Hiring a General Manager for Humand Talent

By Joe Edney, Founder and Director of Humand Talent

As the Founder and Director of a business, I've come to realise something over the years.

There are quite a few things that other people are better at than me.

Some things I'm not particularly good at. Some things I put off. And others I can do, but probably shouldn't be spending as much of my time doing.

I imagine plenty of other business owners can relate to that!

When you're building a business, you naturally get involved in pretty much everything. From winning clients and making placements to managing people, sorting out problems, improving processes, making decisions and planning for the future.

And whilst I enjoy a lot of those things, I've become increasingly aware that just because I can do something doesn't necessarily mean I'm the best person to be doing it.

So last month, we made a decision to recruit a General Manager for Humand.

And it's probably one of the most important hires we've made as a business.

Why a General Manager?

The idea behind the role was fairly simple.

We wanted someone who could help us grow the business, support the team and take ownership of some of the things that aren't necessarily my strengths.

Someone with plenty of recruitment experience who understands what it takes to build successful teams, develop people and drive performance.

But importantly, someone who is also happy to get stuck in.

We're not a huge corporate business with endless layers of management. We're a relatively small team, and everyone contributes.

So we needed someone who could be hands on, do some billing themselves, but whose main responsibility would be helping everyone else perform better, more consistently.

It should also allow me to spend more time on the areas where I feel I can add the most value, such as developing new business opportunities, building relationships, working on our brands and thinking about where we take Humand next.

Essentially, finding someone who complements my skills rather than replicates them.

Sounds straightforward enough, doesn't it?

Well, when it's the most senior internal role you've ever recruited for, it's quite a big decision!

I was excited and nervous in pretty equal measures.

Finding the right person

We advertised the role on our website and LinkedIn and received interest from some really strong candidates.

Given what we were looking for, I wanted the interview process to be thorough, but also quite natural.

I wasn't particularly interested in putting people through endless formal interviews or asking the same generic questions.

I wanted to get to know them, understand how they worked and, perhaps most importantly, see how they'd actually interact with the people they would be managing.

So we approached it in a few stages.

Stage 1: An hour chewing the fat

The first stage was an hour with me.

Nothing too complicated. Just a conversation about the recruitment industry, our business, their situation, our situation, their experience and what we were both looking for.

I wanted to understand what they'd achieved, what they'd learned, how they approached management and what interested them about joining a business like ours.

Equally, I wanted them to understand what they might be getting themselves into!

I had around 10 of these conversations in total.

And because I was taking the calls outside the office, my daily step count went through the roof as I spent hours walking around the village.

A fairly decent side benefit of the recruitment process!

These conversations helped me narrow things down to three people who I thought could offer something really valuable to the business.

Stage 2: Getting into the detail

We invited three candidates in for face-to-face interviews.

These lasted around two hours each and were much more focused on the specific skills and experience we needed.

We looked at how they'd managed teams, developed people, handled difficult situations, improved performance and supported businesses through different stages of growth.

We also spent time explaining more about Humand, where we are today, some of the challenges we've faced and what we're trying to achieve over the next few years.

I think it's really important that interviews work both ways, particularly at this level.

We needed to be confident that the person could do the job, but they also needed to be confident that this was the right opportunity for them.

One of the three candidates was someone I felt could be a really good fit for the business, but perhaps in a slightly different role.

So rather than simply closing that conversation, we've continued talking about what that might look like.

Sometimes you meet someone good, even if they're not quite right for the original role.

Stage 3: Putting management skills to the test

This was probably my favourite part of the process.

For the remaining two candidates, we arranged short dummy one-to-ones with two members of our management team.

Each conversation lasted around 15 to 30 minutes.

The idea was to give candidates a chance to demonstrate how they'd approach a typical management conversation, rather than just tell us how good they were at managing people.

How would they ask questions?

How would they identify where someone needed support?

Would they listen properly?

Would they challenge someone when needed?

Could they help someone work through a problem rather than simply telling them what to do?

For me, these sessions were incredibly valuable.

But what I hadn't fully appreciated beforehand was how valuable they'd be for the people within our business too.

Both members of the management team came away with a much clearer understanding of what we were trying to achieve with the role and why having someone with this experience could make such a difference.

It also gave them a genuine say in selecting the person who would be supporting them going forward.

Rather than simply being told that a new manager was joining, they were involved in helping us make the decision.

And I think that matters.

Stage 4: Making sure we're properly aligned

By this point, we had a clear favourite.

But given the importance of the hire, I wanted to spend more time making sure we were completely aligned.

So we had another two to three hours of conversations.

Nothing particularly formal.

We talked about expectations, ambitions, management styles, the realities of working in a smaller business and what we both wanted to achieve.

I wanted to be open about the challenges, as well as the opportunities.

After all, there's no point painting a perfect picture of a business when the whole reason you're recruiting someone is to help you improve it!

By the end of the process, everyone involved in the interviews unanimously agreed that we'd found someone who was an excellent fit for what we were looking for.

And, just as importantly, someone we felt would fit really well into the culture we've built at Humand.

So, what's happening next?

I'm really pleased to say that our chosen candidate has now handed in their notice, turned down a counteroffer and is due to join us at the end of November.

They bring around 20 years of experience across recruitment and talent acquisition, including 15 years working within recruitment agencies.

They've worked in large recruitment businesses, smaller agencies and internal talent acquisition roles, giving them a broad range of experience and perspectives that we haven't necessarily had within Humand before.

I'm looking forward to introducing them properly soon.

A bit of a learning experience for me, too

One of the interesting things about this process has been experiencing such an important recruitment decision from the client's perspective.

Of course, we help businesses recruit people every day.

But when it's your own business, your own team and a role that will have a significant influence on how the company operates, it does feel a little different.

There's a lot more emotion involved than you might expect.

You think about whether you're making the right decision, how the team will respond, whether the person will fit in and what impact they'll have on the business.

You also have to accept that bringing someone in at this level means giving up some control.

And for someone who's built a business from scratch, that's probably one of the bigger challenges!

But ultimately, I don't think growing a business should be about the founder trying to become brilliant at absolutely everything.

It's about recognising your strengths, being aware of your weaknesses and surrounding yourself with people who can make the business better.

I'm hoping this appointment will be a big step forward for Humand, both for the people already working here and for what we can achieve together.

The nervousness I had when we started this process has now pretty much entirely turned into excitement.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes next.

And if there's one thing I've taken away from the experience, it's that sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is hire someone who's better than you at the things you've been trying to do yourself.

Joe

Founder and Director, Humand Talent