Successful (and unsuccessful) recruiting for OME

This post is a very much a personal recollection and experience of hiring people for OME over the last 10 years (I have now been mainly ejected out of the recruitment process though I occasionally get to ceremonially say hello to prospective employees!)

1. Its all about attitude. If there is one universal fact about our successful recruits - its that quality of giving the impression (in interview, to clients, to colleagues, to suppliers) that they will get shit done. And they will bust a gut to do deliver results.

2. Therefore skills and experience (of course they can be critical in many roles) take a lesser priority for us - where we have brought the "perfect fit" in - it has not always been perfect and sometimes didn't fit.

3. We have recruited grads and non grads but vital that people have done some hard graft in their lives ( i would include telesales, digging ditches, cleaning loos, being a waiter/waitress etc in this definition). Maybe this is unfair but I find it makes people appreciate the lovely environment that most businesses I know create - and that yes the air con may be too high /too low on certain days but its not the end of the world.

4. Give me brains and ambition. I love working with smart people and though sometimes you want brilliant people to stay in their roles for maybe 6 months/ a year longer than they want to - give me someone banging on my door for development than someone sitting their bored out of their brains (whose work standards inevitably declines)

5. Be eclectic. There is no typical OME employee (in previous career I definitely erred by recruiting in my/our own image). For two reasons
a) because its the right thing to do - it means we have a really broad range of backgrounds
b) our clients/partners are equally diverse - so I think it makes us more ££

6. Be honest - since Day 1 I would always undersell OME as a place to work (I think its amazing) as we are not perfect - for instance some people want a hugely structured induction/development plan - this industry (and OME) don't really believe in that - it just does not fit this fast changing world and therefore we may not be the right place for you. And we all post the occasional job and do the boring admin - so again if 6 months in you want an account admin to do this for you - we again are not the right place.


I look around me and feel we have got more right than wrong in our recruitment and development of staff - but some of the lessons have been painful to learn (probably for the employees too!)