Arsene Wenger and me...what do we have in common?

We've both spent the same amount of time with the one club!

Linkedin advised me last week that it was the 18th anniversary of the day I joined Macildowie, what it also illustrated to me was how unusual it is in this digital age for anyone to spend that much time with one employer as I received 92 likes and 16 comments along the lines of "wow", "hat tip", "incredible" and "blimey"... Arsene's closest "long service" challenger in the premier league has less than 4 years with the same club!

 I remember the day I joined... I'd eaten a prawn bhuna the night before with friends and had a mild case of food poisoning, but despite the sickness, sweats and inability to spend any longer that 10 mins away from a toilet I put a brave face on and made it into the office... As Macildowie's first ever trainee I'm glad I did...

When I joined in August 1997, it's fair to say that recruitment was so very different from the industry we all enjoy working in today.  My first job that summer was to input data from candidate cards onto the DOS based recruitment system that had recently been installed and was imaginatively called RECRUIT.  I'd love to hear from any other old school recruiters who had the pleasure of using this system... I thought it was brilliant! 

One of the things back then that I noticed early on was that the majority of the candidates who Macildowie had placed had GFABW written on their note cards, this I was to discover meant "good for a beer with"... And what it illustrated was that the candidates who our consultants would share a beer with, had a much higher percentage chance of being placed by us...  That was the main reason that everyone worked such long hours back then, there was no Skype, very few people had mobile phones, almost nobody was using email so the only way you could speak to or meet was by doing it after work hours, face to face or on home telephone lines...

Fast track 18 years and I'm receiving 250 emails a day, speaking to dozens of people mobile to mobile every day, whats app'ing, face book messenger'ing and LinkedIn messaging in order to get hold of as many people as possible during the working day.  Technology has had such an amazing impact on the industry I love, those who have embraced it are ahead of those who haven't - that's obvious, but it leaves me thinking about what then next big thing will be and I am looking forward to implementing it before others do to give Macs another competitive advantage.

People this week have asked me a number of questions... 

• what's the biggest change you have seen in 18 years
• who's the most talented person you have worked with
• what's the best question you've ever been asked
• what keeps you at Macildowie

The biggest change I've seen is the advancement of digital technology and in particular digital marketing.  When I started out, nobody had ever heard of Macildowie... Now through social marketing channels, people far and wide know what we do and how we do it.  Marketing is hard work, as it is very time consuming, but digital has levelled the playing field so if you're prepared to put the graft in you can achieve great things.... it's no longer purely about how big your marketing budget is.

In terms of the talented people I have worked with, it's not fair for me to mention just one as there have been so many, but I have to thank my colleague, James Stewart for sticking his neck on the line to hire me back in 1997 when it would have been very easy to let me slip through the net!

The best question I have ever been asked was by my daughter... "Daddy can I have a set of golf clubs for my birthday please?" .... Easy answer :-)

And finally, what keeps me at Macs....

Anyone who has ever asked me this question, and there have been plenty, have all received the same answer... "Because I ####ing love this place"...

I genuinely love Macs, I love the people I work with, the people who graft day in day out, who live by our values, who maintain our culture, who make it a success whilst at the same time ensuring we have fun doing it.  At our new year launch event in May this year James Lawson joked that this year should be "nearly as good as the good old days"... But I argued that this is the best that Macs has ever been.  So the best question is .... Why is Macs the best it's ever been....

here's why... our goal is to make Macs the best place to work in recruitment... our mission is "Building great futures" - meaning that everything we do is with then aim of creating opportunity for everyone involved.

# everything we do operationally is designed to help you to become the best version of yourself, we believe that what we are doing will make it easier for you as a recruitment consultant to bill ￡200k + here than anywhere else.

# this quarter we're launching our "Your Voice" team... With the aim of ensuring we receive regular feedback on where the business can be improved, we want to hear about everything, no matter how small.

# we've built a reward, remuneration and incentives package that is the best it has ever been.

# we have invested in the best training and development programme EVER including leadership training with Queens University, Belfast for our Management population.

# we're currently interviewing to bring in an L&D specialist to help us to build our very own training academy.

# we've just introduced formal "Long Service Rewards".

# we've already given away 8 New York incentives, have introduced another 8 as a result AND introduced the added incentive of a Dream Trip incentive...

# in addition we have monthly target buster awards, consistency awards, team incentives, "we love Mondays" awards, and the ongoing Employee of the Month awards.

# we've recently recruited (internally) our new Fun Club... You can guess what they're all about and what the intention is...

# we've invested more in staff wellbeing than ever before, and recently launched our Employee Assistance Programme.

# we offer discounted gym membership through our Star Benefits programme.

# we've developed a set of KPI's to enable our consultants to work out how to be the best version of themselves... A set of data that I'd have died for back in 1997 to help me to manage the way I worked, to be more efficient and ultimately more successful. 

# a SUPER BONUS, you'll earn significantly more this year for achieving the same success as last year.

# we've built processes to allow our guys to be as successful as possible, to, allow them to work harder, not smarter...

...and that is why I'm still here.  We've built an incredible business, we've given our consultants the tools and unique value propositions for their customers, but I believe that there's still loads more to do. 

There's no doubt in my mind that the recruitment industry will continue to evolve at pace, I intend to be at the front for another good few years yet, if you'd like to join me please call me on 07887754805...