A member of Hiring Hub’s recruitment agency community since 2014, Josh Simmons is among the network’s top billers, and regularly makes a placement a month on the marketplace. We caught up with the London-based IT consultant to get his view on Hiring Hub, and understand how he’s developing his agency’s reputation through the marketplace.
You billed £80,000 on Hiring Hub last year, do you have a strategy to ensure you get value from the platform?
I try apply the same working practices and structure to whoever we provide a recruitment service to – whether these are through Hiring Hub or when I’m working directly with clients. Whilst fees are important to maintain our business, our focus is on quality of service, not fee level. So a client paying a £20k fee will receive the same great service as a client with a £2k role. That is a quick turnaround with our best candidates within our network. I think this pays off: four of my placements on Hiring Hub in the last six-months have been from repeat clients who have specifically requested us through the platform.
So you’re building good relationships with employers through Hiring Hub that you wouldn’t normally have had, and generating repeat business?
Yes. There’s been many occasions when clients have struggled with roles outside of Hiring Hub, and they’ve bene unable to fill them, but then when placing them on Hiring Hub we’ve been able to help them make a placement really quickly and that’s resulted in new relationships for us through the Hub that otherwise we wouldn’t have had.
Prior to joining Hiring Hub, what was your opinion of the model?
We all know the recruitment sector has been due a shake-up for a very long time. Not a lot has changed in the last two decades and I think the Hiring Hub model brings a lot of value to the recruitment process; both to hiring companies in streamlining their attraction methods, and to recruiters/head-hunters to leave them to do what they do best – finding talent.
How many placements will you make in a typical month on Hiring Hub, and outside of Hiring Hub?
Typically, I make one or two placements per month through the Hiring Hub platform, with two or three placements coming from clients directly, outside of the platform. So I can attribute at least a third of billings to Hiring Hub.
What type of vacancies on the marketplace do you find attractive, and do you have success with?
We only do IT. This allows us to deepen our network with IT candidates instead of spreading ourselves too thinly. I don’t bother with Accounting roles as I’ve never recruited an accountant before; I’ll leave those to the Accounting experts. I would give similar advice to fellow recruiters – if you’re a Sales recruiter then there’s very little point in competing on a Software Developer role with IT Recruiters. Stick to your niche and provide the best service you can.
Are you happy with the fees on the platform?
I think the fees represent a fair level of value.
How do you feel about essentially paying for leads?
I think you get a lot more than simply sales leads – in that you’ve got great Account Managers at Hiring Hub who are responsible for chasing feedback and ensuring the process is running smoothly and quickly. This leaves recruiters to do what they do best – sourcing the best talent.
What do you like about Hiring Hub, and would you recommend it to other recruitment agencies?
I would recommend the platform to other agencies and to those clients who would like to take a fresh new approach to managing their recruitment campaign. The Hiring Hub portal is great, with the end-to-end hiring process managed on the Hub’s dashboard, and for us it provides an easy-to-use and efficient way of managing numerous live roles at once.
Are you an independent recruitment agency? To learn how you can use Hiring Hub to meet new employers and grow your business, book an online demo by clicking here.
