Defence, Intelligence & Space : Dan Newberry, Shadow Gate Partners | COAR S2 Special

The defence industry is hard enough. Now try recruiting for intelligence missions where the best candidates cannot be found on job boards, some people barely exist online, and you are not even allowed to talk about certain details in public. In this special episode we are joined by Daniel Newberry, founder of Shadowgate Partners, to get a rare look at what modern intelligence recruitment and space-related hiring actually involves.

We talk through Daniel’s path from internal talent acquisition at major defence primes to launching his own specialist recruitment agency, then deliberately niching down into signals intelligence and space capability. He explains the early credibility problem, what it is like trying to navigate defence procurement. If you have ever wondered how recruiters source “cleared” talent when LinkedIn is not enough, this is the playbook: internal sourcing, program mapping, and relationship-led headhunting.

Daniel also shares why Shadowgate runs retained search instead of contingent recruitment, why some clients only want to see one CV, and what “delivery” looks like when relocations, family impact, and mission outcomes are on the line. We finish with founder-level lessons on picking a niche, not scaling too fast, and building a process that earns trust in the intelligence and defence space. If you enjoy conversations about defence recruitment, security clearance hiring, signals intelligence, Australia’s space industry, and building a recruitment agency that can operate across Australia and the US, press play.

Transcript

Why Intelligence Recruitment Exists

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So today I'm joined by Daniel Newbery, think you operate in the coolest industry, if I'm honest. The core niche that I found that I enjoyed most, which was think your government agencies that are supporting both domestic and international missions, essentially spies. I truly believe our next war will begin in space. The smartest way to do it would be just to turn off our civilian satellites. If we can't call each other and the PM can't get on the radio to tell us what's going on, everyone's just gonna freak out. How did you come up with a name? These guys work in the shadows and I'm sitting behind a big gate, Shadow Gate, and that was literally it. And then I threw partners on the end to make it sound a little bit more legit and sent it to the tax agent and said, register this.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Love it. I guess you're gonna be interacting with some pretty serious people about some pretty serious things. Of pleat the fifth as well. Yeah, all right. Short podcast. I can't talk about anything. So today I'm joined by Daniel Newberry, who probably has the coolest well, one, coolest recruitment company name. And two, I think you operate in the the coolest industry, if I'm honest. Um and I'd do a disservice if I tried to introduce what you do and how you do it. So I might as quickly hand over to you, mate, and just give us a bit of uh the headlines on you and your business and um what you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

So um came out of internal recruiting. I was working for some of the defence primes here in Australia. Northrop Grumman um is probably the world's largest uh defence business um running their internal talent acquisition from a sustainment perspective. Um met with Blake a couple of times prior to actually making the leap of faith and we were sort of teetering backwards and forwards on whether or not it was a good idea. I actually interviewed or was going to interview with him at Vendito to go and set up a little aerospace portfolio. And then I said, no, screw that, I want to give this a crack myself. So launched a business two years ago, um, have sort of, you know, fumbled our way through the defense industry, um, trying to figure out who's who in the zoo and and I guess from an external perspective, how we were going to make it work as a very small business. Um, scaled um over the last couple of years and had some fantastic wins um and really niched in on a very sort of uh core group of clients um within the intelligence community.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

This was your original business, right? Because you started a business and then you've kind of kind of gone deeper in um with a secondary business.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, correct. So uh we originally launched um two years ago. Um that whole process was just a complete learning curve in the best way possible. We had an absolutely stellar run for two years. Um, no complaints on our end. We we you know we crushed it, we had some fantastic clients, we placed people into some incredible programs, you know, globally. Um I sort of put my thinking cap on towards the end of 2025 and said, I think it's time to kind of pivot this into uh the the core niche that I found that I enjoyed most, which was the intelligence community. So um think your government agencies that are supporting um both domestic and international missions essentially spies.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Like what you see on the born identity, those guys in the office. Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

So there's gonna be things you can't talk about, I'm sure. There definitely will be. Yeah, yeah. But I'll um I'll plead the fifth when you uh see a question that I can't answer. Yeah. So yes, um, a couple of years later, we um we sort of brainstormed as to what I was gonna do and decided it was time to rebrand the business. So um this, I guess, is the first time that we're talking about it publicly, but Shadowgate Partners is Shadow Gate. Shadowgate. Shadowgate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

It's pretty cool in itself, I think.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I think it is too. How did you come up with a name? I was working on a project uh, you know, outside of the recruitment industry, um, and I needed to set up a PTY L T D really quickly.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Um and I was sitting in Alice Springs with a client at the time, um, thinking, you know, what could I do? Because it was still focused on the defense industry, what I was going to be doing, um, but uh servicing a different area within defense. Um, these guys work in the shadows, and I'm sitting behind a big gate, Shadow Gate. And that was literally it. And then I threw partners on the end to make it sound a little bit more legit and sent it to the tax agent and said, register this. Love it. So it uh it went live, you know, over 12 months ago now. I've had that company.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Yep.

Jumping From Internal To Agency

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Uh, and then it sort of towards the end of last year, I thought, no, I'm gonna make that the recruitment business. That's the that's the brand.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

So when you first made the leap from being internal in that space, having an agency delivering to that space, what were what were some of the kind of the challenges you faced right up front? Because I guess there's a few things being in that industry. One, becoming an agency now delivering to it, but also credibility and what have you, is that a challenge? Credibility, definitely. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Um in Australia, the the the defense businesses don't tend to speak to each other. They kind of are focused on their programs and their delivery, and they also are trying to compete for the same work. So, you know, you're calling up the phone to Boeing and saying, Hey, I worked at Northrop Grumman, they're gonna hang up on you because they don't want to talk to you most of the time. Um we kind of figured out a way to make that uh our benefit in terms of our, you know, our our sort of key differentiator in the market to some of the other things. USP selling unique selling point type thing. Yeah. 100%. So I I would say that um working through just the sales aspect of recruitment was hard. We we were used to sort of being um order takers. You'd kind of get given 40 recs and say, off you go, go and figure out how you're gonna staff this program in you know, the middle of nowhere. Um, and we had all the internal resources and capability to get that done. Um, but going outside and trying to find the jobs was probably the hardest part. Number one, trying to get through a defence supply chain is near impossible. Um, procurement processes can take ages. They've got to vet your businesses, your business almost needs to have a security clearance. We've got to have security clearance.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Oh, you have a security clearance.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

I do.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Um bias level, or you probably can't say that. So plead the fifth. That's my first plea the fifth.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah, you actually can't talk about that. It's a it's a part of the defence regulations that you're not allowed to speak to your um level of clearance or advertise publicly.

Cracking Pine Gap And Referrals

SPEAKER_01 5:44

I guess you're gonna be see interacting with some pretty serious people about some pretty serious things. Oh, please the fifth as well. Yeah, all right. Yeah, it'll be a short, short podcast. I can't talk about anything. So is it just Australia-wide? Like um when you started, when you first started.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Our first client um was actually a US customer.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

So um there was a there's a certain facility here in Australia that I've worked, I worked with when I was internal. Um, and it's a US intelligence base um in the middle of Australia called Pine Gap. That's public knowledge. I think most people would be well aware that there's a you know a random CIA station in the middle of our country. Um from there, we sort of uh tried to figure out who was operating on the base other than the business that I used to work for. So did some research online and I started sort of being the um the bulldog that I am in terms of the BD style and and kind of just picking up the phone to whoever I could. I was gonna say this is fascinating. Did the numbers exist? I was gonna say trying to find a phone number to a spy base is a little bit different than you know, Joe Blow that works at the cafe on the corner. So um it was a lot of research. So we were out there in town in Alice Springs actually trying to shake hands with people rather than using the you know the resources that were available to us through, you know, licensing and all that sort of stuff because these people don't exist online. So BDing people that don't exist is is a very challenging market to be doing it in.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

That is incredible.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

The only way in is referral. Okay. So we we did we spent a lot of capital up front flying to locations and spending a lot of time with people to help us get into the next level of the next room and and ultimately worked our way to get our first client. Um our first client um became um our biggest client as well, which was fantastic. Um and our first placement is now the client, so we placed the HR director out in Alice. Textbook. Yeah, textbook perfection, really. So we had an opportunity to support them from a multitude of things. We worked with them on their recompete. So the um the US government um customer was going through a recompete process, and we ended up becoming their sort of What's a what's a recompete process? Contracts have a life cycle. They came to the end of that life cycle. The government went out to uh tender and essentially said all of the defense customers now need to uh submit their best, you know, put their best foot forward as to who's gonna do that. So we helped that customer, the incumbent we call them, the people that are in that contract at the moment, um, in identifying their key personnel for the base. So we went out and scoured globally to try and find 20 of the brightest minds for their leadership positions.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

And do these people exist on LinkedIn? I was gonna say, how do you we're I know we're going off into different tangents now, but how do you how do you find these people given the nature of what you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Again, it's it is flying around and meeting people. Right. Um we've you know we've got an internal sourcing team. So I've I've deliberate we actually set that up from day one. We wanted to make sure that we had sourcing capabilities so that you know I could be focused on essentially bringing in the clients and and getting to know the clients. And then I would pass a lead on to the sourcing team who would then go and find out who the source, you know, who that person reports to, who's in their team, and then we'd just work our way through people's organizational charts from that perspective. So we've essentially mapped um programs um end-to-end from a capability perspective here in Australia. Okay. Um and and programs feed into sister programs. So there's you know, sister programs in the UK or in the US. So we're working, you know, trilaterally across these different domains. And how long are these programs?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Are we talking five years, longer, shorter? Um one that I've just signed now is for 10 years. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Uh so you would have ongoing business in that program for 10 years. Short answers, yes. Yes, okay. It's kind of a it is future-proofing, um, but you need to deliver. And and that's the difference. I think they they'd never used a a staffing agency before in this location. Okay. Um that base has been operating for 80 years now, um, and they'd never had a single external person touch it.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I was gonna ask that one of my next questions was do you compete with other agencies in this space, or is there without probably can't name names, or is it more competing with their own internal way of finding people?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

There is defense recruitment agencies in this country that do very well at what they do, and they've been around for a very long time and they're very reputable, um, and they've got all the people that you can think of from you know each each, I guess, domain. I think our difference is that we solely focused on intelligence and we're solely focused on anything that's space related.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So This is your newest business. This is Shadowgate.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Yes, the the old business was doing that, but just without labeling that we were doing that. Uh, and then Shadowgate is kind of the the the you know love child of um all of the years of work that went into um I guess setting up the presence and the you know establishing the client base that um that that we were managed to do.

Space Capability And Modern Risk

SPEAKER_01 10:40

So I'm probably gonna ask you things you can't talk about, and again, just tell me that you can't. So intelligence and space. Yes. Um tell me about space. Sure. What's going on with like what we can talk about? I've never seen aliens.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

No. Although apparently someone has. Um who was it that was it not Biden? What's the other one? Obama. Obama. Well, he said. He said they're real. Didn't he say the real? But he's not seen them. Yeah. No, I'd I'd love to see them if they're available to see. They're already around, mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I have no doubt. There's two pillars that I like to think about in space. There's um commercial or civilian as we refer to it from a defence perspective. So people that are sending um payloads into space or spacecraft into space to broadcast TV or radio, or you know, the for the I guess being able to talk, GPS. Without space and satellites, we wouldn't have GPS on our phones. So um, those are kind of the commercial uses, and and you know, realistically, all that's done in Australia is in that region. Um then you've got a a huge pocket um within the defense industry that use space for secured communications, they use it for um things that um um they use it for a multitude of things. Uh and uh that uh pocket um is something that is being uh worked on at the moment in Australia. So it's it's almost in its infancy stages, and I've I've um noticed that, I guess, when working with clients that you know they're trying to establish a space capability or a space program or they're beating or tendering for a space capability with defense. They don't have people to do it because the capabilities never existed in country. So we're sort of sent on a you know mission to go and find somebody overseas and and bring them into country or pluck them out of one of these facilities that have been operating for 80 years at you know some of the most high-tech um space capability that there is globally. Um so space is um space is so important. I I truly believe in everyone that I speak with that our um our next war will be begin in space. Apart from this current one, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

The one after this. Yeah, yeah. Or is it already started in space? No, we'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah. But the smartest way to do it would be just to turn off our civilian satellites. Like if we can't call each other and the PM can't get on the radio to tell us what's going on, everyone's just gonna freak out. So it'll end up in a you know a bit of civil unrest, and then we'll see what happens from there.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

But I did hear that China was launching 2,000 or some huge amount of satellites into space to out out muscle Elon Musk and Starlink. So clearly everyone is thinking about that as well. You're just nodding. Okay, we'll move on from that. Okay. So space is so is it an area you do quite a lot in, or is it kind of 50-50?

SPEAKER_02 13:18

They directly correlate with each other. So when I say Intel, they there is a space element to the Intel work that I do. Okay. I don't and I deliberately have chosen not to work on human intelligence. So that means sending people to a weird location in Iraq or, you know, somewhere in those locations where they're out scouting and doing spy working. Just from a morality perspective. Is that why? I just don't want to know what the insurance costs, to be honest with you. Sending people into another. I don't know. I need to do kind of like why that one is not there anymore. Okay. Yeah, morally I have no problem with it. I think there's a place for it. Um, but the signals intelligence is is my bread and butter, and that's what I love to work on and work with. Um, and the people in those environments are some of the brightest minds in the world um figuring out, you know, the problems.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

So you talked a bit about Australia and but you talked about um the UK, the US. Does your business cover things globally or are you focused in any particular area?

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Yes, so we have just stood up um capability in the US. I've just placed my first um team member in the US for Shadowgate, and he will be joining on uh launch day. So I'm not too sure when this episode's going live. When is it going live, Serge? Anything after the 7th of April's acceptable.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

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SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah, so uh he's starting with us on the 7th of April. He actually comes out of my customer. So he's left working there and is joining my business and essentially is going to utilize the preferred supply agreements that I've got here in Australia because they are with the US uh entities, to go and start building the US workforce. And my intention will be to you know scale Australia ever so slightly. I don't want to do it um um and and become another haze or another, you know, uh manpower or any of those businesses that are they've got 85 recruiters sitting in the defense sector and there's only like 10 rolls.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Right, is that how big they are? They're huge. They're massive.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's plenty of plenty of work, um but everyone's fighting on contingent work.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

I don't do contingent work, I never have, and I don't I will not touch it. Where do you specialise in terms of the type of work? Is it retained? It's all retained. I've done a couple of exclusive placements um and they were with new clients that wanted to test us before, you know, but they they have only ever done contingent at twelve percent. Um and I just will not I don't play in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have fun with you know the the bigger guys that can you know fund that. And that's a new business as well. It's just not something that I want to be, you know, dropping my pants to.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Um yeah. Anyway, they've all come back uh and happily paid the retained fees after working with the other guys.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

So tell me a little bit about then um obviously amazing news going to the US, by the way, and some interesting times over there. So I'm sure um that'll be that'll be fun. But tell me about maybe some of the challenges you have, because obviously a relatively new start business going into an incredibly niche area into a new country. How did you start trying to find people? And you obviously found somebody, but what what was your process of trying to attract people?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

I actually was talking to BT about it maybe eight months ago now. Um and it was funnily enough, um in line with whenever uh the last, you know, uh uh war kicked off. I can't actually remember what it was. The one in Iran in America or No, it was before that. Something was going on. Anyway, I just thought maybe now's a good time to sort of look at supporting capability over there and getting some seats on some programs, doing work that we're already doing here in Australia, but not having to bring people over to Australia. Um so I'd say about 50% of the people that we're bringing uh that we're placing are American citizens and we're actually relocating them from America to Australia. And then the other 50% would be the Australians supporting those programs. Um in America, it's a lot easier to find people. They can advertise their clearances. There's actually job boards such as Seek for just cleared professionals and cleared jobs. Um it'll be very interesting to see the growth in that market from a new business perspective. Um I think the fact that we've already got the global PSAs is going to be quite handy. And I only work with the US stakeholders as well. So I'm up at you know silly o'clock in the morning having a meeting with the US and then there's no activity happening during the day. So it's you know, it's it's kind of a reverse job, if that makes sense, from a hour. That way you seem tired.

Hiring Insiders Over Agency Profiles

SPEAKER_01 18:03

I'm kidding. No, you don't. I'm kidding. What about attracting people for your own business? Like, was that a challenge?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yes and no. Sorry, that was the question originally. Same principles apply. So when I was talking to BT, he actually made a comment, and I can't believe I'm gonna say this out loud. He made a comment to say, just go to a rec to rec over there. And I said, I'm not paying a fucking recruitment fee. No way. What do they mean? Then I went, Whoa, whoa, hang on. Hang on a second. Um I did I spent a bit of time uh looking in the market to try and figure out what I wanted. I prefer people with internal skill sets than I do with external staffing agency skill sets. You can teach somebody how to pick up the phone, but you can't teach somebody how to nurture these intelligence customers.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

It's a very interesting perspective because I'd say a lot of other recruitment individuals would think the opposite. If they have the BD, I can teach them the recruitment. But you're coming from such a niche perspective, it's clearly very different from for your world, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:53

You need to know how to speak their language, and you don't learn that language unless you've been inside the machine. So when I was speaking to people originally, I think I probably interviewed eight people last year. I just wasn't clicking with anyone. There was a lot of, you know, older people that were recently made redundant, for example. There's there's quite a lot of um turnover in the US from a you know companies just laying people off left, right, and center at the moment, even though things are booming. They're they're kind of automating most of their processes, i.e. recruitment flows and all that sort of stuff. Um but I think what's happening now is we're seeing the the failure of the AI adoption in the defense industry. Right. Companies are air gapping their systems, so certain things aren't talking to other things, and now capabilities failing because they don't have the right people in the right roles. Um and I bang on about this all the time. But um yeah, I was I was lumped with a lot of people that were made redundant and uh probably not the right fit for me at the time. Um I parked it. Uh I then decided I was going to rebrand the business, and I was actually um speaking with a client uh in Alice Springs about I guess the new business and and what's coming and you know, all of those sorts of things. And um the client made mention that her boss had recently um started looking for a new job. So I just said, right, well, connect me. Um her boss is essentially my customer, if that makes sense, the the ultimate approver of the budget from a HR perspective. So I met with them um and we just clicked immediately. He he's never done staffing agency before. He is absolutely scared shitless. He's getting drilled by AT on how to sell himself on the phone at the moment. It's quite hilarious. Um, but he is really willing to give it a red hot crack, and that's what I want. Um and and I've gone out intentionally. I did a little stint in agency, I did 12 months in agency back in the heyday in hospitality recruiting. Um, and I remember the commissions um being so difficult to achieve um from a you know, your what was it called? Cost of seat or whatever they used to call it. You you know, you'd have your you essentially got to pay for yourself times four or whatever it was. So I said to him, I was like, look, I don't want to do that to you. I don't want to scare you off giving it a go because it, you know, you're ultimately gonna be feeling like you're starting your own business sitting stateside, but you're working for me. So how can we kind of make this work? So we've I've done him a pretty good deal in terms of what he's gonna you know come in with. Um and I think then the infrastructure that I've got behind me from you know both ex-recruiter's perspective, and then also I've managed to find payroll capability locally in America. Excellent. Um and they will do all of my um payroll for temp subcontracting in America as well. So uh you know, until XR get themselves you know established from a subcontracting perspective, I've managed to outsource all of that. So do you think the US will be your biggest?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

It already is.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

I mean, I I've in Australia, I think I've done five deals in two years. Everything else has come from the US. Right. It's paid in US dollars into a you know, into a yeah, it's it's all US.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

I guess next question, and I'm kind of we're in a state in the world right now where it's a lot of uncertainty. That will have a knock on a affected potentially the average recruiter's life if you know things are not going that well in the world. Is that a good market for you to exist in where there is a war going on? Or I hope so. I was going to say, because is that a good thing or is that a consolidation of the water? Well look, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

And I I nobody wants war. The capability that we support operates seven days a week, 24 hours a day, no matter if there's a war or not. Okay. So I'm not in weapons manufacturing. I'm not in um, you know, deployable missions. I'm in the people that are monitoring to make sure that nothing's going on. Bread and butter intelligence and the contracts are there regardless of what's going on in that.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

So you're kind of resistant to the volatility of that thing. Okay. Yeah. Because I was curious, because I know that I've seen a few of your posts on LinkedIn and I think one was about missiles or radars or something kind of cool. And I was thinking do you need to have a deep understanding of that side of things to have the conversation.

Niching Down And Building A Moat

SPEAKER_02 22:53

You almost need to be an engineer within these systems to actually be able to intelligently get into a room with these guys. And and the Americans don't hold back their thought on on what you're saying to them. They will be brutally honest with you if you've said the wrong thing. So you kind of need to go into those conversations knowing what you know and if you don't you need to take a subject matter expert in with you to do the talking. And that's what I've done is I've always lent on you know the smeas in those in those aspects. I learnt a lot though working at Northrop Grumman. I will forever cherish my time at in that business. It taught me so much. And I took took that information and then kind of plugged it into what I'm doing now and just expanded my knowledge base in this specific you know industry sector.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

So let's rewind a little bit because I want I want to touch on the fact that you you started a business and you know you're a bit wider spread than you are now as in specialization. So what I'm curious about is um what did you learn in that time that you think if someone start an agency now that they could take away and use? Like what what from your journey do you think is worth sharing?

SPEAKER_02 23:56

I think picking a niche is so important.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

And and I'm guilty of it. I still want to do other things but I know that it's the wrong thing to do. People don't go to generalists if they're going to spend the money they want somebody that knows what they're doing and they've got the genuine networks in the industry that they're going to be working in. If I could have had our time again two years ago I absolutely would have niched in but we didn't know what we didn't know. So you know we had the the luxury of fumbling through that process and and you know securing enough work to to build the business, make a profit and do all of the good things that we did. And now the niching in of you know Shadowgate is is going to be I guess the evolution of of the decision that's been made ultimately what does the future look like for you and what problems or obstacles do you kind of see that you might might face it the future's looking bright in in the best way possible. Australia is expanding its capability at the moment and pouring more money than they ever have into what it is that that we do. In that as well our relationship with the US is coming leaps and bounds. I've as I mentioned I've set up shop in the US and I'm but I'm trading under a US incorporation. So I've actually set up Shadowgate Partners Inc., so a C corporation over there. So we have now the capability to really work with the US rather than being a offshore subsidiary that wants to subcontract in we can actually get federal grants and federal programs and go in on that. And the person that I brought in he holds a top secret clearance so are you allowed to say that?

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yes yeah you can in the US you can work here in in Australia.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Yeah. But he can have the same conversations that I can have because he's got the appropriate clearance over there. So you know I just see this being a really positive time for Shadowgate. I see it being a positive time for the traction that's been made over the last two years. And then the rebrand I think is going to um prick the ears of those who have been watching knowing that we've been doing that work but kind of waiting for probably something similar to this to occur. Just the last four weeks I've signed some of the biggest defense companies globally to support the missions here in Australia. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

And I'm curious because um going international so quickly is by default essential for your business. Would it be something you'd recommend to a a normal normal inverted commerce recruiter going where the work is or would you just kind of stay in your area?

SPEAKER_02 26:23

I've been with X Recruiter since day one almost I think we're they're about six months old when we joined so we've really been here since the get go. I've seen a lot of people come and go those that have stayed have not done things to risk ruining their businesses. They've not scaled too quickly. If they've scaled they've done it because they're niche right in and they know exactly what they're doing. They know exactly who their market is and my hat's off to those guys that are just absolutely crushing it because it's hard like it's really hard doing this you know by yourself. I think if you're going to do it it needs to make sense. Okay I would not have done it if I didn't have a contract to go and do it with. So I've won a contract that allowed me to set this up. I've then leveraged that contract to then hire this person.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Had you done that when you first started your first company or did you kind of go in a bit, okay, let's just make this work. Because I'm curious because it's a it's a big leap for anybody to go from being an employee to starting on their own.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

I had no contracts if that's what you're asking. Yes. Took us six months to find our first one. So I think BT and um and you know the team were a little bit concerned that we weren't making any money. And then when they saw our first placement and it was the biggest one in X recruiters history they went oh okay we get it. Yeah we get it we get it. Yeah yeah we get it. And then it it just flowed like we you know we we we did the work that mattered to us and we did the work with the clients that were respectful of what we had on offer. And we always held firm.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Lots of people are used to lots of recruiters contacting them all the time and dropping their pants to get the business yeah we'll do it at 12% contingent. We've stayed at 18% retained. Yeah. We've held firm there.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

We will not drop from that that was in the old business the new business um we will not pivot from that stress and how you have to recruit this is a very headhunt process it is it is full headhunting there is a premium attached to that level of service because there is so much work that goes into that.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

So we've never posted a job ad in over two years of trading we've only ever headhunted and those headhunting exercises when you've got physical people doing them for you they're expensive. So a process to run like ours is probably ten times than posting a C C ad and sitting there waiting for the applicants to come in. It just doesn't work. The value that we need to give to these people is because they've done it themselves. They're sitting on a wreck for six months and they need somebody in that mission doing that thing tomorrow. I love the fact you call them missions. Well that's what it is you know where where we are we we put we deploy them out to sites to to to work with the US government.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Any advice for somebody who's thinking about making the move knows there's more there's something beyond but hasn't quite got the courage.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

I've had a few conversations with um I think whenever uh the onboarding team or the sales team get an internal person they do palm them to me to have a conversation with people that are looking at joining ex-recruiter community and setting up their own business. My advice to them is what's the worst that's going to happen? And you have to go and get another job. You're in one now who cares? Yeah. What have you got to lose? Yeah. As long as you can pay your bills for the first six months you're going to be fine. Yeah. So knuckle down for another 12 months and save. Make sure you've got you know the backing in place from your family and just do it.

A Process Built On Delivery

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Because you're in such a niche, difficult, challenging market, you know we don't often see um people take you know that long to get there because they're in a very mainstream market. You know the job's everywhere you can advertise you can do all these things so often we see it happening a lot quicker to be honest. But it's just that fear factor. So I want to talk a little bit about you know you you you take a lot of time to find the clients find the prospects physically being there once you've kind of got them in a room or you kind of start the relationship how do you work on that relationship? Because it's a very unique relationship you have it's not a transactional I'll find you somebody where we go this sounds like something that you've got to kind of nurture. How do you work with that?

SPEAKER_02 30:06

It's a really good question. And I it's it's part of my trade secret so I'll I'll answer the question a little bit gilded if that's okay. Yeah of course yeah once we're in the room with somebody and we go through our process in detail of how we can actually support them and the examples of the programs that we're currently supporting and the way in which we've solved their problems generally nine times out of ten it's an easy an easy win for us from that perspective. What I would say is that most um businesses that pick up work in this space if there is um many out there they get the work and then they don't deliver on the work. So we follow through and and that's something that I'm really proud of. We have never not placed a role that we've been given ever and in our two and a bit years of trading I've had one person leave within probation and it was because of a family reason. It was not because of failing probation. So we've got a high hit rate as well. And that just comes down to I think the cement process that we've put in place that is locked down and is um essentially bulletproof from from the outset. And I think clients like to hear that we operate like an internal team from a screening perspective, from a vetting perspective we check clearances, we do everything that you would do normally internally before a client even gets a copy of their professional summaries. Our process is is multi-staged before we release anybody's information to a client. And we've done that deliberately to make sure that we're not doing what other businesses do and throwing CVs at a wall and seeing what sticks and hoping that they get a placement out of it. Because you move somebody in their family to you know these remote locations you need them to stay there otherwise it's going to be a big upset for everyone you know they've got kids in school that they're moving to you know crazy towns around the world it needs to make sense for everyone. So there's quite a journey that you've got to take both the clients and the candidates on you know to build trust just doing the work is how you keep them around and how you keep them nurtured. Winning the business is the hardest part is getting the the introduction to them.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

From a candidate perspective is it a case of like a and again I'm from a very normal type recruitment in um world where you know you your short list is three or four people.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Is that the same numbers for you or are you talking one one okay funnily enough our very first client um for our very first role um she flew out uh from Virginia to meet us um and that was when we won that recompete work that I mentioned earlier. So essentially we're sitting with her at dinner and um we're used to having to present three or four CVs to a hiring manager internally you know let us know which ones you'd like to interview. She said to us immediately at that dinner she said look I know you guys know who we preferred just when you submitted those CVs. In future only send us one. None of us have time to be looking at more than one CV. But you need to be sure that we're going to say yes to that person. So don't shoot egg on your face and have to go and restart the whole process again. So we took that from day one we we said right well we knew who they were going to hire. We we just knew we will only present the best of the people that we find. Eight times out of 10 there really is only one person that can, you know, with that skill set that can actually do the job that has the right clearance that's willing to move to X. So it's not a hard you know a hard number to achieve but when there is multiple we really do you know I'll have two minimum of two interviews with them myself before they leave my business that's before the sourcing team have done to themselves. So it's a stringent process and and by the end of that I'll know who the client's going to like.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

You headhunt someone you tell them about this opportunity you pull them out you convince them there's an opportunity there and then they're number two how do you manage that candidate? The loser? Yeah well I wouldn't we can cut that but yeah the loser. Yeah yeah but how do you no don't cut it yeah you're suddenly going to have to tell them that you didn't even submit them.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

No no I tell them before even during interviews sometimes I say look this isn't it for you. One thing that I saw from my colleagues being internal was that they were never getting back to candidates and you know what it's like when you sat through an interview process and nobody gives you a call just to say hey it's not going to proceed or even an email. Yeah. You know it takes two seconds to send an email. You just need to cut and paste from a draft. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah because the process is so stringent by the end of it we really know these people we know their families we know I you know I could tell you where they went to primary school because I've done so much vetting on these people. So we work with them on finding them another opportunity and that's when we go into reverse marketing these people into different opportunities around the country. And that is how we reverse market. It's a very long-winded process but we will work with those people to essentially identify say 20 businesses around the country that need their skill set with their clearance and in locations that they're willing to work. We will then find the hiring managers in those companies and essentially get on the phone and sell this person one by one 20 times down the list until we find them a job. We never just discard somebody if that makes sense. We'll we'll repurpose them to where it makes sense for them to be homed.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

But I want to ask this question I'm unsure if you're even going to be able to give me any kind of an answer but what's kind of what's the coolest job you've recruited or the coolest experience you've had?

The Wildest Roles And Final Advice

SPEAKER_02 35:16

So I got given um some position descriptions actually they just landed in my inbox from the US client that a US client that we work with quite frequently and they were for a very specific program and the role titles when I looked at them I just went oh I don't know if I should be looking at this and then when I read through the position description I just went oh okay I had no idea that that occurs but okay got it I'm fascinating yeah yeah yeah it was it was one of those like out of body experiences where you're like wow these people must really trust me to be sending me you know this this information and we got sent on a bit of a manhunt so they needed I think it was eight positions and they were all different things. So there was people working in innovation labs and there was people working you know on operations floors and there was you know engineers that had certain sets of skills with missile detection and you know things that you just don't see every day. They're certainly not advertised on Seek. And then you've got to try and find these people living in the US or or somewhere else at another base that are you know willing to come and plonk themselves in Central Australia. So that was probably one of the the more fun ones that I've had the chance to do and we're still waiting to find out whether or not those people are going through they're just waiting on an award from the US government at the moment. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

So if there's any recruiters out there, what is one thing that you think anyone listening any recruiter out there who's just embarking on their career they should be taking away from your journey and on this episode.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Be really specific on what you want to do. Make sure it makes sense for your life and your situation at the time that you're making the decision.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

As I said I've seen a lot of people come and go and you want to be one that stays around because if you can stick it out it's very very reward you know rewarding for you your family and your friends. Did you always know you wanted to work in this kind of space? Defense?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Yeah yeah yeah yeah amazing well mate it's been a pleasure having you honestly I I really want to ask you more and I know I'm not going to get any more answers so I think we can kind of wrap it up but you're in a fascinating space you're doing an incredible job. I think um the stories I hear about you in general are really really positive. So mate keep going it's it's an amazing world and and when you do finish this all up tell me all the secrets because I'm I'm keen to know. Yeah no not