Nuance. It’s not enough to work your way through a theoretical list of candidates just because they all seem to fit a given role on paper - in order to be truly successful in this role, you need to have sufficiently strong relationships with candidates to know what their preferences are (and what is driving those preferences), and monitor them as they change. Sometimes this is very granular, and it can take an awareness of a fund’s culture, beyond their investment strategy and sector focus, to know whether someone would be happy and capable of thriving there. At other times, this can mean suggesting an opportunity to a candidate that they’ve never considered before, but which nevertheless fits the criteria of what they’re looking for.

In a typical day, I spend time on calls to catch up with both clients and candidates on where we are in a particular recruitment process. I call candidates to discuss new roles that they might find interesting, which is also a good opportunity to find out how things have been going for them since they last chatted to someone at Kea, and what new experience they’ve gained in that time. It’s also my responsibility to handle interview scheduling for my searches, so I’m often involved in a good deal of email back-and-forth to negotiate the best times for both sides to meet, despite busy schedules and timing pressure.