Rhys Jones
Written by Rhys Jones Managing Director – Davidson Gray
This blog is an update to an article originally written by Rhys Jones for The Global Recruiter magazine in 2023.
When I first wrote this article back in late 2022, the UK had just swapped Liz Truss for Rishi Sunak, and the economic outlook for 2023 was dominated by uncertainty.
Fast forward to late 2025. While we now have a new Labour government, the song remains largely the same. We’re still grappling with external international factors, and many industries are navigating a market that has been stagnant for the better part of two years.
So, how does that affect the strategy for growth for recruitment businesses?
My answer is the same as it was then. The UK and worldwide economies will always be unpredictable. Stop waiting for the market to “get better” and focus on what you can control. The four key factors that drove growth in 2023 are the exact same factors that will deliver growth today.
Key Takeaways
- Stop Waiting for the Market to Improve: Economic unpredictability is constant. Focus on controllable growth factors rather than waiting for external conditions to change.
- Strategic Marketing is Essential: Beyond generating new clients, a robust marketing plan is crucial for attracting and retaining top recruitment talent.
- Combat Staff Attrition: Implement a formal, measurable strategy for attracting and retaining quality recruiters, as this is the biggest barrier to growth. KPI your own activity in staff attraction, including interview to hire ratios.
- Invest Genuinely in Staff Training: Go beyond basic training. Invest in professional development for staff and managers, including external trainers, and prioritise the implementation of learned skills over mere knowledge acquisition.
- Cultivate a Winning Culture: A positive business culture is a strategic asset that significantly impacts staff retention, teamwork, employee engagement, and external brand perception, making your business more attractive to both staff and clients.
- Seek Team Feedback: The most valuable insights often come from your own team. Ask for their opinions on how your business performs in these key areas to identify improvement opportunities and empower potential leaders.
Why is Marketing Your Most Misunderstood Growth Tool?
A strategic marketing plan not only generates new clients but also helps attract and retain top recruiters.
If you watch any of my video blogs, you will see one called “Why most businesses are crap at marketing”. I explain in this why the benefit of quality marketing is so misunderstood in the recruitment industry. Not only can it untap additional income but it can also help you win the war for talent in attracting and retaining the best recruiters.
If you can make your environment an easier place to make money by implementing a first-class marketing strategy then recruiters are far more likely to want to work there, and importantly stay there.
How Can You Overcome Staff Attrition, the Biggest Barrier to Growth?
Combat staff attrition, the main obstacle to growth, by creating and measuring a formal strategy for attracting and new retaining quality recruiters.
This brings me nicely on to the biggest barrier to growth in any recruitment business, the attraction and retention of quality staff. I cover areas of staff retention in some of the other parts of this piece, but attraction is huge if you really want to grow your recruitment business.
Any business needs a well thought through strategy on how to attract the best talent and that strategy must be well executed. A lot of businesses don’t have an actual staff attraction strategy – they wing it. They may use rec to recs, advertise a bit, put some stuff on LinkedIn but there’s no real thought in it. Plus, if you have no strategy, how you can target the key areas and measure those areas for success?!
You may have seen I have a fair few blogs and downloads on KPIs, and not just for recruiters. To hit your hiring target, business leaders need to KPI their own activity in staff attraction.
Any owner/ managers reading this, can you tell me your interview to hire ratio on recruiters for your business? If you can’t, how can you set a target for how many recruiters you need to attract to interview each month to hit your hiring projection? Start with those numbers and cascade it down from there on how you can attract enough good potential hires to interview each month and you’ll be on your way to a genuine staff attraction strategy.
Are You Genuinely Investing in Staff Training (or Just Going Through the Motions)?
Invest in professional training for both staff and managers to improve skills, retention, and productivity, focusing on implementation, not just knowledge.
This is another area that impacts your staff retention. In lists of the most common reasons people decide to leave their employer, lack of training and development appears in most. Staff want to feel you’re investing in them, and recruiters want development so they can not only bill more but grow in other areas, so training is a big deal. That and of course you want to improve the productivity of those people – it’s common sense if you want to grow your business.
The key bit here is ‘invest’ in staff training and development. In SMEs, the managers or owners often do the training. But training and coaching is a skill, so just because you feel you or your managers are good, they may not be great trainers. Plus, just because you’re good doesn’t necessarily mean you know why you’re good, so you’re not consciously competent. If you’re not consciously competent, how can you train and coach others on the key skills and behaviours in your success? Just because the way you work has made you successful doesn’t mean it will for everyone.
Larger companies often have in-house trainers, but don’t stop there, invest in external trainers, send your team on external courses, new content, a different voice plus it feels good to know your employer is spending money on your development, which can do wonders. And, do a double whammy and get your managers and yourself trained on how to train and coach. Trust me, I know from experience how much of a huge benefit this had on my ability to train and coach well.
Don’t forget that training and coaching is only half the battle – implementation of the training is the key, otherwise the training will be a waste. You don’t generate money by what you know, you perform by what you do, and that’s how to look at it with the implementation of training, knowing is OK, but doing is where the money is at.
What is a ‘Winning Culture’ and Why Does it Matter More Than Ever?
A positive business culture is a strategic asset that improves retention, teamwork, and brand perception, helping to attract new clients and staff.
Business culture has come into vogue, and I see a lot of new content on the subject. However, I do find when something comes into fashion the speed people want to get new content out often leads to misleading and waffly content that tells you little and it can send you down the wrong track.
I can’t cover culture in this piece and do it justice but what I can tell you is having a winning culture in your business can make up for a fair few deficiencies in your business strategy.
A winning culture will work extremely well for staff retention, teamwork and sharing ideas (and candidates!) plus help mental wellbeing, drive employee engagement and contribute to staff development.
But it’s not just the internal effect, a winning culture can affect the external brand perception, which not only helps with clients and candidates, but also comes back to staff attraction again. Your staff can be your biggest advocates when attracting new staff, and importantly, key in securing them when it’s decision time for the potential new hire. Introduce potential hires to some of your team to help reinforce why your business is the place they should move to next.
Your Next Step: Ask Your Team
For any business leaders reading this, you may be OK in some of these areas, but I suggest asking your team their opinion on how your business scores in these areas. The people who know your business the best are the ones that work in it. You may be not only surprised by the responses, but if you ask in the correct way you will, I’m sure, get some source of inspiration in the answers. Plus, it might show you some leaders who you can empower to help build and implement the strategies for you.
Rhys Jones
Written by Rhys Jones Managing Director – Davidson Gray
About the Author
Rhys Jones is the Managing Director of Davidson Gray. Rhys sold out of his previous recruitment businesses in 2012 to focus solely on helping recruiters set up and build recruitment businesses. Follow Rhys on LinkedIn or contact him direct here for help with your start-up recruitment business or for coaching to grow an existing one.
This article was originally adapted from the November-December 2023 edition of The Global Recruiter magazine.
Interested in working with Rhys to grow your start up?
Rhys not only provides the start-up infrastructure for your new business and all the support services your business will need, he can actually work with you to grow it. Take advantage of as much mentoring and coaching as you would like, plus Rhys considers himself a working partner and will take responsibility for the areas that you’d like him to, perhaps those you have the least passion for e.g. Finance and Digital Marketing. When working together on the business’s growth strategy, much of the effort to deliver it can be delegated to the Davidson Gray team.
