The DCF Experience
By David Flemming
With over 6 million adults listening to podcasts every week in the UK, I am proud to announce the new DCF Experience podcast. I have recently founded DCF Digital as a niche recruitment company focused on solving client’s hiring needs within SaaS Software Sales, Data Analytics and Design.
I have successfully taken 3 recruitment businesses to $2 million NFI within 2 years and on this podcast you’ll find a mix of client interviews, thought leadership discussions and mentoring advice plus other original content for this audio experience.
The DCF ExperienceFeb 27, 2019
Episode 14 - Mentoring - Special Guest - Curt Mercadante
Curt is a marketeer, business man, self described Freedom Club Owner and successful mentor and coach.
Based out of the US, Curt has created a Freedom movement of people who want to change their life through a number of core ways
1. Identifying the individuals super powers
2. Aligning a vision
3. Creating the structure around you for alignment of the above
4. Identifying 3 outcomes to persue - daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly and so on
5. Flow
Background and Experience
He was in the midst of running an extremely successful public relations/advertising agency and landing one big client after another. You move around a lot in that walk of life. Regular flights to catch meetings…conference calls and follow-ups…managing the collective anxieties of a demanding clientele base.
His family was growing and so was his bank account. Mercadante did what he could to embrace the little moments that matter whenever they cascaded into view, but he also had to contend with the next thing: the next meeting, the next fire to put out, the next brand to promote. A carousel ride that continued in seeming perpetuity, Mercadante was satisfied with the growth of his business — because, why wouldn’t he have been? — though he couldn’t help but feel that there was something missing from the rush a surging career is supposed to offer.
Then he remembered what a superhero looks like.
Nicholas Mercadante, Curt’s father, was that superhero, almost quite literally. After graduating with an engineering degree from the University of Notre Dame, the elder Mercadante embarked on a career path that would be tough for any child to live up to. When your dad helps design electronic systems on space craft and fighter jets — you needn’t pine for comic book characters to save the day. All you have to do is look across the dining room table if you want to catch a glimpse of someone who boasts actual interstellar superpowers.
But that wasn’t the primary reason why Mercadante’s father set such a high standard. What it really came down to was work ethic. Doing what needed to be done. When Nick Mercadante found himself facing a career switch later in life, he got a paper route. A paper route! Why?
Simple: income was necessary. If there was going to be a gap in employment, that gap had to be filled. There wasn’t time for the ego to obstruct necessity, especially when there were mouths to feed. The only problem was time. There just never seemed to be enough of it.
His father was a superhero, a man who literally helped change the world. Curt, for all of his strides made professionally, did not feel as though he was contributing to the verifiable betterment of anyone’s lives. He was a skilled distributor of information, sure. But just because he was successful did not mean he was particularly proud. Or fulfilled.
A change was coming. Not right away, not in one fell swoop. Time, precious and fleeting, you could watch the seconds fall from the clock all while wishing you were doing something else somewhere else. Curt needed some of that time to reestablish his direction without letting too much of it go to waste. He began by informally coaching clients, friends, and colleagues.
It was a natural fit. Curt had a snowglobe perspective of what his charges were dealing with. He could see the avenues in which they were misdirecting their energy, the biggest hurdle that causes most professionals to stumble. Indecision is another trap most fall victim to, be it due to a lack of confidence or woeful procrastination. Curt cut through the noise and guided his fledgling clientele away from their self-destructive habits and watched as they reached new heights at a pace so rapid, even he was surprised.
Episode 13 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Interview Debriefs
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Interview Debrief
1. Trial Close – gather as much information as you can on the interview so you can work with the candidate to ensure you can begin the trial close process. Remember you are looking for what would stop them saying yes, leaving you with only a yes answer
2. Email Summation – sounds basic, but again, so many people don’t use this tool. Its all about getting the candidaets to commit to writing down what they have said and what they will accept
3. Face to face close / debrief – if you can, this is critical as it means you have a much more powerful connection to the candidate.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 12 - Mentoring - Special Guest - Dr Natalia Weichowski
Super excited for my exclusive personal brand coach on today's show.
Dr Natalia is a personal branding expert, LinkedIn Influencer, Coach and Consultant. Below are some of her many highlights:
𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘
📘 At twenty-nine, at the peak of my corporate career and deep unhappiness, I quit my job and started from scratch.
📘During a nine-month sabbatical I changed the way I think, speak and act. I committed to design my purposeful dream life and founded Think Natalia.
𝐌𝐘 𝐎𝐁𝐒𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 & 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍
📗 My obsession is coachsulting people who left corporate to do their own thing. Teaching coaches/ consultants how to market themselves, how to build thought leadership personal brands on LinkedIn.
📗 My aim: A tribe of one million thinkers and doers to challenge, to change the status quo.
𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐌𝐄
📙 I coachsult and speak globally, am German and live in Dubai.
📙 I started as a Social Scientist, turned into a Dr. of Philosophy, a LinkedIn Marketing Unicorn, a Forbes Coaches Council Member and the Middle East's leading Edutainer.
📙 Books, food, exploring new places, self-improvement and ticking things off my to-do-list make me happy
𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐒 (𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧):
📒 Coachsulting -> Visit www.ThinkNatalia.com/personal-branding for details and results
📒 Self-study Online Courses -> www.ThinkNatalia.com/online-courses
📒 Keynotes & Trainings: Personal Branding, Content Marketing, LinkedIn -> www.ThinkNatalia.com/keynote-speaker
Episode 11 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Interview Debriefs
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Interview Debrief
1. Questions asked – the interviewer, the company, the team, the structure
2. Assessment – qualify if they think they are right, motivations (non financial)
3. Package – break down every part – this is critical at 1st stage as you don’t know how many more interviews there will be and you must have this early on.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 10 - Mentoring - Special Guest - Andrew Sillitoe
Andrew is a business psychologist, performance coach, public speaker, and author from Kent, England.
Blending 20 years’ experience as an elite international sportsman and coach along with three published books and an acclaimed TED talk, Andrew’s innovative and straight-talking views on leadership, teamwork and strategy has resulted in his advice and guidance being sought after by key figures at several FTSE 100 companies.
In 1997, Andrew made the move to Canada to pursue a professional roller hockey career and develop his coaching skills. He succeeded in both, becoming the first British player to play professionally while his thriving coaching business was born.
In 2004, he moved into the corporate world as a sales and marketing consultant for Yellow Pages. in 2007, his unique and visionary approach in business saw him headhunted by a consultancy to speak about a “winning mindset”. It proved the spark that lit his future career path.
Just a year later, he’d developed a new method to enable elite athletes and business leaders to fulfill their potential. This was the seed that eventually blossomed into his renowned 4 Keys approach.
Episode 9 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Interview Preparation
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Interview Preparation - 3 top tips
1. Email Interview information – details about the company, location, how to get there, arriving early, diary management, travel, maps etc.
2. Meeting – be sure to meet your candidates, face to face where you can, online if you cant.
3. Call on the day – this is where a lot of recruiters go wrong. They assume that the candidate is ready, set and arrived on time. This is simple not the case.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 8 - Design - Stuart Flemming - Director SF Creative
Stuart is the owner, founder and director of 2 thriving design businesses, SF Creative Design and Innovate Creative.
- SF Creative - Design consultancy helping clients communicate with their audience using intelligent design-led solutions.
- Innovate - A design, digital and web development agency helping businesses reach and win more customers.
In todays episode we cover a number of topics and discuss how Stuart made the move from designer to business owner and mentor.
Stuart has a lot of valuable experience for budding designers who may choose to go out on their own and set up a design consultancy.
Episode 8 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Interview Preperation
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Subject – 3 top tips
1. Decision making person – pragmatic – focus on your thought process, understand how you made an impact to the companies bottom line, under the pain points of all organizations – profit .
2. Decision making person – competency – this style of questioning is all delivery focused. Our role is to help the candidate remember where and how he delivered the work. Use examples.
3. Decision making person – business – sell it – this is where you use the simple rule of what you did, how you did it and what was the result. For a business leader, this is key. As a recruiters, our job is to best assess this before the candidate has the interview.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 7 - Design - Jonatan Mijares Monasterio - CX / UX Lead
Jonatan is CX/UX professional, working across multiple industries…he was in design, but has evolved.
Throughout his career in the Digital Industry he has been developing UX Strategy, organising discovery client meetings, managing multidisciplinary teams to deliver CX, UX and Front End solutions improving clients market reach and contributing to the bottom line.
His expertise include: cross-industry Information Architecture, customer and user experience (CX & UX), user-centric design (UCD), Visualisation & User Interface Design (UI), CRM/analytics, IT/OT conversions, Omnichannel transformation (adaptive to responsive) and brand development through social and digital media ecosystems.
In todays podcast we cover a number of topics such as:
1. How he got into design and evolved into strategy
2. Coming to the UK and making it as a designer here
3. The evolution of major brands such as Accenture, Deloitte and others and what they are doing in the design space
4. CX and UX Strategy and the importance of this
Episode 7 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Interview Preparation
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Subject – 3 top tips
1. Learn the CV – a surprisingly large number of candidates go wrong during interviews as they have not double checked their CV. The recruiters job is to prepare them for this. This may sound very simple and basic, however it is always the smallest detail that causes the most problems.
2. What they did – interviews are like anything else, you must practice what you are going to say. There is a difference between sitting telling someone your life story vs describing in details the facts around what your role was. As the recruiters, your job is to prepare the candidate for this.
3. How they did it – probably one of the most important parts of any interview. The HOW. This is critical to demonstrate your thought process and change from story telling to evidence based responses. Many candidates are great on the phone and even face to face, however they fall down on how to interview. Your job is to teach them.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 6 - Design - Simon Richards - UX Lead - UX Agency
Simon started off life in TV and radio as a multi award winning producer, before getting involved in the internet.
After that, he was Creative Director, Innovation Director in a few top London agencies before starting his own agency which was sold to a WPP agency. Since then he’s been enjoying the office politics – free world of strategy and UX consulting.
In today's show we discuss a range of topics from his early career in radio and music, how he got into design and the future of the industry.
Simon has a number of great views on design, UX and UI, along with what big brands needs to do to attract attention in the digital world.
Great to have you on.
Episode 6 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Screening
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Screening – 3 top tips
1. Referrals – get connected. I mentioned this in my sourcing podcast, the better you know someone the more chance you have of them referring people they know. Candidates, like strangers, don’t refer people unless they trust the other person.
2. References – this is a broad subject and we will cover in multiple podcasts, however for now it should simply be the line manager of their last 2 roles. (not the current one). This gives you ability to take a reference on a candidate early in the recruitment process and also do business development while you are there. This only works if you have a narrow function and market to ensure you are only speaking to similar or same contacts.
3. Leads and Market Info – social media now makes it really easy to find out who is hiring, providing you can demonstrate credibility to your candidates when discussing the market and where they are interviewing. You must first give them info, e.g. market data or market intelligence, for them to trust you to do the same. Once you know them, you only need the companies that are hiring as you can find the relevant manager on LI and the BD is complete.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 5 - Design - Sam O'Brien - UX Manager EMEA
Sam O'Brien has 10 years’ experience in design, user experience and most recently conversion rate optimization.
For the past 2+ years Sam has worked for RingCentral where he manages a small team of designers, developers and analysts focusing on the EMEA market and growing the business.
Before that he was heavily in the automotive industry doing a number of freelance projects launching and growing products. He has moved from print, to digital, to UX to leadership.
His biggest achievement this year was the launch of the new RingCentral Australia Brand, where he worked closely with the product, marketing, sales and executive teams to provide a solution for the new market.
1. During our discussion we covered a number of points, however the key areas are
2. His background - how did he get into design and what are some his key influences for work
3. The industry - what is happening now and how has the UX / UI / Design sphere evolved over time.
4. Coaching and mentoring - what are his views on how you should get into the world of design.
Episode 5 - Mentoring - Tops Tips for Screening
Top Tips – Screening
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Screening – 3 top tips
1. Qualifying (against a role) – very important note as this is different from prescreening. Qualifying against a role is asking probing questions to a candidate about where they have completed the necessary tasks set out by the hiring manager, JD or briefing document. The better you can do this, the better you interview and placement ratio will be. Remember we are not in the CV delivery business, we are in the placements business.
2. Exclusivity (market them out) – often overlooked simply as recruiters are afraid to ask for it. Don’t be. Much like 8 out 10 jobs worked exclusively are placed vs 2 if multi agent, the ratios for placing an exclusive candidate are the same. They will feel bought into your process and want to work with you to identify opportunities for them. This also means you don’t need as many candidates, only more opportunities to market them too.
3. Follow up (call cycle) – probably the No.1 frustration for candidates across the world, recruiters not calling them back. The key to this is not to over index yourself and have too many candidates. I believe that quality over quantity will work every time. Narrow your function and market, build excellent hot lists of top candidates and speak to them regularly. At least monthly as a minimum. They should give you all the info you need on your market.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 4 - Design - Daniel Parkes - Senior Product Designer
Daniel Parkes is a London based UX/UI Product designer with over 10 years’ experience designing digital products, websites and mobile applications for national and global brands.
He prides himself on strong creative work that can be developed into attractive and useful products and his design is aided by his extensive development knowledge.
Over his wide range of experience this has allowed him to work more effectively across separate departmental design and development teams.
In this podcast we covered a number of topics ranging from:
· His background and what influences his design
· The industry and current state of the UX market
· His tips for the younger design generation on how to stand out
· His advise for the recruitment industry and how we can work together with candidates
Episode 4 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Screening
Top Tips – Screening
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Screening – 3 top tips
1. Preparation (CV or LI profile and forms) – if you have taken the time to say to someone you would like to speak to them, take some time to look at what they do and have done. You will give yourself a lot of useful guidance on what to ask, what to look for and where to probe. Think about RFL, Motivation, KA, salary as priority.
2. Prescreening (understand them and what they do, last 2 jobs) – for me this is critical to test the 3 key areas that a hiring manager will look at when interviewing. Communication, cultural fit and likability. You need to spend time getting to know your candidates. Quality over quantity works every time and it’s not different in all relationships in your life.
3. Key achievements – this is top priority. They may not want to do this on the phone, however you must follow up with an email to get this information. It will save you hours of candidate write ups and give you what you need to sell to the client.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Check out my new DCF Experience Podcast for mentoring and coaching tips for those in the recruitment industry. Please leave me a voice message on here or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk.
Episode 3 - Design - Paul Magee - VP Design and UX Jawwy
Paul is currently the VP of design & UX at Jawwy, which launched as the first truly digital mobile service in the middle east.
An experience design professional, and one of the earliest pioneers and innovators of digital design with over 2 decades as a leading profession in digital experiences design.
Paul Launched the highly successful Scottish digital communications agency itsnotrocketscience in 2001 and has worked with many blue chip brands and with many of the UK's leading digital agencies over the last two decades, large scale projects that span multiple industries from fashion and entertainment to finance, health and education.
He's worked multiscreen digital development, brand development and guardianship, motion graphics, web and software development, online advertising/marketing, installation art, user experience, mobile and digital strategy.
Brands/Clients/projects include:
Victoria Beckham
Russell Athletic
Burger King
Channel Four
BBC
JB Scotch
BP
Episode 2 - Design - Enrico Catalano - Senior UI Designer
Todays podcast sees me sit down with Enrico, a Senior UI Designer from Italy.
He is a Digital designer, currently working in Italy within the UI/UX Industry. His skills cover a wide range of design-connected fields, from UI-UX design to Video-MoGraph, Branding, Illustration. He has a passion for Music and Performance art and please check out his portfolio below.
https://www.behance.net/enricocatalanodesign
In the podcast we covered a range of topics, such as:
1. His early career and successes
2. How the role of UI and UX has evolved over time
3. How the role of design has had an effect on the wider marketing and communication strategy of businesses.
4. Some of his biggest learning and challenges
5. What does he think clients need to do more of to attract customers.
For more information on the podcast or to get in touch, please message me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk
Episode 3 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Sourcing
Top Tips – Sourcing
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Sourcing – 3 top tips
1. Candidate information – candidates are clients, clients are candidates. Be sure to provide value so that they can be a source of information for you. They are your market research. Manager names, leads, referrals, market info are all here.
2. Active and Passive – be sure to have a balance of candidates who are available in the short, mid and long term. When selling, think the same way.
3. Referrals – this is the foundation of all great businesses, not just recruitment.
Stay tuned for more top tips on my 3C's training philosophy - candidates, clients, company.
Please send me a voice message on the podcast or reach out via email to david@dcfdigital.co.uk
Episode 2 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Sourcing
Top Tips – Sourcing
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Sourcing – 3 top tips
1. Get connected - Build a group of companies and contacts on LinkedIn that you want to work for or with.
2. Group together - Identify groups / linked in meets ups / online seminars / huddles that you can get involved in. Find out where your candidates and clients meet. Create your own group and go to others.
3. Content – video, audio, written – decide on your message and document your information across these 3 channels on a regular basis
Feel free to leave me a voice message or email me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk
Episode 1 - Mentoring - Top Tips for Sourcing
Top Tips - Sourcing
Do you want to be a top biller?
Do you want to be the best recruiter possible?
Sourcing – 3 top tips
1. Advertising – website, LinkedIn, Twitter, content production. You need the attention of your market. It is impossible for people to find you if you don’t. Pick your medium and plan your approach
2. LinkedIn recruiter – be proactive, build lists in your function, market and industry. Message, build, communicate.
3. Job boards – whatever your market, find where the active candidates are located. Call, meet, connect and build relationships.
Design Podcast - Introduction
The DCF Experience
Hello and welcome the Design Podcast brought to you by the DCF Experience.
In this short introduction I give you some insights into what you can expect from my Design Podcast and look forward to interviewing clients, candidates and industry experts within design and data.
Mentoring Podcast - Introduction
The DCF Experience.
Welcome to the introduction to my mentoring and coaching podcast, brought to you by the DCF Experience.
My name is David Flemming and I have recruited all over the world for the past 14 years. Starting in London I was a top performing researcher, consultant, senior consultant and billing manager generating over 1.5 million USD in 5 years.
During my 5 years I also survived and recruited during the worlds worst recession since the great depression, thus teaching me very valuable lessons on how to be the best recruiter possible.
Moving to Dubai in 2010, I successfully ran and grew three businesses from 0 - $2million USD NFI within 2 years and have trained and mentored over 50 recruitment consultants.
After 14 years of doing the job, I have set up this podcast to give recruiters the best access to top tips relating to recruitment. I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback, please message me at david@dcfdigital.co.uk or leave me a voice message.
Episode 1 - Design - Luke Reed - Tech Circus
Welcome to our very first design podcast. On this episode we have an industry expert in the UX and Design sector, Luke Reed. Luke is the Managing Director of Tech Circus, a London-based events company, exclusively tailored to the training & development of professionals within the digital space.
Tech Circus currently run 5 industry-leading conferences
UX LIVE - www.ux-live.co
FInTech Design Summit London / New York www.fintechdesignsummit.com
eCommerce Design Summit www.ecommercedesignsummit.com
BAD Conference. www.thebadconference.com
They also run some of the largest tech meet-ups in Europe including -
The UX Crunch London - www.meetup.com/UXcrunch
The UX Crunch Manchester- www.meetup.com/The-UX-Crunch-Manchester
The Junior UX Crunch - www.meetup.com/JuniorUXCrunch
The UX Crunch Amsterdam - www.meetup.com/UX-Crunch-Amsterdam
Product Chain London - www.meetup.com/Product-Chain-London-Powered-by-Tech-Circus
SEO and Search Social London - www.meetup.com/SeoSearchSocial
Tech Circus will be launching www.techcircus.io from the end of January as the main source of information relating to their events.
For more information, link up with Luke at luke@techcircus.co.uk
The DCF Experience - Introduction
Welcome to the new DCF Experience podcast. Just a short introduction for you to get a feel for what is to come. Stay tuned, leave me a message and watch out across LinkedIn for my guest speakers.