Talent Partner: why it works better than traditional recruitment
It seems like a natural evolution of sorts, especially for the recruitment industry. That evolution began as a collaboration between myself as Purple Squirrel and Roger Norton the CEO of Playlogix back in 2017.
Roger came to me with a problem that he needed to solve: hire great people for a growing business with set margins, at a reasonable cost. It was a start-up studio that was building tech for other businesses. Together, we conceptualised and trialled what I have adopted today as Talent Partner. The way Roger explains this model is better than I can articulate: I was needing to hire 3 Senior developers and paying 25–20% recruitment fees would cost me close to R500k. Recruiters have to charge this as they run completely on a risk basis — if they don’t place they don’t earn. This incentivises flooding me with candidates in case I hire one. Instead, by paying a monthly base fee and a massively reduced placement fee, I could halve the recruitment costs and the recruiter is incentivised to only send good candidates as they’ve got exclusivity and have a monthly base covered. This approach had the interesting outcome of candidates responding WAY better to someone approaching them from a company email address than a recruiter one.
It was at a perfect time for Purple Squirrel’s journey, I was disillusioned by the transactional approach of the industry. It can happen in an industry where it is an exception to the norm to add value beyond a CV introduction. Ever since our first trial of what would become the Talent Partner approach, the world has changed, and this has significantly validated what Roger and I developed.
Talent Partner is a model that has real impact. It allows fast-growing tech businesses that are hiring for more than one role, to partner with an experienced recruitment team, who bring different ideas, and an ability to build a framework. Talent Partner operates like a sounding board as such, while driving the candidate engagement part of the recruitment drive. Most significantly, Talent Partner does it all at a cost that does not hinder growth. In the early phases of a businesses life, margins are tight and money is scarce even if you are VC backed.
Startups are super fun to work with and love solving problems as their main focus, Talent Partner integrates seamlessly into businesses that are keen to collaborate on working the talent puzzle out. The biggest issue facing any business right now is finding the best talent and engaging while influencing top tier people to consider joining their mission. And, of course, keeping the best talent in their business.
