How are we aligning ourselves to employers? EP-15

Hello and welcome back to the Skills Provision podcast. On today's episode, we are discussing about how we as a business believe we are aligned to supporting employers, both in recruitment, but also in many other ways, and how we feel as a business we're aligning to service employers in the best way we possibly can. On today's podcast, there is myself, Francesca, and there's also Pete. Hi. If you haven't already done so, we ask that you, like, share, subscribe if the platform you are listening on allows you to do so. If not, follow us, subscribe if there is that opportunity to do so. We are available on YouTube, on our website, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. You can find us in many different areas. So how do we as a business top level align ourselves to employers? Well, one of the things that is openly out there, and I believe, and I think we all believe, is that we aim to get the right people into the right jobs on a recruitment side of things. But it is by utilizing the technology that we have and the processes we have in place that enable us to do so. Pete, do you want to further expand on just that kind of strap line, if you will? Certainly, yes. The fundamental aim of skills provision is to develop the business around a fully functional international employment network, providing support and services to all employers, regardless of their sector or location, eventually becoming sort of a one stop shop for employment needs, which will vary dramatically. And we'll cover during this podcast in terms of what we are currently doing, currently offering the development of the network, how it's building, where we are in that cycle, where we're going next, and support lines offered. Brilliant. Now, I kind of want to start this podcast in a slightly negative way, in the sense of what are common challenges that we in the industry see, but also from an employer's perspective, what are the challenges that they have when it comes to working with a recruitment agency, and just maybe some of the ways that we believe we navigate and get over these hurdles. So one of the first things is that recruiters don't really understand the industry that perhaps the client is working in. And so one of the things that we are really clear on is that we like to have a good in depth discussion with clients to make sure we understand exactly what they're looking for in terms of their job descriptions, which is obviously just one part of it, but get to know the wider remit as far as their requirements, and understanding that not everything that is written there is necessarily the be all, end all, but there are wider aspects in terms of them fitting into a business and the transferable skills that they might have. So we are really big in terms of when we showcase the candidates to an employer, making sure that we're giving them a wide variety when they're placed into the client zone that allows them to view this. Pete, you've got a really good example from your previous work history about where those that are perhaps best fit on paper aren't always necessarily those that will do the best job. Yeah, well, quite a few examples where my son's gone into different areas and performed exceptionally well, whereas under normal circumstance only due to massive shortages, because of his age in experience, he was taken on and did especially well in Kosovo, the best local we had someone like 40 locals working with us for us was. And I was managing these people via an interpreter mainly, which is quite entertaining. Interesting job. Six months over there was the best engineer who kept everyone on his door and I didn't realize it stuck with me a good while to work out who the guy actually was, was the number one aircraft engineer technician in the country who was all of a sudden fixing vehicles and managing all the locals. Obviously he had the benefit of being able to speak the lingo, which we didn't was amazing. Probably one of the best mechanics I've ever seen in my life. Dual trained, probably trained in that many areas. Unbelievable. But probably in his mid 50s, something like that. But primarily aircraft. And the number one aircraft technician within albanian national. And it's a very important subject and one we probably touch on as we go through the podcast is suitability. And this area of recruitment that you touch on, which is very important. And sometimes where the employer, the HR are too close, they're too rigid, they've been told it strictly has to be someone has to be like ticking all the boxes from the job description, whereas the best worker may not hardly tick any of the boxes that are on the job description. So there is an element of availability, who's available in the market, training skills and mainly, I believe in a lot of areas, attitude and loyalty, which are massive. It's going to be the best worker in the world. But if you're gone in three months and you cause a massive vacuum when you've left, well, how good were you anyway? And that's normally the case in terms of groupman. It's time to find those qualities of adaptability, capability, loyalty, willing to stick it out when it's more than just pay. I was going to say, you can't just always have these tick box things of they have this certificate, they have this qualification, because that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be able to apply themselves in the best way or be able to rise to the occasion or show the resilience, perhaps, that they need in a role. Absolutely. My wife worked in various military establishments, NATO headquarters went into, when she left the military, applied for a job as a HR manager for a company. And we're probably the only candidate on the pile that didn't have, I think it's CIPD, something like that qualification, and she got the job. So it's like she probably, under normal circumstances, first one to be discarded. But actually, if you looked closer at personal qualities, history, would be loyal, would be willing to work late, would be willing to travel, would be just willing to give and based on performance, based around dedication and professionalism, then she was good fit, and then she went in there and did a very good job. Which is obviously the problem that I find in recruitment from the employer recruiter standpoint, which is complicated, is the recruiter has nothing to lose, as in, they place the wrong people into the wrong position at the wrong time, they get paid. What's the comeback? The comeback can actually be if the recruiter is lucky, that they get to replace someone else. So get paid twice, three times over for failure, basically, which is quite unique circumstances where the HR, well, they might make a hash of placing and they may be involved. That's why we work with people rather than we're not controlling. But if we're pushing the wrong people forward, there's a good possibility the wrong people will be selected. Absolutely. We don't have to answer three months down the road, if the ten people we've placed, six have left, why does it bother us? We were paid long gone. We're not even involved anymore. And this is probably why there are many problems within recruitment and various elements of the game where the hierarchy, the board of directors are looking and think we can save a fortune if we hire the right people. How do we hire the right people? Get an agency. I believe it's probably one that get an agency involved that actually fundamentally care about who they're placing and are answerable retrospectively. Performance bonuses and all this kind of stuff. A lot of the time with recruitment, when you place someone, it's about. You generally don't place people that are unsuitable. No. You want your head even depending if they're not skilled or something, there's capability will be there. It's longevity and post. Yeah. You're here to alleviate problems, not cause them. Yeah. And it's this thing of how do you make sure that someone stays pushing people forward that will stay in post for a period of time? The answer, actual answer is you can't because circumstance, but you can mathematically improve the chances by drilling down and looking at history where people have worked prior. You can have someone that's ex military, that's fundamentally loyal to the cause of such, or an employer, or they've only had four jobs since I left school 30 years ago, this kind of thing. Or they shop and change five times a year and you're like, cool, how long is he going to be here? And then you ought to get look and feel when that's just the initial part, the filter. And then you start getting a look and feel, which I actually believe can be, and we have to be more probably an area we have to improve on. And all recruiters is almost like setting traps, because what you find is the people that are not that good in the workplace. Think about all the workplaces I've been involved in. The ones that are just not that good at what they do are the best blaggers. So it's hard to see through them. And it's almost like their strength is their brain power in terms of how they're able to bluff and blag. And these can get into all kinds of positions. I know people that are involved in all kinds, I know they're useless people, fundamentally lazy, but they probably don't show it and it's not highlighted. They get other people to do the donkey work, that kind of thing. Technical friendships and alliances. Drilling all this down in recruitment is very difficult because a lot of the time the quality workers are not unemployed. So you've got to be very careful or they don't want to move jobs. And then who are you selecting? Set traps. And that's just not for the recruiter, for HR, for employers as well, is be massively careful in it. Probably be along the lines of take hire with trial, with you to full time after three to six months, something like this, where at least you can pick a lip. You're not going straight in bang permanently, which is good, but when there's not many workers out there, well, that's not ideal because. No, exactly. And it's a circumstantial thing. You can't help in every scenario, it doesn't work, but where you can, it's a good idea. And I think that's also something you kind of touched on is from the company side, is also being aligned as to what they're looking for because obviously from my perspective, I'm often dealing with either maybe the talent acquisition or the human resources team, but obviously that worker does not work directly for them. And it's having that understanding of what HR are looking for. Does that actually service the needs of what the role is, what the manager of that position needs? So the head of engineering has said he wants a mechanical design engineer. HR have got this description, but actually there's certain key aspects that the head of engineering wants and they're not mentioned in something, and then they don't have these sort of things. And it's really important to be aligned, which is why we try to include, and obviously we understand it's challenging. All businesses face challenges, but trying to get those that are involved in the decision making process aligned at the beginning and make sure that they are involved so they are aware of exactly what they're looking for. And that way we are completely transparent, and that way we hopefully aim to minimize the chances of failure and churn and everything like that to ensure that we are offering the best support possible to the employers. And the other thing that I think we do do well, to help present a more well rounded view of candidates, as you say, Pete, about the wider skills, is gathering those additional bits of information from candidates and things such as an introductory video to give them a chance. Because not everyone's CV is going to be the best cv you've ever seen. But someone, when you give them the chance to explain, might be able to sell themselves in such a way that actually it shows that they understand. But just because they're not necessarily super techie when it comes to making the most beautiful looking cv, they can often get bypassed. And sometimes from our perspective, it's just also advising to look beyond just what you see written down and try and look at the bigger picture. There are certainly loopholes and areas to exploit, and I've done some clever work, even incorporated artwork onto my son's CV, especially working in the oil and gas as a contractor, because he's young and inexperienced, but developing work done on the CV presentation, adding logos for the companies that he'd worked on, things that his peers wouldn't do, probably because of the skill set. They're more artisan, hands on, less techie computer, highly skilled on a computer that he's been picked up a lot of the times. His CV stands out, big time stands out, and the proof of the puns in the eating and the jobs he's been around the world working, you think such a young age. The big part of that, obviously him, his ability, the jobs he's been on. But it's the presentation of the CV and this which you can never give to someone. The being bothered part. I'm going to spend 5 hours just working on the presentation of my cv. Why? Massively important. Going to put some nice bordering on there bit of artwork. Beautiful. The best portrait image I can have that showcases me well. And the words not just a cut and paste from 5000 other online cvs that drive a connection with potential employers. And all comes from where probably the online bit neutralizes it, probably a little bit is just being bothered enough because things just have to be so fast, so easy, so quick. Tick, tick, tick, done. Tick, tick, tick. Cup control, paste, bam, bang bang, done. Or what's the quality attached to that? And this is where job seekers need to be more aware. I would imagine, especially if they've got 20, 30, 40 years left of employment, that it's not time wasted, it's good time, it's time invested, isn't it? The more effort you take to put into something, hopefully the reward will be there. Obviously we are in a very difficult time in many places, many countries, many industries where competition is high or lack of candidates is high. So it's a real melting pot of issues currently. But we're doing our best to try and help support the employers and job seekers in terms of fulfilling their needs. You may come across people that cross section where let's say on paper those three are a seven and those three are a five, four, fives. But in reality the people, they know it as well, the sort of higher performing part, have the worst cvs, the worst profiles, the worst images, produce the worst videos and not that bothered because maybe ego and get well and truly taken over by their lesser counterparts because they're more hungry and more interested, they're just more keen and care more and they get the job. You must see plenty of that where people. It's like that. I think Chris, who's not with us today, is that part of our systems are perfect because it is part of self selection systems. You help yourself or you to. And I think you're completely right in terms of the way society in many ways has tried to be quick, easy, move things fast and there's a place for that. But it also then does mean that you question people's intent with things as to whether they're being serious about things and how much of it is their own work, how much of it is their own ideas, their experience versus what something has perhaps been generated and it's becoming harder and harder to tell between what is a genuine thing and what is something that maybe people have used Chat GPT for or different things. But there are some things where a job is such an important thing that making that effort when creating a profile, for example on our site is so important because as you always remind me, online is there for a long, long time and you've got potential employers looking in at you, that taking that extra hour to invest in your future is a small price to pay for the grand scheme of things, without a doubt. I have a team of people that work in validating profiles and they are very adept at spotting bot content and their remit is quite clear. Remove chunks of it like most of it, or delete. And the amount of people who sort of got managing director level that haven't got enough about them and God knows what to write about themselves in an engaging manner. So they just interchat GPT. You're producing where the problem is, the telltale words there, that where this content is originated from, we spot it, we remove it because it protects site and it's just from bad and it's just banged. What does it say about an individual? You get this one opportunity to shine to the employer, to get jobs that are right where you're going to be leading people, managing people, and the best you can do is going to Chat GPT and spend three minutes copying and pasting your own profile. It's almost like no one should employ these people. It's not showing the characteristics you necessarily want, is it? But what I was thinking in terms of taking this in the next direction is touching on points where I think, or we think that we as a business add value and then kind of expanding as to maybe potential changes that might come along those lines. Does that sound good to currently, and obviously I come from more of the recruitment side and Pete comes more of the technical online side. Just for those out there listening, if this is your first podcast. So Pete always says to me, and rightly calls me out about being sometimes a bit too wide and trap minded. So I'm sure he will pull me up in terms of maybe if I'm going too far down a rabbit hole. But thinking about it through the process of how we support the employers through their recruitment journeys with us, one of the first things that we are always doing with them is generating a job advert. If you haven't already done so, you can have a look on our website and you can see some of the adverts we've got on there and the way that we present them. Now, there are two main reasons why we do this. One, and Pete can expand on this further in just a second, is the online significance that we have with our job board and its popularity. And the second side is that it allows us to utilize our vast international database matching with our current registered candidates and also any potential candidates that come in into the future matching with those jobs. But Pete, from an online perspective, could you maybe just give the listeners out there, I don't know whether you want to give them statistics or numbers in terms of what our job board does and how that is in turn really helping the employer. I actually prefer to cover the job board in detail in the next section when we come to what we have. And basically I've got lists I've produced and breaking down the job board into elements that are coming soon that we're going to be developing on. One of them is related to the job board, which I will then go in detail of. Okay, the problem is I've got a very complicated subject, the job board. So I'd preferred I'll cover that in a few minutes and break that right down for people so they get more of an understanding of the technicalities of job boards, why job boards are cesspits, content farms, copy and paste city, and why they struggle with Google, bing and such like. So what people are paying for and what they're actually getting is quite skewed. So I'm going to break that right down and explain it step by step in terms of, okay, why people need to be more aware of what they're investing into. I guess that's the subject with job boards. Okay, no problem. Okay, so other things that I think we do to enhance value, or currently what we do as far as value for the employers with expanding slightly on the job board is then syndicating it across various different locations and across our social media network, which is continually growing and expanding thanks to the work that the technical team are doing. The international database is something else, as we call it, the profile database internally. But profiles is something that has allowed us to showcase to employers around the world the type of candidates that we have available from anything from doctors and nurses to engineers to factory workers. There are many different people that are registered on our database and it allows employers to be able to find and search for international workers that may be of interest to them. And I don't think we have or I can't think that there's another organization that has such a variety of people and that are all so actively wanting a new opportunity that we do. Would you agree, Pete? Certainly. The next thing that I think that we offer employers in terms of, for the process and supporting is that when we are gathering those initial, and I touched on it earlier, when we are screening, we are ensuring that we are being as ethical as possible when only removing candidates that do not meet the minimum requirements. And that is something that we're really keen on promoting, is that what are the essential requirements for a role? So obviously, say you're a doctor, there's obviously certain mandatory qualifications you're going to need. But when people come to us, especially with, say, technical roles, and there's a list of 50 different things that they want a candidate to have, the reality is, especially in this current market, that that is going to be a challenge. So really trying to highlight and grasp what are the key things that are needed to be essential, the essential things needed to be successful in this role and what are the desirables, so that we are showcasing a nice wide variety for our employers to ensure that they are getting a true reflection of what is out there. In addition, we're gathering supporting information such as videos, images of work, references where available, qualification, certifications. Video is becoming the most popular thing, especially in the international side, with overseas workers getting a chance to get a bit more of an idea and feeling of a candidate beyond just a cv, a piece of paper which can be redundant in a lot of ways. And then I think one of the biggest things from my side internally, but also based on the feedback we get externally, is when we then showcase them into the client zone. And the client zone is something for the employers. The reasons, and these are just a couple of the reasons that they've said that they've really found it useful, keeps everyone up to date, keeps everything in one place, it's secure, ensuring that we're not constantly bombarding with cvs on email and then you lose track. Has this person been looked at? It's a great way for employers to not only keep things up to date, but also for us internally, allowing us to help support the employers by being able to follow up and making sure that the process is flowing smoothly. So those are just some of my key highlights. Pete, what other areas do you think that we add value currently before we move on to what may come? Yeah, value provided to employers. I've got a list here. I was removing bits as you were covering them, is we utilize complicated algorithms to match jobs positions to people. Individual account managers are assigned, dependent on experience, suitability, utilize top quality copywriters in the development of adverts that will score heavily online. Safeguards are put in place which give peace of mind when placing discuss workforce integration and retention assistance with employers. It may be the first time they've gone into employing overseas workers, areas we're very experienced in and can offer fantastic advice to the employer. And finally, discretion and confidentiality is assured at all times. Brilliant. I think with regards to aligning with the employers, there's obviously always going to be little things or some things that one employer may want that another employer doesn't. But I think what we do offer is a good overall level of support to the employers across many different areas to ensure that we are supporting and making sure that the process goes as smoothly as possible. We're here to alleviate not, what's the right word, place additional stress, I suppose, on either the hiring team or whoever it may be, because we understand that and it's one of the things you said at the beginning is often the reason that they come to us is that they can't find people. So the last thing we're wanting to do is create additional stress. So in terms of then areas that we're looking to expand upon, I would quite like if we could, Pete, to start with the job board, or if you're happy to start with that area. Yeah, I've got a list of areas that we're looking to expand into and this is an area that I'm heavily involved in myself, so I can expand further. And obviously it's just a list of six. There are many just going to cover six areas that we may, could be, should be moving into in the future. Bear in mind we are developing the network, so it's always important to understand what we're trying to achieve. One stop shop. One stop shop for all employment needs. So my list post a job profile unlocking job seeker, premium services, corporate directory, interactive international mapping functionality, educational courses, both free and paid. So go back to the beginning. Post a job. Many years ago I started working on the skills provision project and understood that posting job adverts was going to be a massive part of the task. The website where strength would be gained, lost. And it would have to be an understanding, obviously doing competitor analysis, understanding job boards, understanding, basically understanding everything related to this and then concentrating on the positive, positives, discarding the negatives. And one of the things with job adverts, job boards primarily could be recruitment websites, is what are they actually uploading onto their website? A lot of the times it's a bastardized version of a job description, which is cop and paste, change a few words, bang it out there, copy another advert offline, change a few words, put it out there. Very little unique, anything has been banged out there. And also people don't realize and why indeed built so much of their strength online. First place of indexing has ownership as far as search is concerned. So you get a job advert, you upload it to your website and then you upload it to aggregators, syndicators, all this kind of stuff, cv, library, total jobs indeed, yada yada. And the next thing, because they're crawled almost instantly, your content, your job that's on your website but also added elsewhere, gets indexed quicker. Elsewhere and total jobs. Let's say you put a lot of your stuff in total jobs. All your content has been assigned as ownership to total jobs. You might as well start working for total jobs. You're making their site stronger and your own site weaker. Yeah. You're feeding their beast. Yeah. Not many people fully grasp this thing of. So how do you actually develop a powerful job board? One, you deal primarily, and it's difficult because of the roles and responsibilities within and within a job. There has a lot of similarities, let's just say. But a care worker, care worker working for a company, for a hospital or something in the United States, and a care worker working for a care home in the United Kingdom, there's going to be a lot of similarities. So you've got to be clever with wording. So the production of the advert needs to be done in a very clever manner. The SEO part of it, titling tags, needs to be on the ball and powerful. And then it's the attritional, keep doing it, keep adding the content, keep believing in the strategy that you've got. And then in time, and it takes time, it takes other years, what you find is that whilst the job boards are strangling themselves and suffocating themselves in a whole vat of a million and one pages of duplicate content, you're playing the game in clean content, powerful content, high scoring content. Then there's our job board. In comparison to a bespoke, which is our job board is part of the business, it's part of the online business, but it's only a small part, very powerful. But a small part is our small job board with like 800 jobs on it. All of a sudden individual jobs are outranking similar jobs on indeed total jobs. Here's a deck or read. Why? Because all they've ever done is cheat. They don't realize they're cheating. No one takes into account the traffic. And a lot of these places are not bothered about the traffic because they invest in digital ads. But still, not everything is. You can't cover every keyword in recruitment. You could have an infinitive budget and still miss out on some keywords. It could be 5 million keywords related to employment. So it's this thing of doing it right from the very beginning and believing in it. And that's where I was involved in and developed a job board that is massive, absolutely, unbelievably strong and powerful in terms of generating visibility. So I could write an advert today and tomorrow it will be near the top of Google and it will be attracting interest from related parties. That's not happened by fluke, anything like that. It's just by understand, by being technically clever, is how we generated that. And what we're going to do is we're going to move and add another layer to our services where we're going to allow employers with conditions attached. So we need to protect our board and assets. And by doing that, everyone benefits. So the game has to be played to our choosing. It won't be the just copy and pasting away. No, it will be the answer. And we've a very clever way of checking everything. So it's by dealing in unique content and by being clean, clever. More importantly, technically astute companies will post a job and find that they are highly visible, massively visible, and are generating interest from quality operators all around the world. Because obviously we have a massive international footprint which we'll get onto later. So this thing of, in many ways, the starting point was to find out what people were doing wrong. Online recruitment, which probably the hardest part was investing years into developing powerful systems, which we have in place now. Yeah. And developing that foundation is what you need, isn't it, from an online perspective, as you say to me all the time, is that if you don't have the key fundamentals to start with, it then becomes very hard to build anything from upon that. And we have reached that level, thanks to the work done by the technical team. So move on to. And we can come back to jobs if you like. Unlocking profiles, which is going to allow profile owners, our membership, basically to display their contactable details, videos uploaded to their profiles, so they will be advertising themselves rather than think what the word was, there being anonymous anonymity profile, where their true identity is hidden. For obvious reasons. We will be unlocking profiles and saying to worldwide employers, come and hire, which will be massive and fantastic for not only employers, but also job seekers premium services, a list of services that we're going to offer, some paid, some free to our membership, which will be delivered via their individual dashboard areas. Corporate directory, which will allow employers to develop sort of their own. There's many of these corporate directories out there, which is their own space where they can do an introduction of their business, which a lot of this we can automate as well and bring stuff in in terms of. And then they take ownership of their page a little bit like trust pilot does this kind of thing where they have, if this is your business, take control of it, take ownership of it and then you can sort of develop into that hiring sections. So let's say ici, I've got a corporate direct ICI from big place near Guilford. I think they take ownership of their own page, amend it, make it, bring it more up to date and then develop their hiring page because they're looking for 50 people. And then they can utilize by utilizing the post a job version of the poster job system, they can have it attached to their own, sort of like a mini website. Let's just say what ICI UK have their own website highlights their own brand, their own development, who they are. This is coming back to the network thing and it could be any country in the world as long as it's in english language. And then the jobs, the hiring, so the hiring page, so it ties everything in, it'll be brand advertising, brand development and then a little bit like probably like store a little bit, that kind of thing, but a lot sort of a tie in between corporate directories. Trying to think of some of the popular ones out there. Compass I think have one. There's a few decent ones between that and trust pilot, so we can introduce reviews into that for them and the hiring section as well. So this is a massive undertaking, corporate directory interactive international mapping functionality, where we will move our worldwide section onto an interactive map where you click on a location and it will showcase both the jobs and the job seekers profiles that we have for that particular area. All in nice color coded type thing. And it will show that if you're interested in working Australia or you're looking at to employ people from Australia, you can click on there and you'll be able to get all your information, what people are looking to work there and what employers are hiring in there. And that interactive mapping functionality also incorporates elements from the corporate directory. So everything's interlinked and everything's really interlinked because then it's all posted. Jobs also interlinked into the ONi elements probably not unlocking profiles and premium services. And the final part is educational courses where we will start redoing terms of associated with course providers areas. We're obviously interested in english courses and providing a plethora of free where we can course educational courses so that people that want to interested in international employment and further developing themselves, their lives, better lives and all this kind of stuff can start on their journey. So they can start with the profile, the cv, the profile, the premium services, they can unlock, they can start doing courses and really buy into the network concept that we're developing and going to be developing that will ultimately start bettering people's lives. I guess that's the best way to look at it. I think so, really a lot there and it's very complicated and it's very difficult to. In a quick synopsis of this is what we're doing, but there's a lot that's probably a quarter of what we're actually working on and we're working hard behind the scenes to make these things come live. It's obviously difficult. They're getting the order right, so what we're working on next and then what we're tough technical challenges involved in this. As I explained there, that a lot of things are interlinked to something else and that's complicated, but you've got to get it for you. Francesca, do you have any questions on that part? So, yeah, I do have some questions. In terms of, in an ideal scenario, based on what you've currently said, as you've touched on, timing is everything, do you have, based on the current data, what you think is the best order or are you completely unbiased to the opinion of what goes first? I have my own opinions. Yeah, of course. And my opinions, I live in the data world, so everything's data driven. It's almost like I don't really have my own opinion. I let the data form my opinion for me. So, yeah, I do. Do you want to know what they are? Well, I'm just saying in terms of my opinion is just more my opinion. I am not so data first, because I don't necessarily operate that around that all the time, but I think based on some information that you'd actually shared with me this morning, I do think the poster job facility is up there for me from not only an internal perspective. Yeah, internally, I think there's a meeting book next week or something, so we can discuss it there. And then once we've decided what we're working on, when we start working on it, then we can run, we'll bang some social stuff out there in terms of what we're working on, why we're working on it, what we're doing next, what's coming next, and all that mini little podcast on progress on all this. What I do envisage is that the next part will not just be one element, it will be multiple elements and then tying them together. But we'll see. As you know, it's not for I do the managing side of and the work side of things, not the decision making side. So that'll be Chris. So we'll see next week. We're busy elsewhere at the moment, so it won't be probably maybe a month away, something three, four weeks, and then get cracking. But very, as you probably start to appreciate from the other side of the fence, our enemies, as such, on the other side of the fence is there's a hell of a lot more thought process work, data analysis, years and years of development that has gone on to get to this stage. Oh, absolutely. If you don't build the foundations of the house, you've got nothing to build upon. And these years of work have been built up to create the foundations to allow these discussions to even occur. If there was not something of value or something that we could build upon, we wouldn't be having this conversation. There would be nothing, just hot air. Well, all there would be would be an agency, an international agency. That would be. There's nothing wrong with that, which would be a one trick pony in terms of plating people, which is probably a big enough job in itself. But like Reed did, they invested heavily and moved into courses. We're international and moving into the network. So it's all along the lines of, what's the journey? Where you're going with this? What you've got to know what your next step, I suppose, is, because I'm a strategic planner, I know what the next five 6710 steps, moves on the chessboard are. Get a bit cloudy after that. And that's come about by a lot of work, a lot of planning, a lot of thinking. The parts that difficult is when you're not replicating someone else's work and you're not replicating another business, you're innovating first time, this is what we're building. So then it becomes like very exciting, difficult, challenging, if got right, game change. So that's the journey we're on. That's the journey I'm on, me and my team more than anybody else. So, yeah, it's good. And then that leads on to, in terms of modern recruitment, the evolution and the international footprint. In conversations that you and I have had, Pete, you've made it very clear to me about how difficult it is to be visible internationally and it's gone a long way and many years of slogging away to get to the level it has been in terms of the visibility, the people that are visiting our site, the countries that they're coming from, the sub locations within those countries. It's crazy to think how far skills provision has already got in a relatively short period of time. Probably doesn't feel like a short period of time for you, but in the grand scheme of things, for it to get to the level it's got to in terms of the international visibility is fantastic. And further expanding upon that with the inclusion of what I believe you touched on, the interactive map and all of these other things will help increase that international footprint being seen as an international business, not just an agency, an international hub, if you will, for employer needs. Yeah, it all makes sense. It all sounds like a logical step in a positive direction. Now, modern recruitment, obviously there is in a previous podcast we discussed actually the recruitment fees and in terms of can this become obsolete? I do think there's always going to be a need for recruitment and recruitment agencies or modern recruitment support from one form or another, because not every business has the luxury or the means to be able to go out and do the recruitment themselves, or they don't necessarily want to invest the resources in doing it themselves internally, which is why they then look to the specialists. But recruitment is changing, it is evolving. The world is becoming a smaller place in many ways due to technology and allowing better access to different things. In your opinion, Pete, obviously over, say the last ten years, online recruitment has changed. Do you see such large changes in the next ten years? All right, I'll answer that. First of all, I'd like to go back to my notes I've made on the international footprint and just basic points on that, which is that we are continually evolving, we're bringing in more staff, partners and associates continually. Keywords related to skills, provision, measurable metric in terms of how the brand is developing or increasing or decreasing. We've seen a continual increase with the trend line there which has been now been running for many years. Our analytics show a massive spread of different locations where people are visiting the website which you touched on earlier, which is massively complicated, massively difficult. And large institutions like financial banks, financial structures, they went out 2025 users started buying blocks of IP, international ips and worked around it that way suck. And they were very expensive. That just shows how difficult it is. Our compounded visitor growth is increasing over and over continually. Twelve months ago we started investing heavily into YouTube and this is helping with the international footprints and doing well. We're seeing great stuff now and as always, the quality of work is related to the benefits and the output received. Twitter, we're investing heavily into that and we've had many of our posts get rebroadcasted by influencers, which does cause a bit of panic when you might be used to like 80 people on the website and also you got like 6000 and thinking the server might blow up and all this kind of stuff. But I'm producing waves, like 70 profiles a day, you're getting like 7000. But we've managed to deal with all this coming in there. But this just shows it's more the online unpredictability, I guess, of the online world. And when you start things you got to know what you're touching because not everything positive ends in a nice way. So you got to know about these things. And I've had a few eyebrow raising moments from our Twitter influencer friends, but it's all good. International employment keywords. We'll get more absorption in there. Also good. And Google, we're generating now constantly over 1 million impressions per month. On Google? Yeah, on Google. Amazing. And all of these things help the employer with everything that will be seen to help support them that is currently there. And then what's going to come, isn't it? If the site doesn't have the visibility, we're not there to be able to then help support and currently be that in recruitment. But be in the. Sorry, forgive me, I've forgotten the word that you used. The employer area that they would have. I forgot what word you used. It doesn't matter. The area where they'll be able to have their kind of business page, if you will, or the directory. Thank you. That's the word. Could I think of it? Directory, right. Yeah. Yes. It's sort of like three way benefiting type thing. Whereas we've got the benefit skills provision, obviously the benefit to the employer and the benefit to the job seeker, which is as long as we keep ticking those three boxes and not just one, two, but all three continually as we move forward, then we make positive change into recruitment in the future. My thoughts, no expert by any means on this. Worked it a long time, but I have my own views on this. I think there'll be less emphasis on cvs traditional cvs and more on online profiles, having a video in people having their own mini website where they can showcase where it's just about them. Go and have a. Take a look at my world and all this kind of stuff and who I really am. Almost like a calling card for them, isn't it? To showcase everything about themselves as opposed to just a one thing. And the problem with cvs obviously, is they're historical, based on historical employment and not about the here and the now. And Chris has obviously spoke about like video work, pictures and images and all this kind of stuff. So building up the past part. Yeah, it's important what you're doing now. Now that's really important. And what do you want to do? Well, that's really important as well. And the cv is just not suitable to that. But we've not moved on all this. Facebook are moving into virtualizer of what it's called the metasphere or something. Is it? Meta. Metaverse. Metaverse, yes. We're going to be living in the metaverse as cartoon characters. So we'll all become like Bart Simpsons and all this kind of stuff and marjors and we can stick a headset on and away we go. That we've not really been able to improve upon the cv, which is crackers, really. They should be well and truly gone. And she's something that I believe in and we're working on. But I'm still a bit disappointed that they're there anyway because they were never any good before. And probably most companies, they utilize the employment agencies that much off the back of cvs are crap and outdated. And it's very difficult. If we're just a cv, you might as well just greedy, meanie, miney mo at the end of it and just do. Yeah, you're good. They all looked the same, they all sounded the same. They all interviewed. Well, choose the one who wants to get paid less, that kind of thing, and wing it and let's see how we go. So it's crap. More internationalism. I believe we're going to see more people moving around the world and less boundaries, less discrimination, more multiculturalism, and based on who's the best person for the job, not the color of their skin and whether they wear someone on their head or not, we're going to have more round pegs hammered into square holes. Meaning that there's going to be more unsuitable people put into workplaces and then training and skill development will take over thereafter. Absolutely. And that was something I was going to say is that I think I agree that I do think there's more, especially post Covid, there has been the increase in the movement of people, but I do think businesses in certain circumstances won't be able to have that luxury of having people relocate or be in positions to offer visas or work permits. So that training and upskilling is going to be something that's paramount. And you see more and more announcements from government saying that they're wanting to invest in businesses or help support businesses with their training schemes and development of their own workforce. Or retraining people into different skills. Exactly, yeah. And the females that ran in the UK industry during the second world war, they didn't have no problem. They were making aircraft and all kinds of all sorts of jobs while the men were away fighting, they were running the show, they got trained, they were adaptable, they were motivated, they got the job done. All of a sudden. Now, some of the technical stuff, coding and all this. Yeah, you've got to be trained, I'm going to be a doctor, read a book and away you go. No, but a lot of jobs, a lot of jobs. You train people, you invest in them. And that's where I see it going, because there's just going to be, as you will see, less and less ideal fits. It's like, where's the delusion? Our employees the world over, quite delusional in terms of this is what I want when it should be, this is what we're ideally looking for, but really we will be open to suitable people that we can train. And the more you train, invest in you, for example, or even older people, the more you train, the more you invest into them, the more you get job employee loyalty. Absolutely. And I do agree and I do think that there has to be in the industries that allow it, as you rightly say, that there aren't some where maybe it's quite so flexible, but to find a perfect fit, unless you've got a lot of things going for you, of one of those, maybe that you are offering a significantly higher package. But money isn't everything to everyone, that you're going to have to look at adapting your recruitment process to be a skills first and be that transferable skills first, rather than, oh, I've got this years of experience in this, this years of experience in this. Well, actually, it's not exactly what I'm looking for. Take butchery, for example. They may not have butchered a pig, but they've worked with chickens or they've worked with fish or something, so those skills may be transferable. So it's definitely. I completely, 100% agree that I do think employers are going to have to be more flexible in what they're looking for. Yeah, I mean they'll just be. There's obviously legal elements like working with electricity and all this kind of stuff, where the work has got to have some kind of stamp of authority and quality. It's been checked over by these engineers and all this kind of stuff, but for a lot of work it really doesn't matter. So drivers with shorter drivers, or get more driving instructors, get more driving schools and start teaching people that are unemployed to drive. Sounds simple and is. But why doesn't happen? I don't know. I don't know that bit. So anyway, to Malaysia, more open collaboration between recruiters, job seekers and employers, more data driven processes and results versus, as opposed to less costly guesswork. So using data as a friend, most people don't know what the data is. What's the data related to workplaces, sectors, areas, people, demographics, all this kind of stuff. Getting the data and utilizing it in an intellectual manner rather than, I think, which is a bit too much of that. Knocking about my final point and left the end deliberately because taking into account where I work is quite an amusing comment, but I believe it to be true is more being asked, demanded of recruiters moving away from those people, moving away from being the ultimate self servers to being more supportive in the work and roles that they fill. And that comes back to what I was alluding to earlier, where they don't have a stake in whether recruiters make bad decisions, they still get paid. You just place the worst people in the world into that factory, but we're still getting our hundred times whatever it is for each. There's 100 people gone in there, but they're just like being two arms, two legs. You're in. There was no process other than they were the first hundred we saw. Well, you got to be a bit better than that in your recruitment nowadays because it's very costly business. It's a very hiring and firing, very costly game. Cost driven game churn and everything is. And that's why we take such precautions as we do and go the extra mile for the employers is to help mitigate those circumstances. We don't just shove a square pair, get a round hole, that's the last thing we want. And I do think we pride ourselves and it's shown in the results that we have that we don't get many that come back being unsuitable for lack of being able to either do the job or want to. There are obviously external circumstances that you can't ever control for some. But I do believe we create a positive, lasting impression. And I think you've touched on it. For Pete, I know it wasn't an Oz subject. It was a generic thing. What you asked about no recruitment and where I saw changes coming and I think there's going to be less of these singleton, less of what? Is there like 8 million recruiters hanging around LinkedIn, one person on their own computer? I'm a recruiter and I've got my own business. Right, okay. And it's just finding someone, not finding the right, just finding someone. I get paid and these people, I think, are going to get faded out. I don't know how. And I think it'd be a good way that they do and they are. And it is what it is. It's cesspay at times in terms of what people don't realize. Recruiters are the worst, I believe, is because they really are so self orientated when they shouldn't be, is you imagine how difficult it is for an employer to actually find someone. You need assistance to find someone who's interested in doing the job well. When everyone talks well, everyone, you pay me, everyone will stand up to the plate verbally and all this, and have the strong marketing material. But when it comes to doing the job and doing the job well, properly making a difference to companies, allowing them to prosper and grow, how many even care is the starting point and not many. And how many interested in improving and getting better? Probably even less. So you see the PLCs and all this kind of stuff, and all they talk about is money. You get their annual accounts. We know what we were talking about. We see their details and all this kind of stuff, and all they're talking about is money and percentages and people placed and never ever, not anywhere, talk about their own improvements, the quality of their work, the pledges to the employers, the services they're giving, where they have to get better. It's not even there go the websites. It's not there. Why? Because they ain't interested. They're playing the money game, not the quality game. I also think, unfortunately, recruitment, like a lot of recruitment in a way, is a sales function in a way, isn't it? You're selling the people that you have to the employer is they have targets and quotas and different things. And unfortunately, that then creates this negative cycle of trying to put perhaps people in the wrong place. I also wonder if more businesses will either look to expand their hiring team or go more have a relationship with one recruiter on a retained basis to service. I don't think you need the retained basis because you start talking straight away, you start thinking money and all this retained. When I say, I mean retain their services as in work exclusively rather than just going out to the market and going look fine. This is part of the network concept is that we will provide a one stop shop for employment solutions. We will be there. We're branding businesses. As I've discussed, I went through a whole plethora of areas we're going to be covering, working on and all this kind of stuff that will allow company x to work with us. They've got the manpower, they're fine at this moment in time, but they can continue to develop their own online, let's say their mini website and all this kind of stuff and keep involved, keep looking just in case someone that's really sensational is knocking about in our network that they might be interested in and all of a sudden, bang, they win a contract. Right? We need to move. Right? So we go in there, another 51 hundred, we're all right now, good. Again, we've got another contract. Bang. Why? Quality of service. That's all it's going to be. We're going to be ease of use, quality of service and you can deliver them. It's almost like you win and it's difficult because the real problem for me really is you're fighting. Because it's competitive, you're fighting. Companies have got massive budgets to spend on pay per click and all this digi ads and it's like I'm taking them down. If I can bankrupt them all, I will because all they've ever been interested is money and I want to build quality and I want to build something that the employer can get something out of long term, not just the here and the now and the money. Pay me. That's my bill. Thank you, bye. Gone. And that's if I can take them all down or some of them, I'll be a happy boy. And we're doing it with the job boards. They can't outrank us anymore so we've just got to keep building on what we're doing and truly supporting the employer, which is one of those easy said, not easy done, but being truly committed to it. And me and my team are definitely, and I believe people at skills provision on your side of the fence are as well a little bit more. Obviously you're playing the people game and all this kind of stuff, but when we get the network concept up and running fully, then we'll all start playing the game, we'll all be different, we'll all work in it, we'll need to be more rounded in what we're doing, all of us. There you go. And I think it can very be very easy to get lost in the corporate game of trying to achieve x, Y and Z, but it becomes a chicken and egg situation, doesn't it? If you don't have from a business in the recruitment sector, if we don't have the employers, we have nothing to fulfill at this moment in time, yes, because of the one trick pony element of the business, but in time, maybe in twelve months time, it's completely different. Yeah, I was just going to say and expand that. If you only have the one service offering, that is all you can never be. And for employers, and speaking with employers, for them, it's more of a headache having to deal with multiple different people than be able to go with one person or one company that can service multiple things of their needs. So it should help all around, and it will. It's just a matter of we have to move at a pace that suits us and that we can move at, and we are, and we have, and we are. And maintain the quality, which is the word that you always preach to me about everything. If you don't have the quality, no one's going to come to you and you're not going to be able to. I don't think you deserve it of getting paid if you don't produce the quality, anybody, if you're not producing, and we can all see the go on to the top ranked manpower agencies in the world and go and delve into their adverts, you're like, who's written these? Has anybody even looking at this? Some of the illiterate stuff that's been dished out here, the copy and paste man, has gone mental. It's insane. That quality or the lack of quality has been allowed to see what it is, is there's no penalty, there's no penalty for producing poor quality work. And the poor employer, you're probably not even looking. So the adverts are like slapped together, the syndications, pish, everything's just 25 cvs. Go and have a look at these, Mr. Employer. Back is our bill. And it's fed and fed and fed. And it's just become this corporate game of chasing the revenue and increasing the revenue year on year on year, shareholder pressure and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, where does this quality even exist in modern recruitment and with the big boys, and I'm like, I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. And I'm not seeing it in their words either. Clever words based around money keeping their lion's share of the employer pot, so to speak. Yes. Big boys moving into the international world. Yes. All the, you know, they see Germany, let's get into Germany, let's get into this country, let's get into that. No one's talking quality improving, truly supporting the employer. And we do different. We're getting hurt. We're changing things slowly. The people that we work with, we're impressing. It's the old tortoise and the hair, isn't it? The ultimate game of that. And I look forward to taking some of these people down. I don't believe they should be there. Those that are just purely for money, let's get them wiped out. Because it's recruitment for money and it's just people and it's all these things like. And we've heard the horror stories of some of these. They provide agency workers all this kind of stuff, the crap that goes on there and the way the filling of the factories probably in the UK, but be anywhere in the world of people that don't even know, they've never been in there before and they don't even know what they're doing. And if they leave without losing an arm, it's a Benedict. It'd be a miracle. And who's putting them there in the first place? Yeah, my son tipped up on an all rig five years ago. The first time I went on an old rig as a supervisor. He ain't been on an old rig before, Louis. And he was like, well, I know, dad, yeah, I'll sort it out when I get out there. And he's like. And he went and speak to his boss and he thought it was quite alarming, but sort it out. But the agency more than happy to him to send. Never been on an orig before. He's going as a supervisor in that environment. So this is what I'm on about, about the quality, it's assessment out there. And we are going to be the flag bearers of change. That's the idea. Yeah. Speak it into existence and hopefully it happens. Yeah. You just don't know. You got to have these. If the aim and the vision and the journey is based around an ethical pursuit, then it surely is. Agree? I agree. Okay. Anything else you want to finish on, Pete? Or if not, I'm going to wrap it up here today. It's been an interesting podcast which has moved around a fair amount and bit disjointed. But I think as far as employees are concerned, it showed a lot about probably more than ever, about who skills provision are and the support, not just the support that we're offering, why we're offering it, what we do, and probably more important, the journey that we're on. Brilliant. Well, if you haven't already done so, as I said at the beginning, please do, like, share, subscribe, follow whatever you can do on whatever platform you're listening to employers. If you do want to know more about how we may be in a position to help you with any of your needs, please don't hesitate to get in contact with us and book a technical demonstration where we'll be able to showcase to you some of the points we've touched on and about how we can support your me. So from me, Francesca, it's goodbye. And from me, Pete. Until next time, see you later. Have a nice day. Thank you, everyone. Take care. See you on the next episode. Have a great day. Bye.