How I Help Recruiters Win Business and Deliver

Some of the best recruiters I have worked with knew how to use my experience to strengthen their own client relationships. They brought me into conversations where I could help them earn the client’s confidence, win the work and deliver it well.

I am Murray Clarke, Founding Partner of Aspiring Partners. Over more than 20 years in executive search in Japan, I have helped build search firms, led teams and owned and run a business. One of the roles I enjoy most is putting that experience to work for a capable colleague.

A recruiter might bring me into a conversation with a CRO, regional president or business leader to help uncover the problem behind the hire. They remain responsible for the search, bringing their own strengths to client relationships, candidate conversations and delivery. My involvement gives them additional support at the moments when it can make a difference.

Two examples come to mind: an early meeting with GitHub, and a leadership search for Celonis. These are my recollections of how I supported colleagues in those relationships.

Helping a colleague earn confidence at GitHub

At GitHub, a colleague and I met Paul St. John, whom I remember as the CRO at the time, and a business development lead who had responsibility for recruitment.

Paul and I had a great conversation about the business. My colleague had an equally good conversation with the other person about the recruitment work. It gave my colleague support in a senior business conversation while he built the recruitment relationship. Together, we could show the client that we understood both the commercial problem and the work needed to solve it.

We were competing with other agencies. Of course, we needed to demonstrate that we understood the work. But I also remember a much less polished moment that helped us connect.

The least sophisticated icebreaker imaginable

Our host went to the office kitchen and returned with water. My colleague took a sip and visibly shuddered.

Our host apologised and explained that it was tap water. By then, my colleague’s face had already supplied the tasting notes.

Everyone laughed. The ice was broken.

I cannot tell you what was in the water. I can tell you that the reaction was completely unplanned. My colleague had simply reacted to a taste he clearly was not expecting, and we all recognised the moment for what it was.

I later used that story in a training session. You can prepare carefully for a client meeting and still be yourself. A shared laugh can make it easier for people to speak openly.

I believe that human connection helped the relationship. The water did not win the business by itself, and there is no technique to copy here. The useful part was that we stopped feeling like recruiters performing a pitch and became people having a conversation.

Supporting the senior relationship through a difficult close

Another example was a leadership search at Celonis. My colleague ran the candidate side while I worked closely with Miguel Milano on the business side.

As the candidate and several members of his team approached the final stages, the process became quite tense. Miguel and I were texting frequently as we worked to bring it to a close. I enjoyed that process immensely: there was a real problem to solve, a significant decision to make and a colleague working closely with the people on the other side of it.

The search resulted in a successful hire. My role was to support my colleague’s delivery by staying close to the senior decision-maker, understanding what mattered to him and helping work through the final stages. My colleague could concentrate on the candidate side knowing that I was actively supporting the business relationship. We kept each other informed so that our conversations served the same outcome.

I later lost touch with Miguel, and one of my regrets is that I lost his phone number. I would have liked to ask him for a testimonial. I did not, so the account here is my own.

How colleagues can make use of my experience

The best recruiters in my teams often brought me into their business development. They understood where my experience could help: a conversation with a CRO, an APAC president or another business leader about the problem behind the hire.

They brought their own strengths to the relationship. They could build trust with talent acquisition, guide candidate conversations, work through terms and keep the recruitment process moving.

Those responsibilities require judgment, too. A candidate conversation can reveal something that changes the brief. A talent acquisition partner may understand an internal constraint that the business leader has not explained. We need to listen to those perspectives and bring them together.

In a strong partnership, we regularly ask each other: What have you learned? What has changed? What are we missing? What do we need to do next?

I have strengths, and rough edges

I enjoy getting close to a business leader’s real problem. I can also get impatient when a conversation stays at the level of process before we have understood that problem. Sometimes I make my frustration too obvious.

That is something I need to improve. A colleague who can build those relationships thoughtfully helps the client, the search and me. I should listen to their judgment and let them challenge mine.

Helping a colleague become more successful requires me to be useful, accessible and willing to listen. I want them to grow in confidence and capability through working with me.

Experience, tools and support for your own success

Today, AI and our TalentHub platform give us more support for research, organising information and presenting the evidence behind a search. Alongside my involvement in client conversations, these tools give colleagues more support to prepare well, share context and deliver their searches.

The people still have to understand the business, earn trust and work together. A polished document does not replace a thoughtful conversation, and recruitment jargon does not make us credible.

I have said elsewhere that I do not want a client leaving a meeting thinking my colleague is a cheeseball. I want them to feel that they met a capable person who understood their situation, spoke honestly and cared about doing the work properly.

That leaves plenty of room for personality. Sometimes, apparently, it even leaves room for a spectacularly bad glass of water.

Read the standards I look for in recruiters joining our team →

If you are a capable recruiter who wants to draw on my experience, relationships and our platform to become more successful, I would be interested in a conversation.

Written by Murray Clarke, Founding Partner of Aspiring Partners.

The role that helps you become great

I am looking for recruiters who want more than a job. I want people seeking the role that helps them become successful and excellent at their craft: work that challenges them, develops their judgment and meaningfully improves their lives.

Earning a living matters. What excites me is the ambition alongside it: wanting to learn, take responsibility and build a career you can be proud of. If that is what you are looking for, contact me and take a look at what we are building.