A CV tells you where someone has worked, but it does not tell you whether they are the right fit for your business, nor whether they are the right person.
Experience is not the only thing that matters, and some of the best hires we have ever made did not have the exact background on paper. What they had instead was the right personality for the business. That gap between what a CV shows and who someone actually is is where most bad hires and missed great ones happen. Not because anyone lied, but because a piece of paper and a half-hour phone call simply cannot show you a person.
So, we do something that most agencies don’t. Before any candidate reaches your inbox, we have sat down and video-interviewed them, every one, with no exceptions. Here is what that actually does for you.
You seem them before you commit to meeting them. The way someone talks about a business they have left tells you more than three references, because you can hear whether they are generous about old colleagues or bitter, and whether they light up when they describe a service that went well or simply shrug. You learn that in the first five minutes of a real conversation.
It tests culture, not just competence. Plenty of people can do the job, but the real question is whether they can do it in your business, with your people and to your high standards. We know the difference between a chef who will thrive in a tight, independent environment and one who needs the structure of a bigger group, and the interview is where we work that out.
It respects your time. We are not forwarding you ten maybes and leaving you to do the sorting, because we have already had the conversation that tells us someone is right for you, which means the candidate sitting in front of you is one worth your hour.
It also shows you who is serious. Anyone can fire off a CV to twenty jobs in an afternoon, but sitting down for a recorded interview takes effort, and the people who turn up prepared and willing are telling you something about their commitment before they have said a word.
Doing the looking properly, before anyone reaches you, lifts the success rate of every placement we make, and the right people stay. That is the number that matters, and that is the whole point.
We do the looking, so you meet the right people sooner.
