It Takes Heart
It Takes Heart is an unmissable podcast where healthcare workers share their honest and unique experiences from Australia’s frontline.
Discover real-life stories of passion and purpose, insight and inspiration from people on the inside and tales that are equal parts heart-warming, heart-wrenching and hilarious. It Takes Heart is co-hosted by cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment CEO Samantha Miklos and Head of Talent and Employer Branding Kate Coomber.
It Takes Heart
31. Behind Recruitment Special: Curiosity in Every Interaction with Sophie Robertson
What happens when you flip the mic from healthcare workers to the people who help place them? In this Behind Recruitment Special of It Takes Heart, we sit down with global recruitment coach Sophie Robertson to explore what 'good' really looks like in recruitment and why it matters more than ever.
With three decades in the industry, Sophie shares how curiosity, consistency and care separate truly impactful recruiters from the rest. From asking better questions to creating 'moments of truth' in every interaction, Sophie invites us to rethink recruitment as a relationship, not a transaction. She explains why price alone can’t be the north star in healthcare hiring, and how agencies that audit their candidate and client experience are raising the bar.
This episode is for anyone working in recruitment, hiring through agencies, or simply curious about how service-first hiring can create safer, happier healthcare.
More about Sophie's Organisation of Choice, National Centre for Childhood Grief
The National Centre for Childhood Grief (NCCG) is an Australian not-for-profit organisation dedicated to caring for bereaved children and their families following the death of a parent, sibling or other close loved one. Their individual and group counselling programs help bereaved children and their families learn to live with their grief, build their coping skills and resilience and be empowered to live their best life.
Follow Sophie on Linkedin.
It Takes Heart is hosted by cmr CEO Sam Miklos, alongside Head of Talent and Employer Branding, Kate Coomber.
We Care; Music by Waveney Yasso
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Follow @ittakesheartpodcast on Instagram, @cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment on Linked In, @cornerstonemedicalrec on TikTok and @CornerstoneMedicalRecruitment on Facebook.
With so many new agencies entering the market every single week, how does a customer choose what great looks like in a recruitment agency?
Sophie Robertson:And they said, well, that's how we've all just done it. I said, no, no, but why do you do it like that? They're like, I don't know. It's just the way we do it. And I think, wow, that is so inefficient. Because you're actually making the candidate do the work. How does a candidate know from looking at a hundred different positions which one is right for them? So to answer your question about what should a candidate look for, I think they should look for a consultant that actually knows who they are and why they want to do the work they want to do in the places they want to do and how long.
Kate Coomber:If you want to hear more of these stories, don't forget to hit follow and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And follow us on It Takes Heart Instagram page for all the behind-the-scenes fun.
Music:We care for the land and sea
Sam Miklos:So It Takes Heart typically shines a light on healthcare workers making a difference across the country of Australia. But today we are taking a slightly different approach. As a recruitment agency, we connect those healthcare professionals to the communities that need the most. She works with recruitment agencies around the world. Welcome to It Takes Heart, Sophie.
Sophie Robertson:Oh my God, is it me that you just described?
Sam Miklos:You know, usually when you get on the panel and you had to send your thing, you had to send us anything.
Kate Coomber:I haven't sent us anything just no. Well, thank you.
Sam Miklos:Your reputation precedes you.
Kate Coomber:It does. We are very lucky to have you in here. Lucky. For a few days this week to spend some time with our team. So we thought, what an opportunity to sit with you and actually share a little bit about your journey and some of your insights. I thought it would be quite interesting for our audience. But maybe we can start with Sophie. Who is Sophie Robertson? Oh my god, how far do you want me to go about it?
Sam Miklos:I know, right? I don't know. Well, how did you get into recruitment? Why did you get into recruitment?
Sophie Robertson:Okay, so I was born in Hong Kong from parents in Shanghai, and we left there when I was just before I turned five, went to Denmark, was in Denmark for a bit, then we went to Canada, then we went to the States, and then back to Denmark, and then I came to Australia.
Sam Miklos:Why did you move around so much?
Sophie Robertson:Um My mum didn't Okay, so from Hong Kong to Denmark, my dad was offered a post at the University of Copenhagen. And I mean Denmark, wow, you know. So we went there, but back then you couldn't really buy Chinese groceries. Yeah. So my mum didn't like it. Right. So then we went to Canada. Right. If that makes sense. It sounds so weird, but that's that's it in recruitment. If the partners don't have family, they're not gonna stay. And it was too cold. She was just like, it's too cold, language is too hard, plus I can't cook Chinese. Okay, weird.
Kate Coomber:But yeah. Right. Did I hear you went to ten schools? I did in ten years or something.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah. So I think that's actually what made has made me successful in recruitment and maybe just the ability to I guess suss people out and read a room, if that makes sense. Because I think going to many different schools, you have to kind of figure out who's who very quickly and what's going on. Yeah, very adaptable. And also in different countries and different languages. So do you speak a lot of languages? Not really. I mean I speak Danish and uh I speak Shanghainese not well. That's my worst language of all of them. So yeah. So then how'd recruitment become Okay, so I came to Australia and someone said, You'd be good in recruitment? And I'm like, what's recruitment? And then I applied for a job and got one um yeah, the rest is history, as they say. 18 years.
Sam Miklos:18 years in recruitment. Temp recruiting. What industry?
Sophie Robertson:Uh I started in business support and accounting and then later on I mean became branch manager was insane now when I think about it, because I actually became branch manager twelve months into my recruitment career.
Kate Coomber:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:I mean, what did I even know? Yeah. Why? How many people were you looking at? New to the country, new to just three? But they were all older than me and all had more recruitment experience than me. Yeah. So I'm sure they was kind of like, who's this? Who's this? It's a young upstart, right?
Sam Miklos:That happened to me.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah.
Sam Miklos:Six months in. Yeah, yeah.
Sophie Robertson:It's crazy, right? But I think what actually what did actually happen was um actually you know him, my boss at the time, Nigel. Nigel. Uh so when I I actually preceded Nigel at Echo, so it was Echo Personnel, which is now at Echo. And Nigel came in six months into my career there, and he basically, which has I was super impressed by this and still am, is he traveled around to every branch and would sit with all of us. And you have to understand, I was a rookie recruiter, I barely knew what I was doing. And he basically he looked at me and went, What do you want from this company? What can we do for you? And that has stayed with me. And I basically said you know at that point? Yeah. I said, I want to make more money and I want a promotion. And he went, We can do that. But his favorite story is of course when I came in, there were, I don't know, 60 staff, and when he was done, there was I think there were nine, but it was less than ten. Because his motto was always, it's better to have no staff than bad staff. Yeah. So that's how I grew up in recruitment. But it was fun. It was really fun. What do you think is really misunderstood about recruitment? Uh I think that we don't care, but that really annoys me and always has is that it's all about the commission and the money. Um because the people that are really good at it, I think, that's not their first priority. It never is. And as you guys might know or remember from training years ago, you know, I have a saying which is service, service, service. And money will follow. Yeah. And everybody I ever coach, I say to them, if you think about the money first, you won't do well. Because when you think about the money, you think about yourself. But you need to think about them. Yeah. Like the client and the candidate. Yeah. Because that's who it's about. And I would say to people, can't you tell when people are there for themselves? And they go, Oh yeah, yeah, I can. I'm like, okay, so what are you doing? Right? Because the people you're dealing with can tell that you're just there for yourself. 100%. People can tell.
Sam Miklos:Has the role of recruiter changed? Or how has it changed from when you were recruiting? Like I think about when I started in the UK, there was signs up in the window for the jobs and Oh yeah.
Sophie Robertson:Well, we never had um shopfront. Oh, actually that's not true. I had a shopfront in Blacktown. That was really hard. But um only because yeah, that uh some some of my consultants they were actually a bit scared of being there. Yeah. Because it's, you know, sometimes maybe not the safest area. But yeah. And if you're saying no to people. Yeah. Yeah. And people just come in. Yeah. So that's why we actually went away from the shopfront. Yeah.
Sam Miklos:But so people Has the role then changed of of a recruiter or do you think fundamentally it's the same?
Sophie Robertson:I think recruiters have changed it. And I don't think always for the better, if that makes sense, right? And so I always think about recruiters in different buckets, if that makes sense. I think there's like the transactional recruiter, and then I think there's the ones that are very relationship-based. Yeah. And of course I've always been there. But I was I used to say to people, look, I'm not being judgy because I think there's room, there has been room for that whole range, but I don't think there is anymore. I think with the advent of tech, I think the transactional recruiter and I say to them, if you were never convinced um that relationships are worth worthwhile, it's now.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:And if you don't take that seriously, I I actually think you're going to be redundant.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
Kate Coomber:What's that real impact to to customers bottom line? So in a time when there is AI and and they might be thinking we can do a lot of this ourselves, we can get a lot of efficiencies. I guess where do you see the most value of someone engaging with a recruitment agency to really impact their, you know, obviously their workforce, but ultimately saving money?
Sophie Robertson:Well if you're looking at, say, for example, doctors and nurses, right? They care for people. Now, if they don't get the right people in, there might be incidents, right? There are incidents. Um if the medication is not correct, you know, all those things. So when things go wrong, it costs money to fix things. So do you know what I mean? Like if care has to be extended, that costs money. So yes, maybe you can get an app. And I think about this a lot, it's like getting Uber Eats, right? So you get Uber Eats, you can get something in the door, maybe you can get a nurse in the door, but do you really know who that person is? Has the compliance been done properly? Has that does that person actually have a care factor? I mean, those things will cost money, right? If something goes wrong, it costs money. If you have uh, say you need a GP in a clinic, right? This happens a lot, where they need an extra GP and they're like, uh, the clinic might think it's too expensive for us to engage a recruiter because you know we have to pay the fees, we have to pay the doctor, etc. But I always think about, okay, so if they can't cope with the patient load, where do those patients go? They go maybe to the GP clinic up the road. What if they like that GP better?
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:And then you've lost them.
Sam Miklos:Then you've lost them for good.
Sophie Robertson:Right? So I think from there's a few things to think about. I think there's the patient care, but there's also the business side of because there it is a business, right? Running a GP clinic as well. Yeah. Or running a hospital.
Sam Miklos:What about you know, we talk about the tip of the iceberg and there's all the things under the water that recruiters do that no one sees.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah.
Sam Miklos:What are those things?
Sophie Robertson:Oh my goodness. I I think a lot of it is actually building your your networks and reading. If that makes sense. Reading, listening, just keeping up with what's going on. It's funny because a lot of people saying to me, Oh, things are getting really tight, and I'm not disputing that they are. But you know, I've been in the business so long that I say to people, you know it's cyclical.
Sam Miklos:Yeah. Yes.
Sophie Robertson:We are going through a cycle. And at the moment the cycle is everyone wants to take it in-house and save money, right? So we want to do without recruiters. And I said, Don't worry. I've been here before. Yeah. And they all come back. And then of course the next question is, when? When are they going to hour? I said, that I don't know because I think there's also economic factors in the world, right? Geopolitical and geoeconomic factors.
Kate Coomber:But I think when clients are um talking about rates or or, you know, all of our customers really margins, or what's the hourly rate? What else? What are the other questions that you know customers really need to be asking to understand?
Sophie Robertson:So I think one thing that recruiters really need to learn is to ask the client is the rate the most important thing? Like what things are you willing to trade for that, right? Because are you willing to trade quality? Are you willing to trade, okay, so I just heard this thing the other day on the news, so you know I'm Sydney based. And in New South Wales, I heard there's a task force now to look into modern slavery in relation to recruitment agencies and particularly in relation to aged care, right? So my ears kind of pricked up because it's recruitment related, but also because I already knew I was coming here, right? And I thought, oh, I wonder if your clients know about that. And if it's in New South Wales, it must be in every state. In every other state. So I guess the questions the clients need to think about is when they say we want the cheapest, how far are they willing to go? Are they willing to go to modern slavery? Are they willing to go to less um care for the patient? I mean what it's always a risk.
Kate Coomber:And in healthcare the stakes are so high. They're too high. You know, when you get it wrong, it goes astronomically wrong.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah. I mean what I've always loved about CMR is I remember s hearing Sam say years ago about would you have this person look after your mother? Yeah, 100%.
Kate Coomber:No, but I think that's great. I remember you're up in Cairns and and one of our nurses actually were looking after a relative of yours up there and you met someone in CMR.
Sam Miklos:I I no, I wasn't actually up there, so you're fine. My aunt was very unwell and she ended up passing away. And um my aunt said to my mum in walk to two of the CMR nurses, and my next thought was, Oh God, please let them have been great quality. And they spoke so highly of our staff. And they've recently had another one where they've they've been treated by a podiatrist of ours up there. And I said it to the team, like, you never know where our candidates are going to turn up and which one of your family members are they gonna be treating. And if you think about that every time you register someone and send them out, it's a different conversation.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah. I always remembered you said you said that. I actually may have quoted you to several people, but would you want the in healthcare? Because I think it's relevant, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one thing is, you know, what I used to do like in business support or in retail or in all the other sectors I've been in, but I think yours is it's critical, right? Because they're dealing with people, like literally lives. Right? And save lives.
Sam Miklos:You know, with the cyclical nature, you just said that, you know, we're in this time. And we've seen that with like a LinkedIn came in and everyone was bringing it in-house, you don't need recruiters. And what advice though, I guess for clients? Like what are the learnings that you've seen coming out of some of those cycles where clients have looked back and gone, oh gosh, I wish I'd known what I knew then, and maybe I wouldn't have made some of the decisions I did at that point to cut back on costs.
Sophie Robertson:Sometimes it's well, I don't know, I mean, sometimes it's from above that they have to do that, right? But I think, yeah, for them, it's funny because when you asked that question, I was actually thinking about what we need to do on the recruitment side during that time. Yes. So maybe it's okay if I started stuck with that then, yeah. Because that's kind of where my mind went, right? Is when consultants panic, because they do, they're kind of going, There's no business, they don't want us, and I'm like, no, no, no, just calm down. First of all, find out how many roles are they working on, right? Because a lot of them have a lot on.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:And I said to them, Look, could you take on 50 roles? There's no way you can do that if you're a good recruiter and you're doing a good job, right? So say to them, don't look at me as your competition. Look at me as an addition to your team. And I think recruiters should always think about that. It's not uh me versus you, it's and, right? It's and like I used to say to people, hey, I've got 18 years experience. With one phone call, you can get that, but when you don't need me, don't call me. Like you know what I mean? So I think from a recruitment point of view, recruiters have to think about that, right? Is there's always business.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:And the the easy stuff, like the low-hanging stuff, uh internally, you know what? They probably should do that. Yes. We don't need to be able to do that. We're there to help when it's really hard. When it's hard. And I say to people, that's when you also get tested. Tell your clients, give me your hard stuff, right? And I think from the client point of view, then to come to your question of what can the clients learn is they also need to think about it's not us versus them.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:It's actually us together. Like, look, I have resources here that when I need, I can call you and I can get that um experience and the network and you know everything, right? But when I don't, it doesn't have to be it's either you or me. It's us together. Yeah.
Kate Coomber:That comes down to the relationship piece, doesn't it? If it's not there, then you can't have those open conversations. And it's sticking with the clients even when they don't need you. That's the most important thing, is to stick with them. Yeah. Is to stick with them.
Sam Miklos:Big question I've got is though, let's talk about tech, AI, automation. Is the role of the recruiter about to be made redundant?
Sophie Robertson:I don't think so.
Sam Miklos:I love that you went in so quick with it.
Sophie Robertson:I mean, I have to say, in my now three decades, right, often there's been things that have come up. There's been job boards, there's been LinkedIn, there's been different things, and people have said, oh, is the recruiter going to be redundant? And I've never even given it a second thought, honestly. Yeah. Maybe for 10 seconds, right? But this time with AI, I really had to stop and think about it seriously, and I've been thinking about it a lot. And I do think that previously there's been a market for the whole gamut of no touch or low touch recruiter to very high touch. And I think AI now will take over the no touch or low touch recruiter. I think to some extent there are some clients, maybe even yours, um, that are forcing recruiters to be no touch or low touch. You know, the ones that say, I don't want to talk to you. Yes. I'm just gonna email you. And then you just upload, you just upload stuff to me, right? And there's no conversation. Like I think that's very hard. Um but I say to recruiters, there are things you can do, which you should do anyway. Like I think you can do quality checks. I think you should always do an exit interview when someone's been there, if it's on a locum basis or temp basis. Find out what they really w like. Because some clients I don't know whether they can't or they won't articulate what they really like in a person. Like they'll just say, Send me a nurse. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, well there are many different types of nurses, right? I mean, I did some training last week and it was great because the consultant said to me, Oh, it's great, because the con the client rang up and said, Send me a nurse. And she went, No, I remember what you said, I had to ask questions. And she said, 20 minutes later, she said, I got this really good brief and it was a mental health nurse and it was for these people, and and I said, And how how do you think the conversation was for the client? And she said, I think they really enjoyed it.
Kate Coomber:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:Because no one else had asked them. So sometimes it's almost like, can we create those opportunities to ask? Yeah. And maybe it's not at the beginning if they're trying to do the no-touch thing.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:But if you're gonna look after, I mean I guess particularly from a temp and locum point of view, is if you're gonna look after your workforce, because they are your workforce, you need to make sure both they are happy and also the client's happy, right? So you have to talk to them.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, you do. You do. No, you do. And that's a challenge we have too, right? Go through workforce. And they're like, you need to talk to them.
Kate Coomber:This is where you need to know all of the touch points throughout a hospital or a health service. It can't just be the one person, you've got to have all of it. So if you're talking about, you know, l low touch recruiting, that transactional recruiter is sort of on the way out. Um what are the really key traits that you feel a successful recruiter needs to have now? Today. Yeah. Curiosity.
Sam Miklos:From the talent acquisition.
Kate Coomber:Curiosity. Curiosity.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah. Uh I like to dis I like to say to people, do you remember? Oh, maybe you don't remember, we don't remember when we were five. But we've been with a five-year-old. And you know how they ask you a thousand questions. And they just say why. And I said, we are like that, but we learn to ask the questions in a better way, right? But that curiosity, because there's always another question. And I think you need people that can be curious, can uh establish relationships, and also know that if someone says no, because people are gonna say no, that it just means no not yet. That it's not, oh no, they hate me. I'm not gonna call them. Well, no today, no, in this case.
Kate Coomber:And that you know, our customers are standing on a on a health floor. Yeah. They're not sitting at a desk a lot of the time. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of challenges to overcome there. And it's about reading the room of when's the right time. Exactly.
Sophie Robertson:I think curiosity, um what else? I don't know, are you recruiting for perm or local?
Sam Miklos:Both. Well, our recruiter, well, yeah, because you're right, you're temp recruiter or your perm recruiter, they're different.
Sophie Robertson:They're different. I think if you're uh recruiting for temp, I like problem solvers. And I say to people, don't think of your job as a job placer. That's not your job. Yeah. That's just kind of like but find out what the problems are that your clients have. And you can't find that out unless you talk to them. I mean, sometimes I've even asked during my career, tell me what what's the one thing if someone could solve and maybe it's not me. And sometimes clients have said things where I was just like, okay, I have no idea about that. But then I've gone away and thought about it and come back and said, Have you thought about this? Yes. And maybe it's sometimes things we could provide, sometimes it's not, it doesn't matter. They know you're on their team, right? That you're thinking about it. I mean, I I do think temp recruiters have to be your strong BD people, so they have to really have the tenacity to really build those relationships and stay in there for the long haul, right? That it's not just if I can't get something today, I have to keep you know, because I have to get to know you over time. And I think that's been lost. Like I often ask a consultant, tell me a fun fact about one of your nurses. And they go, What do you mean? Yeah.
Sam Miklos:It's because everything's on demand, right?
Sophie Robertson:We don't know, but w they know everything maybe about their skills. And I'm like, what about them as a person?
Kate Coomber:Yeah. Not asking the questions.
Sophie Robertson:And it's not until I say to them, or sometimes, you're much more than what you are here at work. And they go, Oh yeah, of course. And I say, So are your tips? Yes. Do you know anything about them? And you could say equally the same about the clients. They are also much more than they are in workforce admin or whatever. Who are they?
Sam Miklos:That curiosity is really important too. If you think back, we were at a conference last week and I think it was Greg Savage was talking about, you know, just the rubbish that's gonna come from AI and you know, candidates that are just uploading CVs that are matched, and like as a recruiter, that's where that curiosity is so important to be able to to cipher through and ask more questions and and really make sure that then we can provide a a better level of quality for our customers when if that's what they're getting, they're gonna get so much noise in the next couple of years that they won't be able to trust what's right and what's wrong, what's true and what's false.
Sophie Robertson:Well, I don't know, did you two hear about I mean in America it's alleged there was some some story about that there are there's so much deep fakes going on in AI that when they apply for jobs you can't be sure that they are who they are. Like even the face and everything, the voice, there's nothing, you know. I mean we talk in um in my time about people lying on their resume, but this is so much this is a whole other bowling, right? And I mean your job and your specialty is reading people, getting the story out of them. Can a piece of tech do that? I don't think it can do it yet. I'm not gonna speak about whether it can in the future, but not yet. And that is the value that we add, right, as recruiters. Because I don't know, and I mean a lot of your clients I imagine, unless their job is to recruit, um, like you know, if it's a numb or something, their job, they have other things to do, right?
Sam Miklos:Yeah. Whereas your expertise.
Sophie Robertson:No, but also it's also maybe not their specialty, right? Whereas it's your expertise and your specialty. It's like getting us to administer medicine. I mean, what do you know about that?
Kate Coomber:I'm not going near that. This is where recruiters need to hold the confidence to have these conversations and know their value that the the volume that they're doing here is more than what the client would be doing on that one-on-one level. Yeah. You know, the amount of people that they speak to, if they're truly being curious, the amount of things that they know and can offer is quite a lot. What about from a client? So, you know, there have been so many agencies in the last five years. It seems a huge influx of agency in healthcare. We have noticed it. On every tender, there's more, you know, it's more competitive than ever. How do how does a customer navigate that? You know, if we feel it, they must feel it. How do they sort out the good from the bad? Yeah. What should they be looking for from both a candidate perspective but also a client perspective? You know, what what should they look for?
Sophie Robertson:So I quite like companies that are, I guess they can look to members of professional associations, you know, whether it's Amrance or RCSA or ABSCO or whatever, because at least then there is a comeback if something should happen. I used to say that to people during my career, right? It's like being a CPA. If you're not happy with me, you can complain. You know what I mean? So maybe it's that I think people that invest in compliance that you know is good, um, that do it well. But also, how many people are prepared to say your name out loud? Because I say to people, that is the best, is when people will say your name out loud to other people, right? So, yes, there's a lot of new entrants, and I hate to say this to you too, because um you probably but what I say to healthcare people is I feel like you're in your sector's just caught up, whereas in other sectors they've had all that. You know, it's been saturated, and for you guys, yes it's true, but it's only lately. It's only actually lately, right? So I know it's different for you to navigate and different for your clients to navigate, but it's always the same, is there will people that will do it faster, cheaper, but is it better? And that's what they've got to work out is do I want price, do I want quality, do I want is it possible to get all of it in one? Probably not. Right? I think life is like that. You choose the cheapest one give you the best. No. Yeah. So uh if you want the cheapest, then I think you as uh providers, you get to decide is that what we want to do? Is that what we want to get known for, right? Because again, when I look at any market, you think, well, there's uh a customer for a two-dollar shop, and there's a customer for you know whatever the luxury is. And there's probably room for all of us, you know, for all of those. And you get to decide, where do I sit in that?
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:So you can become known for maybe we are the super high touch, super value ads, you know. People can come to us to ask us questions, not just to provide staff. I feel like sometimes staff in my career has been almost like the side thing. Yes, right?
Sam Miklos:I would agree. Yes. And I feel like that changed for us in COVID, like prior to COVID, that's how it was. It was sort of like the second thing where there was all about the relationship and the support. But then it sort of flipped to this, we need sta staff, staff, staff, staff, staff. So then everyone's lost that that muscle of it. It's become transactional and now it's got to flip back.
Music:Yeah.
Sam Miklos:You are in so many agencies across the country every week. What are the great things you're seeing that agencies are doing? You you can just give us a couple of secrets. Well, it's some great stuff.
Sophie Robertson:Actually, you know what I really like, and there's a couple of companies that I've been doing it for recently, is and it doesn't have to be me, it's not because of that, but it's because of that that I know about it, right? Is they're really looking critically at what they're doing. Because I think like you said, in that COVID era, a lot of agencies, particularly in your sector, just right, went gangbusters. Because of that, it's kind of like we they had processes, but they added people and then people make it up, and so really I mean I've been hired to do a few audits, or audit sounds so serious, but where I've actually gone and looked at what they did from beginning to end from a customer experience point of view from both the client and the candidate. And that's been super interesting actually for me. Because like I've looked at things and then I've said to them, Well, do you did you mean to do this? And they're like, No, we had no idea we were doing that, right? And it's not but you know what I really admire is that they're taking the time and I guess investment in doing it, and that they want to do it well.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:Because at the end of the day, this is what I believe, at the end of the day, the candidates and the clients, right, their customer experience is the most important thing. But you get to decide what what is the service we want to give them. Are we the five-star hotel or are we the motel on the, you know, on the in the country of the road? Yeah. And there's room for all, right? Because we need that motel just when we're there. But when we provide this service, I think, you know, we need to think about what do we want to be known for? And are we showing up at every step?
Sam Miklos:Yeah, every interaction is what we're identifying. And that's and that's really true because the last few years it has just been crazy, and we've seen that. Like we've had to stop, we're literally.
Kate Coomber:So much too busy to die down, hasn't it?
Sam Miklos:We've just this week stopped and started to go, that doesn't make sense. We're handing the batten here for 50% and then back there for the other 50%. And then we're going over here and saying, now you touch it, and we've we've made this these really messy processes because yeah, everyone's been so busy, it's just been tapping on the next thing. Just the doing, right?
Sophie Robertson:Just the doing. So uh yeah. I think that's been yeah, that's been quite eye-opening, I think. And I think just to come back to your other question about what should clients look for in good agencies, I think there's a lot, so it's connected, right? People that do quality assurance, you know, yeah, whether it's ISO or what whatever it is, but they're really looking at their process because then you can say to that is why we are more expensive. Yeah. Because we take these things seriously, right? And I think your company too, I mean, you also invest in your people. That's something that I would look at if I was sitting on the other side, because I'd be like, well, who are these people that are recruiting people for me? Yeah. You know, are they the right ones? Like I think this, yeah.
Sam Miklos:What about a candidate then? The flip, you know, if you if you're a candidate looking in, what should they be looking for? Because they're now got all these agencies coming at them, offering them the world.
Sophie Robertson:I think the thing that candidates want first and foremost has always been, I think that's still true, is they want a job. When they come to you, they want the job, right? Whether it's perma whether it's a Whether it's TEP. So can people actually provide them with jobs that are good for them? Are they listening to them? Actually, so one thing that really surprised me, and I don't know if you do this, but really surprised me with we don't, or we do it with the first medical agency I ever went to was probably about twelve or thirteen years ago. And I didn't realize this, and it's specific to medical, no one else does this, is they just send out all the jobs to all the doctors, and then they choose. And I'm like, okay. And I said to them, why do you do that? And they said, Well, that's how we've all just done it. I said, No, no, but why do you do it like that? They're like, I don't know. It's just the way we do it. And I think, wow, that is so inefficient. Because you're actually making the candidate do the work. How does the candidate know from looking at a hundred different positions which one is right for them? So to answer your question about what should a candidate look for, I think they should look for a consultant that actually knows who they are and why they want to do the work they want to do in the places they want to do and how long for or whatever, right?
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:Is again be more curious about them. What is it that you want from us? And I say to people, look, if your candidates are with four or five different agencies, they're still dating.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:They haven't found the one yet. Why aren't you the one? And the reason you're you're not the one is because you don't know what they want.
unknown:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:You're not listening. You're not listening. Or maybe you're not curious enough to find out. Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, maybe you can't be the one, and that's also okay. You just say, I can't do that for you. But be honest. I think that's what gives our industry a bad name is Consultants say to me, I don't like to tell people we can't help them. I say, okay, so that means you send them out the door and they think they're going to hear from you and they never do.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:They go down the road, again, same thing happens. And then they just think, we don't know what we're doing. I'm like, I don't like that. Be honest with people. I can't help you because you haven't got this certificate or the right visa or whatever reason. So that whole no-up date is an update. Yeah. So just because you can't honest. Don't sit on the fence. A lot of people sitting on the fence. And I think that's more now than before. I think the generations now they don't like to offend people. And I I don't know why they even think of it as an offend people. Just being honest and transparent.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, that clarity is kind.
Sophie Robertson:Yes.
Sam Miklos:What are you hopeful or I guess excited about for the future of recruitment? You know, this this you've seen all these different cycles. Like you said, the AI was one piece that made you stop for a minute. What are you excited about for the industry?
Sophie Robertson:Oh, well, that's a good question. What am I excited about? I think I'm f interested in to see how we're going to adapt. Because if we don't adapt, I think we are actually in danger. But I I don't know. Honestly, I until they can create a robot that can do what we can do, which is, you know, read all the nuances in a person and in a client and all that. I still think there's going to be a room for recruiters. But I do think that we have to navigate it carefully now because just because we can automate something doesn't mean we should. Yes. And it's funny because when I updated my book, um, you know, I had different people write uh chapters in it, and one was a tech person. And we actually, Andrew and I, we had this conversation, right? Because he's tech guru, totally, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten near my book, right? But I did say to him, like, certain things he was saying, uh, you know, instead of uh speaking to the temp on a weekly basis, we can just text him. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm like, okay, maybe once in a while, but you still have to talk to him. So we had this conversation, and he actually didn't it wasn't that he disagreed with me at all, but you have to understand his lens is tech, right? Yes. And my lens is totally home, but yeah. So it was kind of like, ooh. So where do we so it became, okay, so you could do this.
Music:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:But in Sophie's chapter, it's very much you you're doing it this way. You have to get to know the person. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So I'm excited about I guess how we evolve, but also, yeah, I think we have to think carefully about we don't need to do things just because we can.
Sam Miklos:That's so true.
Kate Coomber:No, I think it's a really interesting point because we all feel like we have to do all of the things sometimes because it's ever changing and we have to keep up to date with so many things. But yeah, sometimes it actually worked okay.
Sophie Robertson:And you know, one of the um audits I did, it was actually that. Okay, so you've put in these things. Yeah. Is that really necessary? Because it's just made it longer. Yeah. Yes. And I think from a candidate client point of view, service to me is consistency. That's why I think it should be the same every time. But also you don't need to make it more painful.
Sam Miklos:Are we easy to do business with? That's what we've been asking. Yeah. This is easy. Yeah, but I want to deal with this.
Sophie Robertson:Not just easy, but is it actually pleasant?
Sam Miklos:Yes. Right.
Sophie Robertson:Is it actually nice when I get a little update from CMR or from whoever it is, you know? In that way. And is it the same voice? Yeah. Because that's something that, you know, was apparent to me too from looking at a few different companies, is they had different voices inside the same company. Yeah. Like, are you consistent? Yeah. I'm very much into consistency. It's it's a people think it's very boring, and I'm like, but if you think about what excellence is, I think it's consistency. Yeah. And predictability. Like when you go to a hotel, you're like, we go there because we know about it. It's going to be a certain thing. And if it's suddenly different, we're like, what's happened?
Sam Miklos:Yeah. And leaning into those moments that matter.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah.
Sam Miklos:Those human moments as well, where you can really enhance those relationships and build. I think that's also really important. It's just is looking to be human and and I think we'd heard that last week, don't you know, automate a congrats you've had a baby or whatever. It's like actually using all those opportunities to just the moments that matter that are really special in life. I think that's where we can also add that value.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah. Have you um do you know that book, Moments of Truth? No. So it's quite old. But it's um SAS, it's Scandinavian Airline Systems. So you know I grew up in Denmark, so it's like our Qantas, right? And um so Scandinavian airline systems, they were in trouble in 1979. They had gone through a period of, you know, profit, profit, profit, and then suddenly the oil prices shot up, and then yeah, they were in deficit. They got a new CEO and he was 31 at the time. I always say that. Jan Carlson. And people thought, okay, he's gonna buy new planes, he's gonna cut staff, you know, do all the normal things, right? And he did the speech to the staff where he just went he talked about moments of truth, and he said, So I looked at um all the moments of truth where we touch our passengers, and there's five of them, and each of them might only be fifteen seconds, but they are what matter. Oh, I just got goosebumps. I'm thinking that too. And and he went, I can't save this airline, but you can. I just totally got goosebumps. And next year they were already in profit. So what he did was he flattened the structure, but he basically said to the frontline staff, if you see something and you can fix it, fix it. You have my authority to fix it. So they did. And there's all these stories, so that's what I've been I recently spoke at a conference where I was very much talking about moments of truth, because in that company they've given everyone 12 hours back on their desk, like through automation. Yeah. And I'm like, well, why do you need me? And they're like, Well, we just thought that they would um talk more to our customers. Yeah. Can you talk to them about that? I said what are they doing with those 12 hours? Yes, I can. And so I talked to them about moments of truth because that's what it is is that every touch point they have with you matters, no matter how small it is, right? And you know, people think there's neutral. I don't think there's neutral. Every interaction, it actually either adds or it's minus.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:But there's no neutral. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People think you can just kind of Yeah love that. I don't think there is.
Kate Coomber:I was going to ask you, um we talk a lot about happier healthcare recruitment, and you know, you've worked with various sectors across recruitment, but in healthcare specifically, what that means. But I almost think that that moments of truth is the thing that can really make a difference in healthcare. If you think about the service that agencies like us provide, but also the healthcare community with each other, that's what's needed. Those moments of truth to Joan Carlson.
Sophie Robertson:It's worth reading. And it's a tiny little book. Yeah. I read it in one sitting because it was just, wow. What's happening? Yeah.
Sam Miklos:Put that on the book behind on the bookshelf behind you now.
Music:Yeah.
Kate Coomber:So see if I'll donate to a charity with every episode. Where can we send that money to for you?
Sophie Robertson:Oh, some okay, so I've thought about this. Yeah. And um but now I have to tell you go back to the beginning. Go back to the beginning. So the reason why I stopped being in recruitment and started doing what I was doing was because my husband uh died suddenly of a heart attack, and our children at the time were four and eight. Oh my goodness. And um yeah, so anyway, I figured I have to be around and I thought, I'll do coaching. So that's how this happened. But a friend of mine who was a s who's a psychologist counsellor, she actually she's a friend of mine now, but she was kind of a little bit adjacent at the time. And she gave one of my best friends a list and said, Sophie's not ready for it yet, but when she is and you'll know when, give her this list. And it was a list of places where you could take your children for bereavement counselling. Right. And so I rang them all. And the one that I rang, which is um the National Centre for Childhood Grief, so that's the charity. You know when you ring somewhere and they answer all your questions before you've even asked them? And I knew that was the right place, right? And they call themselves a friend's place. So if ever your children are asked where are you going, they can say, I'm going to a friend's place. Yeah. And they don't have to explain to where they're going.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah. So I took both um my sons there for a while. Wow. Thank you. And it's free.
Sam Miklos:Really?
Sophie Robertson:It's free, yeah. For the children it's free. Yeah, good. Wow. And it's a group in a group. Yeah. Because they say kids, the most important thing for them is that they um are like everyone else. So when uh you have a parent die, you're kind of like the kids whose dads did. But when you go there, you're just like everybody else. And some of them have actually lost both parents.
Sam Miklos:So it's thank you for sharing that with us. I didn't know that about you.
Sophie Robertson:Yeah, no, sorry, I couldn't really tell you about a friend's place without going there because you're gonna ask why did you pick the member? Yeah. Why are you gonna pick them?
Sam Miklos:Thank you. No, we would um proudly, proudly donate to that charity. What a wonderful charity. And thank you for being here with us today. Like, there's so much, honestly, there's so much insight that you have, and the fact that you've seen just all of the cycles of recruitment and you continue to, you know, remain optimistic. And just all of the generations of recruiters that have um been touched by your training, your coaching, your mentoring, like you are just such an inspiration, and the industry is just so much richer for having you in it, you know. Thank you. You give so much.
Kate Coomber:I'm really excited for our team to have time with you this week. It's a pleasure to have you in here. Let's keep jumping here and bring them forward, bring them forward. The stuff that you know I certainly learned from you so many years ago is the stuff that I still talk about. Yeah. So it will stay for them to be able to do that. Definitely.
Sophie Robertson:And I'm gonna talk about some of those things again tomorrow, you know, the mindset rather than.
Sam Miklos:And you are living proof of all of that. So thank you.
Sophie Robertson:Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Kate Coomber:We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which we meet, who for centuries have shared ancient methods of healing and cared for their communities. We pay our respects to elders past and present.
