Infosec People is a recruitment agency specialising in the cybersecurity industry, and has been using Voyager Infinity for a number of years now. Recently, Paul Thompson had the pleasure to sit down with director Chris Dunning-Walton for a wide-ranging interview, covering everything from what Infosec People does better than its competitors to what the future of the recruitment market may look like – not forgetting the impact of using the best recruitment technology in the market!
Watch the video or read the transcript below:
“We’ve been delighted to see how things have worked with Voyager over the last few years – and are really excited to see the next evolution of that platform.”
WHO ARE INFOSEC PEOPLE?
We are a specialist cybersecurity recruitment consultancy working to place leadership candidates: CISOs, Heads of Information Security and Practice Directors, right the way down to Security Analysts, Security Engineers throughout the UK and Europe.
WHY WOULD CLIENTS USE INFOSEC PEOPLE OVER ANY OTHER AGENCY?
One of the key things around Infosec People and what we’re building is around knowledge. For any recruiter in the space, the key aspects that candidates often look for are authenticity, knowledge within the sector they work in and connections that they are familiar with… So for Infosec, it’s not about providing a service that’s reliant on keyword matches or just finding people who can do the job. It’s about finding people that we know, have networked with previously, have relationships with, and can contextualise their journey and their career up to the point where they’re moving – and then work with them beyond that as well. It’s about relationship management, knowledge of the sector.
WHAT IS INFOSEC PEOPLE DOING BETTER THAN OTHER AGENCIES AND HOW?
Our ability to deliver an excellent service to our clients is about understanding the statistics that underpin our performance, so having a CRM and a solution that allows us to monitor how effective we are as a recruitment company is absolutely paramount to that success. For us, it’s about understanding what our client needs and what our candidates are looking for in their next career move. And if we are not hitting the statistics and the levels of performance that we would expect, usually there are reasons why that might be; it might be that the candidate isn’t quite what the client is looking for, it might be that the client’s job description isn’t quite as defined as we would have thought. So all the way through our work with the client, using the data to be able to understand how we perform is absolutely paramount to ensuring that the service levels are as high as we want them to be.
WHAT CHANGES DO YOU SEE COMING IN FUTURE YEARS FOR INFOSEC PEOPLE?
The future of recruitment is definitely going to be influenced by machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data. Platforms like LinkedIn and job sites are already much more effective, allowing companies to build in-house teams that are able to recruit a number of their more generic jobs. We’re really excited as a specialist in cybersecurity, which is a massively growing area at this moment in time and a huge sector of growth but is also a very difficult area to find great talent for. So for us as an agency specialising in offering not just talent solutions, but knowledge of the sector that we work in and advice for clients who often aren’t sure what they’re looking for, it’s absolutely paramount and we’re very excited to see how that maps out in the future as we grow on that journey.
WHAT DOES HEADHUNTING MEAN TO YOU?
Nowadays, we’re finding that the access to talent has never been as easy as it is these days, however the ability to engage talent has actually never been harder, because candidates are receiving multiple messages with very much the same kind of template from people on a regular basis. So actually, what we’re seeing are agencies that are going through high growth, that are actually adopting headhunting methodologies into contingency searches. Candidates in areas of real niche specialty such as cybersecurity are not actively looking in the industry. They’re passively looking and they will only engage with recruitment companies and consultants that they trust, that they have a network and relationship with, and as such we’re seeing that headhunting techniques are becoming much more necessary. It’s great to see that the value that is performed at the headhunting and executive search level is also now replicating into the contingency level, especially in the higher growth, cybersecurity and niche sectors as well.
HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY ALLOWED YOU TO EXPAND YOUR OPERATIONS?
Technology has been really important for Infosec in a number of different ways, as we’ve looked to expand over the last few years. Fundamentally, data for us is incredibly important and the ability to network proactively with people in our sector in cybersecurity is actually paramount to our success, so having a platform that enables us to track people, to be able to stay in touch proactively with people too, to invite them to events that are relevant to them, is absolutely critical.
HOW DOES RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY GIVE YOU A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?
Recruitment technology for me fundamentally underpins the performance of any recruitment company that has aspirations of growth. The ability to both use data effectively in managing a candidate pool, or a client pool – and both of those things are often the same people – is absolutely paramount as well as compliance, accounting functionalities and the ability for your consultants to be able to find people who they already have relationships with, who are good for their client. So having a CRM and a data solution that underpins a high growth recruitment agency is absolutely paramount if they are to succeed in what is a very competitive environment with zero barrier to entry, and we’ve been delighted to see how things have worked with Voyager over the last few years – and are really excited to see the next evolution of that platform, which will map against our growth projections moving forward.
WITH HINDSIGHT, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE A YOUNGER VERSION OF YOURSELF?
That’s a really good question – I think for anybody who’s setting out on that journey to build a recruitment company, it’s not an easy one. So if you’re a recruitment consultant who is very, very successful, and you think that it’s worth transitioning into building your own business, be aware that that is a very, very different thing from running a desk within an agency. It’s not a bad thing but it is very, very different from the day-to-day running of an account. So I think, for us to go back and advise myself and give myself some tips, it would be “stay hungry, stay resilient, don’t let the knocks take you back, and enjoy it.” It’s a challenge, but it’s also something that is incredibly enjoyable, and the relationships that you build beyond just recruitment are hugely rewarding, and it’s a journey that I would recommend to anybody that actually understands what that commitment means, beyond just building a desk.
Voyager Infinity and Voyager Mid-Office are software solutions that make Recruiters’ lives easier. Voyager Infinity is a CRM used by thousands of recruiters globally to source, nurture and maintain the relationships with their clients and candidates, and Mid-Office manages the entire Pay and Bill process (IR35 ready).
