 this is Dr. Nancy. Today we're having our first episode of behind-the-scenes interviews. Today it's our pleasure to have Luis Adam Stunston from Darwin Recruitment. How are you, Luis? Very well, thank you. Thanks for having me Nancy. Yeah, very glad to have you as our very first guest. Awesome. So when I talk about the series as behind-the-scenes is that lots of candidates today are looking for jobs or on the other side of the table there's lots of experienced candidates, lots of recruiters reach out to them. People are quite confused on the other side of the table. What's behind-the-scenes? How does this things operate and how can youths have more information helping them to understand the decision-making process and eventually improve the chance of being employed by the right employer. So therefore today we are very lucky to have Luis in the audience with us today. Okay, so Luis can you tell us more about Darwin Recruitment and how are you guys different from other recruiting firms? So I'll introduce Darwin Recruitment briefly. Darwin Recruitment has been running for almost 19 years now. Actually really successfully in Europe. We have multiple office locations in Amsterdam, we have offices in Munich, Switzerland and just outside of London in Essex and in 2016 we decided to go international, which is basically where I come in. We opened our first office in Boston. Oh, the first one in Boston? Right in the WeWork building right? Right here in downtown Boston guys. So our job really is to help people within the technology sector find new opportunities and then vice versa for the businesses, for the clients who are looking for very niche types of profiles within the space. You know we go out there and we actually head on those specific profiles. Whether that be only the kind of active or the passive markets just depends on the type of skills that they're looking for. Awesome. Okay, so you can also help me to understand the recruiting process. As you mentioned you have been in the space for 19 years. So what does it look like to recruit the best candidate behind the scenes? Remember? One thing I don't think there's any reinventing the process. To be a good recruiter at the very least you have to be good at the process. So it can go two ways really. You know if someone's looking for an opportunity what we tend to do is speak to the individual, understand them from a personal perspective, try to understand what their technical skills are. Firstly talk about the businesses that they're working with at the moment and then to think forward and think about who else we could then market them to. So obviously if they're working for one business and there's some obvious competitors, naturally there's a very good opportunity for us to reach out to those businesses and say hey look we've got this person, this is what they like from a personal perspective, these are the technical skills and this is where they're working right now. Normally that's the swiftest and smoothest transition. You can take one person from one deal and put them into another and in terms of the process really it goes from a speaking to the candidate identifying those things, spending time then going out and identifying businesses that they might be interested in or attracted to based on that conversation, identifying who the right hiring managers are or who the right people in the recruitment teams are to then actually create an opportunity for us to take their profile, the notes that we've made and pitch them to the business and then from there in an ideal world they will be interested in having a further conversation with a candidate. At which point we would then reach back out to the candidate, schedule times for interviews, work as closely as we can firstly to understand the business so then educate the candidate as much as we can about that business so they're prepared for their interview. Once they've had the interview we debrief the candidates, talk about their experiences, relay those to both the client and the candidate from both sides and then we pretty much manage that process right up to the point where in an ideal world they're going on site they do really well and then they get an offer. We're here to help also through the offer management process so we've been doing this for many years. It's kind of a taboo subject because people don't really know how hard they can push. What I have noticed in the market though is the money is often a byproduct of the interview process so if you present yourself well and you show that you've got the right skills it's very rare that you'll find a business will under offer or they come in at a ridiculously high value. They're very conscious of the market, they're very aware of what's right and what's different profiles but we're here to help in the negotiation process and then that's once you actually secure the position for these guys it doesn't stop there. So actually post our services is probably the most important part so once someone starts in a role making sure that their first week's great, their first month's great, any challenges they come across we kind of act as a third party almost like a mediator between the business and the candidate so if there's things that we can improve on or change to make sure that they're happy in their role we're here to do that and then from a business perspective you know if we give them a great service hopefully if it comes around that they're looking for an opportunity in the future or they have friends that we you know we're here to help moving forward as well so it's it's a pretty intense process there's a lot that goes on behind closed doors and actually you think that we kind of just sit here making loads of money and you know we're living these great life. Yeah it's challenging. So tell me tell me more about what makes it so challenging was because you're not able to find the perfect candidate so qualified or there are so many competitions in the market can help them to find that specific job that we really love. I think there's probably multiple reasons why it's challenging. One thing I would say is you could probably relate to being as a product manager yeah when you have a product you understand product and you know how it works right yeah except our product changes its mind we work with people. Oh yes the people is a product exactly because it could be anything from you know you just wake up in the morning and change your mind and decide you don't want to go for this interview and that happens or it could be that another company comes in with a fantastic offer that you never saw coming or you never thought was going to happen and we're here in the background trying to manage all of these things and these expectations both from the candidate and the client side so that as a recruiter is a real challenge you know we're doing this with not just one person at any one given time it could be 10-15 people we have in a process at any one time with with five different businesses so every single process has a slightly different challenge going on so there's a lot that we try and do to make everybody feel comfortable and it is interesting to hopefully get some some of this out there and people to realize that that it you know we are being challenged and we are trying to do our best to help you so one of the one things that I would ask and that that I think would solve a lot of problems is just clarity and transparency and conversations and the relationships that we're trying to build you know if there's something you're not happy about tell me because I can exactly do something about it the same thing as for the as a product management space we talk about doing customer feedback right customer survey so you're doing the same thing so that you can do your own mpv and do pivot and learn from it yeah absolutely absolutely and and at the end of the day look we are trying to find you the best opportunity for you because quick wins just aren't they sound great on paper and okay we might get paid quickly but the chances are you won't be happy in your role you won't stay for long and you probably won't use us again so I want to listen to what you you want to find what you're interested in and where you want to go I want you to find a job and stay there for the long term oh I love that that's important to us not only from a personal perspective because it makes me want to come back the next day to work but also from a financial perspective you know we we make more money as recruiters just being very open if we find people with the perfect roles and the roles that they're interested in that they stay long term exactly so something you mentioned earlier let me catch this which really triggers something different from most people thought is that for example today is my personal speaking on my personal experience every week a recruiter reached out to me only then you're saying oh we have a new job here and there sounds like what you did was you go in to identify is this the right time for me to work with or not then you build relationship with him or her then you give her five options is that how it works well it could be it just depends on what their skills are so one thing I didn't mention is that the way our business and our team are set up is that each individual consultant has a specialism a technology specialism so in my case I look after AI data science machine learning so when I'm contacting certain people I'm running searches based on their skill set within that technology protocol so I already know the space in terms of which businesses are looking and typically I'll pick a bunch of clients that they might be interested and then we talk through them on an individual basis yeah I love that great so just another tip for people in the in the audience and in front of our videos today is that in general for my personal experience not all the recruiters that were just checking with you all the time from my personal experience let's say 10 percent of the recruiters reached out to me after I said no or I am not interested they stopped 10 percent yeah only 90 percent stopped and 10 percent of them like when you mentioned and actually there's another woman say every half a year whatever just follow up oh they she's like sincerely took the notes of what I said and came back a year later or half a year later when there is a right trigger point for me to consider new opportunities or looking for new challenges that's something very unique for you guys I like that I think so I think like when people as well right yeah although we're titled recruiters and sometimes tarnish with a brush that doesn't you know always gives us the best impression but I much prefer working and finding friends jobs and I try and create relationships of the people I work with to the point where you know a year down the line I'm going for a beer with them and we're not even talking about work you know that that for me is a great sense of achievement when you can get to that point so we are trying our best to help and I think it's just if we're giving back and forth in this industry and we're transparent that's where we're going to make the most progress yeah so that my advice would be you know if you do find a recruiter you like be transparent with them don't hide anything they're only asking for information and questions and stuff like that because they want to create the best opportunity for you we work on your behalf for free by the way yeah I know until you really land the job the perfect job for us got you okay let's talk about the transparent part which lots of my students ask me this question regarding when do you tell the recruiter the salary expectations so because I teach negotiation people always come to me should I tell them they ask me how much my assumption is for the recruiting company I work with I should be very transparent referring my expectations how much I'm getting paid right now right again it's a bit it's a subject for some people don't want to talk about these things I understand that what do you think well in order for us to be able to negotiate for you on your behalf we do need to notice things it helps I've placed people where we hadn't discussed salary until the very last literally the very last moment but then when the client comes in and doesn't offer the salary that they were hoping for and then they go what happened and I'm like well you didn't tell me so how could I ever prep the client because we're we're not only managing you we manage the client's expectations exactly so my advice would be be transparent you know we're we're not out there throwing your salary around and showing everyone what it is it's literally for us to be able to make sure that we negotiate for you my advice would just be transparent build trust and trust that our recruiter is there to help you look I can't talk on behalf of all recruiters but I think that's the best way to go yeah exactly and actually just also same thing as you cannot speak on behalf of all the recruiters I cannot speak on behalf of all the hiring managers so I hire product managers but in general when I work with my other candidates my client working with negotiations in general I encourage them to share with headhunters their salary expectations and later on with the hiring company it's a different strategy but with head hunter who's a middleman I really encourage transparency upfront yeah that's something I agree with as well okay so my next question is now we have seen thousands tens of thousands I don't know how many of thousands candidates what do you think can make them stand out and what are your client looking for it's because a two-way like transaction like matchmaking in my in my case right is that the employers let's say technology companies so many of AI companies out there we have stack of 10 candidates what do I choose a 10 who stands out and you have representing them before so what's behind the scenes who stands out I guess it's dependent on there's a lot of variables industry technology level of skill I feel like one of the key things that would make you stand out once you're in the process at the very least is self-awareness so if you don't know how to do something that's okay but showing that you're self-aware of something you're good at and something you're not good at and understanding the process of learning yeah so so being able to say okay well I might not get this now I might not be as good now but I understand for me to get good this is what steps I would need to follow yeah I think that takes anyone who might have almost got the job because they wasn't self-aware to get the job in my opinion now that's not to say that that's going to be the solution for everybody certainly the way that I'm used in in the recruitment process by businesses if they're looking for a real high-level data scientist with a very niche set of skills that isn't always going to be the case so it could be a specific set of skills that you have you don't and if you don't have them sometimes it's just not going to happen we get paid a lot of money for what we do yeah which is you know which is why often we don't necessarily work on more entry level roles there are recruitment businesses out there to do that yeah we're a slightly higher advanced exact search company in that sense but um yeah my one piece of advice would be just be self-aware if you work with a good recruiter I wouldn't worry about standing out my job is to make you stand out yeah and the difference between me making you stand out and you applying yourself is when you apply yourself you're going to end up on the bottom of a thousand cbs when you work with a good recruiter who has relationships in businesses I'm going to call the higher manager directly yeah talking through the conversation that we've had and then I'm because hopefully the higher manager trusts me when I say this is someone you need to speak to because they're going to have that conversation with you yeah exactly so from the employer's perspective I work for one of the top 20 not like the fortune 20 tech I work for the fortune 20 tech company I'm also a hiring manager I hire product managers so lots of time when we hire candidates there are several existing relationships like what you described the the recruiting company they will call us ahead of time and we tell them this I'm looking for we try candidate abc didn't work make sure you do this so that you can actually it's a wing wing so that we can tell you exactly works what doesn't work so that you can always bring me the best candidate so save time for everybody the time's money right if you're spending time looking through resumes that aren't relevant that's not good for anybody so yeah as much as we're trying to build a relationship and trust with a candidate we do the same with a hiring manager and a smooth process is a happy process for everybody involved yeah exactly very cool so sounds like if you are senior exactly level you should work with a third party recruiters personal opinion not I'm this is not sponsored video by the way yeah so final question to you Lewis is do you have any success stories that you can share with us I mean there's there's many success stories and there's there's many unsuccessful stories some are some are quite interesting some are quite funny tell me the exciting interesting story I would want more more more one that stands out than anything that I think for a sense of fulfillment in that we found the gentleman the role but also we did way more that now has led us to be friends and you know like I said we got the beers together so we found a candidate for a client an e-commerce business that we support in in Boston by chance we came across this gentleman in Australia and I'm not sure if everybody knows but actually it's quite an easy transfer from Australia to America I don't know it's so hard for me to move here I'm from China by the way guys different story it's a very similar process to be in Canada you know you you turn up to the emcee with a job offer and they go okay call us 50 bucks and you're on a plane over to the destination but there's always way more moving parts when it comes to people that are slightly more experienced or slightly older whatever it might be in that you might have children you might have a family you might be having other things that that might create variables in that sense and this gentleman had a wife and a kid in order for them to move we don't just work with the individual we found a job for by the way you know you have to consider family in this case she worked in the medical space Boston great place for that yeah yeah so we reached out to a bunch of different medical organizations hospitals literally told them the the spill about you know we've got a guy who just found a job we're not actually looking to place this woman there's no fee involved we just need to find her an opportunity to come in and interview with you guys got you so you place her without charging a fee at all no yeah wow in charity um the reason being is is there really isn't any you know there's no upside for us picking up a hospital we're a tech focus we group business we started picking up jobs for nurses and doctors and stuff this we can't fill those roles yeah so it was more a case of you know we're supporting this gentleman um and this is part of us supporting him um we introduced into a bunch of real estate agents as well um we created some opportunities to go and see apartments that were wow budget um and then when we got here you know we we literally showed him around Boston um we had a great experience it's a summer or winter it's in summer right right time we are we are helpful but not as good for winter no but um but no it's become a good friend of us now and um okay like we've got paid for the process but it was actually the sense of filming at the end of it where the guy constantly calls us up and tells us how much for a great experience he's had and how much he's enjoying his time in Boston and I know that if anyone ever asks him again to potentially look for an opportunity or if they were looking for an opportunity I know he's going to reach out to us so from a long-term business perspective you know that's that's going to pay difference yeah I like that you just move the whole family to Boston it sounds like a end-to-end process that's when we launch technology product you don't just sell our product hope for the best yeah and it's our best no tech no support nothing actually is just quite relevant to our product management as you mentioned earlier and like end-to-end support and also continue to provide value sometimes the value is free value but people just always remember your brand and they will always come back I love that awesome okay great so this is the end of our interview session if you like similar kind of interviews to see the behind the scenes theory please leave me a comment give me a thumb up a thumb up and also really appreciate your time watching this video really means a lot to us to me and the lewis hopefully you can have great success in your job hunting or negotiation process thank you everyone this is dr. Nancy bye