197. Finding and Retaining the Right Talent with Richard Triggs

Discover how resilience and rock music shaped one man's journey to becoming a leader in executive search. Join us as we sit down with Richard Triggs, CEO and founder of Arete Executive, and author of "Winning the War for Talent."

Richard's story from an aspiring rock musician to an influential executive search expert is packed with lessons on teamwork, perseverance, and the alignment of personal and professional goals within a team setting. This episode offers a treasure trove of insights into how companies can strategically find, hire, and retain top talent to maximize their impact.

Explore the decision-making process behind choosing the right recruitment model—whether in-house, external, or hybrid. Richard sheds light on the benefits and challenges of each approach, emphasizing the importance of understanding your organization's culture, cost implications, and the quality of hires. With real-world examples, he illustrates the consequences of poor recruitment processes and the transformative power of leveraging modern tools for efficient talent acquisition. This chapter is essential for executives grappling with recruitment dilemmas and seeking to optimize their hiring strategies.

Finally, we delve into the nuances of clear communication and strategic hiring practices. Richard provides practical advice on tailoring job descriptions, setting transparent candidate expectations, and ensuring alignment between company strategy and individual strengths. From hiring the perfect sales manager to navigating the complexities of recruiting a new CEO, this episode offers actionable steps to enhance your approach.


🌐 Connect with Richard:
• Arete Executive Website: https://www.areteexecutive.com.au/
• Personal Website: https://www.richardtriggs.com.au/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardtriggs/

📚 You can purchase Richard's books at Amazon:
•  Winning the War for Talent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923007807/
•  Uncover the Hidden Job Market: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WCQ5U46/
•  Uncover the Hidden Job Market 2/e: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1922764280/

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• 14:12 (Cont.) 197. Finding and Retaining the Right Talent with Richard Triggs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hit record there, hit record here as well. All right, here we go, sir. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Richard Triggs. Richard is the CEO and founder of Arate, executive and the author of a brand new book called Winning the War for Talent, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. What does it mean? To find, hire and retain the most talented people around you so that you can have maximum impact? Really excited about today's conversation. If we have time, we might even look at the other side of the equation how do you get hired but we're going to focus mostly on how do we find and retain the right talent today. So, richard, without any further ado, I'd love it if you'd give a little bit of a flavor of your background and what inspired you to be in this world around executive search and around almost matchmaking between organizations that are looking for the right talent and then helping that talent find the right home.

Speaker 2: 1:16

Okay, thanks, mick, great to be here and certainly happy to do that. In fact, that matchmaking sort of analogy is, I think, quite a good one. Certainly you're looking at all the dating apps and so on of how people try and find true love. There are certain things that most people do that aren't conducive to them finding the love of their life and there are other things that people do which obviously are far more successful for them. So I've actually thought about writing a book about that.

Speaker 2: 1:47

But your question how did I my background and how did I get into this exciting world of executive search? So I was born in Canada, I moved to Australia when I was four and then, when I was in high school, I had grand aspirations of being a rock and roll star. So I left school, toured Australia playing guitar in bands for about four years and then in, I think, 1991, I ended up in Melbourne chasing a record deal, and at the time we had gone from being, you know, a very big fish in a small pond in Brisbane to a very small fish in a much bigger pond in Melbourne, and I came to a realization that being successful in music was very challenging. You had to be very talented, you had to be very lucky and I decided I wasn't talented or lucky enough. So I rang my parents and I said mum and dad, I think I need to come back home and go back to university, which is what I did. And I did a degree in business, majoring in marketing and HR, and then, subsequent to that, I started in a corporate career.

Speaker 2: 3:01

And then in my early 30s, I decided to go back to university and do an executive MBA. And while I was there, like a lot of people who do that level of qualification, I started to contemplate what do I want to do when I grow up? And what I did was I went to see a recruiter that I'd been a client of, that had actually done some recruitment for me, and they said to me oh Richard, have you ever thought about working in the executive recruitment industry? And like most people, I just fell into it. So I had no aspirations of being a recruiter, it wasn't anything that had really been on my radar, but I thought it sounded like an exciting profession and I started.

Speaker 2: 3:44

I worked for the largest recruitment company in the world at the time, who were called TMP Worldwide, now called Hudson. So I worked for them for a year, loved recruitment didn't really enjoy, you know, that huge corporate culture. Went and worked for a small private company for about five and a half years. Worked for a small private company for about five and a half years, ended up on their board as an executive director, and then I started my own firm. So Aratea Executive was started on the 1st of February 2009, at the height of the GFC. Probably not the greatest time to be starting an executive search firm in the middle of a global financial crisis. But, as they say, fortune favours the brave. And here we are, 15 years later, having survived GFC, a mining industry collapse, a global pandemic and all of the other exciting things that seem to happen. You just think, oh boy, I'd love one year where there's just not much going on, where we can just settle into the groove and actually not be disturbed or distracted by global crises, but I don't think that's coming anytime soon.

Speaker 1: 4:55

No, it feels like there's always a gift that keeps on giving in that regard at the moment, Richard, that's for sure. Congratulations on your success and congratulations on your resilience to ride those waves. There's a number of different curious things I'd like to follow. I'm going to follow an interesting one to start, because I always think there's a lesson in every chapter in our life what did you learn from being a musician and trying to get booked on gigs or record deals, et cetera, et cetera? That influences the way you see the world today.

Speaker 2: 5:28

Well, I think that there's probably two elements to that. Firstly, being in a band is very much being part of a team, and when you are part of a team and I know, mick, your specialization is all about leadership it's very important that the team is conducive and they work very well together. And when you try to do that in an artistic environment where people aren't necessarily the most educated from a team and culture type perspective, and then you throw on the top of that, you know lots and lots of travel, you know lots and lots of playing gigs and drinking booze, and it can become a pretty hostile environment. I think the particular band that I was in I think personalities at the end of the day, if we'd kept our eye on the bigger goal of what we really wanted to achieve, then perhaps we would have stuck together longer and been more successful. I think if you look at a lot of the most successful bands in the world Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are well-renowned to not really like each other very much. Kiss, gene Simmons and Paul Stanley don't really like each other very much, and there are lots and lots and lots of examples of, I suppose, where they've realised this is a job and we need to work together, even if we're not, you know, best buddies, so you know that was one thing. Work together, even if we're not, you know, best buddies, so you know that was one thing.

Speaker 2: 7:08

The second thing for us was in 1990, this is my big musical claim to fame we won the Queensland Rock Awards and we actually beat Powderfinger. So we went oh, this is fantastic, let's move to Melbourne because that's where all the action is, whereas what Powderfinger chose to do was to stay based in Brisbane and tour from here. And so I suppose, from a leadership point of view or from a strategy point of view, we deserted our loyal and supportive home base and thrust ourselves into a much bigger market where we didn't have the experience, the contacts, the know-how, et cetera. And obviously you know the truth is the result Powderfinger went on to have an incredibly successful career and I know a few of the guys in the band and I know their former manager and you know they played it smart and we didn't.

Speaker 2: 8:09

We fell into a trap of just wanting to get too big too quickly. I suppose it's a little bit like a company in Australia going oh look at that market over in America, let's go and set ourselves up in New York and not really having that long-term consideration about what the true implications for that are. So those are sort of some of the tougher lessons of that. But I tell you what, mick, it was a very fun four years living on hamburgers from truck stops and you know, driving all day to play a gig and yeah, I loved it. But I certainly couldn't do it anymore.

Speaker 1: 8:51

There's three really powerful things I'm taking away there. Richard, I've got to share it back with you that all businesses, at the end of the day, are people, businesses Like. So when you're talking about these relationships with band members and I was thinking of Fleetwood Mac when you're talking about these relationships with band members and I was thinking of fleetwood mac when you're talking about it, apparently they don't even want to be in the same room together, but sometimes they just park that and be professional and do their job. But it's it's so much more harmonious if we, if we do get along with our team members. The other metaphor that's coming to my mind when I hear you is you also need that alignment and that congruence. You can bring together six of the world's most talented musicians, but if they're not playing the same song at the same time, it's going to be just a big old mess. So there's that element of bringing a team together and the and the, that.

Speaker 1: 9:44

And then when I hear you talk about strategy and the, yeah, we're always needing to make strategic pivots as a business and if you're not changing, you're potentially going backwards. But are we throwing away what's working when we're trying to do the pivots to grow. So what was really great about Powderfinger? Very much a proud brisbane-based band and that was part of their identity. That that's who they were and they stuck with what was working at the same time as growing in in other ways. Lots of interesting lessons there from that richard, even richer than I was hoping for when I asked the question, right. So tell me about Winning the War for Talent what inspired you to write that book in particular?

Speaker 2: 10:34

Well, I've been now working in the recruitment industry for 20 years and I think from literally when I very first started 20 years ago, there was this buzzword, you know, about winning the war for talent and about and I felt that number one. I think it's a cliche. And so, even though my book is called Winning the War for Talent, I actually say it's not really about winning the war for talent. It's just that there are some companies that are excellent at hiring and retaining top performers and most companies aren't. So, like anything, it's just a skill that you need to learn and, most importantly, implement consistently to get great results.

Speaker 2: 11:20

But way back when, 20 years ago you know, it was almost as if recruiters were conditioning their clients to accept underwhelming candidates.

Speaker 2: 11:35

So look, it's a war for talent and it's really hard to find and really hard to bring these new people on.

Speaker 2: 11:48

Hard to bring these new people on, and what we've seen in more recent years is very much the rise of internal recruitment.

Speaker 2: 11:51

And internal recruiters are often people who have been external recruiters, who have gone in-house to escape the sort of KPIs et cetera that a typical external recruiter will have, or they may be early career HR specialists Somebody's done an HR degree and they see internal recruitment as a pathway to becoming a, you know, more senior and much more broadly skilled HR manager, not really recognising that, at the end of the day, recruitment is about sales and whether you're the line manager who's doing the hiring, whether you're the CEO of the company or whether you're the recruiter, it's very important to understand core strategies that will enable you to really stand out from your competitors and win that war for talent, because being able to attract and retain excellent people is such a tremendous competitive advantage, and the cost of pool hire, the cost of replacing people, can in some instances be so expensive, not just in terms of the actual physical cost of running a recruitment process, but also the impact it has on your clients, the impact it has on your team culture, the impact it has on you know, the general focus and attention of you as a leader, because you have to be distracted through that process.

Speaker 2: 14:08

So if people become really, really good at it, then life becomes a lot easier, and so my book is written very much towards the employer who is hiring themselves, although I do talk a little bit about those times where it does make sense to use an external recruiter, but pretty much it's a follow the bouncing ball. If you do these things well, you will have a much greater likelihood of being able to not only attract but also retain those people.

Speaker 1: 14:43

There's a number of things I want to unpack there. Richard, let's start with the in-house versus external. That's an interesting topic for me. I'll share a view and then challenge me on that view, please. The kind of common things that I hear in businesses around in-house is that external agencies they don't understand our business. If we have someone in-house, they're going to really understand the business and know what we're looking for to have that connection. And then there's the cost element of it as well. Right, so you're controlling your costs, You've got someone that you're budgeting for, et cetera, et cetera. And then the the perceived benefit of an external is a massive network of professionals that this is what they do every single day. They live, breathe recruitment and they see more applicants than anyone else. So it's that breadth of the network. What do you see as the key? If I'm an executive making a decision today, I'm going to go either in-house, external or even a hybrid of the two. What guidance could you give people around how to make that decision?

Speaker 2: 15:50

Yeah, well, certainly we could get right down in the weeds here, but I'll try and keep it fairly brief. So, firstly, in relation to internal recruiters, because they work in the business, know and understand the culture better than an external recruiter would Well, firstly and I'm certainly not adverse to organisations having internal recruitment I think there's definitely a place for it and it makes a lot of sense from a cost perspective to consider internal recruitment, although it's not necessarily the savings that you expect it to be. So, firstly, a skilled recruiter, whether they are either internal or external, should be able to develop a relationship with the leaders in the business that they become their preferred supplier. So, for example, we have an ASX top 100 company that we started working with early in COVID, so back in 2000,. And I think at current numbers we've done over 250 roles for them. So, firstly, they continue to use us because we truly understand their culture. We've had ongoing success of making multiple placements for them, and so we have a long-term relationship built on trust and built on our capacity to understand their needs. So external recruiters can provide that.

Speaker 2: 17:29

It's just that in the recruitment industry there are what you call contingent recruiters and retained recruiters. So contingent recruiters are paid only on successful placement. So often an organisation might brief one or two or even five contingent recruiters. They may also even be trying to recruit the role themselves at the same time, and basically whoever gets the best person there the quickest gets paid. And one of the downsides to that is that if a contingent recruiter knows that they're competing and it comes down to trying to do things as quickly as possible, they're more likely to be less concerned about is this person the right culture for you? And they just want to chuck as many CVs at an employer as possible. It'd be like throwing mud at a wall and praying that one of them sticks, and I'm sure you and most people listening to this podcast would be well aware of those kind of companies in the market. And then there are what you call retained recruiters, who are employed on an exclusive basis to do a very thorough and comprehensive job, and, for example, that is what my firm is. So we are retained, a percentage of our fee is paid at the commencement of engaging us, and then it gives us the capacity, knowing that we are exclusively working on the role, to dedicate enough resources to successfully fill it, and obviously a part of that is really ensuring that they are a good cultural match.

Speaker 2: 19:13

One of the challenges with internal recruiters is that often they can be working on many, many roles at the same time, from the office receptionist right through to a C-level executive. In some cases these internal recruiters can be working on 40 plus roles. So when somebody is trying to recruit that volume and that variety of roles for their employer, it's very difficult for them to have the time to be able to run a great process. And so whilst you'll say, well, instead of paying for 60 placements, which is extraordinarily expensive and I definitely agree with we can pay our internal recruiter $100,000 a year and they can make all of those 60 placements, and what a tremendous cost saving that is for us, a lot of things don't get considered, like what is the quality of the hire? What is the length of time it's taken to fill the role? What is the statistics around the retention of those people in the organization? So when companies are using an external provider, whether it's an accountant, an engineer and a lawyer, whatever it might be, typically they're because they are more conscious of cost and quality. They, uh are paying greater attention to a variety of factors, whereas in other organisations they may say look, we've got an internal recruiter, they're costing us $100,000 a year, but they're not thinking about the true cost.

Speaker 2: 20:52

So to give you a very brief example, I was running a workshop and there was an organisation that had sent along their head of HR and head of recruitment and it was about how to attract top talent. And I asked this pair you know what were the difficulties that they were facing in their business and they said look, we've got 40 mission critical roles on. We're getting terrible response to our advertisements roles on. We're getting terrible response to our advertisements and often those people are withdrawing before they're even interviewed and the owner of the company is greatly concerned and through talking to them about some of the things that I write about in my book, it became obvious that the process that they were running was creating these very poor outcomes for them.

Speaker 2: 21:51

So there is definitely a place for internal recruitment when you are looking at more transactional what I would call vanilla type roles. And then there is definitely a case of using external headhunters when you either have mission-critical vacancies or it's a very unique skill set. Fortunately, LinkedIn and other tools have made cost of using external recruiters a lot cheaper than it was perhaps 10 or 15 years ago, so a traditional global search firm who is working on roles may have been charging 25% to 40% of package, and that is a huge cost, whereas now there are other companies, like my own, which are saying well, accessing talent is far easier, engaging with talent is much easier, and so therefore we can run a very equivalent process for a substantively reduced fee from what you would have been paying historically.

Speaker 1: 23:03

There's a lot of dilemmas I'm picking up on here, richard, really interesting. Let's start with the one around both the in-house and, let's say, the success fee based people. So you spoke before about the cost of a bad hire, and there's a dilemma here of making sure that we take the time to find the right person. But if I'm an in-house recruiter, I may have a backlog of, like you said, 40, 60 roles and I'm trying to get through them. So my goal is to get my to-do list down, and if I'm a success-free-based external recruiter, my payment is based on putting a person in the role. So am I now just trying to fill a role or am I trying to find the right candidate for the role? And I'm starting to see a bit of a dilemma there.

Speaker 1: 23:52

The second one I'm picking up there is the temporal one of the speed of all of this, and I think you're right. By the way, I think candidates are getting very frustrated with processes that seem to take a very long time and yet come back to what I said before the company is better off taking a little bit more time and making sure that they get the right person. Taking three months longer to get the right person is better than just getting anyone who then ends up being a bad cultural fit or whatever the case might be, and the expense of everything that goes along with that. How do we deal with this kind of temporal mismatch between the candidates excited? They're almost emotionally invested. They want to get out there. They're really interested in the company. If they're on the market looking for a role, there might be multiple companies that they're talking to and yet the company wants to take the time to find the right fit. How do we balance that?

Speaker 2: 24:46

right, okay, look, I think they are all excellent questions, so I I might go back to my example of the hr manager and the head of recruitment that attended, uh, the session with me. So, because I think that gives a clear sort of picture about some of these challenges and what's actually happening. So, firstly, a lot of people who go into in-house recruitment are not very skilled recruiters. And how can I easily say that? Because if you're a great external recruiter, you will earn a lot more money than an in-house recruiter. So why would somebody who's an exceptional recruiter go in-house? Well, they wouldn't, right. So the people who are choosing to go in-house are doing so for reasons which you know. I won't sort of elaborate on, except to say that you know, if you are building an in-house recruitment team, you are not getting the best of the best. And secondly, a lot of in-house recruitment teams have very limited training or ongoing professional development in terms of doing their role. So the first thing is to say doing their role. So the first thing is to say, when they are being briefed on the role, we use a recruitment methodology called performance-based hiring and that was developed by an engineer from the US named Lou Adler, and it sounds pretty simple, but you want to hire people who've done it before, they've done it well and they're motivated to do it again.

Speaker 2: 26:22

So the first thing to understand before even going to the market is what does success look like in the role? What does this person actually have to deliver within the first three months, six months, 12 months, so that you would be absolutely delighted that you hired them. Most recruiters in-house or external you hired them. Most recruiters in-house or external don't know that. So they're given a pretty generic position description which says we want to hire a sales manager, we want them to lead a team, we want them to achieve budget, we want them to have, ideally, these kind of qualifications, ideally these kind of qualifications. And yet every placement in an organisation is unique. The role that exists has its unique nuances and key deliverables which are specific to that role at that time.

Speaker 2: 27:19

Again, to sort of quickly give an example in one organisation, they might say to sort of quickly give an example In one organisation, they might say what does success look like in the first three months? Well, our last sales manager really was very narcissistic. They were not retaining our top performers because of the way that they were leading and, as a result, our investment in our sales team. We are really concerned that if these people continue to leave, that's going to significantly impact our ability to be successful. So first, three months, we want this sales manager to throw their arms around the team, build the love, rebuild the vision and the values you know, get everybody back excited about working for the business. If they can achieve that in three months, that would be awesome. Next company says look, we've got this fantastic new product that we want to launch into a new market, but we're not really sure of what our sales strategy should be. So first, three months, we want the sales manager to come in, analyze the market, identify the low-hanging fruit, put together a business development plan so that we can see that our investment in this product is going to yield us at least 12% of market share within 12 months. If they can develop that business development plan in three months, that would be awesome. The third company says Look, we're facing such massive pressure from international competitors, particularly those who are bringing in products from India or China, that unless we can reduce our cost of goods sold by 25%, we're in big trouble. So the first three months we want our sales manager to look at all of the opportunities that we have to reduce our cost of goods sold in order to be able to maintain margin.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Same job, same position description, same type of organization, three very different kinds of people. Okay, now I would suggest 98% of recruiters don't have a clue. 98% of recruiters don't have a clue. I mean they just are given a position description and a very short briefing, whether they're internal or external. And so then what they do is they go and they write a very generic advertisement. And one of the things we see with internal recruiters which is absolutely drives me crazy is they'll put an ad up on Seek. It'll be quite generic and a good candidate may see that ad and they'll say, oh, I'd love to ring up and learn more about that role before I make an application. Oh, there's nobody's name or phone number on the ad. So I would suggest 90% of ads plus now that are written by companies doing their own recruitment there's nobody's name or phone number.

Speaker 2: 30:17

Good candidates want to ring up and ask questions. They look at an ad and they think especially if it's with a competitor before I'm going to make application, I want to know is this role something that I'm actually really excited about. There's nobody to call, so therefore I won't apply. Or what's even worse is they'll come to me and they'll say oh Richard, I applied for a role with ABC company eight weeks ago. I have no idea as to whether I'm even in contention. I've had no acknowledgement of my application, I've had no feedback and, of course, there's nobody that I can ring and ask. So how damaging is that to employers' brand as an employer of choice, when they have these disgruntled candidates that you just referred to, mick, who say you know, I've been in this process for three months? I mean people. It's not a new phenomenon. People always want a quick process. You know, if they've decided that they want to leave and they're excited about an opportunity, they want that process to be expedited.

Speaker 2: 31:26

As a hiring manager or recruitment professional, to not be able to give people direct access to you is absolutely crazy. I've spoken at HR conferences, I've spoken at workshops and I've said to them why don't you put your name and phone number on the ad? I've said to them why don't you put your name and phone number on the ad? And they say look, richard. I know that it would be better, but either I don't have time or I don't want to talk to candidates, so I would suggest for everybody listening to this podcast.

Speaker 2: 32:02

If there's just one thing you take away, it's when you're advertising for a role, make sure somebody's name and phone number is on the app. It doesn't have to be you. It could be a more junior person in your team who's just got the capacity to answer a few basic questions and just deliver the kind of customer service. If organizations go, oh, our best asset is our employees. If organizations go, oh, our best asset is their employees. I'm sure if a somebody wanting to buy their products wanted a sales call and rang up, their call would be returned. But as an employee, they can't even get the name of the person that they want to talk to. So it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 32:43

And then the other challenge with internal recruiters is the best candidates aren't necessarily looking for a job. They are in a job that they like. They like their boss, they're being relatively well-paid. They don't have a burning desire to leave. They're what we call passive candidates. Now, these people must be headhunted. They're not looking at job ads, they're not replying to in-mails on LinkedIn. They need to be found and headhunted.

Speaker 2: 33:17

And the challenge of headhunting is that an internal recruiter. So if I was working for Rio Tinto and I wanted to headhunt you, mick, and I reach out to you, I have to say hi, I'm Richard from Rio Tinto. I wanted to headhunt you, mick, and I reach out to you, I have to say hi, I'm Richard from Rio Tinto, because you just look at my LinkedIn profile and see who I work for anyway. So you can't have that confidentiality. The benefit of using a third-party recruiter like us, a headhunter, is that we can say Mick, we've got an opportunity with a tier one mining company. I'd really like to have a chat to you about the role. If I could demonstrate that this role is better than your current one, are you open to having a conversation? And you say yes, and of course, you're curious because you want to know well, who's this role with? Internal recruiters can't do that and they don't want to do it and they don't have the time to do it. So there are some.

Speaker 2: 34:19

And then the final challenge is going back to these people who attended my workshop. So, one, they didn't understand the briefs properly. Two, their ads were very generic. Three, they didn't understand the briefs properly. Two, their ads were very generic. Three, they weren't doing any headhunting. And four, it was taking them on average three weeks from somebody applying to them, contacting them. Well, especially in the market today, people aren't sitting around for three weeks waiting for a new job. So they have a lot of options.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Um, as you referred to earlier, mick, so, uh, you have to. If, what does they say? Uh, if you snooze, you lose right. So, um, these people have to be treated well. Fundamentally, it comes down to you have to treat your candidates as you would like to be treated. Would you like to be sitting in a holding pattern for three weeks or longer without any acknowledgement of your application? No, so why do we continue to perpetuate and in fact reward underperformance?

Speaker 2: 35:29

And then, when the internal recruiter or the external recruiter goes to the hiring manager and says, look, here's the short list, and the hiring manager goes gee, I'm a bit underwhelmed. These people aren't all that exciting. They go oh sorry, boss, it's a war for talent, you know. So that's where the excuse comes in. I mean it's not a war for talent, you know. So that's where the excuse comes in. I mean it's not a war for talent. It is just do the job well and you will get excellent talent. Do the job poorly and you'll get poor results, as in any profession, including running podcasts really Really good, richard.

Speaker 1: 36:08

There's a really specific thing that I'm taking away from all of that, and that is about being more specific about what we're looking for and what the current challenge is around the role, around the task that we want the person to take on. What does success look like? What does the ideal candidate look like? And what does success look like? And it's not a job title, it's something more material than that. And then from there, each party can get more intentional. So the more clear we are about the person that we're looking for, the candidates, the potential candidates, can potentially self-select and go yeah, yeah, that sounds like my next challenge or no, no, no, no, that's not really me. So you get a bit of self-selection going on, and then I'm hearing from you the headhunting of when we've got clarity about the person that we're looking for and what success looks like, we can then get really intentional with our headhunting and going, tap the right people on the shoulder, because what you said and this was going to be my next question, so let's drill down a little bit further on this now.

Speaker 1: 37:12

What you said is so true. What's happening in businesses? If you and I sat on a panel tomorrow with a bunch of executives, I could guarantee, within a few minutes we could get one of them to say we just can't find the right people. And then, equally, if we were sitting in another group of people talking about career, et cetera, et cetera, I can't find the right role, all right. So we've got a group of people saying I can't find the right people. We've got a group of people saying we can't find the right role. So something is missing in that matchmaking service that we spoke about, where it's not always working.

Speaker 2: 37:49

And.

Speaker 1: 37:49

I think this being more specific about exactly the person that you're looking for and what success looks like, is part of the story. You're also right that then what happens is the excuse-a-thon. Sorry to be very blunt on this. When you can't find the right talent, then people say, oh, it's just a really tough market.

Speaker 2: 38:10

That's right.

Speaker 2: 38:12

That's right, and that's right and you see. So you raised a point there which I think is so true. If you are very clear about what you want, then there will be candidates who will go. I don't want to do that, and isn't it better that those candidates withdraw from the process early rather than potentially wasting a lot of time and resources on trying to attract somebody who, fundamentally, either is unqualified or lacks desire to do what you need them to do? This I'd love to claim this is my own IP, but really, lou Adler, I would strongly encourage people who are hiring regularly to read his book Hire With your Head, which I reference in my own book Winning the War for Talent. And so when you understand clearly what you want and then somebody comes in for interview, then it's very easy to work out have they done it before, done it well and motivated to do it again? And so to go back to my sales manager example.

Speaker 2: 39:15

So let's say that we bring Mary in and we, and so Lou Adler talks about you know, his famous one question interview. It's a little bit more involved than that, but essentially his core question is so, mary, if we're thinking about your more recent career, let's say the last five years or so. What's a particular key achievement that you're most proud of? That you would say this really demonstrates why I'm excellent at my job. And Mary says oh well, you know what? I launched this new product into a new market and it was hugely successful and we achieved all of this market share and it was fantastic. Obviously, I'm just doing a very high level example here. Now, that being the case, she would be excellent for the organization that is launching a new product, but for the company that wants to reduce costs of goods sold by 25%, she's probably not the right person. So she might be a great sales manager, but she's not right fit for a job right now. Again, if you don't know what those key deliverables are, how do you know that you may present her as being an excellent candidate? You may actually hire her and then find out subsequent to hire that she can't actually do what you want them to do. It's absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2: 40:45

I work from. You know we typically work from roles 150,000 mid-level technical leadership roles right through to CEO and board directors. How often I'll say to the employer so tell me, what does success look like in the role? What do you want them to achieve and the employer goes hmm, that's a good question. I hadn't really thought about that, richard. Let me think about what do I actually want this person to do? And you would think that you know, especially a very senior manager, that they might be paying $300,000 to. You would think that they would be really clear in their minds about what they want, and yet often they're not.

Speaker 2: 41:26

So part of my role is to again because I've been doing it for such a long time is to actually run that conversation and ask the right questions to elicit what those key deliverables are. And you know, again, I've been doing this for 20 years. I've managed teams of over 750 people. You can't expect a 24-year-old English backpacker, who is a very traditional type of hire for a certain kind of recruitment company, to have the emotional intelligence and also to have the capacity to build a relationship as a trusted advisor. That's necessary to be able to have those conversations. So you're completely correct.

Speaker 2: 42:21

This idea of what a success looks like, or a document we call a performance profile, becomes a foundation. We know what we really want. We can go out and target then the people who we've really attracted to. We can then interview them to ensure that they have got clear evidence that they've done it before, done it well, and are motivated to do it again. And number one it means we can run a much quicker process because we don't have to interview as many people. Number two, the candidate really enjoys the process because they get to talk about what they love and they're good at. And number three, we can get to a hiring decision with a much higher level of confidence that the person that we hire is going to perform successfully and be retained in the business.

Speaker 1: 43:13

Yeah, I love it. Richard, and you were touching on this before. I think it's a two-way thing at that point, right? So a company, being clear about what they're asking for, can then ask the right questions so they can do the Adler test that you're talking about, right? Have you done it before? Do you have a track record of success? Are you inspired and motivated to do it again? It's a really interesting approach Then, also for the candidate to also understand what they're about to step into, and you gave some really good examples. Let's go to a CEO example. If we're looking for a new CEO, what is the strategy of the company in the next five years? Is it rapid growth? Is it strategic pivots into new markets, or is it actually we're about to go through a 20% redundancy program, so the leader that we need needs to be very good at managing with compassion a downsizing approach.

Speaker 1: 44:07

The candidate needs to know that because they need to know what they're getting into. So someone that goes, oh, that's like my worst nightmare. I'd never want to lead a restructure of a business, I'm out of here, but that's okay, because you don't want that candidate. You don't want that candidate that isn't ready for that journey. So I think that clarity is great for the company so they can ask the right questions, and it's great for the candidate so they can exit stage left early if that's not what they're looking for Really powerful.

Speaker 2: 44:37

Well, when you say exit stage left early, hopefully that is early in the recruitment process rather than early into their employment right.

Speaker 2: 44:45

That's what I meant. But I talk to CEO candidates all the time. In fact, I was talking to a CEO yesterday who'd recently taken a role and it was not disclosed to him during the recruitment process that the organisation was actually positioning itself for imminent sale, right, ah perfect. So he joined the company with an expectation, not that this is job for life, but that this is job for, you know, at least three to five years. Only within his second week of employment, to then be essentially told by the board that they are about to enter into a process of seeking an acquirer.

Speaker 2: 45:33

Now, to not have that disclosed through the recruitment process is insanity. I mean from the perspective of the employer. Essentially, somebody is leaving a role to take a role with them, and yet there's no real evidence now that there's going to be any longevity in the role. So yes, and the other thing too, as you quite rightly say, mick, it's a little bit like they talk about prime ministers. You know, winston Churchill was an excellent prime minister when England was at war, but when England was at peace he was terrible. So there are some CEOs who are really skilled at growing businesses or maintaining businesses or downsiding businesses or taking businesses through a sales process. It's not a one-size-fits-all role and most good CEOs know what they're good at. So again, it comes down to a point that we made right back in the beginning of this conversation around conversation and communication Just be better at communicating.

Speaker 1: 46:51

Yeah, and it works in both ways with what you're talking about here. So this horses for courses approach. So I'll use a personal example here. I've been through multiple divestments, richard. So if you were telling me during a recruitment process actually within 12 to 24 months we're going to set this up for sale and we need someone that knows how to set it up for sale, prepare the management presentations, engage buyers I'm like, yep, done it multiple times. Know how to do it. I enjoy it. I'd want to know that positively. Someone else is going to want to know that negatively, as in. Yet that's not for me. Thank you for letting me know. I'm going to look elsewhere and, once again, you're better, better off knowing that from the outset.

Speaker 2: 47:32

Really, well, it might well be. It might well be that you say awesome, I'm really great at doing that. But instead of this being a role with a lot of longevity, let's negotiate into my employment a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So if the business is sold within 12 months, you know there's a substantive bonus for me which compensates for the fact that you know I'll be back on the market looking for a new job again.

Speaker 1: 48:02

Exactly, and now it becomes a win-win, with full, open and transparent clarity about what's going on. Absolutely loving this, richard. I feel like we feel like you and I could probably talk for at least 27 hours straight on all of these topics, but we'll probably need to bring it to a conclusion here. I'm absolutely loving this, this war for talent, and we hear these companies saying it all the time. The secret that I'm taking away, the call to action that I'm taking away from today's discussion, is about open and transparent clarity about what success looks like. What profile are we really looking for? And it's not a job title, it's very specific, down to. We need a leader who has had experience in doing X. They've had a track record of doing X and they're motivated and ready to do X again, and that X could be growth or it could be reducing cost, whatever it could be. The more specific we are, the more we're going to speed up the process to find the right candidate and, all of a sudden, we're having a different conversation about talent.

Speaker 2: 49:09

That's right, and I think just to one of the elements of that is it may be that the person that you're really attracted to hasn't necessarily completely done it before, done it well and then motivated to do it again. It may be that this is a step up role, or it may be that they're coming from across from a different industry, so it's not about being totally blinkered. I must only have a person you know who's got that. But they must have appropriate transferable skills and key achievements that give you a level of confidence that, if this is a stretch for them, that they've got enough prior experience and capability that it's worthwhile investing in them to take on these new responsibilities.

Speaker 1: 49:59

Yeah, brilliant, richard. Well said, All right, now I'm going to take us to our rapid round. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests, richard. So what's the one thing you know now, richard Triggs, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Speaker 2: 50:14

I think for me, it is to have patience. If you think now and I know that you had a, I was going to say Dr Joe Dispenza on your podcast but if you listen to health professionals and futurists now, we're going to live a lot longer. And so, if we're going to live a lot longer, why are we in such a hurry? When I was 20, well, when I was 20, I wanted to be a rock star, but when I was 22, I was like I want to join a corporation and I want to climb the corporate ladder, and by 26 years old, I was managing 750 people. And what I would say now to my 20-year-old self is just chill out, dude, there's no rush. You're going to probably be working until you're 80. So there's no urgency to try and achieve everything in the first five minutes of your career. And that's still advice that I probably should give myself today. But yes, there's plenty of other things I'd say to my 20-year-old self, but that would definitely be up there.

Speaker 1: 51:19

Yeah, really good, great advice. What's your favourite book?

Speaker 2: 51:23

It's interesting. You know, earlier in my career I read a lot of business books. I find now one of the things we haven't really spoken about you know I lived one week in a month for four years in a Buddhist monastery. I've done a tremendous amount of, you know, professional, personal and spiritual development over the years, and so I would find now, you know, I'm more attracted to that kind of reading rather than just reading books about business. Certainly, you know, from a recruitment point of view, hire With your Head, lou Adler is a must read in my opinion. But you know there's an author, his name's Jed McKenna and he's written a number of books. His first book's called Spiritual Enlightenment the Damnedest Thing, and it's a very, very thought provoking book and it's a book that I've probably read, I would say, at least five times, and if you are attracted to, you know, contemplating your navel at a very deep level, that's a great read.

Speaker 1: 52:28

Sounds right up my alley actually, richard Alright, what's your favourite quote?

Speaker 2: 52:32

My favourite quote is and I say it all the time the truth is the result. And especially when looking at performance, you know people can say whatever they want to say, but at the end of the day it it comes down to are you actually taking the actions that are going to get you the outcomes that you're looking for? And the easiest way to look at that is well, the truth is the result. Another one, if I can throw another one, it is everything is exactly as it is. Why? Because it is oh sorry, beg your pardon Everything is exactly as it should be. Why? Because it is so. We can get into a whole lot of woulda, shoulda, couldas, but the reality is we can't change the past, so where I am right now is exactly where I should be. Why?

Speaker 1: 53:24

Because this is where I am. That's very powerful. We definitely need to let go of the things that we can't change, and one of the things we can't change is the past. We can only do what we do at this very moment. I love it, richard. Finally, how do people find you? I'm going to put it in two categories here, richard. There's going to be people that are interested in your personal work, in your books and the way you think, and then there might be people that are interested in the services of Arate Executive. How do people find you?

Speaker 2: 53:52

Well, certainly, I think they're kind of two sides of the same coin. So my business, Arate Executive, you can definitely visit our website arateexecutivecomau. I've just launched a new website, richardtriggscomau. The richardtriggscomau is very much aimed at my sort of speaker, podcast, author work and I know, for example, you've got a fairly similar setup yourself, mick and then Arate Executive is aimed at our recruitment services that we provide. So you know, for anybody who is currently looking for a job and you would like to get my book Uncover the Hidden Job Market for free, you can go to the Arate website and you can download a PDF version of that book for free.

Speaker 2: 54:42

The new book, winning the War for Talent, is literally being printed as we speak, so that should be available within the next couple of weeks, printed as we speak, so that should be available within the next couple of weeks. Obviously, I'm very loud and proud on LinkedIn, but if you are interested in contacting me, linkedin's not a great platform for doing that, so feel free to drop me an email. All of my contact details are available on both of those websites and, uh, you're more than happy to see what I can do to support people seeking a new job. Um, and obviously from an aritre executive perspective, you know we'd love to see how we could help organizations to really attract excellent talent in a very affordable way yeah, brilliant, richard Richard, thank you.

Speaker 1: 55:29

We'll put all of those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and insights today. You've absolutely given us something that we can go away and put into practice straight away, which is absolutely wonderful. It is frustrating, the whole chain that we've been talking about, but with some intentional and specific actions we can make the whole thing go a lot easier. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 55:53

It was a pleasure, Mick, and I look forward to catching up with you again soon.