Our story so far, part one of two

We have a real desire to engage our candidates, clients and wider recruitment community because we care about real issues that affect the credibility of our service sector. We want to create, rather than re-post things that are semi-related just so we can get air time and occupy space. Adgold is all about authenticity - there is no desire to project image and pseudo-cleverness. It is all about the honesty of this journey that we are on and the passion for people who want more than another shiny recruitment agency.

The last time I wrote a blog, it was a little more than one year ago and that will be the theme for this one, our first year. AdGold / ADG Labs has survived the first year of trading.

For those who may be curious, I will touch upon who we are, what we are trying to achieve, the challenges we have faced, what we have learnt, our successes to date and what our plans for the future are – I will post two blogs including this one which builds to complete our story so far.

David, Victor and I are the three co-founders of the business. We also have a silent investor who brings a wealth of experience in running major service organisations and shares our passion for putting the way we treat people as the foundation for building a sustainable business.  AdGold focuses on recruitment for start-up’s in London and Cambridge currently and ADG Labs focuses on a redefining style to celebrate individuality within your lifestyle - we design software and products which aim's to provide inspiration and options.

I originate from Ireland, where I studied and worked before moving to London. I studied Communications and Linguistics with aspirations at the time to become a speech therapist. During university, I worked for Sky in their technical support department which ignited an appreciation for tech and the possibilities that it brings - which has now become a love of mine. Soon after I graduated, I began working as an employment coach which I found very rewarding and developed my ability to communicate even more. I believed I was now truly equipped to move to an established IT recruitment agency in London and add real value. So that's what I did.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I joined the industry. I do not think I was quite naive enough to think I was following the "yellow brick road" but with hindsight, I was far from realistic in my expectations! I knew it would be demanding and fast paced, but I was never shy of hard work. I felt this could be a really rewarding career and one I could be successful in, with a then dormant ambition to eventually become self-employed, having learnt from the best! 

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly dreams that have taken months and years to nurture can be smashed by reality in what seems like an instant - in this case, a few weeks. I quickly became disillusioned with the industry - cold calling, unsolicited CV’s, KPI’s and my personal pet hate, calling someone’s work and pretending to be someone relevant. Let's paint the scenario:

Me: “Hello, It’s Mr Power here, Max Power from Power investments, can you pass me over to (Insert Developer’s name here)".

Receptionist - "May I ask what the call is regarding Mr Power" (knowing she knew this was nonsense), but the game continued.

Me: “It’s in regards to projects”

Receptionist: “What projects?”

Me: “Projects that X has told me to follow up with him on”

Receptionist “Ok putting you through.."

As I waited to be put through, the dread and embarrassment were threatening to overwhelm me. Even when it worked, it just did not sit easily with me.

I also found it strange that people would be required to wear 2, 3, 4 piece suits even when you are meeting zero client’s and candidates alike! I understand it, though, companies have to make money by selling their employees the dream, competition is crazy and the aspirational image of the suit which represents success, that image has to be maintained and you buy into the hope that you will eventually catch up with the image by making some deals. Although I had done reasonably well, I could not stomach the manipulation any longer. It is not who I am – I needed to do it my way or find a new career.

David and I worked together, we sat beside one another by chance and instantly hit it off. He too felt the same about the industry and would often share his ambition, tell me that this was a stop-gap to save money and launch ADG Labs with his cousin Victor. I was so impressed by his enthusiasm, values and ideas that I asked him if I could I get involved. The three of us met up and spoke about collaborating and starting another side of the business – AdGold Recruitment. Things escalated fast, we worked every evening after work and every weekend for months, bringing our ideas together, saved our money, brought together our resources and opened up from his mum’s home and I slept on the sofa. David’s mum is our silent partner and we owe everything to her faith and backing. 6 months after launching we brought Dani Ashford on board and this added a dynamic new perspective to our team.

We decided to essentially do the opposite of what big agencies do – from this day forward, we would never do another do another cold call, we would not send scatter gun or anonymous CV’s, in the hope the decision maker's interest would be piqued and want to speak. Max could remove his mask and be called Sean once more with people expecting his call and so forth. Essentially, we hoped our own unique processes, personality, honesty, ethics and hard work would give us a chance. We are delighted to say - IT DID.

We have done well so far. Firstly, we are still open and I am writing this blog with a straight face which is an accomplishment in itself!

To get our foot in the door, we picked 1000 companies that we liked and wrote a personal email to each one - which meant we had to do our homework. If only unsolicited CV’s work, we don’t want to do this job! It is quite a challenge to write an email to catch busy start-up people's interest, whilst trying to be cool and not sound desperate but letting them know we really, really want this opportunity!!

We have been able to grow this business organically and resisted external funding and loans. Also, we have been able to keep our ethics and moral’s and this is really important to us.

We built our website ourselves, meaning it was coded by us and all the content written by us. I can hear some of you sophisticates saying "it shows” - but despite that, we are incredibly proud of what we achieved as novices and it brought us together as a team. We have plans to upgrade it, but its great people liked it for what it represented, a good authentic start.

We have learnt that there is nothing as powerful a motivational tool as that of the energy and synergy that comes from a group of people who share a dream. The fundamentals that have kept us together and progressing has been a strong work ethic, a hunger to learn and grow from our experience and the sheer joy of realising your dream to be your own boss.

We have worked with some incredible start-ups and people that we really admire, and it is a privilege to be involved – albeit a small part, in their continuing success. Some of the feedback and messages we have had from people have been a real source of encouragement and helped us drive on, whilst reinforcing our beliefs in what we are doing. As we deliver on assignments confidence in us is building and we are finding that candidates and clients are responding to our messages more often, regardless of whether we are of interest right now to them. The key factor is that they are connecting with our ethos.

At the beginning in all fairness, we were seen as young upstarts, our backgrounds aren’t exactly rich with years of recruitment experience and we all know there is an endless list of new recruitment companies. We have refused to be "just another one" and whilst we know our approach will not suit everyone, we know that there are enough jaded hirer's and companies out there who are looking for genuine authenticity and a fresh approach - and that is what we bring. We have done a number of roles already based on recommendations, which have been so cool! 

I think what gives me the most pleasure so far, is the fact that even though the recruitment market is so over-saturated, with perceptions that are largely negative, we have been able to rise to the difficult challenge of changing people’s mindsets. There is nothing as rewarding as this achievement for us now.  

Written by AdGold