Talent Talks with Tom Hacquoil

Welcome to Talent Talks, quick fire questions to get to know leaders in recruitment. I'm Tom, CEO at Pinpoint, and today I'm joined by Rob Green, founder and CEO of Rectec. We've worked with Rectec for years and Rob has a bunch of amazing knowledge about the industry, particularly in the recruitment tech space. But an amazing product that compares a whole bunch of different solutions without the usual heavy lift of having to manually review providers. And I think on a personal note, we're huge fans of what he's built here. I think our objective has always been to build good products. We want to make sure that people like Rob exist to help customers of all shapes and sizes find the right vendor for them, whether that's us or not.
And so we love Rob's impartial approach to the market and really appreciate what he's built there. Rob, looking forward to asking you a bunch of questions. You good to go?

Thank you, Tom. Yeah, good to go. And thank you for having me on the show. It's really great to be here. Thanks for the wonderful introduction as well. You've saved me a lot of time.

No worries. Look, we'll elaborate on that now, right? So the first question is, can you just give the audience a sort of 60 second summary of what you're trying to achieve with Rectec?

Sure. In essence, Rectec help recruitment and HR leaders around the world to make smarter decisions about the technologies they choose for their business. We provide a comprehensive technology comparison service that compares applicant tracking systems, recruitment CRMs, HR information systems. And it's something that we are continuing to grow where we've only just launched into the HRIS space, that has the potential to open many other doors for us as well, which we're looking forward to. It's completely free to use. It takes just 10 to 15 minutes to input a full set of requirements, and then it provides a tailored shortlist of the best matching solutions as well. In addition to that, we have an RFI automation tool, a vendor evaluation feature, and also a marketplace of complementary technologies. I would say that we're very experienced in this field, but we also understand the challenges that technology buyers face. And as a business, we genuinely just love helping people with this. So far we've helped over 700 organisations, including the likes of Sky, Arriva, the NHS, Reed, Accenture, and also hundreds of small to medium enterprises as well.

A, fantastic elevator pitch, and B, the passion for the work you do really shines through. Really appreciate that. I think, having just told us what you do, I guess the big question is, if you weren't in the talent space, what would you be doing instead?

It's a tough question. I've spent about the last nine or so months on working on a very large home renovation project that has been quite a lot of fun, but it's also been pretty backbreaking to be honest. I think I've always been a real problem solver. So I think if I haven't decided to maximise my experience in the talent space and solve one of the largest problems here, I would probably have found another problem somewhere else to solve. I guess I could answer that in two ways. It could be, are we talking current skill set? Are we talking dream job?

I think, I'm interested in the dream job, but I guess I will just make the comment I find it interesting that you spent nine months on a home renovation and still think that's something that you would choose to do. I've spent three years on a home renovation and all I've learned is that I absolutely would not renovate homes for a living.

I've taken about 30 minutes away from my desk this week and this is it. I've been sat on the digger all week. Yeah, I've been working like flat out to do a, we're landscaping the back garden at the moment. Okay. I'm working in the evening to do admin and emails and try and catch up. But yeah, I'd definitely enjoy doing something like that, I think.

Makes sense and massive respect for that. I could not do it. But as you say, solving problems, right? Just slightly more hardcore problems.

Yeah, always been quite a hands on sort of guy.

Look, I think back to TA, like you spent a long time in the TA space, right? Obviously, now you're on the advisory side doing some great work there, but So how would you observe the recruitment industry has changed since you've had boots on the ground?

Another good question. I actually worked in recruitment agency before I got into TA and that was nearly 20 years ago. Which feels like a lifetime ago now, but so much has changed in that time. Back in 2006, I worked for Reed recruiting into the finance and accounting industry, and it's hard to believe that we were literally still writing job ads and putting them into our shop window at the time. And if you look at how job ads are written now, they're written by something called artificial intelligence and then they're programmatically published based on many attributes of the job. And then technology tells us where's the best place to publish them, it's crazy, but it also gets you thinking about what the next 20 years has in store.

For sure. Yeah, and that's a great segue to the next question, which is the thematic idea we keep talking about is this rate of change is going up and everybody's having to adapt. And even the example you gave there from shop window to AI driven programmatic advertising is a great one. When you look forward, what are the major challenges you think TA leaders are facing this year and beyond?

I think there's been a huge amount of uncertainty, you know since AI became mainstream, it's unsurprisingly slowed the market down a bit. I think that's because organisations in this market, and I'm sure many other markets as well, go through a process, which I think we're only just starting to see the other side of, and it's not necessarily unique to the introduction of AI, but it's a fundamental shift. That this or any other major advancement or market change has. And that is that we first have to review, we have to educate ourselves on the change. We have to understand what it means to us and what the likely impact is going to be. And that's not something that happens overnight. It takes a long time. I think the market has gradually, educated itself in this change. And now we're starting to see a return in confidence when it comes to buying decisions being made. I think there's still a lot of advancements that we're going to see to AI, but I've definitely started to see things start to slow down in some respects. There's loads of technology businesses popping up all over the place that have got a new solution for this and a new solution for that. And it's all driven by AI, but we're starting to see the limitations of that, and we're starting to see the outer edges of that evolution in technology, and I'm sure it's going to continue to grow, but I think it's going to continue to grow now at a slightly slower rate, and people are seeing that, and I think it's giving them the confidence back that they need to actually embrace that technology.

Sure. No, it makes a huge amount of sense. And I guess just to build on that, when we talked about Rectec before and the types of organisations you serve, you really made it clear that it's all shapes and sizes from very large, Sky-esque organisations down to SMBs and beyond, do you observe organisations at either end of those spectrums dealing with these challenges differently?

I think so. I mean, Yes, it's a short answer. I Organisations that use our platform range from, solopreneurs that have just set up a recruitment agency through to the likes of, I mentioned Accenture earlier, they're probably, they're a fairly substantial outfit. If you consider the way in which they would recruit into their business. Accenture is an example where they've got tons of different recruitment teams that recruit into different parts of the business. They've all got their own challenges, they've got their own frustrations, their own pain points, their own objectives, they've got their own people. I think every organisation is probably facing this challenge in a slightly different way.

No, I think it makes a great deal of sense, to be honest. I think it's just interesting for us because I think we see your kind of broader comment earlier about that sort of impact of AI hitting the market, causing people to take stock of the situation and watch things play out a little bit. Yeah, we are seeing larger organisations come back into the market and start to re-engage where they'd paused and were waiting. Because they didn't know when the right time to go was, if that makes sense, we've seen smaller businesses be slightly more happy to push through that stasis, if you will, and just go, hey, we need to make something happen now. So let's get it done. It's, I would just agree with your general oversight, that, yeah, we are starting to see the market unstick itself. I guess maybe it's an easier way of framing it, right?

I suppose when you look at the different organisations of both Rectec and Pinpoint, we'll deal with them on a day to day basis. that's running a small recruitment agency, for example, it's much, much easier for them to take a bit of a punt and maybe adopt a piece of technology that is just coming to the market. Whereas if you look at some of the larger enterprises that we work with, actually implementing technology takes a long time. Buying technology takes a long time. Convincing the business that you even need to buy technology takes a long time. So it's much easier for a smaller organisation to be agile and say, Okay, I'm going to take the bull by the horns and I'm going to adopt a piece of technology that solves a very niche problem and cost me, X amount a month. And, it's perhaps it's a bit easier for them to do that because they can afford to be more agile. They can afford to make those mistakes because there may be a little bit easier to put right. Or if you talk about an organisation that's got thousands, tens of thousands, maybe of hiring managers across multiple industries, continents, different countries, it's much harder to try and undo a problem that something like that might create.

For sure. The other observation I'd make is just, I think that the bigger the companies get, the more externalities seem to impact the way they operate. And so as you said, that SMB can make a decision, they can run with it they can take a punt in your lingo and crack on. I think we've seen. Yeah, macroeconomic impact has played a huge role in these bigger organisations. Election cycles in both the UK and the US has played a huge role in decision making in these organisations. We've seen broader like global geopolitical conflicts play a role in these organisations, especially those that are impacted by those sorts of policies. And so it's just that there is this huge gulf between these two sectors. And it's interesting to watch one take the charge and the other come and catch up and then the reverse be true in different times. But yeah, all clear. I think I'm Moving on and just spicing it up a little bit, get to know you a little bit better. What character or historical figure do you most admire?

Oh wow. I, just being a problem solver I would think about someone like Albert Einstein. I don't consider myself to be an Albert Einstein, but I admire somebody like that, because he solved some very big problems, which is what we're doing. It might be a bit smaller in comparison to, creating electricity or something like that.

Listen, it's a great answer. I literally have a picture of Albert Einstein about 10 feet from me. So I think that's a great response.

There you go. There you go. And I didn't know that. I've learned something about you too. There you go.

Yeah. I also don't claim to be Albert Einstein like you, but I think I'm a big fan. Big fan. Cool. Look, back to the technology stuff, right? Like you spend a huge amount of time reviewing recruitment providers. And to be honest, in some ways I'm quite jealous. I wish I had the capacity to digest as many of the things happening in the market as you do, given the role you have, what are you seeing? That's really exciting to you in terms of the future of TA tech. You've talked about AI, but is there other things you're seeing coming into the market?

I think for me, it really has been genuinely exciting to see how the industry has embraced AI. And, I've learned a lot about AI over the last couple of years since it's become really mainstream. And I've really enjoyed seeing some of the ways in which AI is used. And I know I said earlier that it is slowing down, but I'm actually really still very excited to see what else comes off that because I still believe that we're, probably, putting it out there, 60 to 70% of the way through what that has to offer in the short to medium term. I think long term it's probably gonna go more than you and I can probably even imagine at this stage. I'm not talking, robots taking over the world, but who knows? But I think there is, there's a lot more to see, but I don't think it's necessarily gonna be at the same rate that we've seen. But I'm really enjoying watching those new technologies come into the business, and they all seem to, they're not only leveraging AI for the technology, but they're also leveraging AI to sell the technology as well. So if your inbox is anything like mine, every single day, I'm receiving tons of sales emails that are from AI driven sales platforms that automate all of these communications. They've been around for a long time, but I think they've just become a lot more sophisticated. These emails, sales emails that I'm receiving are now so well written that you genuinely believe that someone has taken the time, to the point where I don't anymore, because I've received so many of them that are so well written. I'm enjoying seeing where that's going. I think the rise of AI is really exciting me right now.

No, cool. Yeah. Look, to be fair, it's hard to get excited about these small incremental improvements when something comes in and just completely changes the game, right? So I hear you loud and clear on that. Yeah, I think one of the things that's really interesting to me is, because I agree with you, right? And I think there's a lot that's transforming the space. I think what I'm interested in is does the buyer want the same thing that the vendors are actually putting out into the market. So what are you seeing lots of TA leaders ask for? And I'm like, what are they looking for these days when they're comparing Rectec products?

That's a great question. It genuinely is something that I could talk to you for hours about. And the reason why I could talk to you for hours about something like that is because the platform that we operate captures so much data about what the market is asking for. We actually provide service back to our partners. Which is called Rectec market insights and that allows you to really understand what the market is asking for. And we're helping organisations to even shape their product roadmap based on what the market needs are and spot the trends in, what kind of features are really trending and which ones maybe that are on your product roadmap are on a bit of a downward trajectory in terms of requirements as well. So we have not just a load of data about what the market's asking for, but also. Around how much or how important these features are to the market as well. I could pull up some stats and probably talk about this all day. But is there anything specific right now that stands out as being a real game changer that, that isn't something we've already talked about? I'm not sure. A lot organisations are definitely reviewing the way that they do things, because there are newer technologies and newer features that are allowing them to become, more efficient when it comes to things like, writing job adverts, distributing job posts and things like that. We're scratching the surface. We could go into, probably 20, 30 different things that you can do in TA with AI. But I think people have really started to open their arms to that a bit more. So there's definitely more demand in terms of reviewing what they're doing, how they're doing it, and if there's a better way.

No, that's clear. One of the things that fascinates me and I love about you guys is that market education piece. And I think what we see often is, a lot of people understanding that AI is transforming the industry. They know that they need AI or that they should need AI or that they hypothetically want AI, but they'll ask for AI and not a solution, if that makes sense. Oh, we need to buy AI. We need this to have AI in it. But what do you want the AI to do is often harder to extract from people and it feels quite buzzworthy. And I love the role you guys can play in educating the market around how to actually extract value from this change rather than it just being a buzzword.

When people are searching for technology through our platform, we don't ask them if they need AI. We ask them what they want to do, and then the vendor, like Pinpoint for example, will then be able to demonstrate to them how you can do that and how you can leverage AI to solve that particular problem. We don't necessarily bring AI into search. It's about taking those requirements and allowing, the vendors in this industry to demonstrate and articulate how they meet that. And whether that's with core feature of a platform or whether it's embracing, ChatGPT or whatever's sitting behind that.

No, it makes sense. I love it. Two more questions. A random wildcard one, but I'm very intrigued by your answers. What animal do you think best embodies your personality and why?

I've always felt like a really strange connection to dolphins. That's probably one of the reasons why I like scuba diving. Maybe I was a dolphin in a past life. I don't know, but they've always got a smile on their face. I don't know. Dolphin is the only one that comes to my mind.

I like that. I like that. And you were saying you've done a lot of diving, right? Diving is a big passion of yours in your personal time.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, certified rescue diver. Don't get anywhere near as many dives as I'd like to, but then, home renovation project, running a business.

I think you might be like the most alpha male recruitment industry person I've ever heard of. You're like a rescue diving, home renovating, software building, genius person. So I love it. Thank you, Rob.

Thank you, Tom.

All of those things considered, we've got the Einstein, diving, home renovating, recruiting here. What is your advice to TA leaders thinking about their tech stack moving forward? What should they be thinking about? How would you advise them to go about that?

I think the biggest mistake that a lot of people make is they they don't necessarily know what they need or why. Not always anyway. I think people often come to us when they're looking for tech and they'll have a list of, 5, 10, 15 requirements. Whereas actually in a very short space of time, 10 to 15 minutes, we're turning that into more like a hundred or 150 requirements just by getting them thinking about what's out there. Cause a lot of people don't. If you look at something like an applicant tracking system or HRIS, most people adopt those and keep them. We're talking 3, 4, 5 years plus, depending on the size of the organisation and the kind of solution they're using. But you're talking between 3 and 5 years, and people change roles in that time. So the people that were involved in the implementation of that solution probably weren't around. And they may not have been involved in procuring that kind of technology before. So there's always this you don't know what you don't know. So the first thing you really want to do is educate yourself on the market, but don't necessarily go into the market until you know exactly what it is you need. Think about the problems that you're trying to solve. I always advise our clients to actually map out their TA or recruitment processes from end to end, think about all the people that are involved, think about all of the pain points and frustrations and bottlenecks, really get a very solid picture of the problems that you are trying to solve, and then speak to somebody whether that's a consultant, whether it's a firm like Rectec that understand this market and what's on offer, to help you understand, what technology can you adopt in order to solve the problems that you're trying to solve? It doesn't take very long. I'm talking about that from my perspective. I've managed well over 100 ATS implementation projects. If you're talking to somebody that really understands the market, and I know that is very difficult to find. Most consultants probably work with 4 or 5 different ATS vendors. It's difficult for anybody to have a really solid picture of what's on offer in the market. We do that and we do that day in day out, so I would obviously advocate for what we're doing. But at the same time it's about understanding your requirements. It's about getting a good picture of what's in the market. And then take your time. It's not something that happens overnight. When you're evaluating vendors, stick to the script, think about what it is you're looking for that vendor to demonstrate. Don't get sidetracked. Don't get blindsided by shiny new features.Really just stick to what is it I'm trying to solve and ask the vendor to show you and go through that list and really just take your time to checklist and evaluate those vendors. Based on what it is you need. Nobody knows your business better than you, right?

Look Rob, that's great advice. Thank you for sharing that and actually that's 10 questions completed. So thank you very much for your time and for joining us today.

Thank you, Tom. I appreciate you having me on the show. It's been great.

Everybody else, thank you again for listening. You can follow Rob on LinkedIn. We'll put links to his LinkedIn profile and to Rectec.io in the notes to make it easy to go and interact and engage with all the great stuff that he is producing. If you want to be featured on the show or know anybody who'd be great, please get in touch and have them join me on Talent Talks and have a fantastic day. Thank you for listening.