INSIGHTS / FOR EXPERIENCED RECRUITERS
How good recruiting works.
Views on recruiting judgment, relationships and AI. The work behind the shortlist, the decisions that matter, and what produces a placement.
Talk about recruiting with us →MURRAY CLARKE / FOUNDING PARTNER
Experience, applied with AI.
I’m Murray Clarke, founding partner of Aspiring Partners. I’ve spent more than 20 years in executive search in Japan, helping build four search firms. That includes years helping VMware hire its leadership team, two years internally during hypergrowth, and the executive-search joint venture I built with ManpowerGroup before selling my interest to the group.
My perspective comes from helping build executive-search firms in Japan and being part of three businesses that went on to successful acquisitions, including the firm I built and sold myself. As a foreign founder in Japan, that has been an unusual path. It has let me see good recruiting practice from several angles: what helps a recruiter succeed, what earns a client’s trust, and what makes a search business worth acquiring.
This time, we’ve built our own platform and use AI extensively in the work. It helps me apply that experience more broadly in support of candidates, clients and the recruiters working with us. The technology supports the research and preparation; I remain accountable for the judgment and relationships.
In our first licensed year, I’ve billed more than ¥100 million as essentially the sole biller. I expect to finish this year at around ¥120 million, compared with my previous personal best of ¥60 million at RGF. That is the result I want to examine here: what we do differently, and which parts other good recruiters can use.
More about Murray and Aspiring Partners →
Is your recruitment firm holding you back on AI?
A week to approve Slack. An RPO recruiter working with LinkedIn and a spreadsheet. Murray Clarke on the gap between AI investment and what recruiters can actually use—and what it means for your career.
The Recruiters I Want to Build With
Client trust, clear thinking, humility and purposeful work: Murray Clarke explains the recruiters he wants to build with, and how AI and TalentHub can help them develop.
From Contingency Recruiting to Executive Search: Learning the Business
Two RGF recruiters took a year to learn executive search, then became million-dollar billers. Murray Clarke explains the shift from order taking to business understanding—and his view of AI’s impact.
How I Help Recruiters Win Business and Deliver
Murray Clarke explains how colleagues can draw on his experience and senior client relationships to win business and deliver searches, with stories from GitHub and Celonis.
What Working Outside Recruitment Taught Me About Executive Search
Four years with WorkBrain Japan taught Murray Clarke what recruiting alone had not: how technology businesses develop in Japan, and how much he still had to learn.
From New Zealand to Japan: Learning to Aim Higher
From rural New Zealand to executive search in Japan, Murray Clarke reflects on the people and turning points that raised his expectations—and shaped how he leads recruiters.
What Building Search Firms in Japan Taught Me About Recruiting
Murray Clarke shares lessons from Boyd & Moore, RGF Executive and his ManpowerGroup joint venture: raising standards, developing teams and applying experience with AI.
Why Japan's Best Leaders Won't Answer Your Recruiter
The people you want are reachable. Whether they take the call depends on who is carrying the approach and what that person's name is worth in the market.