Suzie goes back to school...

Earlier this month, I visited a secondary school to help carry out GCSE mock interviews and had the BEST time!

Some of the stuff I heard made my jaw drop (in a good way!) because the students were so clear on what they wanted out of life.


One 16 year old girl told me ‘I don’t care for money. I care for rank.’ She knows what motivates her and I just hope she never, ever changes. (And told her so. 💪)

I also asked a 15-year-old guy what he liked about school and his reply was a straight-forward ‘nothing.’ A comment like this could easily make him come across as a lazy little sh*t, but actually, he just sees school as a means to an end so he can go on and do what he really wants.


He spoke about subjects in real depth that school wouldn’t have taught him and answered my open questions with such a high level of intelligence. In some ways I saw a lot of myself in him as I think he’ll do things his own way. 💥

All in all, the experience was a real eye-opener and I met some fantastic kids. I personally think it’s so important that basic interview techniques are taught early on because they’re essentially a life skill and that will help people achieve what their sights are set on.

Current Roles 

Newsflash: 24% of businesses plan to increase recruitment in Q2 2025

By Elliot Landy • May 7, 2025
🤎24% of businesses plan to increase recruitment in Q2 2025. 🖤 25% of workers are expected to leave their employers for better opportunities. At the moment, recruitment is a client led industry. Job-seekers aren’t settling for a shabby service or someone who does a half-arsed job because they don’t have to. If they’re not happy with a recruitment company, they can simply move on to another one because there are plenty who are trying to fill the same roles. According to Total Jobs, 85% of employers experience challenges related to poor-quality job applications, which means two things: 1. Competition is fierce 2. Hiring managers and recruiters need to up their game and think outside the box For us, this means looking beyond a CV and taking the time to get to know about someone’s skills, energy and adaptability. It goes without saying that experience and qualifications are still hugely important, but there is often more to a person than a document about their career history. We’ve put a ‘wild card’ forward for an interview on more than one occasion, but there’s a lot to be said about a gut feeling, and following your instinct about someone. We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘There’s just something about them,’ and it’s that ‘something’ that can give you an edge from a recruitment perspective. You just need to make the effort to find it. 🔥

AI: Time-saving superhero or sneaky job thief?

By Elliot Landy • May 2, 2025
Earlier this year, Madeleine attended a LinkedIn event called ‘Future Ready’ that focused on AI and how it can drive business development in the recruitment industry. Poor Mads had been joking for ages that one day her job would be overtaken by ChatGPT, so it was good to see her looking relieved the next day! 😂 As much as we use AI regularly to speed up certain tasks and save time, the human element is still very much needed to get decent results. For Chat GPT (or any AI software) to be of any real use, the processes behind it need to be solid, consistent and applied properly. You wouldn’t hire an admin assistant without giving them some training and we think of AI in the same way. If you wanted to use it to write a job spec, for example, you’d need to use a prompt that specifies the correct tone of voice, then check the text for inaccuracies, dodgy spelling and any missing information. AI is never going to replace our team’s decision-making, intuition or judge of character, so they don’t need to worry about being replaced! But what it does do is improve productivity so we can spend more time interacting with people and doing what we’re good at. 

Ever feel you're surrounded by idiots?

By Elliot Landy • April 30, 2025
How many times have you felt like you’re surrounded by idiots? There might be a very good reason for this (unless they are certified idiots, then you’re screwed!). 🥴 At Harte, we frequently refer to Persona Profiling, which uses four colours (red, blue, yellow and green) to identify individual traits so we can develop a better understanding of ourselves and others. From a recruitment point of view, this helps to define a job seeker’s characteristics and assess whether they’d be suited to a role or fit in with a business’s culture. Someone who is a ‘fiery red’ for example, will be results-orientated, strong-willed, and driven to achieve, whereas a ‘cool blue’ personality will have a more conventional energy that thrives on analysis and asking questions before making a move. Knowing this sort of information makes finding the right ‘fit’ for a company a whole lot easier because we have a clear idea of the traits and behaviours that are aligned with the role. It also gives us an indication of when we need to take a step back and slow things down in interviews to really get to know the job-seeker properly. If you’re keen to find out more about the four personality types, have a read of (or listen to) this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surrounded-Idiots-Behavior-Effectively-Communicate/dp/1250179947 Do you know what energy colour you lead by?
More Roles