“Oh my God, we’re back again!” sing the Backstreet Boys in their 1997 classic. And unless you’re incredibly lucky, unlucky, or rich, so should you be. The rest of the song has no relevance to the first post of the year sadly. Before you ask, my break was lovely thank you very much. Less people around this year, but equal amounts of ham, turkey, booze, and presents. Just how I like my Christmas. We’ve also had New Year of course, which means less to me, but has typically been used by many as a time to reflect, improve, and set goals. A fine idea, however in my experience, “New Year’s Resolutions” rarely work. The motivation to truly change is a fickle beast, and rarely strikes you as a clock strikes 12 and some truly underwhelming fireworks explode off the Sky Tower. I mean, what are the chances? You’re much more likely to drop a few vices after realising a prostitute has stolen your wedding ring, but do they get any credit?? Stop the world, I want to get off.
An extended break and a new calendar year is a fine reason to regroup and do some business planning however. It also acts as a reset in business confidence. Every recruiter I’ve spoken to this week has commented how strong their year has started. Our sister business JOYN has signed up two new clients this week, with a third hopefully putting pen to paper today. Long may this continue. Rice & Co also had a very productive meeting this week, laying down a few plans, and a few ideas for 2026. It’s something we should do more often, but I don’t think you’d recreate the same energy on a rainy Tuesday morning in July.
Let me tell you a bit about our meeting, and the important bit that you might want to think about if you haven’t already.
Firstly, we wrote a list of clients who we are/will/want to work with in 2026. They may sound a bit odd, as many recruitment firms probably love the phone to ring with a new client (although that may be a mistake. More on this shortly). Anyone want to guess the number of agency clients we have and want in 2026?
24.
Next was the most important bit. We wrote a list of agencies that we actively want to target to take good recruiters from. How many were on this list?
36.
Now obviously we want to take good recruiters from any firm not in the aforementioned 24, but that’s not what I’m talking about. By active targets, I mean firms that are likely to hire or produce quality recruiters that we could find (better) homes for in the 24 firms we represent. Firms that we will actively market map and then call the individuals identified. This is an unapologetically hard line in the sand. If these firms call us and say we want to brief you, we will politely decline. This is a New Year’s resolution not to say “yes” to everyone. This is understanding that the perceived need for new business, all business, is a fundamentally flawed business model when candidates are the commodity. This is breaking recruitment down to its simplest form. We will try and move candidates from businesses we don’t work with, to those we do work with. And we know which firm sits where. Hell, I might even start sleeping at night. If you’re a specialist recruiter, you cannot recruit for the entire market. Well you can, but it leaves you with two options: either rely solely on SEEK ads to attract candidates, or headhunt from your own clients. Neither will work (unless you’re a certain rec-to-rec consultant).
So if you haven’t already, now might be a good time to decide who would make good clients and who never would. If you’re a leader, sure you’ll get a few complaints about “headhunting my staff”, but it’ll only reinforce your resolve not to hire for them.
Onwards and upwards in 2026.
^SW
