
A Christmas Tale with Recruitment Leadership Advice for 2025
Five years ago, I watched a programme – something like Tomorrow’s World. It showcased incredible innovations that could transform the way we live in the future.

Five years ago, I watched a programme – something like Tomorrow’s World. It showcased incredible innovations that could transform the way we live in the future.

More and more of the recruitment business owners and leaders in my network are experiencing a growing phenomenon. What is it?

Yesterday, the government published its new Employment Rights Bill for consideration by parliament. Most recruitment businesses in the UK are cautious about the impacts of some of the changes.

It’s happened again! Business leaders I know have been sleepwalking into the holiday season and feeling the hit on their P&L- even to the extent of converting profits into losses in the last 2 months.

Now, we can access far more information on our phones. But every week I see examples of where recruiters have lost sight of the great principles of time management.

I was off sick recently (vanishingly rare for the self-employed) and found myself watching repeated episodes of “The Hotel Inspector”, presented by the excellent Alex Polizzi.

It’s an interesting fact that, in recruitment at least, some owner/managers regard a NED or board advisor as their last luxury, a sign that their business has “arrived”.

I make a point of reading data-led reports about the recruitment industry, workforce demographics and worker expectations, salaries etc.

In Spring last year, I started working with a client who ran a small business (25 staff) placing tech infrastructure and UX specialists.

A business I work with has 45000 candidate records on his CRM. This was a mature business. At the same time, his team were spending 20% of net fee income (yes, 20%) on job boards and CV download services.