The 5-Step Framework to Understanding Recruitment and Leading Career Change – a conversation with David Dand, Managing Director of Coreus, Brighton-based Talent Acquisition agency

Leaders in Conversation is the podcast in which leaders share their life and leadership stories; the people, places and experiences that have shaped their values, beliefs, passion and purpose to encourage and inspire you to be even more confident and courageous in your leadership.

About This Episode

Today’s guest is David Dand, Managing Director of Coreus, the Brighton based Talent Acquisition agency. I had the pleasure of being introduced to David through a mutual friend, previous podcast guest, Dougal Fleming. If you haven’t already listened to that episode I highly recommend it. 

Dougal encouraged David and I to have a conversation, and that David has a wonderful story to share.

In our conversation, David offers valuable insights into:

• The five-step framework he uses when leading a candidate search to understand fit and motivation; 
• What you need to know about changing career and recruitment;
• Navigating career changes and your next big step;
• Hiring tips for leaders to ensure you have the right people in the right roles.

David’s three top tips for leaders looking to either make their next big move and, or ensuring that they make the right hire

1. Use the 5-step framework: 

• Consider salary and benefits
• Convenience
• Culture and brand reputation
• The day-to-day job
• Training and career progression 

2. Remember the stakes are high: 

• There are Soft & hard turnover costs, replacement & job hopping.

3.  Embrace individuality through knowing:

• What your key skills and strengths are
• What the conditions are for you to thrive 
• What Great looks and feels like, just because something is great doesn’t mean it is great for you!

To connect, follow and find out more about David and the The Five Step Framework go to:

LinkedIn: David Dand

Website: www.coreus.co.uk

Instagram: @coreus_talentacquisition 

About The 5 Step Career Change Framework 

A framework to help you understand career change and motivation, either for yourself or when you are hiring others to understand best fit.  

The five essentials are:

1. Salary & benefits 

• There is more to life than money. 
• And we have bills to pay. Responsibilities. Wants & needs. 
• Benefits: I work with an investment firm that offers a 20% pension contribution. 

2. Convenience

• Work-life balance
• Ability to manage work around your caring commitments, for example picking up children from school. 
• Work/life/harmony: Why, just because I am an accountant should I not have a weekend? 

3. Culture & Brand Reputation
I work with Accountancy / FS institutions. ‘Much the same.’ What is unique about this institution? What do I want?  

• Autonomy
• Challenge
• Sustainability

4. Day to day job

• Operational vs strategic 

5. Training and career progression

• Where is your career going, ideally
• What in an ideal world would you like to be true 

To listen to other Leaders in Conversation with me Anni Townend go to my website, www.annitownend.com

To contact me Anni Townend do email me on anni@annitownend.com visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.  I look forward to connecting with you, thank you for listening.

Transcript

Anni Townend: Hello, welcome and welcome back to Leaders in Conversation with me, Anni Townend. Today's guest is David Dand, Managing Director of Coreus, the Brighton based talent acquisition agency, and the title of our conversation is The Five Step Framework to Understanding Recruitment and Leading Career Change.

Leaders in Conversation is the podcast in which leaders share their life, and leadership stories, the people, places, and experiences that have shaped their values, their beliefs, passion, and purpose to encourage and inspire you to be even more confident, curious, and courageous in your leadership. If you're not already, please review and share it.

Thank you. 

I had the pleasure of being introduced to David through a mutual friend. Previous podcast guest Dougal Fleming. If you haven't already listened to that episode, I highly recommend it. Dougal encouraged David and I to have a conversation and said that David has a wonderful story to share. So David, as you know I'm really intrigued to hear your story today.

I know in our conversation, you're going to be offering valuable insights into 

• Your Five Step Framework that you use when leading a candidate search to understand fit and motivation. 
• You'll also be sharing your insights into what we, you the listener need to know about changing career and recruitment and thinking about your next big step.
• And finally, hiring tips, which I'm sure we all need. Those of us who are leaders to ensure that we have the right people in the right roles. 
  
  Welcome, David. 

David Dand: Thank you so much, Anni, and I'm really looking forward to talking to you.

Anni Townend: Likewise, I'm very excited to hear about you and to hear your story, which was signposted to us both when we were introduced by Dougal. So I'd like to begin by asking you, who are you by way of your values and beliefs, your passion and purpose? And most importantly, who are the people, the places and the key experiences, the turning points, if you like, that have made you the leader you are today. 

David Dand: So you'd like me to answer all of that in one my goodness. 

Anni Townend: Well, there are two questions that I always ask leaders in their own personal leadership that I think we all need to be able to answer, which is, who are you?

And why are you here? So the who are you is your values and beliefs. And the why you here is your passion and purpose. And I'm inviting you as I do leaders with whom I work to share something of your values and beliefs, your passion and purpose. And a real appreciation I have that place as well as people and experiences can absolutely shape us and make us who we are and inform why we do what we do.

So I'm very curious in both who you are, who are your people, places and experiences that have made you, you. 

David Dand: I grew up in London. My career has been in recruitment and HR and working with people. I had a standout experience where I was leading a large team and my priorities had gone more into growth and sales and marketing than processing, at this point.

I just remember this person being recruited, there was an empty seat in the office, which can happen and someone was recruited and they'd gone to Cambridge, the same university as our CEO, and they'd worked, a kind of top consultancy. They've got to be good. And it was rushed through this recruitment because the place had been, the seats had been vacant and there was pressure, I'm sure, that was being felt across the company or the team.

And the individual was of course great. We all are. And there can be various factors, influencing factors there. But despite being great, they were not great for the job. And it had a real kind of impact on me and influence and it was a catalyst for me starting my own business in the people space where I really understood how good people practices can generate profit and happiness and likewise bad people practices, what impact that can have. So we went from an office where we were almost starlings in murmuration. Everyone was moving and playing. It was wonderful. We didn't have to communicate.

We knew what we were doing. We were innovating. There was joy. And we were in chorus, which is where the name of my business comes from. Versus what happened when this individual started, where the communication completely changed, the ambience, the vibe, profits dived, positivity dived, and ultimately the kind of service that we were offering customers.

That customer experience changed. So I wanted to start my business to work in that space with small professional services organizations that were struggling with that. So either turning away work because they couldn't find the staff or wanting to improve their people practices. So that's led me to do what I do now.

As a headline, I think my values are really important to me. So when starting my business, I did a qualification in career counselling, not because I wanted to be a career counsellor, but because I wanted to have more conversations with employers and individuals around careers.

And out of that work, I was able to deep dive into a number of elements about me, and out of that was looking at my values. A really simple exercise to do, but ultimately ending up with three values that are really important to me which are openness, positivity, and individuality.

Openness for me is around creativity, being open minded, and it's also around transparent communication. So being as open as possible. To avoid issues that come further down the line. But those values are really fundamental to me and how I work and what I care about and in tune how we work as a business. What makes us who we are. 

Anni Townend: I love that you do have three values, because as you mentioned, we spoke about you having the five, the framework of five, that you think in fives, threes, or ones. I have three values.

And the first one is kindness. The second one is generosity. And the third one is courage. And again, that informs how I live my life, how I lead, how I am with people in my life and leadership, and it's who I am when I'm at my best. 

I loved how you described the experience of, that you had where everybody had been rather like a murmuration. I had a really vivid picture of a murmuration. And we both live in the south east of England, and there are sometimes beautiful murmurations to be seen not far from Coreus Brighton on the sea over the piers.

And the image that I had was of people all moving in the same direction, helping each other and supporting each other. 

David Dand: Yes. Where that came from was a marketeer. It was a friend of mine when I started my business. He said what do you get when talent acquisition works? And that was the image that I had, the Starling Murmuration, which is a kind of a wonder of nature.

You're not sure why they do it, how they do it, how they don't bump into each other. And that is what you get when it works, when you're in a team with people. It's a kind of hidden communication, or you just know intuitively, instinctively. You're in a flow state so that is where that kind of comes from and I think maybe that second value of positivity and also individuality and uniqueness and style is, it comes from that.

I think that's just very important to me in terms of positivity is looking to progress, looking to move things on. Enthusiasm, drive, underpins who we are, how we work, and where we're at our best. 

Anni Townend: And it is a choice, isn't it?

Positivity, because that's something that most of the time we can choose positivity over negativity. We can choose to bring a positive mindset to something to look at, something through a positive lens and have that sense of possibility about the future versus arriving with a negativity, which I'm sure all of us from time to time slip into when things become too much or when we're not enjoying and finding our joy in the murmuration that is where we can do our best work and bring our best selves to contribute. And I think it's so important to know what helps us to thrive, which is something that you talk about and is in your five step framework, knowing the conditions in which you can be positive and find your joy and help others to find theirs along the way.

David Dand: It's a potentially dangerous one we know that it's important to talk about things and life isn't all a smooth trajectory to success. Things happen and a plastic smile and fake positivity and a lack of authenticity is not a good thing.

Anni Townend: What helps you to bring a positive mindset to what you do, recognizing that there are times when all of us can feel down through, not being well can get us down, circumstances, challenges in our lives, be that at work or at home, or not having work can be a big challenge along with being in the wrong job or feeling stuck in a job.

So what have you found in your experience has helped you to bring positivity when you haven't perhaps been feeling great. 

David Dand: I'm happy when I'm proud of myself and I think we will all understand and empathize with those situations.

You just talked about applying for jobs and not hearing back. Not getting real feedback, going through periods of difficult change and transition and being in a job where you're not happy. And you can't just be positive.

We can get in a negative mindset, but it's about trying to live your life in a way that true to your values and what's important. So it could be about sharing. I want to be open with you. This is my opinion of the way you just approached that. 

Anni Townend: And it's that encouraging openness, isn't it? And creating for you, especially given that openness is the first of your three values. One of those that you live and lead by and creating an environment, a business in which people can be open with each other and find their positivity recognizing that we're not always all of us going to feel positive at the same time. I sometimes use not so much at this time of the year in the UK. It's not happening now, but it was happening a few weeks ago where you see geese flying in V formation. So another bird metaphor for, how they fly and how cyclists cycle and support and help each other with not always the same bird or the same person at the front leading, but still being part of the same team, the same group going in the same direction.

But recognizing, and that's what takes me to your third value, that of individuality. Recognizing individuality as well. And it would be great to hear you say a little bit more about your third value. 

David Dand: It links with place, which I'll talk about in a moment, which is South Bank, London. And individuality for me comes out of skateboarding and art and really South Bank, which is where I remember skateboarding when I was young and skateboarding, if you've ever watched it, no one ever lands anything. It's not like you go down and see people excelling at skateboarding. Most of the time people are falling over and the board doesn't do what you're supposed to do.

And so it's not necessarily about what you're doing, the technicality of how difficult it is. The concepts of how you do it. Individual reality for me is about inclusion, belonging. It's about style and art and color and uniqueness.

And I enjoy that we all have a unique life and accept and love the fact that we have unique strengths. And I try to look at that when I'm working with people. So whether it's a stressed out director who isn't in control of maybe the business, or spinning all the plates perfectly, or it's an individual who's going through a career change 

And I love that individuality that we can all bring to the table. 

Anni Townend: So helping people to find their individuality whilst having a sense of belonging. And it's back to that finding that group, finding your tribe in which you can be different, be yourself, and are at the same time part of something bigger than who you are by the sound of it.

David Dand: I think so and a danger there to do with, coming back into the corporate setting is hiring people that are just like you. And there's something so safe about that. But for me, individuality is a love of the weird and loving that people can come to the table with a different viewpoint.

And my goodness, that's exciting. And that can reduce risk and it can bring innovation. And so individuality is enjoying all our differences. And that feels like an ingredient in a hyper successful team. 

Anni Townend: One of the things that I found and I am really passionate about is inclusion and diversity of thought and feeling.

And in my work, helping leaders, senior leaders and their teams create a safe environment in which people feel safe and are able to be open and honest with each other to have that transparent, open communication. Lucy Kidd and myself have co-created what we call our Collaboration Equation, which starts with psychological safety, then inclusive dialogue, diversity of thoughts and feeling, which leads then to Collaborative Edge.

And I think leadership is having the confidence and the encouragement of others. Having people around you who cheer you on and believe in you and help you get back on the board again and have another go and experiment, try something else out.

It's something I have never done skateboarding, but I have watched and love watching. And it is very beautiful. And I'm amazed that people do get on and off and have another go very quickly. And so there's something about learning, experimenting, having fun at the same time

David Dand: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's an art and it's a love of falling, embracing that falling is part of life. So for me, Southbank skateboarding is, it was a real kind of an understanding of maybe an approach to life and what are you bringing to the table?

And everyone brings different influences. And that feeds into that individuality and individualism. And sometimes it's a challenge when I've worked with people that value collectivism and society.

So there's a contrariness there.

Anni Townend: It's that contrariness that I think when people are thriving together and helping each other to thrive together and are committed to each other's success, that can lead to greater innovation, greater creativity, and people have a lot more fun together.

David Dand: And, what you mentioned earlier about not always agreeing with each other, I challenge people at work. And I let them know I'm going to challenge you on this, and I want to be open with you, but this is what I took from the way you approached that, or that's how it made me feel.

And that's incredibly empowering, and it comes from a positive place, a constructive place. 

Anni Townend: It comes from, I always say to people, when we're committed to somebody's success, when we then acknowledge them, support them, support is sometimes in the form of a challenge that I often encourage people to have a look at is that of Radical Candor by Kim Scott, in which she talks about being personally caring and challenging directly and the importance of that openness and transparency in communication. And I think challenging people to be their best because you are committed to their success is so important.

David, you've spoken about the places and the experiences that shaped you in forming Coreus. What about the people in your life? I know that there are very special people in your life and this is an audio podcast. However, behind you and for listeners, there's a beautiful poster that has been painted by one of your children that says, I love you daddy.

So I know you are a dad. Tell me a bit more about the people in your life that are an important part of that work life that I know comes into the Five Step Framework as well. 

David Dand: I think two people that really influenced me, my parents, my dad was an artist or graphic designer who had his own business or an entrepreneur, but really a creative, and my mom was an accountant.

Neither of them went to university, so through hard graft, achieved their success. But my dad suffered some career challenges to do with property, invested in a property in London, a commercial space, that during the recession, and that was a really difficult time for him and for us as a family.

And then my mum's career at that point really took off as she was an accountant. She worked for the leisure space and just when she was really going to make it she was released or made redundant. And those influences had a big effect on me and how I trusted companies and the concept of safety at work.

I would say that those two people had a real influence on me and my career and my life. But the person, if you've asked me to name one, would be my wife. Having a career, having a business, it's a team effort, at least for us. And, my wife has been there a number of times where I thought, Oh, this is a really difficult day.

And people you can go to and be vulnerable is an incredible and important ingredient for success and overcoming problems. And then just really in terms of her own areas where she excels, which are different to me I'm not unkind.

But certainly she is incredibly kind and patient and tolerant and those are virtues and strengths which are really good influences on me. And she's the mother of our children.

Anni Townend: Really lovely. And so important to have close to home a go to person and equally being a go to person for other people and something again that I speak with leaders about is the importance of knowing who your go to people are.

And someone introduced me to the importance of having your personal boardroom where you have people sitting around that table for you. Your wife would be there and I imagine your children too, but the other people in your life, in your work, friends colleagues. I imagine Dougal might be there as well at your table, the people that you go to for different things. Of course you will be at their table, not necessarily the same people, but some of the same people, you will be there go to person as well. And the importance of having that person who will support you, challenge you, love you, be kind.

David Dand: And it takes hard work Anni, it's not like we've just I mean It's so much luck to do with meeting my wife, you know that night. But it  takes hard work to maintain that relationship and our openness and the fun we have so much fun. But my goodness, we've raised three kids who are all two years apart through the pandemic. I have my own business businesses It's not all been roses, and that takes hard work.

But again, I just love that individuality and her unique strengths. And what we both bring to the table is we have a really colorful, fun, joyous life, but it is hard work and we maintain that relationship really carefully. 

Anni Townend: Which is wonderful to hear. And also it is one of the things in your Five Step Framework that you mention as being really important. The life work balance, thinking about what's important to you. It would be great to hear as we come to the close of the conversation. But before you get to your top tips, a little bit more about the Five Step Framework to successful recruiting and hiring and making a career change. 

David Dand: You could fill a page with really important factors that are all essential in understanding you, yourself, where you thrive and how we've ended up to where we are.

And these can include looking at your own timeline and your values. What will motivate you, what will satisfy you? And these are quite unique things to look at which can help you approach your career and your needs and your wants with a different lens. What your interests are, and interest links so much in with resilience.

That interest feeds resilience and going the extra mile. But I've had some jobs, and specifically one job I can think of, which should have been an outright success, and it turned out not to be. And it took a lot of work to think about what actually will happen there, and how can that not happen again?

How could I have thought of that? Be a tool or to support a company to avoid hiring the wrong person, because that wasn't a successful outcome for me, for the business, the group of people that I've worked with. What could I do? And then this five step framework comes quite simply out of a study done and what people want to know when they look at a job advert.

What are the most important things that people want to see? And actually I boiled that down to really understand what does the company propose? What's their value proposition? And then in turn, what do people really want? 

Anni Townend: Can you summarize the five steps in the framework David? 

David Dand: Yeah, absolutely. The first one is money. And I think we're all aware that there's more to life than money. After the pandemic, I think everyone has had a deep dive, no matter who you are.

I think the Covid certainly shook that up, but ultimately we need to pay the bills. And it's an unfortunate one for many who look at life more deeply than money, but salary and benefits is ultimately a really important thing to understand what is necessary to pay the bills or driving that change. It could be a child that needs some extra support.

The second one, which I think is often overlooked, is to do with we call it convenience. But it's, quite simply your work life balance or Jeff Bezos calls it work life harmony. But, the concept of how you can work, marry work around your caring commitments.

Someone could have a perfect job, great salary, great business, but they're unable to pick up their kids from school, and that just will not work, for example. So it could be, in this current day and age, this is particularly complex in the world of recruitment this individual thing around convenience.

It could be commute, hybrid working, what are your expectations, what are your needs? It could be the location of the clients, where you're traveling to. So practically, how does this work in your life and feed your sense of autonomy, working on your own terms?

The third one is around the culture of the business and that is really important in terms of the fifth one, which I'll talk about, which is where you're going in your career. What does the future look like? And so if you're hiring for a role, this could be perfect, but if there's no route to progression, no route to partner, and that's ideally what that individual's going to be working for, then it's a mismatch.

And I feel like if any one of these ingredients is out of place, it can have a real impact on long term fit. But it can also feed into what is unique about that business as an accountancy firm compared with another accountancy firm, which on the face look, we're all the same, but actually are they private equity backed.

Where are they in that journey? It creates a very unique culture. And that proposition, a business is speaking to the market, or what somebody wants, is very important. And culture and career progression are two things that feed resilience. The other really important one is the day to day job. It's balance.

What does that look like? Is really important for wellbeing and fit. And I'll give you an example. It could be the day-to-day job of a sales person, but what's the length of that sales cycle if someone is short term, short term deals, three to six months, that's very different than working on, for example, much larger, 10 times the size scale of the deal could be 50 million.

But the scale and length of that deal cycle, what does that day to day job look like? Planning, execution, risk of projects is essential. And we use this framework to reduce everyone's risk. And by using this framework, our acceptance of offers is well over 90 percent and the acceptance of people who accept those offers and then start again is well over 90%. 

So by understanding these things, we're able to reduce our risk and avoid wasting everyone's time because if you're ever hiring for a job and you hire someone and they've got a long notice period and then ultimately they're counter offered, you start again and that problem is deeply felt sometimes within smaller businesses, especially in senior leadership

Anni Townend: Thank you, David. They’re a great set of steps and helpful whether anybody listening is thinking about their own career and the hiring journey, but also thinking about it from the perspective of hiring the right person for the right job. And as you said, for both parties, it is a time consuming process, and it's really important to get it right.

What, as we come to the close of our conversation having talked us through the five step framework, what are your three Key top tips, encouragements to somebody looking to make a big career change and or someone looking to hire somebody where perhaps in the past they themselves may have had a negative experience or they've made a negative hire, which is not only upset them, but being upsetting for the person they hired and indeed the team that they were part of.

Your threeTop tips. 

David Dand: So the first one would be understand that five step framework to reveal where there could be a mismatch. And then you can have a conversation and overcome any potential obstacles and or save yourself a lot of time starting a job and then one year later leaving it. And that's an expensive challenge.

I think the other two, so the first one is embracing individuality. And then the second one is accepting there are high stakes at place. So I'll start with that. The high stakes is if that job doesn't work out, that can be, it's expensive moving jobs for anyone that's been left looking for a job and it could be just a couple of months, but that's a scary time.

And there's a visible hard cost to do with recruitment. But the soft, it's often these soft, invisible costs. And I think it's about understanding and remembering that the stakes are high.

And what I mean by those invisible costs is then looking for work, if you don't have work for a couple of months. How deflating and frustrating and demoralizing that can be. So really understand how important it is to nail it down right. But likewise, if you're hiring and it doesn't work out.

The stress of an under resourced team, how that can feed further turnover and replacement amongst the team. So not just your working week being impacted, you know that something's not right.

I think a real acceptance and an acknowledgement that the stakes are high and good people practices and care over people generates profit, success for all. 

So we've got embracing the five steps framework, remembering the stakes are high, and then it's about individuality and embracing individuality.

Often individuals, when they're looking for a job. It can be that they've been rejected by their parent company. Something's not right. They're part of the old culture. They're not a part of the new culture. And suddenly you're not getting invited to meetings or you're not having the same impact in meetings.

So people can lack confidence when they're changing jobs often, and you can lose sight of what you're bringing to the table. Likewise, if you're hiring I think is a real important understanding of where this person thrives. A great exercise to do with someone is to ask them, where in your life, in your work or your personal life, have you been at your very best, where you've thrived?

And you get them to think and really, there are all sorts of things that come out, doing my qualifications while I had children, part time, the way I organized my life, that was me at my best. My back against the wall, it could be solving problems when I was young and understanding the ingredients there.

What do you bring, your unique skills and strengths that you're bringing to that situation? But also the conditions that enabled you to thrive and we had place earlier South Bank there was Traveling, adventure, friendship opportunism, being creative.

These are things that are still as relevant now for my success, and where I could really outperform as they were when I was 15. Not into what we don't want, but what we really want. Where we're at our best, what are our unique skills. And it allows you as a job seeker to put your best foot forward to a company and them say, who are you?

And you can say this is it. You can abbreviate it and summarize it just very quickly. 

Anni Townend: I really love that. One of the things that I sometimes ask and in response to having read somebody's LinkedIn profile, where they had said the five most important things to know about me when working with me.

And it was so helpful ahead of the call that I was to have with them. And it got me thinking, what would be the five most helpful things for somebody to know about me, who is working with me or hoping to work with me. And that's what you're saying is know yourself, know who you are at your best. Have a look back through your life when you were your happiest, at what gave you joy.

Which is really lovely. As a result of our conversation today, David, who will you and what will the conversation be that you'll go on to have with - who and what's the conversation that you will have with them as a result of our conversation today? 

David Dand: Next week, I'm going to be meeting with a client of a loneliness charity that I volunteer at.

And I do that because it makes me feel proud of myself, and I enjoy that influence on my life. And that is an important ingredient in my overall success. I have worked for a charity for a number of years full time, but to answer your question, I'm gonna really enjoy those couple of hours that I'm gonna spend with that person in Brighton who's facing isolation and loneliness.

And look forward to talking to them. 

Anni Townend: And what's the conversation that you'll have with them? 

David Dand: I would love to know more about what they were doing in the army, when they were there. And, the individual was so proudly talking to me about their experience in the Falklands for example. So look more into their individuality, I think.

Anni Townend: Thank you for that answer. That's lovely. And thank you for sharing your wisdom and your story today. For those listeners that would like to have a conversation with you, David, how best for them to get in touch with you and to find out more about the Five Step Framework, but also to pick up on any aspect of our conversation today with you.

David Dand: You can find me on LinkedIn. You can go to my website, which is Coreus or Coreus.couk. And I'm on Instagram, but the best way is to find me on LinkedIn or go to our website. 

Anni Townend: Lovely. Thank you. And I do encourage you to do just that if you're thinking of a big career change and or you're looking to hire the right person for the right job to be part of your murmuration.

To listen to other leaders in conversation with me, Anni Townend, do go to my website, annitownend.com. A big thank you as well as to you, David to my support team which includes Coco O'Brien for the wonderful intro and outro music, for the lovely design and for the excellent editing and sound production, to contact me, Anni Townend, do email me on anni@annitownend.com

Follow me on LinkedIn, Anni Townend, and subscribe to my newsletter. I look forward to connecting with you. Thank you for listening. And a huge thank you to you, David, for our conversation today. 

David Dand: Thank you so much.