As someone who has been in the recruitment sector for 20 years and remains passionate about the value of good practice and the benefits it can bring to businesses, as well as the wider business lessons that can be learned, I still see myself as a recruitment person, and I’m proud to say so.

Having launched Kinetik as a leading provider of Digital RPO solutions with almost 50 staff, I understand the operational demands of running a medium-sized business. However, despite the day-to-day challenges, I make it a point to stay on the frontline, supporting partners and often taking on recruitment briefs on a hands-on basis. I believe this keeps me fresh, relevant, and allows me to gain valuable insights that I can pass on to the team. As the saying goes, “Never ask your team to do something that you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself.” I still get that buzz from identifying a great candidate, and as long as I have that, I will always consider myself a recruitment person.

Recently, a development resonated with me and made me realize that good basic recruitment practice provides a valuable business lesson in a broader sense. I was running a search for a senior head of sales for a well-known fintech company, and it proved to be a challenging search as we were looking for candidates from the banking sector who were willing and able to transition into the digital space. After identifying a potential candidate whose CV didn’t sell them in the way it needed to, I initially felt deflated. With a myriad of daily tasks to deal with, it would have been easy to put the candidate aside. But then it dawned on me – this was one of those basic crossroad points that may seem trivial, but could have a major positive impact. So, I took the time to provide constructive feedback on the CV, even though it required emotional effort and willingness to confront. The candidate took the feedback in the right way and provided a vastly improved CV, which enabled us to move the process forward and into the hiring funnel.

While this may seem like a trivial example, I strongly believe that there is a valuable lesson to be learned here, not only for good recruitment practice, but also in business in general. Success is often found in those extra inches – those moments where we may succumb to complacency and take the easy option or the path of least resistance. In recruitment and in business, we can seek out positive outcomes from seemingly mundane interactions. Those moments where, through one lens, the world appears transactional and binary, we can choose to take a passive stance, or we can choose to see a world of imagination and potential through another lens.

It can be helpful to use this simple scenario to identify key moments that create crossroads of opportunity that go beyond what meets the eye. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, especially in growing Kinetik over the last 3 years, it’s the importance of using the lens that sees possibility. Only by adopting a mindset and associated behaviors that embrace this perspective can we truly unlock the potential of our business and recruitment endeavors.

In summary, adopting a mindset and behaviors that reflect the key message of seeing interactions beyond mundane transactions and binary outcomes can greatly contribute to thriving in business. Here are five key points I would suggest to keep in mind:

1. Embrace the frontline: Stay actively engaged in the day-to-day operations of your business, supporting partners, and taking a hands-on approach

2. Value feedback: Be willing to confront and provide feedback, even if it requires extra emotional engagement, that’s where you can benefit from the returns

3. Seek opportunities in small moments: Success often lies in those seemingly trivial moments where we can choose to take the easy option or see potential for imagination and creativity. Identifying these crossroads of opportunity can lead to unexpected positive outcomes.

4. Use multiple lenses: Instead of seeing the world through a transactional and binary lens, choose to adopt a perspective that sees possibility and potential. This mindset can unlock new opportunities and broaden the horizons of your business and recruitment endeavors.

5. Embrace a mindset of possibility: Finally, the importance of adopting a mindset that embraces possibility cannot be overstated. By seeing interactions with imagination and a sense of possibility, you can unlock the true potential of your business and recruitment efforts, leading to greater success.