#12 Champagne and razor blades: Inside design recruitment

(00:45) Danny

Nick, thank you. Thank you for coming. This is for me, it’s going to be quite an interesting conversation because ⁓ in the podcast so far, we’ve mostly, I’ve mostly spoken to ⁓ designers, principally designers, ⁓ mostly UX type people, but we’re starting to bridge out a little bit now and speaking to founders and stuff. But I guess I wanted to talk to you because

(00:46) Nick Grantham

It’s happening.

My pleasure.

(01:14) Danny

I think of the design sector and the design industry as a system. It’s a system of people and we’re all doing slightly different roles. of course, designers are the obvious part of that system. I really recognise and recruiters have been a big part of my journey. I’ve interacted with them over the years. And so I just felt like it’d be really great to bring a recruiter perspective into this. So thank you for coming. That’s really

I thought you’d be a great voice to share.

(01:47) Nick Grantham

I’m

flattered to be asked, thanks for having me and yeah glad to be part of that system and yeah I think we’ve played a decent part over the years obviously sometimes not always so decent depending on which recruits you’re dealing with but yeah glad to be here.

(02:02) Danny

Yeah, well, I’d be great to get into some of that and just reflect on that. I think just to sort of ground it, I’m still like, sometimes I sort of try and give people a bit of a, you know, this is their bio, but I’m actually thinking it’s better to have it from you. So I wonder if maybe you can just share, like, how did you arrive in this role that you’re in today? Like, where did you begin? I think I heard that you actually started with graphic design at university or something. Is that right?

(02:30) Nick Grantham

Similar, similar. So I’ve always loved cars and motorbikes and transportation generally. Anything that’s got an engine and makes loud noises and goes pretty fast, I’ve been quite keen on. And I used to be able to draw, and so for a long time I wanted to be a car designer. So I went to Coventry and did the Transport and Product Design degree there. And yeah, past my degree, probably had a bit too much fun, but managed to pass still.

And then the first year after my degree, I worked as a designer for an architectural studio, but it was a lot more sort of auto-cad. It wasn’t the sort of sweepy, colouring in, swipey lines that I wanted to, that I thought I’d be doing. And after a year of that, I thought I wanted to get abroad and just experience some of that, but not be skinned. So that led to me getting a job in sales abroad. And then I came, I did that for year and a bit, then found myself back in London where I’m from.

I thought, right, I’m back here now, what do I do? And, you know, was early 20s, just wanted to make some cash and found out about this thing called recruitment. At the same time, I was looking at roles in the state agency because it was a kind of low barrier to entry, as you can imagine, ⁓ as long as I’ve had experience in sales on the phones.

(03:35) Danny

.

Haha

(03:47) Nick Grantham

and I thought recruitment sounded marginally better than being an estate agent. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s the thought process I had at the time. And I wandered into IT recruitment, which is quite a broad sector. think quite a few recruits start their careers there. And I did that for just over three years. Things went pretty well, but then I had a bit of a word with myself and I thought, you know, am I actually going to continue doing this for, you know, I mainly work for banks and I was wearing my suit and pointy shoes and all that sort of stuff. And I just thought, am I actually

going

to do this for another 30, 40 years, whatever it is. And the answer was no. And at the time I did think about going back into the design sector.

But then I got told about these other recruitment agencies who focus in design and that made a bit more sense to me. And then I found about this agency who needed someone to cover their UX desk. I don’t think I’d ever said UX or user experience before that point, but when it was explained to me, I kind of felt like I got it. Say again? This would have been…

(04:46) Danny

What year are we talking about now? When are we talking? What year are we talking

(04:53) Nick Grantham

This would have been 2012, 2011, so.

(04:57) Danny

OK, yeah, so UX was sort of

beginning to rise at that point. It was kind of really, yeah.

(05:01) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

2011

and it was lot of short term freelance information architecture roles back then I was finding. A few permanent positions as well but a lot of we needed a guy or person to come in sit in the corner and do some wire frames for a week. And it’s been funny to watch that progression over time. But yeah, so that’s where I started. All made sense and for me, although I wasn’t designing per se, well wasn’t designing at all, but at least I was looking at portfolios. I was using that part of

brain a little bit more to understand processes and I think to a degree there’s some similarities in terms of my background with understanding ergonomics or anthropometrics. ⁓

and user-centricity, I guess, and thinking about how portfolios are demonstrating. Obviously, less so on the visual side, which was probably more my bag at the time. ⁓ But yeah, and it worked, and I stuck with it, I enjoyed it, and so now over 14 years later, ⁓ I’m still doing it. Still specializing in ⁓ UX recruitment, as well as product design, service design, user research. ⁓

everything within that umbrella. In recent times, the market’s been pretty tough, so I’ve turned my hand to a few other roles as well just to keep the lights on, ⁓ but my core is still within the UX umbrella, you like, or the product design umbrella.

(06:22) Danny

Really?

Interesting.

That’s very interesting because I’ve been having conversations with designers about doing that too, like that diversification. And, you know, just because, you know, there’s quiet patches and stuff like that. And I hadn’t ever thought that it would extend to recruitment. But of course, like, if it’s quiet for design, it’s quiet for recruitment, right?

(06:48) Nick Grantham

Yeah, I guess, for nuts and bolts of recruitment, know, it’s not rocket science you might be surprised to hear, but ⁓ I guess it’s that, I think a lot of the time you’re trained to, in order to make more of a name for yourself, to specialise in an area, you’ve got more chance to do it. you know, recruitment, I guess much like the UX and product design market over the last few years, had been seen as a way of…

(07:05) Danny

Yeah.

(07:11) Nick Grantham

low barriers for entry and potentially quick cash within ⁓ a relative short space of time compared to what some other industries where you might have to spend longer skilling up before you get to those bigger salaries or bigger revenue take homes. And I guess a similar story was told by various boot camps or trends within UX and product design and it’s come to fruition in some cases but not all.

(07:34) Danny

Yeah.

How would

(07:41) Nick Grantham

So that’s it, so specializing.

(07:43) Danny

you… No, no, come on, please.

(07:47) Nick Grantham

I was going say, specialising has been a way of, you can make more of a name for yourself by really getting scripts with your network, knowing what they do, being part of the sector. Whereas if you’re someone who specialises at work, not specialises, more of a generalist, you can probably…

sell yourself as someone who’s going to be able to cover more areas. ⁓ But I guess that the sort of reason for a client using you will stop at that point. ⁓ And where they want someone more specialist, then it’s not going to work in your favour so much. But yeah, mean, ultimately recruitment, actual nuts and bolts of recruitment is the same whatever role you’re covering.

(08:27) Danny

What, just for people that might

not be familiar, because it’s something that I’d say to my mum all the time. So it’s a recruiter on the phone, you know, and like, could you explain that? What, are you always like, what is the role of a recruiter just for people that maybe like new to the market or maybe just haven’t even dealt with recruiters like that? How would you describe what recruiter does in this in this market? Like, what is their role? Because it’s going to change.

(08:49) Nick Grantham

Yeah, I guess we’ll…

Yeah, I guess in simple terms, we’re matchmakers, right? So you’ve got a company who needs someone for their team, which whatever skill set they need, whatever skill set is missing from their team, or they need adding to take it to the next level, what have you. And then you’ve got job seekers, you know, and obviously people who potentially will fit that mould, who will fit that brief. ⁓ And we have to go to market, we have to get the clients. ⁓ That’s where a lot of it starts. then find, you know, get the brief, understand.

that they’re looking for that goes past just a technical fit. We’re talking about culture fit, obviously there’s things like salary or financial fit ⁓ and all these other tick boxes that we need to then go to markets, go to the candle at market, see who could fit, who’s interested, why they’re interested and put the two together and hopefully other things will match as well in terms of, as I say, the culture, the financial expectations. These days,

more to do with hybrid working, know, is it going to fit the amount of days they want to be in or acceptable for. So in simple terms that’s it. And I said before, you know, it starts with the clients. Actually, I also think a lot of success comes through initially talking to candidates, to people within the market and that’s when you can really grow your knowledge.

(10:14) Danny

Yeah, I was gonna ask this.

Yeah, because I guess like, there’s a sort of, there’s a real human component to this. Because like, I can hear the nuts and bolts side of it, of like, you know, it’s a matchmaking thing, you’re trying to match culture and skills and you know, are they right fit? And is the client happy and da da da. But somewhere in that is someone who might, you know, have just have had a kid, you know, maybe they’ve just been divorced.

(10:41) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

(10:44) Danny

And and they’re talking to you and like you’re having to kind of like work out where they are not not so much on paper, but like off paper, I guess is it is there a kind of like a human side of it that that part of this? Yeah.

(10:50) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like to think there’s a view inside of it,

yeah. That’s our justification for AI not taking our jobs just yet. yeah, I think there’s a certain amount of detective work you have to do and I guess…

what’s the word, emotional maturity that you need to deploy in order to figure out, well, what really is this person’s reason for looking for a job or what is their real motivation for this job that I’m talking about? Are they truly interested? Are they using it as leverage to get promotion or raise? I guess there’s only so much you want to pry into their backgrounds or what’s acceptable to ask in terms of their personal situations.

inevitably you will pick up on things ⁓ and that might flag something that makes you think actually is this going to be the best move for them. ⁓ Equally, know, we can pick these things up when talking to a high manager on the client side as well. know, everyone’s talking about a great culture, but you know, this person keeps going on about bean bags and know, how they get lunch break or, know, obviously being facetious, you know, is that really a great culture? Is that culture really going to fit this candidate? ⁓

(11:42) Danny

you

(12:12) Nick Grantham

And I guess also when you’re looking at other things past just the CV portfolios, you’ve got to give that much more attention as to, because they’re so subjective, especially the more visually orientated ones, is this really going to be the right place for the candidate or the other way around in terms of that match? There’s so many different nuances as to what will make someone a right match. And sometimes someone won’t look like a right match, but for whatever reason, they are the right match because of things that

outside

of the job brief or outside of the CV or outside of the portfolio.

(12:44) Danny

What?

What makes a really good recruiter good? What are they doing that makes them really good, do think?

(12:51) Nick Grantham

Go home. ⁓

I think there’s loads of different things. I think one of the key things is resilience. People talk about it being a real roller coaster and it really is. There’s another term in recruitment which is champagne and razor blades where you can be on a real high sometimes. Yeah that sounds a high, that sounds a bit drastic. For example, one of the best feelings would be obviously placing someone in a role.

(13:10) Danny

Champagne and razor blades. Really? No, I’ve not heard that. Really interesting.

Yeah.

(13:21) Nick Grantham

It’s great

especially if you’ve got to build up a rapport with that person and you really feel for that person. You’re not thinking of them as great that person’s got a job I’m going to get commissioned. More of a great this person you know I’ve got to know them and you know there’s… Yeah it’s a life changing thing. If it’s a permanent role or even just a contract you know if you’ve improved that person’s life in some way and when you get to know that person it becomes even that much more special I guess when you

(13:36) Danny

It’s a significant life stage for that person. Yeah.

(13:51) Nick Grantham

and you get them that job. And then.

(13:53) Danny

Can you can you think

of can you think of a particular example like where someone that you placed that had quite an impact on you as a recruiter like, you know, because it was significant? Have there been some over the years where you just thought like

(14:09) Nick Grantham

Yeah, you know what, there’s a few. I think, you know, for example, there’s a lady who had come back from maternity leave. She was a lead level UX designer.

come back into this market, which we all know is pretty dire. you know, starting to create a bit of a gap on her profile. And, you know, she’s come on matly, so totally reasonable as to why that’s happened. But then her role got made redundant. And it was tough. It was looking tough. And to be able to find her a new job, a really good new job, was, you know, that’s obviously very, very satisfying for her and her family. And I guess one of the ones that really sort of stands out

me from further back would be a lady who was working outside of London as a web designer essentially or a junior UX designer and for whatever reason I was working with an agency at the time who they wanted a junior but they wanted someone who had a bit of extra oomph about them a few other things you know that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell on a CV and I can’t remember how I found her profile but she

This made moving to London, she was based as I say in the countryside outside of London and it was a big move for her and you know the salary was alright you know I think she had to have pot noodles for a little while but she made it through and it was for her I think it was a real big break in her career because very easily she could have got lost outside of London and you know gone from one small place to another small place and

(15:48) Danny

Right.

(15:51) Nick Grantham

Instead she came to this agency, which is an independent agency. We’re not talking about like a big joint like AKQA or anything, but it’s an independent agency and there she really sort of I think could cut her teeth that much more and develop that much more and she went from there to another role and to another role and now she’s you know, a lead level product designer and she’s doing really bloody well and I’m not saying it’s all thanks to me but partly thanks to me.

(16:14) Danny

No, Yeah, no, you’re part of that journey. You’re

(16:20) Nick Grantham

Yeah, so things

(16:20) Danny

part of that picture.

(16:22) Nick Grantham

like that, they stick out. I there’s been obviously quite a few, ⁓ I guess on the other hand, when we were talking before about the rollercoaster, the ups and the downs, the razor blades, yeah, so that’s the champagne. The razor blades would be, you know…

(16:31) Danny

Razor blades. ⁓

(16:37) Nick Grantham

A lot of us will work for free, So if we’re working a role, unless it’s retained, unless we’ve agreed with the client that, right, we’re gonna work this role, we’re gonna be the only ones who work this role, you’ve gotta pay us a third up front, a third at interview stage, and a third placement, for example, that’s a typical retained model. A lot of us will work on a contingent basis. So we’re a bit like an estate agent, I guess. We’re showing you houses, we’re showing you people, and until you actually buy the house or you buy the person,

is no fee. So you know it can be quite demoralizing if you’re spending a lot of time working a brief and then for whatever reason the job doesn’t happen or they pick someone else from another agency or direct or what have you. But I guess the other part of it is if you spend a long time you know dealing with a candidate for example and you see them through all the different stages and we talk about what a good recruiter does I think you know being on hand with that person, being that support person every step of the way you know we’ll brief them properly, tell them about the role, then we get to an interview

(17:08) Danny

say.

(17:37) Nick Grantham

stage or prepare them about who’s going to be in the interview, what kind of questions they might ask, how best to prepare. And that might go on for two stages, three stages, four stages. Perhaps there’s a task, perhaps there’s a portfolio review, perhaps there’s an in-person. Anyway, we’re there every stage, making sure the client knows what’s going on, the candidate knows what’s going on, right through to office stage. And then office stage, won’t finish there. We might need to negotiate a little bit on the candidate’s behalf. There might be a bit of to and fro over days in the office.

or whatever, all those other little bits just to make sure we get it over the line and that person is happy to start, the client’s happy for them to join the team and everything’s rosy. And I guess…

(18:17) Danny

But.

(18:20) Nick Grantham

you can get to that stage and something happens and that candidate decides not to show up or within a week they realise for whatever reason it’s not the right fit or they found a better job that’s paying or whatever or the client figures actually know what this team fit isn’t right after all. You’d like to think after that many stages that’s been worked out but sometimes it doesn’t and I guess as a recruiter to go through all of those stages, go through all that preparation

(18:26) Danny

Yeah.

Nice. Yeah.

Yeah.

happens here

(18:49) Nick Grantham

through all this sort of digging around with the offer ⁓ and making sure everyone’s happy, then for it to back out or fall on its face and end up with nothing still. And then, you know, you might get to work the role again, but it’s almost like having to do it all over again for the sake of the scene. It can be really demoralising.

(19:07) Danny

You know what came

to mind with that is I was like, God, it’s a bit like doing a pitch, you know, or as a designer, you you work on something for ages and then they just like, they do prioritise that feature. I think I think I’ve worked on a website once and I spent three months on it and then they’re like, oh, we’re not gonna do it.

(19:30) Nick Grantham

Yeah, that must suck, right? I guess the only thing is, while you’re doing that, you’re getting paid. exactly, exactly. I get how it would be disappointing. But yeah, at least you’re getting paid. So that can be real pick in the teeth sometimes.

(19:33) Danny

I got paid. I got paid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What?

What’s it like? So I’m so curious. Yeah, I’ve had it. When I’ve, you know, gone, I think, especially in the early days when I had, I think it was, yeah, was interviewing And like, you know, the recruiters phoning me up before, you know, and it’s like, we were on a journey together, you know, they’re like, are you are you outside? I’m like, yeah, I’m outside. Okay, well, good luck. You got everything you need. You know, it’s a bit like a parent, like, you know, because I was like, you know, 20.

(20:12) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

(20:13) Danny

22, 23. it’s sort of like, you know, as soon as I come out, I’m phoning them go, I’ve just done it. I’ve just done it. I’m walking downstairs. I was sort of there with them, you know, and they then they phoned me up. They’re like, how do think you did? You know, and I’m like, Yeah, I think I did a right. go, Danny, you got it. And it’s just like, you know, and I mean, is that that’s part of the experience for you, right? Is that time?

(20:21) Nick Grantham

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it’s great feeling for us to get

in. Yeah, it’s great. You know, I think…

When we talk about recruiting, I think a lot of us will prefer to be known as consultants. ⁓ Or sometimes I like to think there’s some relationships out there which are much more agent-esque. You know when you think of someone’s a football agent or some sort of pop star’s agent and they’re always on hand, they’re almost like working as a publicist almost. And I kind of like that, I kind of feel like I like those situations where I’m that close to the candidate. Obviously the scale in which we need to work on won’t always be as…

(21:12) Danny

that kind of relationship,

isn’t it? It’s a different relationship. It’s less transactional. It’s a bit more holding and caring rather than sort of his role. you later.

(21:14) Nick Grantham

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

⁓

I might have that relationship typically bit more with some contractors because we have to go through that process a lot more often. But it’s nice to be able because I also, I know what makes them tick and the trust is there. That’s probably one of the biggest things. ⁓ And we can be very sort of open. I like to we’re always open, but very open with thoughts about the role or the client or how it’s going to work or the fees. And very happy to be open with what we’re taking home as well. ⁓ And it works and it’s a nice feeling when it pulls

off as well. On the other side of that, when we have to go through that process and deliver the bad news that they didn’t get the job, that can be really gutting to do as well, especially when that person’s been really keen for that particular job or they really need a break. To be the bearer of bad news is, again, it’s the other side.

(21:59) Danny

Yeah, right.

You must be

on a few calls where there’s quite an emotional response, like someone’s crying and you know.

(22:20) Nick Grantham

Yeah,

mean, yeah, a couple of times, a couple of times I’ve had that over the years, but I think maybe.

Generally when someone’s really sort of upset about it, I feel like the call that they sort of might cut the call short and you know, maybe they were crying off the phone or something like that. yeah, I should imagine. mean, especially the last two, three years with the market being as bad as it’s been and people being needing those jobs that much more. should imagine and it perhaps being multiple the multiple rejections, you know, it’s going to get to you. It gets to us, know, so, so, you know, it’s so easy to

(22:33) Danny

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It means more.

⁓

(22:56) Nick Grantham

classify candidates, clients, recruiters, designers, researchers, real people at the end of the day, right? And we’ll react in different ways, but ultimately, the more the negativity you get, the more likely you’re going to be to break. But yeah, it’s tough.

(22:59) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

tell me about it. Yeah, like the, the market. mean, what? It’s mental. Like, I feel like really, you know, like cliche, but I’ve never seen it like this before. You know, like, when I started, like, way back in 2002, I think it was, I came in just on the back of a crash. there were the old timers who were going, oh, you know, stopcom bubble burst and

(23:22) Nick Grantham

Good question.

Yeah, because I mean, what’s the difference? Yeah.

Yeah.

(23:44) Danny

know, there’d be people, people used to be on, you know, 300 a day and I’d be like 300 a day, you know, like I’ve never even heard of day rates like that. I thought it was amazing. And then like now it’s down to, you know, 150 200. And I was like, that’s loads. I was living in a tiny bed in Kennington, you know, but I guess it feels to me like something is different this time. But how do you how do you see it? Like, what do you think is happening? Like what, you know,

(23:50) Nick Grantham

I think. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what, I just think it’s a massive melting pot of a load of crap stuff that has just led to this really prolonged era of…

of downfall. had, post-COVID, we had that boom a couple of years of, you know, it was great, lots of hiring happening, lots of people progressing in their careers, perhaps a few progressing a bit too quickly, but nonetheless, things were pretty positive in the market. And actually from experience side, so that was off the back of COVID, obviously that was a quiet period during lockdown. When I started my recruitment career, it wasn’t UX, was in tech recruitment, that was going into 2000,

into 2008 when we had that recession and I think that was nothing compared to what we’ve gone through in the last two, three years. I think we bounced back from that one a lot quicker. This one, you know, so by the end of 2022 when I think the redundancies were starting to be made with some of the big boys out there and then that was starting to trickle through into 2023 and that’s where we every week we were hearing about mass redundancies and slowly but surely lots of clients were starting to freeze budgets and stop hiring and obviously that pulled through into 2024 and

(25:03) Danny

Yeah.

Hmm.

Hmm.

(25:25) Nick Grantham

being the ever hopeful and optimistic recruiters we are, it’s seasonal or it’s going to get better. After April, these financial budgets, that’s going to get better. Summer, people are away, people are going to come back, then it’s going to get better. And there would be blips of it getting better, but it would be like a week, maybe two weeks, and then going back to being a squash right down again. And I think even this year, this year is a better year, I think, overall than the last two. ⁓

and moving up and towards the summer, I felt like we were almost close to calling ourselves busy. And then summer happened and August came along and things were quiet again. And again, it’s sort of taken a while to come back. I it does seem like it’s genuinely busy in the market. I guess for us, it’s…

it’s taking that much longer because so many clients are still hiring direct and I get why. I can think of it as a of a false economy sometimes, you know, so it’s taking a bit longer to pull through to our side. But in terms of the reasons, I just think there’s so much to do with it. You the economy probably being the biggest and interest rates where it’s not been economically viable for clients to grow their teams because, you know, they’re not making enough revenue because there’s people aren’t spending enough.

because of the cost of living, etc. So if our clients aren’t making the money, they’re not going to be so inclined to grow their teams. There’s a of tech startups where they might traditionally borrow from banks in order to grow their teams. Interest rates super high. Again, it’s not going to be viable.

(26:59) Danny

You know, it’s not

even just startups, like, when I when I was at John Lewis, they get loans from the bank to work on. I was like, what? yeah. So like, and I was speaking to an investor recently, and he was just telling me, it’s it’s all about interest rates. And he’s like, high interest rates, loans are expensive, people don’t work. And I was thinking about

(27:08) Nick Grantham

Right. Yeah. You wanna feel that?

Mm.

(27:26) Danny

know, the term CAPEX, you which is a new term to me, it’s basically like money outside of the regular, the regular budget, if you like, which is basically means I’ve got a loan. And all contract work when I was a hirer was all on CAPEX funds. So basically like loans. so, but when I understood that, was like, ⁓ so the interest rates go up, big enterprises and startups struggle to get cheap loans.

(27:28) Nick Grantham

We’re

Yeah.

Yeah.

(27:54) Danny

And so they can’t hire contractors who are primarily going to be the ones that, know, pretty dicey if you’re putting the permies on alone. So it’s probably going to be contractors. so like, just see it all tied to interest rates. So that was that was one perspective. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that. But that was what someone shared with me. I thought that was

(27:54) Nick Grantham

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, that’s definitely a big point part of it. yeah, and I mean, think also, I mean, we couldn’t get through a podcast these days without mentioning AI, but you know, I think the budget allocation, know, so I haven’t necessarily seen lots of direct replacements for we’re going to get rid of this designer and replace them with, you know, an AI bot or something like that. It’s more the budget. Yeah. So relocating focus and budget, which I guess is

(28:23) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, Mr. AI product.

(28:42) Nick Grantham

I’ve enjoyed it. ⁓

a replacement anyway, but yeah, it’s that budget and that focus towards, we’re going to cut down this team and we’re going to spend more on investigating AI. And I guess certain processes as well have been streamlined through AI. know, a lot of teams have been really slimmed down. I mean, to be fair, maybe some teams needed slimming down. Maybe they were a little bit too fat post-COVID, you know, with that boom and they’re taking a lot of money off the P &L. And it’s been strange because I feel like…

There’s been a lot of a lot more marketing projects out there. know, some of really meaty strategic work I think has been maybe deemed as expensive and people just want to put some band-aids on the P &L before that point. And that means maybe more sort of tactical, tangible work that they can see or feel and some of that more strategic work that would require more user research, for example, or more in-depth thinking. Maybe that’s been put on the back burner for a bit.

(29:41) Danny

I

think the money gets diverted from R &D and goes into marketing. That’s what I’ve seen when I’ve been in sight. Marketing never short cash and then they end up commissioning projects. Typically, they’re not going to be thinking about R &D and UX and stuff, but then eventually they fumble into it because they bought some platform and it doesn’t really work and all this kind of jazz.

(29:46) Nick Grantham

That’s what it felt like, yeah.

.

Yeah,

yeah. mean, how have you been finding it with calls? Because obviously, know, found like service design, for example, has come back a bit. You know, we’ve had a few more service design gigs over the last six months or so compared to how many we had over the last two, three years. I still feel like user research is lagging behind a bit though. But are you getting less calls yourself or?

(30:21) Danny

Yeah.

Well, you know what, I talked about this with Gavin as well the other day, like my strategy to survival, right, is to be a bit of a chameleon. And I guess, I guess, so I was like a UXer straight up, you know, that’s what we call ourselves, like UX consultant, UX designer. And that meant that I did research, that meant that I did service design, that meant that I did

(30:33) Nick Grantham

Okay.

Yeah.

(30:47) Danny

product design to an extent, although that was sort of like UI design might handle it and stuff. And then now I kind of, I had a real rocky moment. I think it was like start of this year. And it was like, I was going for product design jobs, because I just thought, oh, well, that’s kind of, they’re all calling it product design now. And that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. I’m pretty good on visuals. I’m not brilliant, but you know, nothing. I got nothing back. And I’d never had that experience. And it was

(31:13) Nick Grantham

Yeah. Yeah.

(31:16) Danny

really humbling and painful. And I had a real existential crisis. I was saying to my wife, I was like, I’m gonna be working down, you know, like the local Mackie’s or something like my career is over. You know, like I can’t, I’ve never had this. I think I applied for maybe like, I don’t know, I didn’t go for the whole like, pray and spray thing. So I probably did like, maybe 1520 job things. And I spent a while crafting those CVs, you know.

(31:30) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

(31:46) Danny

nothing, not even not even a call back. Now, I think I think I got one and then it got cancelled or something, you know. So I think that was really galling. And then I was I managed to pick up a UR gig, which was which was all in GDS and stuff, which seemed to be the sort of, you know, where you can place you can hide from the storm for a little bit, you know, that’s a lot of investment in GDS.

(31:51) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

All

Yeah.

(32:11) Danny

And then I

think I think I spoke to you and I think a few people and I was thinking like, think service design is sort of where old folk like me go. The elephants, you know, because it’s kind of like, you know, it’s called basically what I’ve been doing, but it doesn’t focus on the visual. And I got slaughtered in Reddit recently. I, I, yeah, I challenged this whole thing about taste.

(32:37) Nick Grantham

Really?

(32:41) Danny

that is going around a bit. I said something like, surely AI is going to rinse taste out. And so all these people getting hired solely mainly on taste and then all the other stuff that UX is off of like, know, know, stakeholder staff making sense of problems, you know, running workshops, journey mapping, all these other things. It’s sort of like, great, but really, it’s taste really, it’s figma. And so I challenged that on Reddit.

And I got absolutely hammered. Everything I said got downvoted. were like, you don’t get it. know, taste is not AIable. So that seems to be how the market sees it right now. But I still, don’t know, surely GPT-8, you know, isn’t it going to rinse this out?

(33:17) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

I feel, I feel a dream.

I think taste is so subjective ⁓ and so I don’t know if AI can do subjective to that level yet. ⁓ yeah I have to agree Danny sorry I think you’ll probably agree with the other guys but yeah I think your move into service design or focusing more on service design makes a lot of sense.

I think a lot of people have probably been in your position and thought, yeah, product design, can do that. know, some high fidelity stuff, I can do that. But I think there’s so many other people out there who that is their focus that they can do it a hell of a lot better. But their weak point might be on the research side, for example. And similarly, they might see a research role or a service design role, be like, oh, yeah, I’ve done a bit of research as a product designer, I can do that. And they would have been met with that same silence that you would have been met with when you applied for a product design role. I guess the harsh thing is,

(34:19) Danny

Yeah.

(34:22) Nick Grantham

is where that is your thing and you’re sticking at it and month after month you’re still getting nothing back and that is happening as well in the market. So you know there’s two key pieces of advice that I’ve been giving people over the last two three years. One, pragmatism. ⁓ You know there’s every chance that your next job will not be your dream job but if it’s a job that pays your bills and takes you

further up into next year. I feel like every month is a month of getting a bit better. If this job will do and it’ll get you to a point where you have more options next year or the year after, then now’s the time for it. And similarly, I know a lot of contractors have gone that way, contractors who would never have looked twice at a permanent role, or even a fixed term contract, and they’ve taken them for that security. And the second point being plenty of strengths, which is kind what we’ve just talked about. So if…

(34:55) Danny

Yeah.

to

Yeah.

(35:15) Nick Grantham

rather than being that person who’s getting pipped to the post because you don’t have X skill or you don’t have enough of that sort of taste craft in your portfolio, double down on the other thing that you’re really good at. If you’re much more strategic, double down on that. ⁓ And it’s not, I never wanna… ⁓

(35:26) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

(35:34) Nick Grantham

I’d never want to put someone off of applying to a role or saying, you you’ve got no chance of getting out or what have you. But I guess it’s kind of partly protecting yourself as well, because if you’re constantly applying to roles that just, you’ve got a very low likelihood of happening, that’s going to get to you after a while. ⁓ But also, I think that you only get one chance at first impression. I was having this chat with someone the other day where if you’re spraying and praying for the right role, ⁓ there lot of people like me and internal recruiters and

(36:00) Danny

Yeah.

(36:04) Nick Grantham

hiring managers are going to see your profile and be like, okay, I can kind of see why you’ve applied to this role, but there’s 50 other people who are most close in match than you are, so you’re a no onto the next one. And then you might well see a role that really is up your street and really is a better match and you apply to it. And then mentally, I might be like, this person again, I’ve seen this person two, three times for other roles. And although in that time, you might be the good fit, and I’d like to think I’d reassess you every single time, you’re already on the back

(36:11) Danny

Yeah.

(36:34) Nick Grantham

because in my mind you kind of know already you know so I don’t know

(36:37) Danny

You want someone who

lives and breathes it and dies on it rather than someone who’s maybe like bending it and twisting it a little bit. is that right?

(36:45) Nick Grantham

Yeah, I think a lot

of clients and therefore recruiters, because obviously we sort of bend to the clients, are spoiled really. If they want someone who is ⁓ a product designer who needs more on UI side and wears red socks on a Thursday, they’re going to get that.

(36:54) Danny

Yeah, hyper relevant.

But

that’s something yeah, so I shared with you that ⁓ clip that Chris ⁓ Compton was talking about, ⁓ you know, the care in this because we’re in a market position, as you say, where it’s like candidate, you know, there’s just flooding of candidates and there’s barriers, know, and recruiters can pick and,

(37:11) Nick Grantham

Yeah, watch this. Good.

(37:30) Danny

hiring managers can just choose. so typically, they’ll probably go for someone who’s done exactly the same role and exactly the same sector versus the old way of thinking of, well, someone’s a generalist and they can probably learn it in a few weeks, whatever. you know, that selectiveness, do you think there’s a danger that that brings in a bit more of a kind of callous sort of experience, hiring experience, you know, maybe somebody who, you know, as the example Chris gave was like, you know, someone could be a single mom.

or might have neurodiverse needs and stuff like that. Do think there’s a danger that people who might have different types of needs kind of get thrown around in this and lost a bit? Do you think there’s danger of that?

(38:12) Nick Grantham

I think, I’m not sure about the profile matching stage, because I think they’ll be a lot more dependent on their sector backgrounds, where they worked. I think that, what you’re saying there, I think is much more relevant to what the clients might do in terms of their interview process. ⁓ I guess the biggest sort of…

(38:31) Danny

Yeah.

(38:33) Nick Grantham

the elephant in the room might be tasks, right? And I’ve got to be fairly sensible with what I say, I’ve got to be commercial. But I do think that certain processes can go against the diversity that everyone talks about having these days. But if you really want a diverse pool of candidates and you want to be inclusive, then you need to make sure that that ports through to your interview process as well, because some of them can be quite restrictive for very

different people depending on their personal circumstances. If you’ve got let’s say a single parent who’s working full time and they’ve got a couple of kids who have to do various different clubs after school and then you’ve got the usual sort of grind during the daytime as well, their version of doing a task for example is going to be a lot more pressured than someone who’s single with no kids and perhaps is

(39:29) Danny

Yeah.

(39:33) Nick Grantham

in between jobs even and has got plenty of time to put onto a task. So, you know, I’d like to think some clients will take that into account, but I know not always.

(39:40) Danny

Are you able

to be like principled in that way or is that like, you know, like, are you able to take that or if you take that you’re just not getting any work? Like how much as a recruiter can you influence that kind of thing? you think? And how much do you want to?

(39:53) Nick Grantham

Yeah, you know what?

Yeah, it really depends

on our relationship with the client. Sometimes not much at all. ⁓ And sometimes, you know, we can sort of be that advisor. That’s the position we’d all prefer to be in. ⁓

(40:02) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(40:11) Nick Grantham

I guess that will largely depend on who we’re actually dealing with on the client side as well, and how ⁓ open they are to hearing it. Because the other thing is, as well in this market, I like to think that we’re good recruiters, we do all the right things, and really honorable when we do things transparently, blah, blah, blah.

But ultimately we need the work, right? And especially in this market. So, you know, sometimes if a client says like, this is our process, we do process this way every single time. We’re not going to change it. You know, sometimes it comes to be, yes sir, let’s go and find these people. And it’s difficult. It’s kind of like, you know, you might’ve had some people in the market. I’m just thinking in terms of like moral.

(40:34) Danny

Yeah.

Yeah.

(40:55) Nick Grantham

moral restrictions, you know, before the last couple of years, you might have said someone right, Nick, I’m looking for jobs open to sector, except not gambling or alcohol. And, you know, and then two years later, markets dry and they’re working for, you know, British Americans back, gambling companies. And I totally get it.

(40:59) Danny

No tobacco.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, interesting. goes both

ways, doesn’t it? It goes both ways. When the belt has to get tightened, it forces hard decisions, makes us all question, yeah, like, are principles like? It’s easy to be principled when you’ve got a house and a table.

(41:20) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

We can’t. Exactly. Yeah. And this

is what I carry out a lot of what I say sometimes because I’m in a job, right? So, you know, okay, it’s not been as good as it has been or nowhere near as good as it has been for a long time, but…

I’ve still got my bills being paid every month. So it’s easy for me to say, you shouldn’t apply to this or you should think about focusing only on this area or whatever. if I didn’t have a job and I hadn’t been paid for months on end and I’ve got a family or house or responsibilities, I’m going to do whatever I can to pay those bills. And if that means praying, I’m going to do it. I know empathy is used a lot in UX.

(42:03) Danny

Yeah.

You see those?

(42:13) Nick Grantham

and I’d like to think it’s used a lot on the recruitment side but again that’s probably ⁓ touching go depending on which recruiters you use.

(42:23) Danny

Yeah, yeah. And you see those, you see those sort of heartbroken LinkedIn posts going around these days, you know, and I see that desperation and that sort of existential kind of crisis. Some people have been in this industry for 20 years and I see outside UX as well, see, you know, across the board, it’s sort of like remortgaging houses.

(42:29) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

(42:49) Danny

you know, it’s that kind of stuff. Because they’ve just been out of work for 18 months, know, 24 burnt the savings down that kind of stuff.

(42:52) Nick Grantham

Yeah, that’s good.

Yeah,

and they’ve had the rug pull from underneath them. You know, I don’t feel necessarily that some of them were doing anything wrong themselves individually, ⁓ but the market’s changed. It fundamentally has changed and…

(42:59) Danny

Yeah.

(43:10) Nick Grantham

and someone could have been doing all the right things and focused on strategy or even some of the heads of work in the past who hadn’t been hands-on for five plus years ⁓ and they’ve been managing and growing teams. All of a sudden, budgets have been cut, big salary, six-figure salary taken away from them. ⁓ In some cases, they might have been the key bread earner as well for their families. going forward, sure, there’s a few fractional roles here and there, but ⁓

(43:35) Danny

Yeah.

(43:40) Nick Grantham

not so many of those big purely strategic head-of-roles. So I know a lot of other people now who’ve been looking at more senior roles, they really want to future-proof themselves and remain hands-on, just in case the same thing were to happen again. And we went through a period, or still going through a period in fact, where certain clients that I’ve known or candidates I’ve known at head-of-level have been kind of dunning down their CV to seem a lot more of an IC or seem a lot more hands-on. ⁓

(44:07) Danny

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(44:10) Nick Grantham

rolls out there.

(44:11) Danny

Yeah, no, yeah, I’ve seen the same thing and I, me myself, like I actually steered away before the market from going further up the pipe and I went into IT because I just, on a personal preference, I just wanted to be hands on and I felt it when I left John Lewis and I’ve been there for five years, I’ve mostly been managing and I felt this uncomfortable squeeze when I was going for it. This is back in 2016 when the market was flush.

(44:21) Nick Grantham

Mm-hmm.

Right.

(44:37) Danny

of kind of like, so what were you actually doing then? Like, what can you say was your work? You know, and it was like, well, I, you know, I ever saw, you know, six teams and I tried really hard and I did loads of good things. And it’s like, yeah, but what did you actually do? And I managed to cut through that and get a role partly because of the market and also had some relationships there. But now the market’s like it is. If as you say, you know, I think there’s this downsizing. My sense was there’s a safer places to be is in hands on.

(44:37) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

(45:06) Danny

is being IC. That was my sense of like how to navigate it. In terms of in terms of change, like we talk about the market changing, like, is there something that you’re sort of like, quietly afraid might happen to to the profession, in your case, like recruitment? Is this something you think like, this could happen in 12 months? 18

(45:28) Nick Grantham

Yeah,

yeah, I’ve doing a lot of that the last few months in terms of like questioning my life choices and you know, am I still doing this thing in 12 months? Yeah, absolutely. I said there’s a few different things that have gone through my mind without I guess, I mean, AI is going to be one of them, but we’ll go on to that in a bit. But I guess before that point.

(45:36) Danny

Yeah, I we all do.

(45:51) Nick Grantham

Internal recruitment, I guess is an area where you know lots of when the redundancies were happening and lots of internal recruiters, know, talent managers, etc They were also let go because hiring wasn’t happening. So, know, their jobs were sort of made redundant as well as things have got a bit busier and Clients have been, you know regrown and told things or using their internal recruitment teams Because they want to do a lot more hiring direct You know that makes sense. You know, I will say sometimes I think

the

specialist knowledge won’t necessarily, this is a bit of a sweeping statement, won’t necessarily be the same as external recruiters who might specialise in one particular area or two particular areas, whereas lot of internal recruiters might span a lot more depending on the set up of the company. So I guess part of me is thinking, God, for all my life I’ve been an external recruiter, but if all the clients are just hiring directly these days, is that an area that I’d have to go to?

next in order to to keep afloat and be relevant still in the market. So that’s I guess one area. I like to think there’s still going to be a place out there for specialist recruiters. I think also internal recruitment

from an external point of view, it probably got a bad rap for, this is going back years now, where it was seen as a lesser place than external recruiters who can do well. And you go internal because you’re not doing so much in the business development side. That’s definitely not the case now. think a lot of the internal positions are really desirable and cool places to work for potentially. So that’s one thing I guess that’s gone through my

The other thing again being that the elephant in the room is AI and you know these ATS systems and you know that doing a lot of the first wave of screening I guess I see that.

(47:41) Danny

Yeah.

(47:50) Nick Grantham

I see that for a lot of jobs for our sector a bit less. I mean it’s happening, I don’t know how successfully it’s happening. I do hear a lot of frustration from candidates who are having to rejig their CVs to try and get past the ATS systems and it all seems a little bit…

I know what the word is, but just laborious, I guess. I feel like when it comes to design and UX and product design, basically where we’re looking at portfolio, I don’t think AI is there yet to be able to make a proper assessment as to that match. I’m not saying it won’t be, but I don’t think it will be next year. I don’t think it will be for a few years. I think it’s probably inevitable because of how fast it’s and developing.

(48:33) Danny

Yeah.

(48:38) Nick Grantham

now I’m not necessarily worried about AI snatching up all the specialist roles that require that, as I said, that nuanced knowledge about what makes a good portfolio. Well, not necessarily a good portfolio because it’s subjective, but what matches this portfolio to this client’s requirement, I guess. And I can get it from a CV buzzwording matching point of view where AI could do that, an ATS system could potentially do that, or does attempt to do that. I don’t think it does it as well as we, well, I don’t think it can even,

(49:07) Danny

Well, we’ve…

(49:08) Nick Grantham

take the portfolio out of the equation,

(49:09) Danny

Yeah.

(49:10) Nick Grantham

I still don’t think it can do it as well as a specialist human recruiter, personally. I mean, I’m probably biased, obviously. But you talked at the start of this podcast about the other things that we pick up on when we’re to the candidate. Yeah. And I guess the other thing to consider is that

(49:15) Danny

Yeah.

That’s what I was getting at, yeah.

(49:29) Nick Grantham

We talked also about people tailoring their applications per role, right? And perhaps adding certain words into their CVs to match that particular brief. So they’re almost playing the system a bit. And the ATS system isn’t gonna realize that. And it’s gonna be like, right, well, this person has got this many buzzwords in there, and so they must be a good fit for the role. I just…

(49:51) Danny

Well, isn’t there that thing

where people are like putting in the buzzwords and then making it the same color text as the page so that the human eye can’t see it, but the ATS system sees like a whole tranche of keywords in size one font and white text.

(50:00) Nick Grantham

Yes, and you can’t see them. That’s that, yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah, that is a

trick that I heard years ago before ATS systems or AI was being used in recruitment because a lot of recruiters

(50:15) Danny

See ya.

(50:21) Nick Grantham

who typically they might be more junior, a bit newer to the game, they’ll do what’s called a Boolean search when they’re looking for profiles like LinkedIn or a job board. And a Boolean search basically uses keywords that you want to find. So for example, if you’re looking for a UX designer, you might put in your Boolean search, Y frames, user flows, user research, personas, and you put that into the search and then it will flag up with the best results at the top.

which CVs have got those words in there the most times. And if you’re not necessarily using that sort of specialist knowledge, you might think, right, well, this person’s at the top of the list. Look how many times they’ve mentioned wireframes and UX and user research.

(51:05) Danny

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

(51:06) Nick Grantham

they must be the best fit for the job. so that was happening years ago. So that trick that you just talked about, I heard about that years and years ago. And again, that goes to show that I just, you can see how ridiculous that sort of process is. So I just don’t see how that makes finding the best candidates. And equally, when I’m giving people CV advice, one thing I’m never a fan of, again, this is also a text here, one thing they’re a fan of is on CVs where you have your summary,

(51:09) Danny

Haha.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

(51:36) Nick Grantham

you have your jobs and then people do a massive list of skills or software that they use and it takes up half the page and it’s all very generic. There’s no context there as to how good they are with Figma or Adobe Creators or Bones. Yeah, exactly. It’s just purely a list of roles. And I’ll talk to them about it and they say, well, yeah, that’s for the ATS system. And it’s, I get it. I do get it. But for me, and I think when I’m dealing with my clients,

(51:41) Danny

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just a list of words.

(52:06) Nick Grantham

we much prefer everything contextualized. So rather than you listing out wireframes, prototypes and Figma, which gives no real indication of how good you are or how experienced you are with those, contextualize it within the descriptions of work that you’re doing so that I can see, oh right, so you were doing this as part of your process, you using that software as part of your process. And equally, it’s like when people have those lists and then they score themselves out of five, know, or at five star, you know, again, I just don’t,

(52:18) Danny

Yay.

Yeah. ⁓

Yay.

(52:36) Nick Grantham

I get the sentiment behind it and I get you can kind of give a sort of rougher, okay, well, I’m an expert in figma. I’m less good at Adobe Creates, whatever it might be, Photoshop. ⁓ But you’re still scoring yourself. And again, I just don’t think that’s giving enough context for that.

(52:50) Danny

The is, you used to

be able to do all that and it didn’t matter. You’d still get in. Right? That’s the truth of it, right? So all these things you’re talking about, like putting listed words and all this, because I’ve hired, I hired UX people and you know, I just look at it and go, okay, that’s where they’ve worked, you know, and they’ve got the little sliders on the skills, whatever, get them in, get them in.

(52:57) Nick Grantham

I get to. Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

(53:18) Danny

because I’m only choosing

(53:18) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

(53:19) Danny

between about five people anyway. So you could kind of do stuff like that. And people didn’t have to have this rigor and this scrutiny on the CV. as a hiring manager, I used just leave it to the interview to work it out. But it’s like, ⁓ think now that that’s changed. I wonder, just to sort of like draw this all back, like, is there anything that gives you hope? like you’ve obviously done a bit of introspection, we all have.

(53:21) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank

(53:48) Danny

like about where this industry could go next. Do you feel like given what you just said about how AI isn’t quite there yet and all the humanist aspects you do, is there some hope that you take from this about? I think what we’re talking about is certainty and a move away from the chaos and unpredictable change. I think that’s what people want.

(54:04) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean,

I guess are we talking about the market or recruitment?

(54:15) Danny

Nice.

(54:17) Nick Grantham

I would say the market, I would say it’s showing signs that it’s getting better. So for example, one thing that could traditionally be quite annoying and frustrating is when we’re dealing with a person or candidates for a role and then partway through the process they drop out because they’ve got a different role or they’ve got other interviews that they prefer. And as annoying as that is, it’s quite encouraging now because it means that there’s other stuff going on.

(54:36) Danny

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s an indicator, isn’t it,

of movement.

(54:47) Nick Grantham

Yeah, so

exactly. So that’s happening more and although we’re covering all the roles out there, as many roles as we’d like to be covering, at least it’s encouraging because it’s bound to come our way the more that that’s happening. So I think the market is getting better and hopefully with interest rates getting better that will help with the budget announcements that are talked about there. Maybe that will inspire a bit more confidence as well. So we’ll see. I don’t think it’s going to be boom time anytime soon, but it should continue.

to slowly get better, I think. On the downside of that, that still means there’s gonna be a hell of a lot of other people out there still looking for work. The supply and demand has been so unbalanced for the last two, three years. I don’t suddenly think we’re gonna get a 50-50 balance. I still think there’s gonna be quite a few people out there who are struggling, unfortunately. That’s, yeah, and I don’t really know what will happen there. But as I say, it’s getting better, but not to the, not a steep enough angle to help them.

majority of people so I think it’s still going to be tough going into next year. Yeah, ironically I was doing some of my soul searching via chat GPT, my companion, about AI and it said some things I think I probably agree with. think the widespread world of recruitment

(55:50) Danny

For you personally, like, ⁓ yeah, where are you?

(56:14) Nick Grantham

And I’m not just talking about product design UX and just talking about recruitment generally. I think a lot of the roles probably will become more automated. know, I’m like roles from, I don’t know, first line support or, you know, more, more, you know, less specialist roles essentially. But something it said and something I thought is the more specialist positions will become, will remain.

better suited for guys like me, specialist recruiters to work on. ⁓ And I think now more than ever, clients are looking for those diamonds, not in the rough, there’s loads of good people available, but looking for those unicorns if you like. And when you’re dealing with this sort of supply and demand and you’ve got 100 applications within a week and you’re relying on perhaps your internal recruiter who’s also got to manage 10 other roles, or you’re a hiring manager

you’ve got an actual job to do that isn’t recruitment and you’re looking for that needle in the haystack ⁓ that’s where I’d like to think guys like me, people like me as in specialist recruiters will prove their value and you know come into play more and more. ⁓ You know we’ve had a similar situation with clients who’s come to us recently that very scenario in fact where they’re hiring multiple roles they’re trying to they’ve got an internal talent team they’re trying to keep as much as possible direct ⁓ and they’re looking for a lead product

designer struggling to find that needle in the haystack for various different reasons. The hiring manager then was also getting involved with doing the first wave of screening ⁓ and he’s got a big big salary and he’s not being paid necessarily, well guess he is being paid to do recruitment but he shouldn’t be being paid to do that much recruitment. He needs to be doing the design and management part and so they’ve come to us with this particular role because the roles now become mission-critical and they need to get this person sorted before Christmas and if they carry on doing

(58:00) Danny

Yeah.

So.

(58:07) Nick Grantham

the way they were doing they were just going to take more and more time. yeah, think there’s hope next year.

(58:12) Danny

You’re grassroots and…

Yeah, you’re seeing grassroots, you’re seeing positive indicators. You yourself, you sound… You sound animated, and ⁓ there’s some hope there, I’m hearing. So, if you’re feeling hopeful, I’m feeling hopeful.

(58:27) Nick Grantham

Yeah, I think I’m not too…

I feel like… Yeah, but not to piss in anyone’s chips.

(58:36) Danny

Cautious.

(58:37) Nick Grantham

But I’m still cautious. I think I’m also quite burned from the last two or three years because I think one thing that I’ve have learned over the last two or three years is that it’s so hard to really predict things now. As I said to you earlier in the podcast when we talked about when we were first hit by this downturn, we were like, okay, it’s gonna get better in the new financial year. It’s gonna get better once people are back from summer holidays. It’s gonna get better after Christmas. And it hasn’t really significantly got better.

(58:39) Danny

cautiously hopeful.

Yeah.

Hmm.

(59:05) Nick Grantham

So I’ll try and think about what will happen, but I guess my confidence behind those predictions…

is 50-50 but yeah I guess as I said you’ve got to be resilient in this game so I’m just still there’s still an ounce of that left in me and we’re doing what we can to make it a bit brighter for next year but yeah I don’t think I don’t think we’re dead in the water just yet but it’s it’s still tough so courses are

(59:20) Danny

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I think that’s a good point

for us to end on. And it’s not necessarily what everybody wants to hear, but that’s how it is. And that’s the reality right now.

(59:45) Nick Grantham

Yeah.

(59:46) Danny

Amazing. Thank you, Nick. Thank you so much for this. Thanks for your time. yeah, thank you.

(59:48) Nick Grantham

Thank you.

No worries. Thanks mate.