Introducing Tony Talbot
Tony Talbot has a 16-year recruitment veteran. He lives in Leeds and supports Leeds United. So, a very clever man.

Entering work, he saw recruitment as a very quick way to understand business. He works for SME clients. They are exciting and dynamic and you get to understand their passion for their business. His decisions can help SMEs achieve real success.


How does a small business start recruiting key staff?
It is a difficult thing to do, and without experience of recruitment it can be daunting. You can do it by yourself though. There is no need to employ a recruiter.

Create your own talent pipeline. Look at your network and look at 2 or 3 degrees of separation. Add posts to LinkedIn and present your business in specific groups.
Look at free advertising sites like Indeed. Have a paragraph on the way your business helps other people. Treat them as you would as a direct marketer. Then speak to the person directly through features and benefits. This may not work for specialist niche skills.

When you do have specialist requirements then use a recruiter. Develop a relationship with one or two recruitment companies. It’s not a great model to talk to lots of recruiters. This will ensure your job is de-prioritised.
How do you choose the right recruiter?

Do they have specialist knowledge?
Does your recruiter have a network of people in the space in which you are recruiting, the salaries, etc.
What evidence can they provide of working in your niche?
Is there someone that they have recruited that you know. Can you get a reference check from that person? This gives you reassurance.

How do you recruit someone who is a good fit with your business?
Tony Talbot is focusing more on mind-set. Especially for small consulting businesses. It’s important to look at corporate fit.

If you have a process that looks at fit from a CV, they’ve answered competency based questions. Real world questions. Beyond that Tony uses psychometric testing.

Tony advises as you are making a big decision, then give yourself evidence:

3 levels of assessment

Good fit – shared life experiences
Experiences – work through their CV, qualifications match to the role. Real world examples of successes and failures.
Values, beliefs and attitudes of a candidate – in order to understand these, you generally need psychometric testing systems:

g. McQuaig – get account with them – each test is £100-150. This provides a detailed assessment of their psychological make-up.
Use the assessment to probe their weaknesses to establish whether they would get beyond them working with you.





As a small business, shouldn’t you be looking for the person who fills your competency gap analysis.
Seeing the potential in candidates
Tony psychologically tests the client. This provides the dynamics in the team. To get a variety of skills, beliefs and attitudes. McQuaig ask 2 sets of questions: One is around your current role, the second set of questions addresses how you see yourself as a person as opposed to how you are acting within a role. It will indicate whether a person has the potential to do more than they are doing.

Recruiting should be another process you develop. So you can repeat again and again. This helps you attract the right candidates – they themselves may see the small business as less attractive. The harder you make someone in a process the more they want the position.

Moral – do not UNDERWORK candidates in the process. They need the process as much as you do as recruiter. Underworking candidates will get you poor outcomes.

Recruiting family members can also be problematic. Be unemotional. Absence of process creates multiple points of failure.

When choosing a recruiter – ask them what they do. That becomes part of your process. They do the CV shifting, initial interviews. Producing interview notes. They may put the candidate through psychological processing prior...

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