain, like you can, that's my biggest message. I think to people, It's not a mystical science that won't work in your market or whatever. Like, it is absolutely possible, but it does take a little bit of fine tuning to get to a place where you feel really comfortable with what you're offering and what your commitment in return for that financial commitment is. And there is, there's quite a bit of learning in there.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:46]:
That's awesome. And now for the quick fire questions.

Louise Archer [00:30:48]:
Okay. And

Benjamin Mena [00:30:50]:
they don't have to be like quick answers. What advice would you give to a brand new recruiter that's just getting started in the recruiting industry this year?

Louise Archer [00:30:59]:
I mean, because it's me, I would say consider whether you want to go down a search or retained route or whether you want to go down a contingent agency route on the 2. At the moment, still, I'm doing my best with industry change, but still are quite different. Do your research and do your homework on contingent agencies versus retained search and make a decision that's right for you because they're different.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:23]:
And that that research can probably completely impact the next 20 to 30 years of your career. So

Louise Archer [00:31:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's one. What I would say.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:32]:
And same question, but for recruiters that have been in the game 5, 10, 15, 20 years, what advice would you give to them to maybe like jump on the re or learn about retained or any type of success?

Louise Archer [00:31:44]:
I would say, just start asking questions around is the, is this working for you? Like, are you getting what you want when you want it? Is it an enjoyable process? And if it isn't, then suggest that we apply a slightly different method. That's like, as simple as that, that's how you can get started really easily with retained. And I'd like to show you on this project, like, just the financial commitment will allow me to put in place a better process and make sure we reach a result. Will you let me just show you on this assignment? Like, don't over complicate it or think it needs to be really difficult. And of course, come and do our training course and that will teach you all the rest.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:21]:
Yeah. Awesome. Is there any like favorite rec tech tools that, like, you love in the retained world?

Louise Archer [00:32:26]:
Oh, only, God, there's so many. What kind of list of you or Sure. If I do like from the beginning, I like Dripify, but Sourcewell's even better. We like Audro, the video catches. We like Loxo, drip campaigns, but also for delivery. Clockwork for search delivery is superior. We like what else do we like? I think those might be the main ones. Oh, MetaView.

Louise Archer [00:32:55]:
Those are the key, my key favorites, I think, at the moment.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:58]:
Awesome. Do you have a book that has had a huge impact on your career?

Louise Archer [00:33:02]:
Yes. I've got it right here.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:04]:
It's that one. Traction?

Louise Archer [00:33:06]:
Traction by Gino Wickman. There's several books that have had big impacts on my career, but that one most recently on my business, and it's been fundamental to the direction,

Benjamin Mena [00:33:22]:
Oh, and I know there's a lot of other recruiters out there that have tried retained, you know, done some stuff. You've been highly successful in this and so successful that people have asked you to help train them. And that turned into like a whole nother career for yourself. But like, if you're looking back on your life, like, is there a thing that, like, is there a reason why you've been probably more successful than other people?

Louise Archer [00:33:44]:
Oh, geez. I hate losing. It's fear of failure. It's gotta be a fear of failure. I mean, that drives most of us, right? Those people that, that are successful. So, yeah, I think that's not different from a lot of people. I think that I think there's a lot of us that have that in common. Do you have that?

Benjamin Mena [00:34:02]:
It's a combination of fear of failure has been like one of my big drivers and it's something that I saw even in my college athletic days is like, I'm I'm not gonna be good enough for the right for this race. I'm not gonna train I'm not training enough or I'm not fast enough. And that took me to be, like, one of the top in the school. It was it's weird.

Louise Archer [00:34:20]:
Weirdly. It was upset, isn't it? It's

Benjamin Mena [00:34:23]:
It's a it's a common theme that I've actually been seeing at a top, a lot of top recruiters is, you know, you think about like all the success and a lot of it is just, it's the fear of failure.

Louise Archer [00:34:33]:
Yeah. I think the reason I didn't want to set up my own business was because I thought it wouldn't, it wouldn't be good enough. And, and in the end, I've, I've tried to, because it, it, I've had to literally establish a company to really do a piece of work for a client who said it wouldn't be compliant for them to pay me unless I actually set up a, you know, an LLC and it's a limited company in the UK, but that was the only reason I actually set the business up. And if it wasn't because I wanted to, it's because I had to. And now it's like a proper, you know, business. So, yeah, I I think it's definitely the fear, a fear of failure that drives me that on my mom.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:05]:
Well, that kind of goes into my next question. This is actually one of my favorites. So you've, you've seen a lot in the recruiting world, you know, combination of like you grew up in it. You've seen a lot of change. You went from contingent to retained. You've had a lot of up and downs and along the way. Yep. So it's If you had the chance to sit down and have, like, a a cup of coffee with yourself at the very beginning of your career, what would you actually tell yourself for advice?

Louise Archer [00:35:29]:
Oh, gosh. I would tell myself just, like, don't don't move away from you. Like, I think in the early days, I looked around me at all these wheelers and dealers and duckers duckers and divers, and I thought, wow, Jesus. Like, I'm never gonna be like that. And how do I how am I gonna be like that? And actually in the end, what set me apart from other people was the opposite of that was my authenticity and my, my genuine absolute need to do right by my client and right by my candidates. And in a way I was taken advantage of a lot, you know, by people in the industry and, you know, it's a, it's a hard, it's a hard world to, to be a soft person in. I took a lot of knocks and that was why I very nearly left the industry many, many times. So I would say to myself, you're gonna be okay is being me and caring.

Louise Archer [00:36:39]:
So, yeah. But lots of people said, oh, you're too soft or, you know, you're too this and you're too that. And actually I wasn't too anything. I was just right.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:46]:
I I I love that you said that. And because there's you know, you we see the recruiters that are just, like, hard chargers, like, gung ho. This is the way it is. But there's a lot of people that I don't, you know, soft or, you know, they're just real. Yeah. And how did you, I don't wanna say like, how did you harden up, but how did you like figure out how to take that, that softness and make it your, your specialty and your differentiating maker?

Louise Archer [00:37:12]:
It's been a long journey, but the hard way is the answer to that. But I'm very grateful to the few sort of key individuals along the way that have kind of picked me up and gone, no, you can do this. That isn't true, what they're saying. You know, you don't need to be listening. You don't need to be that. Keep doing what you're doing and don't give up. So what tip would I say? Don't give up. That's what I would say.

Louise Archer [00:37:39]:
Yeah. I think you, when you, when you build relationships and you, with clients and you build relationships with candidates in your way that you know are deep and they're meaningful and, and you care about them, then you've got something that, that's, that's special. Like that's, that's really good. And if you feel that, then don't let anyone tell you that there's anything wrong with what you're doing because there's nothing wrong with what you're doing. Like, just keep, keep doing that.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:08]:
That's that's phenomenal. And I, I love that you said that. And that was your highlight because like, at least for me, and I know the listeners heard this many times, like I sucked at the start of my recruiting career. Like I was horrible. I thought like recruiting was like, you were helping everybody. And that at the end of the day, like you're supposed to be making placements. And I, being nice was one of my weaknesses. I had to learn how how to go from nice to good.

Louise Archer [00:38:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's such a thing as tough love, isn't there? And I learned from, I learned from some brilliant people early on at, Hudson, which was TMP when I worked for them, how, how to do that and how to give the best kind of feedback in the best way. That was really tough sometimes. And how to say goodbye to candidates that I couldn't help. But in the best possible way and how to, how to talk to clients in such a way that helped them in the long run. And I think it's all just a learning process, but I think it's hard if you're, it's very difficult if you're, if you're not, if you don't have a big ego and you don't have a shell, I think it can be, it, it can take, it's tough, but the industry needs people like you.

Louise Archer [00:39:28]:
So you can be strong, but also be real and authentic and care, and do the right thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:38]:
That's awesome. And I think that kind of goes into like where your story is and like how you ended up in the retained world, where you could be a little more authentic. You could be real. You could do those relationships rather than the, the turn and burn of the other side of the business.

Louise Archer [00:39:54]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I wanna say retain doesn't suit everyone. It really doesn't. I'm not saying you have to be, you know, kind and caring to do retain, but you do, you do have to give a shit about what you're doing, you know, if you don't, then it's not the right model for you. Like, if you just love the cut and thrust of chucking CDs about and hoping something sticks, then Contingent is definitely the right place for you. Like, you all love it, and it's great, and it's wild.

Louise Archer [00:40:20]:
And for a while, like, I enjoyed it too. Like, I I quite like, like, the thrillers. Oh my god. Look. What happened to that? I didn't know that was gonna happen. But quite quickly, I started to get frustrated with the fact that it was so unpredictable, and it didn't matter. It wasn't necessarily how hard I worked on a position that was related to whether I was gonna reach a result on it or not. And that started to piss me off.

Louise Archer [00:40:43]:
So, yeah, I think it's horses for causes. Some people love it. Some people love Contingent. That's cool too.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:51]:
Well, before I let you go, 2 things. First of all, how can someone follow you or, you know, find you or reach out to you for more information?

Louise Archer [00:40:58]:
Well, you can definitely find me on LinkedIn. Somebody said the other day that my videos are so frequent that they see more of me than they do of their wife, which was a bit embarrassing. So, yes, definitely find me on LinkedIn. And we also we also have a podcast, So it would be nice to invite you on our podcast, if you'd like to go on our podcast then. We only just started it. We're very new. We're not a sophisticated as she aids. So, but yes, we have a podcast called the retrained search podcast or the, but retrained search is the place to go.

Louise Archer [00:41:27]:
So Louise Archer on LinkedIn and retrained search for the podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:32]:
Awesome. And before I let you go, is there anything else that you would love to share with the listeners?

Louise Archer [00:41:38]:
Just that I think it's easy to, it's easy to get fed up right of recruitment in general. And I know that because I've done that several times and last year was hard. And this year, some people started really fast, but some people it hasn't, and they are still feeling like it's a little bit tough. If you, if you, if you want to take the time to make a bit of a change and adjust what you're doing when things are a little bit quieter, it's often the easiest time to do it. So even if all you do is just reassess how you're going to approach the diagnostic on the next position. It can make a big difference to the outcome of the way that you work it. Just reassess and, and ask different questions at the beginning. How, how have you normally gone to market for this type of position? What model did you use? How well did it go? Did it work for you? Did you get what you wanted, when you wanted it? Was it an enjoyable process? And just spend a bit of time diagnosing if the contingent model is actually working really well for them.

Louise Archer [00:42:40]:
Because if it isn't, that's your perfect opportunity to just slightly change the course of your desk or your, you know, your year.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:49]:
That's awesome. So I just, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on and sharing. It's one of the things when a lot of recruiters say, you know, that in the contingent world or in the staffing world, they see this, the retain model as like, it is so far away and so unattainable, but you've kind of like demystified a little bit. And with a demystification, like people can now have a little more of predictable revenue.

Louise Archer [00:43:12]:
Exactly. Like, I mean, I don't wanna say if I can do it, anyone can, but like you can do it. You can. And every day we see people who have never won a tape project before winning with tape projects every single day. People that are surprised themselves, we get emails like, oh my God, I fucking won it. You know? And then they're, they're more surprised than it isn't as difficult as you think it's going to be. And you can do it if you want to do it. Basically, the answer is if you, if you want to do it, you can, if you don't want to do it fine, don't do it, stay with what you're doing.

Louise Archer [00:43:42]:
But if you do want to do it, it isn't that difficult. Okay. There's a few pieces to it. And what you don't want to be doing is taking some money up front and then screwing up the delivery, because then you're in a worse place than you were when you started. So you don't want to be doing that. So you do want to get some pieces in place to make sure that it, that it goes right. But we do loads of webinars, free webinars. I just come and listen to a few of those and that will help you get.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:03]:
Started. Phenomenal. Well, for the listeners, I hope you guys, like, leveled up with this podcast. This is an amazing interview, and I cannot wait for 2024 to be your best year yet. So thank you guys for listening.

Louise Archer [00:44:16]:
Thank you so much, Ben. Thanks for having me.

Intro [00:44:18]:
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