Welcome to another episode of the RAG podcast.And for those of you who don't know, the RAG stands for Recruitment Agency Growth.
Since early 2019, I've been interviewing the most successful and innovative recruitment owners to learn how they rose to the top of their game.
In season seven, I'm going to be having raw, authentic and insightful conversations with agency owners, entrepreneurs, leaders,
people across the industry, and I want to be learning about their ambitions, what's happening behind the scenes in their agencies today, and their plans to navigate difficult market conditions.
I'll be bringing you the latest and greatest recruitment stories every single week on Wednesdays at noon across multiple platforms.Stay tuned. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the RAG podcast on this week's show.
I'm excited to be looking at another of Access Group's products.This time it's a platform called Elay.
Elay is a automation platform that was recently acquired by the Access Group based on their initial success of integrating well with Vinceri and working across their portfolio of clients.
In this episode, I interview both the automation general manager, which is Mehdi Este, who's the founder of Elay, and Nick Beecroft, who's the head of business or head of new business for Access Recruitment Group.I've known Nick for a long time.
This is my first time meeting Mehdi, but they are a really good duo. Medi gives us the story of Elay, where it came from, how it developed, and exactly what the platform does.
And Nick talks more from a client and industry's perspective as to why you would want to put this into your system.Why would automation, both in your CRM and on LinkedIn, benefit a recruitment business of all sizes and scales?
So AI and automation is a buzzword.Honestly, I've talked about this a lot recently, that it can be overwhelming, it can be scary.
What we do in this episode is we break it down into logical steps and things that you can start to do that will get you moving forward without sending out millions of emails and pissing people off and creating problems that I talk about a lot.
So you're going to enjoy this episode without a doubt.Without further ado, Mehdi and Nick, welcome to the RAG Podcast. Hi, mate.Thanks for having us.Pleasure.Good to have you both.Nick, obviously, I know you pretty well.
Mehdi, this is the first time we've met, so good to meet you.Guys, I'm excited about this episode because I've done a bit of research, but the product itself is something I don't know that much about.
I think there's a lot of people who will be interested to hear more about the product. But before we talk anything to your business, I think we have to have a brief discussion about Ryan McCabe and the tragic news we received this week.
Obviously, this show will be going out, aired in a few weeks time, but it's Tuesday the 25th of June and I only found out this time yesterday about 10am.Nick, I knew Ryan pretty well, but nowhere near as well as you knew Ryan.How are you?
Look, it's been a rough couple of days for everyone close to him, right?And me and Ryan worked together for 10 years, right?It was 10 years ago, six weeks ago, that me and Ryan first worked together.
And we'd had a rough couple of years, me and Ryan, after leaving Oddrow, and now it seems so futile, right?And I regret a lot of that.But it's like losing a brother.It's like losing a mentor and a friend.
The hole that we all, the gap that we all see and feel is enormous and it's heartbreaking, genuinely.He gave me a platform to have everything that I have and my family own an awful lot.
There was a time in my life when we were really struggling and we had nothing and he selflessly pulled us out of a hole without even a second thought.Like the guy, the guy's kindness goes much greater and much deeper and quietly without need for
thanks or praise and he was a visionary in this industry and he was a passionate leader who cared deeply about the people in his organization and that's testament to the fact that many of us who were in that early phase have all gone on to do really great things in our career and that's enlarged because Ryan's boldness and his energy made you want to go and do more
And I never tell him this, and I can't now, and I'm gutted, I can't, but I just want you to be like him on a lot of those respects, and have that energy and that boldness, and the way people view him, and it's not a tribute, but there's an incredible legacy that we've all seen in the last 24 hours, the way he affected this industry on a global scale, and that's not something that will ever be lost, and his memory will be carried on by the people that love him, and the people that care about him, and it's heartbreaking and devastating, but the impact he had in a short time
greater than many might have in their entire life and that says so much.
Totally agree.The one memory I've got of him was when the pandemic hit and he was the first person to just check in and say, how are you mate?
He probably did it to every supplier because he had that ability to build those relationships that there wasn't many that I, there's not many suppliers I've ever spoke to as much as him. he was like, we'll get through this.
He had this like confidence straight away.Obviously, I think he knew video was going to be even more needed in the pandemic.I mean, he spotted an immediate opportunity that maybe didn't have that in our back pocket, but... Effortlessly cool.
And it was quite annoying at times to be quite frank, like, but you make your own luck and it was his talent and his vision and his ability to spot and see opportunity that drove all that through that period of time, right?It doesn't just happen.
Um, and again, as I say, like he gave a platform for an awful lot of people to succeed through that period when it didn't seem like there was much hope.
And he was that big energy bringing the running and you know, all the little things that just seem insignificant, but we're visionary and we're, um, naturally a community building.And it's just all those tiny things.
And I think as time goes by and people think of all the small incidental things that Ryan impacted and inflicted into that space. will realise just what a massive impact he's actually had.
I remember when you all turned up at the Expo in London in kilts and you did that little video preview.
I looked that photo out yesterday, on Sunday.I was talking to Dougie a lot back and forth through the day and it was a very mixed emotion.
We were looking back at the photos from the early days when it was just sort of five sections in the business and then we found that photo.The three of us standing in couch.It was his idea, of course, and the reaction that we got was incredible.
We had an energy and there was something about, I mean, I think there was like me and Hisham and then you guys trying to do similar things in different businesses. We just respected what you guys were doing.
I wish the guys at Odro as a company now the best.I can only imagine what it would be like.I don't think there's any business succession planning for this.It's just not something you'd consider.
More importantly, his friends and family, his family, his wife, he's got three boys.I put myself in those shoes and it's heartbreaking. His wife sent a message in that group last night, in that WhatsApp group.Did you see it?
And she replied via his phone and she sent a long, I don't know how she wrote it.It was so strong, so powerful.It was phenomenal to say like, you know, thank you for your messages.Everyone's words are given a strength.
And she just spoke about how like, he obviously passed away in an accident, but he was doing what he loved. He was on his bike, he was out doing what he's learning.
Some people might now refrain from doing things like extreme sports or whatever, based on these things that happen, but, or you can live like him and you can go and do what you want to do.And you can live every day as if it's your last.
And I just thought, she's obviously, I don't know the woman, she's incredible if she can put that into words so soon.
I was so grateful that me and Ryan had had a rough time after the last couple of years when I'd left odd role and we hadn't had much interaction and contact.
Pride in a lot of ways probably kept us apart, but only six weeks ago on the 10th anniversary of us working together, we'd reached out and we'd had a good opportunity to chat on a couple of occasions and we cleared the air.
And I mean, today everything seems so futile and I'm so grateful that we did have the opportunity to do that.But yeah, a good man, a good family man, loved his wife and kids.And that's a greater legacy than anything he has here.
Yeah.What a legend.Okay.We do need to move on into today's topic.All right.Thanks for that, Nick.I appreciate it.In terms of your business, Medi, I've done a brief introduction, but I can never do it justice.What is the product?
How would you describe what you guys are?Like for those that have never heard of you, don't understand what the business does.
Thank you.Thank you for that introduction, Sean.And yeah, obviously condolences to Ryan's family.
Yeah, so to give you some context, essentially, Elay is a one-stop shop for recruiters that want to automate processes within different life stages of their recruitment workflows.
So we've built several products over the years, ranging from chatbots to CRM automation to cold outreach emails. and other platforms as well.
So yeah, effectively we've created a hub where you combine several products all under one roof and all sort of integrate and transfer data between them really efficiently.So yeah, that's to kind of give you some context around what Elay does.
Okay, and how long ago did you guys integrate within the access group?
So, Historically, Vinceri itself was I think one of the first integrations we ever built.So all the way back in sort of 2020 when the original founder Bernie was there, we did a very kind of high level automation demo for them.
And they saw the vision and gave us access to a sandbox environment to go ahead and build, which at the time was the first automation platform for that CRM.And yeah, ever since then, obviously we've built products for that ecosystem, for that
solution and then, you know, very recently, of course, bringing that sort of automation capabilities to the Access world as well, which, yeah, we're very excited about.
I bet, I bet.Nick, from your perspective, what do you think, why do you think Access wanted this product into the estate?
I think anyone who takes the opportunity to see it will understand.It's a very easy decision when you see the tech and you see how powerful it can be.But we've been on this journey of change and acquisition, as you know.
And there's a very strategic plan around how we view what the market wants in the future.We can see the gap.We can see the need.And we can see the way recruiters want to go.We want to do more with what they have.
They don't necessarily always want to scale headcount. They want to drive their bottom line with better, deeply integrated tech.People are fatiguing with many, many suppliers.They don't want many billing cycles.They don't want many suppliers.
They don't want that anymore.They don't want lots of support channels.They want a support channel and they want one tech platform.And we are very strategically, if you go back even five years from the volcanic acquisition,
very strategically buying tech that has given deep impact across what we call the recruitment operating system.So this sits across a lot, whereas we've made strategic key purchases at front, middle, and back office.
What Ely actually does and what it actually gives is the opportunity for deep automation and AI capability through every element of the recruiter's lifecycle.
from the earliest point around attraction and engagement through allowing one payroll employee to process up to 2,000, 3,000 pays a week on their own through deep, highly automated technology.
And what Elay does is give greater control, more engagement, greater cleansing of your data,
It allows you to control the process and allow your consultants to focus on a revenue-generating activity rather than the mundane tasks down here that take up 40%, 50% of the week.
And when Elay came around and the relationship has been great for years, and they've co-sold together for a long, long time, it made sense when you start to see the vision around the REC OS that Elay would be that core piece that sits across all of it.
to drive all that automation around that.And it's so impressive when you see it.We've used it as a sales team for seven months now before the acquisition came to fruition.We have scaled our ability to cross the market and our ICP.
We have seen greater engagement.We have connected with a wider market and allowed us to go deep into relationship with people and have warm, deep relationship with people through socials, for example. and our outreach capacity.
So when you start to scale out across client, candidate, but not just that, existing database, and how you can then nurture all that in the process, it's a deeply powerful tool.
Can someone give me an exact process example?Because I hear this a lot from automation.Save time, efficiency, they're all really cool words, really great buzzwords.
But if I'm, and I spend a lot of time in this world, if I'm sitting here thinking, well, give me an example, then I'm pretty confident my guests will be thinking the same thing, right?
So I don't know if it's you, Mehdi or Nick, I don't really mind, but someone take me through a journey of something you would do in recruitment and how this platform supports it and makes it better.
Yeah, absolutely.So, yeah, one great example is, um, you look at the average recruiter, Sean, they've got 50,000 candidates, uh, 25,000 contacts on their CRM, and they probably only speak to 5% of that, uh, maybe 5, 10% of it.
So you've got a wealth of data, which you're actually not using.And then you're having to spend money on job boards and external sources to kind of get new candidates to the door, get new prospects through the door.
But essentially a great example of where we've applied eLay is being able to create a system that basically looks through your CRM, looks at the data that's sat there aging away and automating outreach, automating, you know, time sort of emails, text messages, user journeys, whereby we can say, you've been on our database for six months.
Just wanted to check in with you, see how things are going.Maybe could you fill us in maybe what's changed in your career?
and then essentially taking that new information, uploading it into the CRM, and then essentially, you know, filling in the top of the funnel with, you know, new prospects, new candidates.So that's a very textbook example.But how would it happen?
Like, I'm thinking about my job.Yeah.
How?Like, I'm a recruiter.Could be any trigger or action, right?So if you think of any branching technology, FDES, then that sort of technology.
The recruiters want to get involved at a desk level in branch level technology.
But they don't have to.That's the thing.
So how did it happen? So, it happens in a number of ways, right?Because there are preset, predetermined, high-impact sequences already pre-built, right?But they can be controlled from one place, whoever runs that.
It can be A-B tested as it runs through, and it can then start to fix that down into the most optimum method of communication for the people at the time.It basically just triggers based on any field in your CRM, any field whatsoever.
You go, if this is that, start this process.
and it'll then manually, and it can go as far and as deep as, I want you to actually go and write a message with this tonality to this sort of person and then present it to me so that I can take it to the market.
Or it can pull media that you have and it can feed it to people based on triggers and actions.And the way that the technology's going, we were looking at ways in which you can actually understand trends of data in your own CRM.
So we're looking at ways in which you can say, we know that this candidate likely is gonna leave their position in three to six months' time based on the data that we have on it.
We also know that that then means this hiring manager associated to them is probably going to be looking for a job, looking for a candidate with that skill set.
So what the technology is having the ability to do as we develop this out is already produce candidates three months in advance that the system nurtures on your behalf by keeping in touch, sending them the standard outreach.
Meaning these candidates are already in the mindset as they move towards their average tenure to be brought into your funnel at the right time.So the conversation's warm and you have jobs already.
So let's practically, let's just practically work this out.Cause I'm thinking if I'm a, if I'm a recruitment leader, what size of business do I need to be to execute something like this?
Like if I've, who's going to, if I haven't got that person who's doing the control, can I do it?Or do I need a marketing operation type person in the business?
Yeah.So we've deployed Elay with agencies all the way from one user shown all the way to a thousand.
So the good thing is we have a library of automations that you can quickly build and deploy without actually anyone having to kind of build them for you, custom to your, for example, CRM or your workflows.
And essentially it just means whether you're at the point of scaling, trying to grow your database, get new candidates, clients through the door, you can use those templates that we provided for you to just pretty much build.
Of course, as you start to scale, you've got more personnel on the team, somebody from marketing, from operations that can sort of manage these products from a high level perspective.
It just means you can kind of perhaps go into more fine granular detail about maybe AAB testing, finding out what message is working better with your audience.
But we've really designed Elay to kind of scale all the way from sort of, you know, one man, you know, one man band businesses all the way to, you know, large enterprise businesses as well.
I'm just thinking, let's say a one man band. has a database full of people.
I think it's so powerful what you're saying that they can reach out to scale and update the database, but are they going to get hammered with replies in their inbox from hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of, if people do reply, or does that go automatically into the system?
Like, how does that work?I'm just thinking like practically, if I woke up on a Monday morning, I'd like 300 replies.It's not going to kill my day because I'm then I'm missing things that I was, do you know what I mean?
It's all about funneling traffic, right?So for example, I myself always have jobs that I'm recruiting for within eLaid to kind of recruit.And we use a chatbot to essentially pre-screen and find out who's actually relevant for the job.
So anyone that applies for one of the jobs that I've got posted will be sent the chatbot.
And then people are speaking to it right now as we're speaking, filling in their questions, you know, entering kind of why they want to apply for this role, what transferable skills they have to the opportunity.
And at the end of the day, I'll just go and have a look at the hundred people that have spoken to it, and then I'll pick out the best ten that I think is going to be suitable for the role.
And really, I think that's where the time saving element comes in.
It's like, as long as you can funnel your traffic to one of the surveys or the chatbots or the data instances that we have, that's kind of really where you can control whether the data goes to you, to your CRM, comes to you on email, and you can really control what your preferences are.
But even more so than that, and I suppose to answer your point a bit more directly as well, Ailey's been built with human behavior in mind, so what it's never going to do is say, I'm going to send 50,000 of these out, right?
That's one way to get caught in a spam filter, or that's one way to just flood your inbox and then just get lost and overwhelmed.What it does is actually follow human behavior, so it will start a sequence of human behavior so that it's not
overwhelming you and it is nurturing at a level and a rate that a human would typically follow without the human actually having to do it.Meaning the human only gets involved when certain lead scoring lands on a certain point.
when interaction is held, when a link is clicked, whatever that might be as a trigger and action beyond that.So yeah, you might send out 50,000, but that might take four weeks.
Can it do the marketing automation from like the more fancy newsletter type emails all the way to the singular sales based automation, like HubSpot sequences and workflows, like the two separate sections, similar sort of thing you can do in both?
Yeah, absolutely.So you can go ahead and create kind of, you know, the standard HTML templates What's actually really interesting is you can also track the activities that you have on your website.
So for example, if you've sent a marketing email out, someone's maybe clicked on it a few times, they've also gone ahead and viewed your website, you can create another automation to say, hey, look, I can see you've been on our website for a few times.
Would it make sense maybe for us to just have a quick call?
All the way down to sort of clicking, looking at heat maps in terms of what they've clicked onto your emails, what links have actually interested them, or how long they've looked at the content, who they've followed it on to.
It's a really powerful 360 suite where, you know, it is a really kind of, um, kind of marketing, uh, platform that will kind of give you all the dates you need both, uh, whether it's business development or candidate generation activities going forward.
The other thing, I think one of the most exciting parts of the entire platform and its capabilities that it has LinkedIn RPA technology, which allows you to actually go deep into LinkedIn at scale.
So one of the challenges that we face, and this is another big reason why it became a no-brainer, is I have never spoken to a recruiter or a recruitment business owner that can really fully justify the cost of LinkedIn Recruiter and the actual return that they get.
Most people, they're left with thousands of emails every month.They don't actually know how they can trigger down on, well, that's actually what we generated through LinkedIn Recruiter.It can become a challenge.
And I'm sure that's something that you speak to a lot, right, based on the work that you guys do.
And what this allows you to do is, whether you're paying for LinkedIn or not, it allows you to use our LinkedIn RPA technology to, at scale, maximize what you have available on that account.
So whether that be literally finding lists of ICP customers or candidates and feeding them into nurture campaigns through LinkedIn,
It could be, we've got a good example of someone who was left with 3,000 in-mails a month across their business, which just roll and roll and roll, and it was sitting at 30,000.
And what that allowed them to do is actually run a campaign of in-mails, and it allowed them just to go and use the credits that they can't currently use, and drive engagement and get value out of LinkedIn, so that they could tangibly come back and say, I know that Ely on top of LinkedIn with Vinceri as my CRM,
drive higher engagement, cleaner database, and more placements.And that is enormous for anyone.
So in Elay you can see a name, contact record, and then you'd have an option to see their LinkedIn profile and their CRM profile, right?And then you can choose to either email or send a LinkedIn in-mail or DM.Is that possible?Absolutely.Yeah.
But it can go as far.You can remove connection requests.That's one of the most valuable bits for me.I had like 5,000 connection requests that hadn't been accepted for eight years, right?
And one of the first things I did was just pull the list, feed it, and it just removed them all for me.
Is that, like Mehdi, I mentioned this on the call with Nick last week.Is this going against LinkedIn's terms and conditions?
Because Tripify, Walloxy, MeetAlfred, there's all these tools out there that automate LinkedIn activity, but my advice has always been to be very careful because LinkedIn's conditions are clearly stating that they don't want to automate human behavior in the platform.
What's your take on that?
I think if you've been very cautious with how you're using, first of all, we've always complied with what LinkedIn does in terms of their terms of using automated solutions.
This is very much a tool that the person has to actually drive forward, so it's not very much.
You look at all the other vendors like Zoom, Info, and Lusher, they all have these extensions that you will need to go ahead and actually have a human involved to do that.
I think in that capacity, we always help our customers stay on the right side of the terms and conditions for LinkedIn.
So sending, so automating like sequenced emails in LinkedIn is within the terms of, you can do that.
As long as you set it outside of, the email set outside of LinkedIn.So that's completely fine.
What about the DM?You're not automating DMs though in LinkedIn?
Or in mail?Well, the user on the initial point will have to enter them into the workflow themselves.So yes, in that capacity, then again, that's not an automated procedure.
What we're not doing is driving people to spam, spam LinkedIn. It doesn't allow you to do that.It proactively acts against that.And it just simply won't allow it to happen.
So what it does is keeping the right side of the terms because it just mimics human behavior at scale, meaning that you could just get more out of the platform that you're paying for, as opposed to someone setting off a campaign of 150,000 messages to be sent out now, today, at this time, just to spam a network.
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Right, let's get back to it.One thing I talk about on a lot is automation.And I think it's dangerous when you're going after cold data.
What I like about what you're doing is it's a different solution to solve the same problem that I'm saying, which is you've already got the data in most instances.
When you're linked in First Degree Network and in your CRM, you've got data that you've had some interaction with.What are you doing with that?You're not buying lists on Lustro or ZoomInfo and just spamming them.
You're thinking about there's already a database here of people that have been sat there collecting dust effectively.
Could you give us, have you got any client examples where they've been able to genuinely reignite a database and see some tangible wins from it?
Yeah, I think off the top of my head, there was a company called VHR.I think they've got quite a sizable database.And they hadn't spoken to candidates, I think maybe in 20 years.They used Elay to launch several campaigns
to kind of re-engage with engineers.And yeah, I think we got a significant response come back.And again, all that information was, you know, transferred back into Vinceri.That's, yeah, I think a really textbook example of how people have used it.
But yeah, I mean, there's combinations of, you know, people using the automations for things like compliance, creating a bit more of a structured workflow around the consultant's desk.
So, you know, if you're an operations manager, you can set up a workflow to go ahead and, you know, set reminders for your consultants
If a client is added, no one's spoken to them, looking at the last activity, goes ahead and immediately schedules a task for your consult to give them a call.
So there's a lot more about helping the team sort of ramp up a lot quicker, have a bit more of a structured day and just processes that will prove to deliver value.
And it feeds into Vincere tasks, does it?Is that why you'd go in Vincere and you'd see the tasks and you'd just follow it on a daily basis?
Exactly.I would say now, obviously, we're integrating across all the Axis CRMs, but yeah, that's that.
Yeah.So how did Elay come about, Mehdi?What's your story?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.It's a good story.I like this.This is a really good founder story.Seeing you hear those founder stories, I like that.This is a good one.
All right, Nick, I will get you involved, I promise.But let's see what Mehdi is going to tell us about.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Awesome.Absolutely.So yeah, I was in a sabbatical at university in 2020.
I got a WhatsApp message saying, you know, at the time, I think it was kind of early COVID, Aldi was doing a big Feed the Nation campaign, I think it was, and they needed a solution to help sort of do the outreach on sort of Facebook and help sort of prescreen, you know, high volume of applicants, in which case, kind of at that point, we launched a very sort of early stage version of our chatbot, and we gave it to them, and they took it to Facebook.
I think they managed to engage with 48,000 candidates in like a week and then kind of filter them through, making sure they're qualified and then actually deploy them to the relevant branch.
So that was our kind of first real bit of success that kind of gave us the revenue to kind of continue growing the business.
And then later on, work with the supplier to get these sort of chatbots into the sort of Amazon warehouses for like pre-screening them, making sure they're relevant and then send them to the relevant site and actually going through the compliance
process with them as well.And then very much, so that was the point where kind of, we started building the integration with Vinceri.So we had some customers on our chatbot product.We then built a CRM automation product.
And then we didn't have a business development team or any sales team.So then we built a solution to go.So everything that we had to hire for, we just went and built internally, which is quite interesting.
And then everything we did, we just built it and just gave people to say, you know, test it out, see if you, if you find it valuable.And then oftentimes people would come back and say, this is great. You know, could you get a few more?
Where does your desire to build a tech business and automation, where does that come from?
I was actually speaking about this yesterday, but I mean, my mom was always kind of on my back to, to have a career, have something that, you know, but I think all as growing up, I always, I've sold everything, you know, from aquarium fish to flipping phones.
And then I think when I was in sort of sixth form, I started making websites.I used to go door to door. with a suit on every Saturday, saying, hey, do you want a website for 120 quid?
And then I think when I got to university, started to get a bit more into the world of how software is built, started building some more larger scale web applications.
And then I think one of the really big things that I saw a lot of people sit on the sideline, and I didn't want to do that.I wanted to be in the space.I wanted to be building something.I didn't want to be buying and selling shares.
I wanted to be the person that owned that share that was being bought or sold to kind of put it.And yeah, and then essentially just went ahead and, you know, came up with this idea.
Was it always for recruitment then?Was it a recruitment automation idea?
The concept of the idea actually was originally to help you find gift ideas for your partner or your spouse on Amazon.So what would happen is you'd basically go ahead and say, you know, I've got this kind of budget.This is, I think, what they'd like.
And then they'd go to Amazon and they'd find your product. And then it would give you like an affiliate link.So you'd make a bit of money, which is, I think it's still a good idea today, even if you get it right.
But then I think, you know, recruitment, it was just a bit more like, Hey, can we process this kind of volume in this kind of situation and get this data from it.And that was all kind of bread and butter for us.So, yeah.
So you say we a lot, who is we?So how did it go from you to a we?
Yeah, good question. So the company was founded by myself and Shine, who's kind of the tech side of the product.So he's been sort of day one, minute one, a week one with us.
And then very much so, very early stages, managed to get like a credit card from my mom and, you know, get some highest to the door, literally, quite literally.
And then, yeah, we just, you know, always bringing on sort of junior developers, one or two people at a time, just putting initial products.But yeah, most of the time it's been myself and Shine.
So Shayan is the more technical, the developer.
He's the kind of co-founder and CTO.So yeah, we had a good conversation.
Do you get involved in the software or are you more sales and strategy and marketing, et cetera?
So I have a CS degree as well, background, but you'll never see me coding.I think I was quite honest with myself when we built the business.I was like, look, I think I could do a good job at selling, but I'd never be a good engineer.
I think you probably asked that from my professor at university.I think they'll probably say the same thing as well.
But no, I think very early stages, I maybe helped write a few pages of HTML, but the majority of time was spending time with customers.How do we get this product to market and how do we get it for the right people?Yeah.
I think that's a really, really cool skillset though.If you really do truly understand technology, but you can communicate and you can sell because you find people that fall into one of two camps. You know, I never did any computer science.
I never, never really, I wasn't interested in technology growing up.It wasn't my thing.That was more sports and just getting outside.And then I've come, I remember when I was a recruiter, I was like, why the hell didn't I do like.
some kind of degree, not even just business, but also like computer science.And my stepson now is into gaming.And I'm like, you do know there's like a lot of successful career in even in gaming.And you know, this can be a career.
I'm going to be a footballer.I'm like, yeah, but if you're not, and you love this stuff, Don't think this is just a hobby.This can genuinely become a career now.Whereas, I mean, building games and just technology in general is incredible.
So when did it go from the idea of Amazon to the recruitment idea?Was that just through that thing you said about Aldi?
Yeah.I mean, essentially it was kind of maybe very early days.We would speak to anyone that would pay us basically. I think every founder will relate to this at some point, but yeah, anyone that will pay you, you just say yes and do it.
Um, I think looking back at a roadmap as well, like everything that people just paid more for, we just built into the platform, even though it might not add value to someone else's, uh, you know, usage of our product, but, um, it was always within sort of.
You know, hiring, it was always around that area, whether it be for HR, whether it was for recruitment, but then I think really the partnership with, with Vinceri was an opportunity because being the first automation vendor on their marketplace meant we were getting like
five leads a day sometimes where people come to us and say, hey, we've got this, could you help us with it?So then quite quickly, we, I say pivoted, it wasn't really a pivot, it was more like we just followed where the money went really.
And then found that that was a great pocket of opportunity.And then obviously integrating with other vendors as well.
When Vinceri was acquired, what impact did that have on you?
Because you go from Bernie and Eloise to suddenly they've gone and there's this huge company and obviously now they've acquired you later, but what was it like in that first few months or whatever after the acquisition of Vinceri?
Yeah, that's a really good question actually.It's actually funny because when I was speaking with Sean about building the Vinceri CRM products, the way that the product is, it's like, you have to build it for one CRM.
You can't build it for more than one CRM.Otherwise, it just becomes a little bit messy.And I said, look, I think if we build this, they will come and take over.
And when that news obviously went out, I had to deal with a lot of backlash internally to say, look, this actually never happened.But I think it was very
It was kind of mixed, to be honest with you, because I didn't know what was going to happen with us, because that was really our exit plan to say, like, this is what's going to happen.
But then later on, once we saw that, you know, then our relationship got even closer, both with Axis and even with the charity, and we started to actually work on more opportunities.
Yeah, it was, we were kind of a little bit more, it was a bit more comforting.But yeah, when it went live, obviously, we were like, okay, this is interesting, like, what's gonna happen now?
But I think seeing them go through the experience and having access taken over, then I think there was something for us to kind of charge towards as well.
Love it.And then when did it become apparent that there was an opportunity for them to acquire your business?
That's a great question.I think maybe about a year and a half later, we had the conversation and said, look, I think there's a great partnership, strategy, synergy.
probably more than half of our customer base were Vinceri slash some other access products as well, Volcanic and the other solutions as well.And yeah, it just felt like a great opportunity to really drive to the next level.
And when it came up, I think we never even looked at anything else to be honest with you.We were very sure about the decision and kind of seeing how things are going today.I think that was definitely the right decision to make.So yeah.
So what is life like now?What's changed for you and your business?
Yeah.Somebody asked me, am I working harder or like less hard?But I think definitely it's, it's been very exciting.Definitely working a lot harder, but that's because we see a fantastic opportunity, a great vision.
You know, the people that you get to work with are incredible. I myself saw Nick on LinkedIn for several years, never actually said hi until we actually started working together.I thought, wow, what a great, you know, what a great combination.
So yeah, I mean, the people here are incredible.Felt very welcome from day one.And yeah, just, I mean, the opportunities we get to work on here are incredible.I think it's given everyone that sort of next level.
And I think really that's what we needed as a business to continue driving forward.
So Nick, what is your exact role in this process then?How do you fit in?
Yeah, well, I'm head of new business for the recruitment division, so I go to market around the new business, field new business teams.
So basically, we have a leadership team, obviously marketing and myself and others, and Matt Donnelly, who's a go to market and product specialist.So it was very much a case of I work closely with Chris O'Connor, our M&A director,
I've fed a pipeline of people I'd love to buy, and then it's Chris's job to go and convince them that we should buy them.And then my role has been very heavily about bringing the eLay team into the fold and working closely with them.
Myself and Nick Thompson and others reproductized the full RecoS offering from siloed sales teams around each product. to now that it's fully integrated across that front, middle and back office.
So now if a client comes to access recruitment, like you're going to look holistically at their tech stack and say, right, and these are the things we can do.And this is absolutely different packages based on how much or little of it you need.
What we've done is we'll come up with a really aggressive pricing model that even if you don't have a website, even if you don't need your website contractors up in 12, 18 months,
we have a low barrier or no barrier to entry to make that happen as part of this project.
We've got a lot of customers that will come in and look at their Ecos and understand why they should have it all, but we'll agree that over that first 12, 18 months that we contract them in at different points, and that allows us to then roll the key component out and not overwhelm.
And then we put a plan, a strategic plan in place with our account management team and our projects teams to roll that out in a successive plan of REC OS delivery.Some people go all out and go all big bang yesterday, this morning, actually.
An example, customer moved from one of our legacy products, been on there for 10, 15 years, and has gone all in on the REC OS.Vinceri is, of course, CRM, Ely across all of that tech stack, and amongst other parts of the product and platform as well.
That's a large organization.If you got the whole shebang, what would it look like? It would look like, it could look like many things because certain people need certain parts of it, but it would look like Volcanic website with chatbot technology.
It would look like Vinceri or Access Recruitment CRM, depending if you're high volume temp, like construction temp, healthcare, or Vinceri for perm contract temp as well.
With Elay sitting across all of it, it could also then look like FastTrack Pay and Bill, or a TimeTemp solution. dependent on the needs and it would literally be a rip out and start again.
So rather than have CRM and then all these other suppliers, they don't always really have a fully, like Medi has access to our private API.
Many of these other providers will not, and that's by nature because they're not owned by the same provider, so you can't give them the keys to the castle, right?
So you lose real estate, you lose functionality when you integrate, whereas what we have is every product sits directly inside our private API.So it's a seamless flow from start to finish.
So Elay, is that a separate standalone product as well?If someone... Everything can be bought as an individual product.So we could say someone just needs this.
Yeah, totally.And then it's like, right, we'll look at that first.Absolutely.So you could buy just Elay, you could buy just Volcanic, you could buy just Fincherry, just ARCRM, just Fastrack, you could buy all some of the pieces.
But what we've done is we've built out a pricing model which allows incentivize higher purchase, of course, right, but it allows you to have an aggressive pricing model for the thing or the parts and the pieces that you need.
Okay.Well, I'd say one thing I've been speaking about is automation.I think at the recent Expo, were you at the one in London, Nick?Were you there?No, I wasn't there, no.
There was about 17 folk there, I think.I would have just been overkill if I turned up.
I think automation was just a buzzword.AI and automation were just the buzzwords of the event.It was like every single vendor seemed to be promoting that.
And I kind of stood up there and was a bit like, well, for a lot of people, I just think you're missing a trick if you're not building your own LinkedIn account.You know, you've been doing it for years, Nick, right?
You know you've built a, that's why we all know each other from this. What do you think the market feels about automation?What are the highs and lows?What are the questions you get asked?
What fears do people have and how can they navigate this big, messy space in the best possible way?
I actually liken it to the term video back in 2018 because we were a buzzword which you had to convince people was the right thing for the investment, because they didn't have an alternative.You weren't replacing a CRM.
You were telling them this new video technology was the thing that was going to drive sales or drive engagement.And it's very, very similar.No one really understood that.Then it got to a point where it was like, oh, we need video.What do you mean?
I don't really know.I just know that everyone's telling me I need video.And it's very, very similar to that.So people are scared.They don't actually know how to apply it.People, there's an unknown about what it actually is.So to some,
And we've got a meeting later, which is a good example of this.To some, it is generative AI basically saying, make me a picture of that, right?
And to others, it is, I want a deep large language model that I can ask questions to my database, and it will read and understand my database, and it will give me an action or a suggested action or multiple options.
And there are so many, it's just such a wide and transparent journey that we yet haven't defined where people are at in the journey.
So people are either, some people are diving in too deep, and then they're just lost, and they're just, I don't know what to do with this, so we'll back off, and you've lost them for a period of time.
And some people are dipping their toes in the water and not seeing the value because actually they're not applying it in the right way.So my feelings are there is a deep need for education across what actual
real life examples are for recruiters to where it offers benefit.And in my opinion, it's not necessarily just the chat GPT style, write me a message.It's actually more, it's wider and deeper than that as to where the value comes.
And it's providing deep insight into the data that you own as an organization to make better informed decisions with data more confidently.
Yeah.I think that as well, it's about stages.Like people get overwhelmed because it's this big buzzword and it's like, you know, people are a bit of a rabbit in the head.That's what I saw at that event.People were just walking around like,
analysis frightening me a lot.I think we need to break it into really logical steps.First look at your database and put in this one automation and see the impact.Will you be able to do that with people?
Will you be able to work with them to say, right, yeah, you've got Elay now, but here's the actual roadmap of what to do.And again, almost put the brakes on a little bit.
So that was one of the- I generally think too many things too soon is a problem for most people.
Yeah, totally.But you see that with every tech implementation, too much too soon.One of the things that impressed me most last year was when we first got Eli as a team before Eli was part of the business was, I'll shout out Leah Dolan specifically.
She was very proactive and encouraging us what to do and what not to do.Looking at our account proactively and saying, you're not doing this and you should, or I think you're doing too much. and you're going to overwhelm yourself and your team.
So that's one of the things I've been impressed with most.
And with Medi still owning, I keep using keys to the castle and I don't know why, it's a buzz phrase of the day, I think, but with Medi still having the keys to the castle, driving the product roadmap, driving the growth of the team and the development of that whole structure right now, and for the foreseeable, nothing changes.
So that tailored human approach to Good advice, bad advice, best practice, bad practice is still something that we're seeing with customers that are rolling out.
What do you think is coming next?So if you see automation playing out, this might be a better question for you, Mehdi.Automation over the next few years, what is the future going to look like?What is the most obvious thing that you see coming?
I think in the next two to three years, I think definitely the involvement of the generative AI technology things like chat GPT in products that we have or are using on a daily basis state, I think is definitely what's going to come.
You look at all the vendors or the major companies or the large solutions that everyone has, chat GPT is, you know, becoming a part of the products as standard.
Now, you know, we open teams and Slack and it's like, Hey, there's a new generative AI, you know, assistant here.So I think that's definitely to come.And I think really that's where the market will be.
I think comfortably for the next, at least two, three years, obviously depending what happens after that and what new technologies arrive.
But I think, yeah, if you're seeing a solution at the moment, then definitely you'll see some kind of generative AI or some AI system become a part of that solution natively going forward.
Interesting, interesting.Okay, so Nick, if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, you know, I've been listening to The Rag for a long time.Vinceri has obviously been promoted consistently.
Now, we've brought in a bit of a conversation about Volcanic and Diversely and all these different products.Why should they, in your opinion, reach out to Access and have a conversation?
What's going to be the ultimate benefit of interacting with your team and going through this REC OS exploration?
Yeah, totally.Really, really good question that we're being asked a lot right now.But ultimately, to reiterate the point that
What I see and what we see is a market that is fatigued with one vendor and its marketplace and the lack of real estate that that then provides.
What we also see is people that want a core CRM, never mind the rest of their platform, but they want a core CRM that will continue to disrupt and develop.
And they want a platform that is always going to move forward, not sit stagnant and rely on people building other tools in order for their core CRM to become valuable. And I think a lot of the market feel that way.
And Access as an organization, whilst being 8,000 staff globally across 10 divisions, we are a small division and a very agile scale-up and startup-minded business that is going at pace to buy up and give our customer.
One, our Trustpilot score sits just shy of five over the last year.We are absolutely focused on customer service and how we get it right for the customer. It's our entire FY 24, 25 mantra.
And what people want is a flow of data and a scalable solution that means they never have to leave, but can grow their tech as they grow their business.Then access and venturi and the request has got to be a consideration.
Yeah, it makes it just makes it makes perfect sense.And if people can get in with you early and scale with the products,
They're almost future-proofing their business because they're like, well, we're into this ecosystem now and we've got the confidence that the vision from Access Recruitment is that they're going to provide us with all the points that we need to build the business in one place rather than having to go to multiple vendors.
Our partnerships and our integration pipeline is really, really exciting.There's going to be an enormous amount of noise coming out of us in the next 12 months across.
continued development on the products that we have in the stack, but also things we're going to bring into the fold.
And genuinely, there's got to be a reason that I left a really thriving, growing, exciting product to come to Access at the time that I did.
And it's because I fully and deeply buy into the concept of one recruitment operating system with the best tech in the market and the best minds in the market.
How many people are there in the recruitment side of Access?
I think there are probably about just over 200 of us as a full organization.That's split across Australia, UK, and Vietnam, which is predominantly the Vinnie team, right?From there, but yeah, we're about 210 maybe, 220.
And Mehdi, how many people was in your business when you got acquired?
I think we had about 22, 23.Wow.So we've been going quite rapidly.
So that must be a real change.Real change.
Yeah.I mean, everyone feels like there's a lot more structure and process around things now, which I think being a startup was like all over the place, but yeah.
Are you long-term seeing yourself involved here?Like obviously Helen McGuire was really open when she was acquired that her journey's different.She's not, you know, she's still involved, but not nowhere near the level she was.
There's people taking that product on now.What's your vision personally within the group?
Absolutely.No, I think my vision is definitely long-term. My main responsibilities will be to essentially lead the sort of automation and AI and generative AI charge within the access recruitment side of things going forward.Yeah.
So my main responsibilities will still be kind of you to speak with customers, build the roadmap, build the products, release them, make sure that, you know, we're sort of delivering those capabilities across all the products moving forward.
So yeah, I think vision is definitely long-term and yeah, very, very excited and it's been very busy, so it's been good.
Exciting.Guys, thanks so much for your time.It's nice to put faces now.I think what we've been trying to do as a group, myself attached to the AXS group for the last 6-12 months, is bring out some of them faces.Odro, you, Dougie,
Even Gianni, the faces alongside Ryan were so prevalent.Even the early Vincere, the faces were there.And I think the access felt a bit faceless.
And I think we're now... Nick's done a phenomenal job at facing... I love what he said in my most recent episode with him.He goes,
At some point, I'm going to stop apologizing for things and we're going to start talking about the success because he knows what, he's not hiding from the fact there's been some hiccups, but we're trying to build something big and impressive and it's part of the journey.
So having Elay diversely, all these faces coming out, I think is only making the brand feel more accessible.I mean, access group, it should feel accessible for all.And that's what we're on a mission to do.
100% and really appreciate the support and the partnership that you give us too.
You've been a huge platform for us to bring those faces forward and share the vision because one of the things like, and I'm not the guy to go into the past, but there was just, no one has shared the story of what's happened in the last couple of years at Access and how different things are and how different things will become and you've been a huge platform for us.
So we're super grateful and I personally really, really appreciate your partnership with us.
Pleasure.Guys, thanks so much.If anyone wants to speak to you guys about the platform, Nick, I think you're the best person to reach out to, right?Yeah, reach out to me.
I mean, reach out to Mehdi, reach out to myself, however, but you'll find me on LinkedIn.I'm obnoxiously on your timeline very regularly, so you won't struggle to find me if you search my name.
Love it.Guys, thanks so much, and we'll get you back on again in the future, okay?Cheers.All the best.Thanks again. Thank you as always for listening to today's show.I truly hope that you got value from it.
Honestly, it's the only reason I take time every week to ensure that my audience, you guys, future and existing recruitment owners, you're learning from each other to make this industry that I love so much stronger.
And today's episode is brought to you by my business, Hoxho.I'm the CEO and founder, and we're on a mission to help brand recruitment agencies and their people better.
I want to help people have the tools to stand out in the most competitive markets in the world.
We're currently working with over 350 recruitment agencies and 5,000 of their consultants right now, helping them to build their personal brands, to consistently win more business, attract talent, and just become that go-to recruiter in the market.
Now, we do have a huge coaching program, but a lot of people don't know, we also manage the brands of a lot of founders, and we can do the rebrand of that company organizational piece as well.
So if your recruitment agency either needs help to look and sound exactly how you want it to,
or your leadership and consultant level need to get out there and drive more traffic back to that website, to the business and start using LinkedIn to generate more revenue, then you should definitely be reaching out to us.
If that sounds of interest, please do visit www.hoxomedia.com or drop me, Sean, a personal message on LinkedIn.I love hearing from RAG listeners.I would love to talk to you.I look forward to it.So I'll see you again next week with another episode.
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