When you’re hiring a new member of staff, the recruitment process can quickly become costly – from high recruiter costs to expensive new equipment. That’s why a lot of clients approach Lease Loop. Our flexible tech leasing solutions can afford companies the same tech top talent want, without the high upfront cost.
But we’re only experts in tech, not recruitment. For the latter, you’ll need to chat to Jo Carter of Concept Onyx Recruitment – a woman on a mission to help agencies stop hiring on feeling and plan strategically for interviews. We recently caught her talk with The Agency Collective (TAC)…
Introducing Jo Carter and Concept Onyx Recruitment
Concept Onyx Recruitment is a merger of two of the UK’s leading recruitment agencies – Concept Personnel, established by Jo Carter in 2002, and Onyx Recruitment, led by Michelle Theuma. While Jo filled the void of Digital, Tech, Creative and Marketing recruitment in the North East and Edinburgh, Michelle flew the flag for quality-over-quantity recruitment within Executive, Operations, HR and Finance, in Milton Keynes.
After meeting, the two friends soon realised that their great agencies had the potential to become one even greater, nationwide unit. Sure, they provide a vital service for clients and candidates in ensuring they get expert recruitment support. But Concept Onyx Recruitment goes beyond the black and white with partnerships geared towards enabling clients to break down their internal hiring obstacles.
Less from us – let’s hear it from Concept Onyx Recruitment’s co-founder and CEO, Jo Carter.
How did Concept Onyx Recruitment come about?
Jo: My early career background was in agencies. From ‘96 to ‘02 I worked as a trained Mac Operator, Artworker and Studio Manager before redundancy forced me to look elsewhere. I soon realised that there was a severe lack of understanding and appreciation for these digital and creative skillsets in the North East. So I channelled the small amount of hiring experience I had and decided to set up a recruitment agency to change that.
Michelle, on the other hand, came from the traditional recruitment world – predominately in finance and HR – and had worked at some of the big players like Robert Half, for example. She quickly showed me the value of working with clients on retainers, and how this enables a service to flourish into a close-working client partnership. I really loved that – becoming more strategically involved with helping companies demonstrate higher quality recruitment.
And the rest is history! Our two worlds collided like bread and butter to deliver a differentiated service that crystallises the best bits from both of our recruitment worlds – delivering a more holistic partnership to clients that ticks the right boxes and improves internal processes.
What led to your relationship with TAC?
We recently jumped at the chance to become a recommended partner of TAC. I really relished the opportunity to connect with a network of owner-managed agencies with less experience in the hiring process.
To brag on her behalf, Michelle is a real thought-leader and contributor in her industry – chairing Women in Enterprise (WIE) and winning the Women Leaders 2025 Community Impact (Volunteer) Award for her voluntary work at WIE and Worktree. She helped me to understand that 23 years in the game makes you an industry expert, and not to take the knowledge you have for granted.
Before I presented for TAC, I calculated how many interviews I’ve conducted over the years – I landed on 11,000+, and I’ve sat in on plenty more to learn from other businesses. It’s jawdropping how many experienced interviewers are still getting it wrong. So myself, Amy and Ian from TAC discussed all kinds of potential topics and avenues. We eventually decided on a presentation about how to structure a proper interview and not just hire someone you got along with over a coffee. This is a trap a lot of agencies fall into, especially the younger ones which make up a large portion of the TAC community.
Why is the interview so crucial?
The hiring process is something everybody does, it’s part of running a business, but it’s often not something that you learn other than by doing it. In some cases, agency owners often assume it’s easy because ‘it’s just a conversation, right?’ They’ll have a chat and see if they gel, treating everything else as secondary. The risk here is that you end up hiring someone on a whim, just because you got along with them over a coffee.
Meanwhile, some interviewers will show their nerves which can set the tone for the conversation, making it difficult to get the information they need from the candidate. As an interviewer, if you have a strategic process and tested structure, you can go through steps, putting everyone at ease, revealing the real person on the other end of the table, and giving the candidate a great first experience with your agency.
What challenges do agencies typically face with interviews?
Smaller agencies are often owner-managed, so the interviewer is the potential future line manager of the candidate. They are likely wearing multiple hats, as well as managing the marketing, finances, and more. This leaves little room for proper interview planning, and the lack of a dedicated HR or people manager leaves inexperience at the interviewing stage.
The ‘wing it’ attitude in interviews is a common by-product, and it comes at a cost when it goes wrong to the tune of 3-6 months salary, training, subscriptions, work devices, client relationships and more. In most cases, owner managed businesses hire from a place of urgency which leads to hiring someone who they knew wasn’t quite right, but they did it anyway because it solves the problem.
What can agencies do to avoid hiring on ‘vibes’?
Active listening all the way, but active watching too. Look at their body language, pay attention to their behaviour around the interview as well as during. Here’s a scenario that I’ve shared a few times that can help:
- Frame the interview as a two way street. For a successful outcome, the candidate has to choose you, and you have to choose them.
- Suggest to the candidate at the post-interview stage to take 24 hours to reflect on how they felt the interview went, and explain that you will do the same.
- Then, encourage them to drop you a message, give you their feedback on the interview and let you know if they want to continue the conversation.
Firstly, you’ll find out if they really want the job, and secondly you’ll learn if they can meet a deadline, write an email, respect a process, and more. This is important in creative and digital, because for many in this industry it’s about passion for the craft over money, so you need both parties buying in. Given a tough choice between two job offers, candidates will always choose the company that gave them the best experience in the interview process.
What are some ‘killer’ interview questions an agency can ask?
I have many more killer interview questions in my artillery but these are two of my current favourites.
- “Tell us about a colleague you’ve loved working with in the past.”
The response not only lifts the candidates spirits, but they will associate that feeling with working in your business. It will also tell you about what drives their experiences in the workplace, what their motivators are, and what environments they thrive in. It’s a disarming question that leads to so much value in the answer.
- “What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made?”
It’s a nicer way of asking ‘how do you fare when sh*t hits the fan?’. We all make mistakes, and this question is a way to frame a negative in a positive – in turn, revealing whether the candidate can do the same and manage client relationships simultaneously.
How can you truly understand a candidate’s technological ability at the interview stage?
I’ll give you a real example of a client whose final interview stage was a paid day on the job at a freelance rate. For a Graphic Designer or Artworker, you can read about their experience and hear about their skills, but until you observe someone on a Mac, you won’t get a true picture of their ability. So by building into your recruitment process an onsite technical challenge you can really sort the wheat from the chaff. From a commercial perspective, agencies sell skills and time, so there’s a world of difference between someone who can move quickly around a keyboard vs someone who takes days to produce the goods.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m looking forward to doing more recruitment process training and helping smaller agencies get their processes right. The value of emotional intelligence and understanding body language is a hot topic I talk about a lot, because AI can’t read between the lines of a CV! As for Concept Onyx Recruitment, we’ll continue to differentiate our service by going beyond CV sifting with targeted consultancy on how to help our clients hire better, faster.
Your dream team awaits
How’s that for an interviewing crash course? A huge thanks to Jo for giving us her time and wisdom – we hope you found it useful!
If you’d like to dig deeper into Jo’s knowledge base and discover how Concept Onyx Recruitment can help you build a dream team for your agency, get in touch here.