The ethical recruiter

ーSimon, what first brought you to Japan?

(Simon) I'm from the U.K. and my background is in automotive engineering. I went to work for a car company for a couple of years and as part of that I had the chance to come to Japan on a business trip, spending about five weeks here. I was 23 years old or so.

I just really felt a lot of synergy with how things were done here. I found out that, actually, English teaching was an easier way in than I realized, so I got over here and started working in the eikaiwa (English-conversation schools).

ー That’s a familiar story for many I imagine. How did you ultimately find yourself in recruitment then?

(Simon) I was working in a school with really motivated professional colleagues and I put a lot of time and effort into being a good teacher. I got the chance to step up into a trainer role, and started writing some of the curriculums and rewriting the training manuals, which was a good experience.

When I was looking to advance from there, I saw several of my colleagues go into recruitment, and I initially thought that it wouldn’t really be for me, but I got to know a few recruiters that I really liked and that led me to take my first job in the industry. I did well initially as an entry-level associate, and I eventually moved into the operations and development side of the business, which is where I am today at Randstad Japan. I’m going on 14 years or so now in recruitment.

ーWith that long of a career, I am always keen to ask veterans what they recall of their young associate consultant days. What memories or lessons stand out for you?

(Simon) What stands out for me is the ethical approach. All the people I worked with were very ethical and that was a huge thing for me staying in recruitment.

I remember when I came back from closing my first deal and my manager asked me for the run through of how it went, it came out that the candidate had a bit of a concern about work-life balance. I had told them, “It's going to be OK.” My manager looked at me and said, “Was that true?” It was true, and that was the point. It was a very, very ethical approach to things, you know, telling the truth and not lying to the candidate was something I latched on to quickly, and I think it made me a better biller in the end.

ーWhy was being an ethical recruiter important to you?

(Simon) Well I think coming from an engineering background, since my post-grad age, my attitude was that sales skills were irrelevant, because if you engineer the best product, it will sell itself. It may be a bit naive, but the principle within is what's important. When I was working in English teaching, they would have these sales campaigns every so often where I would be asked to sell books to the students. I was always getting told off because I didn't sell anything. And I would think, “Yeah, these books are rubbish. I'm not going to push a rubbish book on somebody.” So, I always felt that quality and value are what really completes a sale.

I was even asked about that in my first recruitment interview and I thought, “If I tell them I didn’t sell any books, I’ll never get the job.” But they actually liked my reasoning. Being at Randstad has only continued this theme in my career, we really put people at the center of what we do, and I think it's a huge competitive advantage. As I said, a good product sells itself, and being ethical and people-centered allows Randstad to deliver a superior product.

Coming full circle

ー I have to ask, what do you see as the through line between engineering, eikaiwa and recruitment? Does this experience enhance your recruitment approach?

(Simon) I think coming from the background that I did, I saw every recruitment opportunity as a problem solving situation. You have to understand how to find the root cause: “What’s the root cause of your hiring need? “What's the root cause of your job change?” And by taking that questioning-driven approach, closing is almost unnecessary, really.

I realized pretty early on that I was never going to be good at hard-closing people, because who am I to say that this is the right job for you? I do not have enough information about you or the company to make that promise. So the only way I can do this right is by working through the root issue with both parties to try to understand things properly. That’s the engineering influence.

I also put a lot of effort into the interview prep part, which is basically coaching the candidate. I’d ask: “Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What about this job allows you to do that? Let's find that out before the interview.” This is the teaching influence, really helping the candidate know how to put their best foot forward and organize their thoughts.

ー What ultimately brought you to Randstad Japan?

(Simon) Another Director here, James Kikuchi, used to work with me at my previous firm. We’d catch up a couple of times a year, and each time, James would really emphasize how Randstad prioritizes people in a very deliberate way, which matches my development ethos quite deeply. I was hearing from him and other colleagues that instead of purely focusing on doing right by our clients and customers, it was: “How do we do right by our people? How do we get the best out of our people?” Basically the principle of, you know, if you’re growing your people, that is the best way to do better for your customers. And of course as an operations and sales enablement person, this really resonated with me.

When a clear opportunity came to join Randstad toward the end of last year, I felt, “OK, this is a good place for me to move across to. This is a place where I can add value.”

Developing people

ー Being a Director at Randstad managing their operations and training, do you feel you can influence the sales culture to have that more ethical, problem-solving approach?

(Simon) Yes, absolutely. I’ve said in my development seminars that I consider myself to have very few of the natural qualities that people typically look for in a recruiter. Sort of laying the groundwork that being a stereotypical recruiter who can come off as pushy or misleading isn’t really the pathway to long-term success. Good, sound processes and good communication are more robust tools to do human-centered recruitment properly.

When teaching the development of recruitment practices, it’s not unlike English teaching, where instead of teaching a complex grammar rule, you have more success making it something tangible and simple to understand. I'm not trying to show you my way, I'm trying to show a step by step form that I think anybody can learn.

That's often, I think, a challenge for many people in recruitment and recruitment management positions. If they're naturally gifted at that job, it can be very hard for them to articulate why they are good at it in a way that other people can learn. For those who've had to learn the craft without a natural ability from the beginning, it tends to be a little bit easier for them to then share with others what works and what doesn't.

ーCan you give me some examples of recruiters you helped build up with your development style?

(Simon) I had a couple of great experiences that really highlighted the importance of taking a coaching approach, especially when transitioning away from frontline recruiting. I had to think about setting up my team members for success, knowing I wouldn’t be able to work with them daily anymore. One team member, who joined us straight out of university, performed exceptionally well as an associate and in their first year as a consultant, exceeding our expectations. Despite these results, they doubted their abilities, affecting their confidence in decision-making and client interactions.

I realized that simply offering support and encouragement wasn’t enough. So, I committed to multiple shadowing and coaching sessions over several weeks. During these sessions, I helped them identify both their successes and areas for improvement. This process allowed them to recognize their own achievements and understand where they could grow. Watching their confidence and capability grow during this period was incredibly rewarding.

This experience underscored a crucial lesson for me: dedicating time away from immediate business tasks to focus on development can lead to rapid growth in people. This realization has continually motivated me to design training programs that facilitate quick and effective development for others in the recruitment field.

ーWhat elements of recruitment does your training target?

(Simon) When I talk about training, I'm very much focused on sales training: how to actually engage with customers; how to run a business as an independent consultant; how to manage those people. I bring in automation concepts as well, having the data available to make better decisions for the business.

For me the training approach I bring to Randstad goes back to that point of trying to make things simple. I both enjoy and feel I can contribute when it comes to taking something complex, trying to really understand it, break it down into a simple, straightforward way to do stuff.

As an example of this, the very first training that I did, I started off by asking everyone to send me the email that they use to introduce jobs to their candidates. I looked through them and I felt that these are not as good as they should be. And to actually understand that more clearly, I made a checklist of everything that I thought a pitch email should be, and then scored all of them, saw where all the gaps were and then created a training program.

Then, I had everybody go off after the training and send through their new emails, scored them again, and you could see how they jumped up, how they actually got better results. So that type of thing, really trying to not just talk about what I did and what worked for me, but really trying to analyze and come up with things the consultants can replicate.

The Randstad way

ー What do you think are Randstad’s greatest selling points as an employer?

(Simon) I do think that culture is a really great stand out point here, the idea of “freedom in the frame.” You're trusted. Yes, you've got goals, you've got things that are expected within the frame — it's in a results oriented work environment — but I think it's very important to have that autonomy to learn on your own and not just follow orders.

Also, the ability to work from anywhere and the flexibility in the working hours is key for me. I can do work from home in the morning, then drop off my kids, do a bit of work on the train — I'll take the green car and work for 45 minutes each way — and then I can pick up my kids when I need to, and wrap things up at home later. It’s very flexible. If it was fixed, “you have to be in the office from 9am to 6pm every day,” I would really struggle to make this work. My wife works full time as well.

And really, connecting this back to recruitment training, when you get to that point where you've got immoveable family commitments, you just have to be more efficient in your time. So efficiency is a big part of the messaging that I put out when I'm training and managing. It’s about the importance of having very clear plans for your day rather than drifting between tasks and so on. In recruitment, your task list never finishes. So whether you've got eight hours or you've got 12 hours, you're still not gonna finish, and 12-hour days are not sustainable. So even if you don't have those family commitments, I'd rather people work eight hours full on, get stuff done, make good results, recharge, and come back in and do it again the next day.

We’re building up this kind of culture at Randstad and am excited to be a part of it.

ーWhat would you say to anyone thinking of joining Randstad Japan?

　
(Simon) As a large and global company, there's both a much greater depth of knowledge in the organization and greater career potential here. I'd reached the point in my previous company where I was the subject matter expert in my space, but in Randstad there are so many people locally and globally who I can learn from. The people and the resources here really can take you to another level.