Most hiring problems
aren't sourcing problems.
The brief was never written down, the managers interview on instinct, the offer goes out a week late, and the candidate you actually wanted has already worked all of that out. I'm Fraser Rix. I run hiring for businesses that don't have a head of talent, and I find the people they can't find themselves.
It rarely breaks where you're looking.
When a hire goes wrong, the review blames the market or the recruiter. In my experience it was decided weeks earlier, inside the business, by things nobody thought of as the hiring process.
Why I think it's a process problemHiring is a process you own. Someone has to run it properly.
Most businesses under 300 people have nobody whose actual job is hiring, so the standard for a good hire lives in one or two heads, the process is whatever happened last time, and the result depends on who was least busy that week.
So I start the same way every time, whatever the engagement: 4 people, the same questions, and the gaps between their answers are where hiring actually breaks. They're usually cheaper to fix than anyone expects. Then I fix them, and I run the roles while I do it.
Three ways in, and the same person on every one.
Which one fits is what the 30-minute call is for. If none of them fits, I'll say so.
The seat
A head of talent for the days you need. 1 to 3 days a week, monthly rolling, one-month minimum. The first fortnight is the reading of how hiring runs today. Then a brief and a scorecard on every open role, the managers interviewing properly, and the roles run end to end on your tools, under your name. When I leave, it keeps working.
The seat, in detailThe hire
A role you can't fill yourself. I write the brief with the manager who owns the hire, and it stays with you whatever happens. Retained for senior roles, contingent when that fits better, and the terms agreed in writing before I make a call. Contract roles too, on monthly terms.
How a search runsOne piece, on its own
The reading by itself: 3 to 4 weeks, about 6 hours of your people's time, scoped and quoted before we start. The hiring plan before a raise or a launch. A function built from nothing. A workshop for the managers who keep losing good people. Or a few hours a month on call for a founder who wants a second opinion before the offer goes out.
Advisory, piece by pieceEverything is by the day or by the hire, in writing before work starts.
If any of these is your week, we should talk.
Media, advertising, creative, digital and data businesses first, because that's where my network is. Scale-ups, and anyone with a marketing team and a hiring problem, are close enough. Usually 30 to 300 people, in Australia, with a founder or a leader who has noticed that hiring is taking more of their week than it should.
A role has been open past 6 weeks, or you're hiring the same seat for the third time in 2 years.
The talent lead has gone, or there never was one, and it has landed on you.
A raise, a big client win or a new office, with a run of hires behind it.
An outsourced recruitment contract is ending and nobody is sure what replaces it.
You've scaled past 30 people and nobody has ever built the function.
The last 2 hires didn't make it to 6 months, and nobody can say why.
You're about to hire your first senior leader and have never run a search at that level.
The offer went out, they said no, and the role is back where it started.
One person, both sides of the table.
Here's the honest version. The expertise is hiring and the network is marketing, advertising, media, digital, data and tech, close to 20 years of it. But what I actually am is a people person. I like finding out what a business is trying to be, who it needs to get there, and why the last 3 people it hired didn't stick. Industry turns out to matter less than you'd think. Hiring breaks the same way in an agency as it does in a software company, and fixing it looks the same too: work out who you really need, say it plainly, and turn up in the market like a place worth joining.
Candidates have always liked dealing with me because I'm a straight shooter, and that's the same reason clients keep me around. You get a direct answer, including when the answer is that you don't need me yet.
If you'd rather see the work before we talk, the reading I do for every client is public as a sample report.
Read a sample reportWhat I write about, from what I've seen.
Give me 30 minutes, and the role or the week you're having.
You tell me what's open and who owns hiring today. I tell you which shape fits, or that none of them does. No deck, and no proposal unless you ask for one. If you'd rather start on your own, the Hiring Check takes a few minutes and it's free.
Or just write: fraser@caldertalent.com.au · 0421 928 830