I still remember the thoughts I had coming out of Victoria’s interview when we were hiring her to join Matchr. I immediately knew we had found the perfect match. Since then, Victoria has been leading our Business Development team, and she is a strong member of our Management group. In the blog interview series, I have mostly interviewed our sourcers and recruiters, but I have felt the importance of chatting with one of our management team members to show more insights into our services and how we interact with our clients.
In this interview, we will uncover what sets us apart from our competitors and what the full client lifecycle looks like from 1st contact to kicking off the collaboration with our embedded teams.
“Most importantly we genuinely care, we care about delivering the best results and are always going the extra mile to offer support where we can. We treat our partners business as if it were our own and set ourselves to the highest standards.”
Victoria Richardson, Account Director at Matchr
Can you finish the sentence for me? Only Matchr I can…
Learn, grow, and be challenged every day.
Tell a little about your current role and your responsibilities as the Account Director
In my current role at Matchr, I lead the business development team. This includes all sales strategies, implementing new systems and processes, and taking ownership of the full sales cycle. I am also responsible for the training and development of the sales team.
I have a very varied role, so I never get bored as we move at lightning speed at Matchr. This is why I love working for start-ups and scale-ups; there are not a lot of red tape to get projects off the ground. We just identify something that needs improvement and runs with it.
I sit on the leadership team, and we are constantly working on new projects to improve the customer journey and our business offering. Ensuring the best customer experience is at the heart of everything we do as a business, and we consistently look for improvement.
What makes your job fun? How’s your experience with our remote team?
I have worked fully remotely for around 7 years now. Having lived in Scotland and working for usually London-based companies, I was predominantly field based. It would be more of a shock for me to start working in an office.
I would undoubtedly be the colleague who never stops talking and distracts everyone. I like to work on my own as there are fewer distractions, and I can be much more productive working from home.
Matchr always keeps things enjoyable; we have Wellness Wednesdays, the day we can focus on our mental and physical health as a business. We also experiment with fun ways to host our weekly meetings using different platforms to keep them interesting and varied.
You have worked in different industries before. How did you land in doing sales in the recruitment field?
My previous experience has predominantly been in start-ups and scale-ups, which entail either a complete setup of the sales function or substantial improvements to the sales function. I have worked in a previous organisation that sold into the HR and TA space, so when I was approached by Matchr I was happy to have a conversation.
It ticked all my boxes as it was a young bootstrapping organisation with so much potential for personal development and growth. I feel when organisations get too large, the chance for innovation and making your mark is hugely diminished, and this is part of the role I enjoy the most.
When I met Maarten and Adriaan, we had several lengthy discussions around the role and what they were looking for. I knew I would be given free rein to really streamline the sales process and make meaningful changes to the business.
What kind of businesses can benefit from working with Matchr?
Any business that has significant hiring needs. We support all types of industries and companies at all stages of their journey.
We are known for being strong in tech recruitment; however, we support companies with all roles, from tech, sales, marketing, operations, etc.
We also work with many VC companies and support them with their early-stage start-ups. We have a Founder’s Package, a complete end-to-end recruitment solution. We supply a lead recruiter who can go in and set up the entire recruitment process, including ATS implementation, and hire the go-to-market team. This really allows the founder to focus on the operational side of the business while we take care of the recruitment.
We also work with larger organisations, including corporates; many come to Matchr when they are looking to open a new hub in another country. We provide support through market mapping, salary benchmarking, and guidance on talent pools.
Being a global organisation with sourcers and recruiters in over 20 countries, we have expertise in working throughout EMEA and the US, and this really helps companies who are venturing into new territory.
What can the clients of Matchr expect when they start working on an embedded model with Matchr sourcers and recruiters?
We always receive feedback from our partners on how surprised they are that we genuinely work as part of their internal team. We work as a partnership and have a constant communication and feedback cycle to ensure the entire process is smooth and hassle-free.
When you hire a sourcer or recruiter from Matchr they work as a full-time dedicated member of your in-house team.
We take time to understand each company’s culture and values; we understand how important this is in the hiring process to find candidates who align with this. A bad hire can be severely detrimental to a business, so we do everything possible to mitigate the risk of this happening.
I also think because we are not a huge company, we are privately owned, with both founders being involved with every partnership on some level. The attention to detail and support we provide are exceptional. We genuinely care about every partner and deliver consistently strong results for them.
What additional services does Matchr offer for clients apart from scaling their teams?
We provide many additional services to our partners in many different areas.
One of the most important is DE&I support and guidance.
All Matchr employees have undertaken a 5-week intensive course on gender equity sourcing. We often provide workshops to our partners on hiring with not only gender balance but also scaling with balance in underrepresented groups.
We are also known to be experts at sourcing, so we share knowledge on new sourcing tools and strategies. We offer sourcing as a service for companies who struggle to find candidates, as we excel in this area.
Can you walk me through the client’s life cycle?
The first thing we do is have a discovery call to understand the potential partner’s needs. This helps us offer the best solution from our services (recruitment as a service, sourcing as a service, or traditional agency support).
We then agree on the resources needed for the project considering the location and roles needing to be closed. We use this information to identify which sourcers / recruiters would be the perfect fit for the project and send the relevant profiles to the partner to review.
Once we have agreed on which Matcherians will join their team, we handover the partner to our recruitment team.
We then jointly set KPIs that both parties are happy with and get to work creating talent maps for every role allocated to us. We are usually ready to start recruiting within 2 weeks.
As an in-house recruiter I often get this question, too: What sets Matchr apart from the competitors?/ Why is Matchr different compared to other recruiter companies? What is your vision of it?
Matchr allows organisations to be very flexible in their resource allocation; we can scale up or down instantly to support our partner’s needs.
We have a fixed monthly fee per resource with no hidden charges, which is a cost-effective way to scale a business.
We also offer rolling monthly contracts to mitigate the risk to the partner of being tied into a lengthy contract should the market change. I feel this is especially important in today’s economic climate.
Most importantly, we genuinely care about delivering the best results and always go the extra mile to offer support where we can. We treat our partner’s business as our own and set ourselves to the highest standards.
When you have a sourcer or recruiter from our team, you also get the support and backing from our entire team to ensure we deliver on what we agreed.
What are the biggest trends in the sales industry nowadays?
I am a huge proponent of automation, and being up to date with the latest automation tools gives you the upper hand.
The first thing I did at Matchr was implementing a new suite of technology to automate all our sales processes. I like things running like a well-oiled machine, and I am constantly trialing new technology to improve our ways of working.
Data is also key for us; data analysis helps us identify what is working and what isn’t.
Lead generation is important for any business, and ensuring a multi-channel approach to lead generation is key. You can’t rely solely on inbound marketing leads; you must be proactively outreaching through as many channels as possible. Automating this will ensure you have a consistent pipeline of potential partners.
Why are Matchr’s services a good fit for the challenging market in 2023?
“Agencies” historically get a hard time, don’t they? But now, in 2023, more than ever, the role of agencies and their benefits are being given the recognition they deserve.
With the constant wave of redundancies mostly impacting talent acquisition staff, many companies are now finding ways to scale during high growth periods that will prevent redundancies during economic downturns. Adding to your in-house team on a short-term contract does prevent redundancies down the line.
This is where we fit in perfectly, not to replace talent acquisition staff but to support internal teams during high growth periods. It is a win-win for many organisations to have experts on hand to support you through short bursts of growth.
Do you want to learn more about how Matchr can help you deliver on your hiring plans by providing embedded sourcers and recruiters? Contact us, and we’ll suggest the optimal solution depending on your hiring needs and budget.
