Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Retrained Search, the podcast where we lift the lid on what it's really like to work retained, Discuss the stories we've gathered along the way and give you all a peek behind the scenes of our amazing community and how they're getting ahead. Hello everybody and welcome to this exciting episode with the Retain Search show. Today I'm delighted to share that I'm joined by Manan Shah, and he is the co-founder of RecruiterFlow, and I can't wait to geek out on all things tech and how RecruiterFlow is helping recruiters, all things tech and how RecruiterFlow is helping recruiters. I've been foraying a lot into tech and AI recently, so I know Kirstie's lined this up especially for us. So firstly, Manan, tell us a little bit about you. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve and how you serve them.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. I am co-founder and CEO of Recruiter Flow. We primarily work with small and medium-sized recruiting and search businesses. So anywhere from a startup doing about half a million in revenue all the way to about $1,900 million in revenue that's the kind of range we operate in. We primarily work with permanent interim recruiting and executive search. We don't really work with temp recruiting businesses, so we are very focused in terms of the customers that we target. Yeah, so these are the people that we primarily serve. Was there any other?

Speaker 1: 2:03

question there Tell me about your base. Where are your base? Because I had a really good chat with someone based in the same area as you yesterday.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah, no, we are based in Bangalore at the central tech hub of Bangalore, which is the technology hub in India.

Speaker 1: 2:28

And my favorite curry, home of my favorite curry.

Speaker 2: 2:31

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Yeah, that's very nice, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:35

I do.

Speaker 1: 2:38

So tell me a bit, Manan, if you will, about how or why and why you got into developing tech for recruitment businesses.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Quite, accidentally, to be completely honest. So this is not my first software business. So right out of university me and my co-founders we were friends from university we got together. We started an AI company called retentionai back in 2013. Ai wasn't a household name back then. It was a different world back then. Back then, we essentially helped mobile developers prevent churn, prevent their users from deleting their apps.

Speaker 2: 3:36

The business got acquired by a media company. The media company was fantastic at hiring media and content people, but they were starting a tech division, which is why they acquired our company, and the recruiting team there was just not equipped to hire in this space, right? So as I was leading that whole division and as I was leading that whole division, it fell upon me. So I said, ok, you know what, let me figure out what I can do. So I built a very stitched together different solutions and built a tech stack that really, really helped us scale our tech recruiting. But and what I realized at that time was that you know almost all the recruiting tools as I was doing this research, like, almost all the recruiting tools were built for processes they were built for, you know, a lot of control, but not really built for velocity. They were not really built for productivity, so we built Recruiter Flow to help recruiters move fast.

Speaker 2: 4:48

Right Like we realized that recruiting is as important, if not more, as you know your inside sales teams. Right Now, this value proposition. Right Now, this value proposition. Right like. At that time we were primarily selling to internal talent acquisition. But the value as soon as we launched, within about six months, we realized that 60% of our customers are recruiting search businesses and search and recruiting businesses. Right. So we pivoted in 2019 and never looked back. So here we are. Wow, a few accidental discoveries.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Tell me a bit more, if you will, about the detail of that. So I'm intrigued about what did you see in terms of the the need, or the gaps, if you like that that wasn't there with with other sort of tech solutions. What, what, what was it that led you to to build what you create, and and how is it different?

Speaker 2: 6:00

sure, yeah, so, um, first of all. So let's, let's break this down into two things, right, like, we'll first talk about the product and the features and second, right like, why did it happen the way that it first in the industry to have outbound sequencing as part of CRM? This was a very, very standard thing to do for salespeople. It was just never, you know, nobody said, oh, recruiters can also really really use this. We never really had, like, real prospecting tools built for recruiters. Right Like, great prospecting tools built for recruiters, great prospecting tools built for salespeople.

Speaker 2: 6:49

But there is a massive element of sales when you are doing recruiting as well, but the tooling is worlds apart for them. For them, if you look at legacy recruiting tools, they're focused on top-down control, top-down analytics and stuff like that. Instead, um, working with the consultant, right like, helping them, uh, do their day-to-day work faster so that they can spend more time, uh, with their candidates and clients. They get in their way of doing that. Right like, that's why you have an adoption problem. And the reason that traditionally this has worked very, very well is CRM products are sold top-down. Right Like you sell the CRM to a CXO, to a VP, and then they basically say, okay, you know what, these are the kind of reports that I want and this is what I want my consultants to do day-to-day, and it gets implemented top-down, it gets you know. So, essentially, management kind of shoves it down the throat of the consultants, those who are on the front lines, and that's why you always have adoption problems, because it's not really helping them do their job, it's not really helping them make more money. So, whatever top-down you impose is what gets done when you implement a CRM.

Speaker 2: 8:29

Back in 2015, 2014, we had this whole wave of new tooling for salespeople which was bottom-up. It was built for people who were on the front lines. It was built for them to work faster and, as a result. So the whole idea was that if, sure, management wants their reporting, they want their visibility, they want their control fantastic. But if those who are actually supposed to be using the CRM they don't really use it, nobody wins. It's a lose-lose proposition for everyone. So instead, let's look at this from the other side. Let's build something that is for bottom-up, which is built for those on the front lines. It helps them do better and in the end, of course, management ends up having much better visibility, much better adoption in their business, and we saw a similar trend, or rather, our hypothesis was that a similar trend would come in recruiting as well. Right, like the way it did in best of the best sales tooling, and we were, um, I think it's safe to say now we are, I think, pretty right about that okay, cool.

Speaker 1: 9:52

yes, and I completely agree that the uh, it's, it's in multi-dimensional, the conversation about the difference between how sales professionals in industry, and probably specifically in tech, are enabled, trained, tooled, versus the way that recruiters are enabled, trained and so on, when actually essentially it's the same job and a lot of the learnings that I've had over the years in sales and business development has come from the candidates that I've placed in sales and not necessarily. I mean some of it comes from you know has come, but a lot of that has mainly been process and, you know, control of processes and and so on. But yeah, the whole solution sales piece is obviously widely used in all industries and a lot, a lot of recruitment agencies. Just don't you just don't apply those you know, those same very universally widely known to be successful tactics to their own businesses. So it doesn't surprise me that the, the tech and the you know the tooling is the same.

Speaker 1: 11:25

I think maybe I've worked for some quite progressive firms. We've we've had Salesforce in a couple of the businesses that I've I've worked in and I've enjoyed that. But of course it doesn't do the CRM piece. So you end up having two different systems, which we know, which isn't ideal and what in terms of AI? I'm doing more and more with it. We're doing more and more with it as a business and finding out its limitations and working out how it helps us and where, in various different, you know, formats. How have you leveraged AI in recruitment, tooling and processes?

Speaker 2: 12:10

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. So we started thinking about this back in late 2023. Like, how will this whole thing pan out In AI years? That's like decades ago. But we essentially realized that there is.

Speaker 2: 12:41

We've categorized the way you can implement AI in this industry in three things. So one key thing that we realized was that, as the complexity of the role increases, the volume of candidates that you need to process decreases quite exponentially. So to say, in a much simpler terms, if you're looking to place a retail clerk versus you're looking to place a VP of marketing, the number of candidates that you are going to need to process for the VP job is going to be way, way fewer than compared to a retail club, and the relationship is quite exponential. So we said, okay, you know what? Then we will divide this into three bits. So the first is your very high velocity recruiting, where not a lot of nuance. It's all about speed, it's all about execution, right, and that's the name of the game. And you have a few. All the businesses right, like are working on very thin margins and their only lever is how fast they can do stuff they're not really really have, don't really need a lot of accuracy. We categorize them as okay. The way they can implement AI is become an AI-native business. So think, because not really a lot of decision-making is needed and AI can do a lot of the work, including decision-making, for them. The second is your mid-senior level positions, where there is nuanced decision-making. Ai, again, will not be very good at making those decisions. Ai is fantastic for breadth, not really very good for depth. I think you also realize the same for your own business. At least breadth does really well, depth not so much right. So for those kinds of businesses, right like AI will reduce the amount of complexity that a recruiter has to deal with to make those decisions, to help them make more accurate decisions, but still you can't really make any decisions. And then you've got your exec search. An exec search, right like AI's only job is to augment the person, because, again, the ballgame is very, very different, and so we primarily we don't really do AI native, right Like we primarily do AI assist, right Like. So decision-making is assisted by AI and AI augment, but there is no decision-making we don't get, but, like all, everything is designed to augment that human decision-making process. That's the way that we are looking at AI in the industry and also what we want to do here at RecruiterFlow In that vein.

Speaker 2: 16:07

We have a bunch of different agents. We have a bunch of different AI tools that we've built in. So, for example, ai can take notes. So we've got our own note taker, which can take notes. If the candidate, when you're screening a candidate, the candidate talks about a bunch of different things, it can put it into all relevant fields and stuff like that. So that's one thing.

Speaker 2: 16:37

Obviously, ai is very good at consuming a lot of information. Summarizing all of that, so we have a lot of tooling around that. So you know, so we we have a lot of tooling around that. One very interesting thing Is what's? What's really challenging and also really really interesting to us right now is we think that over the course of next two, three years, the UI and the UX of typical software needs to evolve. So far, ui UX has always been about how humans interact with computers. Now it's humans and AI agents interacting with computers and delivering a particular task. It's a fascinating problem. It's a fascinating problem, it's a fascinating challenge, and we will see some of that happening over the next two to three years.

Speaker 1: 17:36

Yeah, it's so interesting that and I mean I'm nowhere near as clever as you and as knowledgeable and as experienced in any of this but even the work that we're doing, for example, the work that we do to leverage, or to the way in which ai assists us in processing large amounts of data and then turning that into usable playbooks for our, our students, our members to learn, for example, you know we might have a two day long mastermind that lots and lots and lots of information, very, very, very helpful and useful information is shared, and the way in which it can process that data and separate it and segment it and organize it, um, to help us then make that um a way of people being able to learn, uh, from what's happened over those two days, is massively helpful.

Speaker 1: 18:49

like I don't actually don't know how we manage without it really now, yeah but then the whole flip side of that is, you know, so it's enabling us and helping us to make the learning and the user experience of the learning easier.

Speaker 1: 19:08

But then the other dimension is we're now integrating ai into our programs so that that same learning can then assist in the learning, because yeah it can answer questions, it can dive into um all of the topics broadly or narrow down into a specific as a um, you know as a, as an assistant within within our learning platform, and that's like two completely different dimensions of how we use it in just one context and we're still wrapping our head around the other ways in which it can help.

Speaker 1: 19:58

So you guys are way ahead. Creative versus AI assist and AI augment in, you know, in the kind of low level, high volume, mid senior and then exec search. I love that. What, if any, experience have you had with supporting recruiters at that more senior end that are, you know, operating with more limited talent pools, more niche and sought after skill sets and operating well? From our perspective, they're always operating on a retained basis where their, you know, speed and volume is not the objective but thoroughness and quality of delivery is. What experience do you have, man, of that and helping recruiters through that?

Speaker 2: 20:55

wow, that's a fantastic uh question um are you enjoying this so far?

Speaker 1: 21:02

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Speaker 2: 21:27

Right, let's get back to the good stuff so let's, let's, let's break this down by uh different things that we've seen our customers achieve, uh right, and I think what also, I'm going to talk about some of the examples that we have done internally which.

Speaker 2: 21:46

I'm sure, can help our customers, other exec search firms so, for example, right Like. So we spoke about solution selling. Right. So majority of retained search when you're landing a new business, when you're landing a new mandate, in most cases it would be solution selling. Right Like. You are not there to bring in, you know, a head on the seat, you're there to solve a problem for that exec right. So now, to be able to do that, right like, you need to establish yourself as somebody who knows that space, knows that company really, really well.

Speaker 2: 22:32

So what we've seen is one of the things that some of our customers have done is that, okay, you know what I'm going to talk to a COO of, let's say, a healthcare company, a COO of a, let's say, a healthcare company. Now, among all the healthcare companies that we've spoken to in last six months. Right, give me all of those conversations. They can go through all of their you know notes, their summaries that AI has generated. You can ask questions to it. Right Like, hey, what are they? What's the impact of this new regulation? Right Like, has anybody mentioned that? What's the impact of AI? Has anybody mentioned that? Right Like?

Speaker 2: 23:12

So your prep for the meeting is incredible. You can, you know. So, jokingly, one of my customers, one of my customers, said right like it helps me sound way smarter than I am, right, so, yeah, so that's one use case like really help you do solution selling. It just really expands the amount of information that you can analyze and you can give to your clients. That's number one. Number two is it really increases your accuracy.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Right Like you can create not really accuracy, but your presentation of accuracy, right Like. So you can create this very complex matrix for your client presentations on why certain people made it to your shortlist and why the others did not make it to your shortlist and why the others did not make it to your shortlist, and stuff like that. And you can get ai to make beautiful presentations for you with very, uh, you know, articulate, right like you have to give it the reasons where it will articulate them very, very well, structure them very, very well, uh, so that's another, uh, you know, presentations and document making is another very wide use case that we see.

Speaker 1: 24:28

I use it for that every day pretty much yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:31

Yeah, perfect, that's perfect. Yeah, one thing which we are sales calls, right Like, whenever. So, whenever a competitor's name is mentioned, it raises that. You know, we've built this automation into Crudaflow. Whenever that name is mentioned, it tags that particular call with something and then we can just search all of those calls.

Speaker 2: 25:01

Now, our marketing team, when they're making battle cards, when our product marketing team is making those battle cards, or when our business development team comes across, oh, we know that they use this competitor. What are our account executives saying? What are some of the things that they're saying to deposition that competitor? And how do we use that? So, now that? So again, right like, if you are, you know you're pitching, uh, a client and they let's just pick a name. Right like, they say why should I use this small firm when I can use, you know, somebody like confetti? Um, what should be your answer? Right like, you can go through last few months how you have depositioned somebody as large as corn ferry and one when the mandate, right like, find those patterns, make that a practice, right like, so you keep getting better and better, very nice and um.

Speaker 1: 26:05

How then do you do you think this is changing the sort of landscape for recruiters from a business development perspective? I guess you know I'm I'm fascinated with the, the learning that that we get as recruiters from industry and from other industries right as salespeople. Do you see that changing? How do recruiters need to adjust to stay, to keep getting ahead? What's your experience and opinion of that?

Speaker 2: 26:49

oh, I, I don't really think we've so. First right, like the first major thing, that I don't think it has changed so much for us so much right now, but it will change very soon. That's that's my hypothesis. But it's that clients will expect more because some other search firm, they are using all of this, they are building those beautiful presentations, they are building those, so some of those things that I just said, like they are using all of this to better assist their clients. So, and as more and more people will more and more people start doing that, that will become the standard expectation from your exec search consultant, I mean.

Speaker 1: 27:36

I talk to a lot of recruiters. You know all day, every day, and you know my team do too, and you obviously do as well. What do you? I mean it's difficult because there's no sort of measure. Well, there is one thing that I use actually as a measure of where people are with ai. But if you could sort of explain your view on where the recruitment industry as a whole, in your experience of of those that you talk to, is with AI, if they are kind of at the beginning of their journey, you know they're in the middle or they're at the front edge of using it to its full capacity, how would you describe the industry as you see it in terms of progression and utilization of generative AI in their work?

Speaker 2: 28:35

I think, compared to the other industries, unfortunately, our industry is a little bit of a laggard. It usually has been when it comes to tech. Not necessarily a bad thing, though. Um, now, uh, in terms of where we are, right like I think we are, we are at a place where there is a lot of uh are really really high Behind those expectations, right, that there's a lot of money and budget being burnt. So we are approaching that.

Speaker 2: 29:16

You know that we are probably already there at that peak euphoria, peak expectation and I think in 2026, right that we are going to hit that plateau, right, like where people are going to start asking for that real ROI what happened, what did not happen, what worked, what did not? So, for example, right, like you said, oh, we did some things very well, but some of the other things, right, like AI was not even close to what we expected it to do, right, and so you're a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of you're ahead of the curve from the industry, but so industry writ large, will also realize something very similar. They'll start asking questions oh, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, but what did we get out of it? And I think that realization probably will come in 26, maybe early 27. That being said, I don't really think that it's a fact.

Speaker 2: 30:22

So we are definitely seeing concrete improvements in accuracy. We are definitely seeing concrete improvements in recruiter productivity. We are seeing not just in that. So we are seeing improvement in gross margins and revenue per recruiter. So we are seeing all of these metrics move up and at some point of time, of course course people are also investing a lot in a lot of money in moving those metrics. But some point of time that question will come right like hey, you know, where is the roi, where is where? Where the roi is not there, what's feasible, what's not feasible?

Speaker 1: 31:02

um, tell me a bit, if you will, then, about like what, where do you see that? So you will have had some transformational impact on on some of the clients that you've worked with. Can you share with us, like, how that's happened and you know, yeah, some examples?

Speaker 2: 31:19

sure, yeah, no, absolutely so. Uh, most of the so you know, majority of the workloads that our AI agents are handling are something that a human would never do. I would say about 85% of our agentic workloads are never possible. You have, as soon as you source a candidate from LinkedIn or from a referral, wherever right, you need to categorize that person. So your ordinary CV parsing will only do okay, job title, company and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 32:02

But with AI, right, like if you work at, let's say you work at, let's say, sainsbury's, right, and before that you work at, let's say you work at the Sainsbury's and before that you worked at, let's say, bbc it would put your industry experience as retail as well as media, and you can accurately ask number of years of retail experience, number of years of media experience, seniority at those experiences. So you can have very specific questions, a specific way to categorize and encode the people that you're bringing into your database, right. So something like this was just humanly impossible to do because it would take way too much effort and time. Super easy, very common use case of uh, something that our customers do with recruiter flow um ai note takers again a fantastic uh example right like it.

Speaker 1: 32:59

That's a game changer, an absolute game changer exactly right.

Speaker 2: 33:04

So um, um ai uh document makers and presentation makers again right Another game changer. Exactly and also right. I think one thing also that we are seeing is people's expectation is changing from the software right. Like earlier, people would go and click on multiple places Now because of ChatGPT and Gemini and all of these fantastic AI tools that we've got everybody expects. Oh, I'll just type my question and I will expect an accurate answer because it's all there.

Speaker 2: 33:48

Again right that that change in human computer interaction is also very fascinating. Just makes things so much faster as well. Much more accessible for everyone as well.

Speaker 1: 33:57

Um so uh yeah, good, for years and years and years, I, I, I, I've been a note taker. I've been a note taker all my life. I take ridiculous, I take notes for everything, everywhere. And for years and years I've been saying I wish I had a control F for my notebooks. Like I've got I don't know 100 notebooks in my cupboard. Like there's all of the notebooks that I've ever used in my career. I've got notes on every client. I've met every candidate. I've met everything in my career. I've got notes on every client. I've met every candidate. I've met everything and I can't find anything in them. I can't find anything. It's almost like it's pointless me having them because I've got absolutely no clue where anything is.

Speaker 1: 34:38

And now we've got this incredible way of being able to store not just our notes or our interpretation of what's been said, but what was actually said in those conversations and an ability to be able to find the information that we need. And you know that advancement that only happened well for me in in the work that we do in the last couple of weeks where you can actually ask it an intelligent question. Around there was someone I spoke to that talked about this and I can't remember when it was or who it was. Can you work out who that was and when that was? And it confined that conversation? It's absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1: 35:18

Incredible, yeah so to be able to do that within a CRM and with the candidates and the clients that you've spoken to is just incredible.

Speaker 2: 35:28

Yeah and think about it, right Like. So you know, search recruiting this is a people business, right Like? Majority of the time, what you're doing is you're talking to people, whether on the phone or Zoom call. And all of that data is never captured. Yeah, it's frightening, isn't it, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 35:45

frightening, yeah, to think that we didn't have that before. So I mean, just take that thing for a minute. And what I was trying to get to probably didn't ask very eloquently before is, let's say, you're talking to a client, how many proportionately roughly like, how many clients are quite advanced in their use of AI and they're using it for their note takers, their interrogation of the assessment of candidates and the matrix of evidence for their suitability and their presentations and their client research and so on and so on, and how many proportionately like aren't and how many are sort of in the middle?

Speaker 2: 36:25

But I think about 15%, I would say, is in category one where they're using AI very proactively. They're thinking about you know what more can I do with it? Sometimes realistic, sometimes very unrealistic expectations, but they're thinking about it. Um, I would say about 30 35 percent of the businesses are in the train where they're using a little bit. They have shared gpt. Uh, they don't really know what exactly they can do with it. Yeah, they're looking for guidance. They know what they want to do something good, but they are. They're really. They don't really know where, how, how can they get started right? And then I would say about 40 50 percent of the businesses were like oh, you know what I'm going? I'm getting chat gpt to write me my emails emails.

Speaker 2: 37:18

Yeah, that's so funny I'm good, yeah, and I, I I'm using ei in my business and yeah, they are still there, but I think you know again, they, they will uh, sooner or later they will come in, they will come yeah yeah, yeah, that's so interesting, that's so interesting.

Speaker 1: 37:38

So what's next for you and recruiter flow man, and what, what exciting projects have you got on the horizon?

Speaker 2: 37:45

uh, yeah, uh, a lot of them. So. So we are now releasing almost, you know, almost every month we are releasing a new agent now. So what's it?

Speaker 1: 37:57

Tell me what's what's an agent Like? Tell me, let's go into that for a second.

Speaker 2: 38:02

Oh, okay. So I very recently did a post on my LinkedIn of what's AI, what's agent, what's an AI agent? Right, so essentially right, like agent is something that does the work for you automatically without you prompting it, prompting anything, right? So you let's say, right, like every time you get a new CV from your candidate, right Like, you put it in ChatGPT and you ask exactly the same question to ChatGPT every time you get that answer, you copy paste that into your CRM. Right Like now, that's use of AI. But now what an agent would do is that it will recognize that a new CV has come in, read that CV, ask that question, answer that question, put it on that candidate's profile on your CRM that your interaction with it is zero. That's an AI agent. So AI agent essentially creates multiple. It takes data from multiple different sources, runs based on the rules that you've set in and automatically generates an output for you. So if it does something automatically for you, that's an AI agent.

Speaker 1: 39:19

Right, because I talk to a lot of people about stuff like this again all day, every day, those that want to. Anyway, I agree with you, there's a good 40 percent that are like, yeah, I'm using copilot for my emails and we're ai enabled and and that's it right. But those people that um are kind of in the middle that are starting to realize that there's you know, there's more, more that can be done there. Someone said to me yesterday oh, I've got an agent that is creating standard operating procedures, so it's using the training that we give and turning it into SOPs for the business and bespoke for their business. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. But it wasn't an agent, it was a custom GPT.

Speaker 1: 40:10

Yeah, but he was describing it as an agent, and there's two different things.

Speaker 2: 40:15

there isn't there Two different things? Yeah, so if that person right like, deploys that custom, integrates that custom GPT with their CRM or whatever tech stack that they are using, where automatically that SOP gets generated CRM or whatever tech stack that they are using where you know, automatically you know instead that SOP gets generated and somebody violating that SOP gets a notification.

Speaker 1: 40:35

That's an agent that's an AI agent. Okay, okay, um, so you can have agents that are. Are these sort of integrated into your CRM? The agents are they? They separate plugins that people use. How do you typically see that deployed?

Speaker 2: 40:54

So, right now almost all the agents that we have are, you know, built in-house, integrated into our product. But, that being said, right like the way you know, you have an ecosystem of said, right like the way you know, you have an ecosystem of apps, right Like so, where other apps can plug into a central software.

Speaker 1: 41:14

Oh, yes, yes, we do.

Speaker 2: 41:17

So now, very soon, right Like, I don't know how soon, but soon enough, I guess you will start seeing ecosystem of agents. I guess you will start seeing ecosystem of agents, but you know, so, of course, I'd like, we cannot build all the agents that our customers might need ourselves, right Like. So what we are also doing is we're building, you know and that's again goes back to the problem, the UI, ux problem that I said, right Like, we have to now reimagine our platform in a way where not just our own agents because our own agents is very simple but anybody else's agents can also work inside recruiter flow, and that's how we create that ecosystem, that's. You know that that, uh, I think our customers deserve so, uh, amazing, amazing, so interesting.

Speaker 1: 42:04

Um, where can our listeners connect with you? If they want to talk to you, manan, what's the best place?

Speaker 2: 42:10

linkedin. I'm generally pretty responsive on linkedin um and also email um. I'm pretty old school that way. Uh email and linkedin uh is the best way to uh reach me good, and it's manan shah of recruiter fly. No, it's just Manan at Recruiter, Flow. Oh is it.

Speaker 1: 42:29

Manan at Recruiter Flow in terms of the email, and I've absolutely loved talking to you today, manan. I'm excited to see and hear about the developments of the tooling that you're using and providing to your customers, and I'd love to talk to you again, you know, as things develop. Thank you so much for sharing your, what you see, what you hear, you know and and your thoughts on the industry. I hope you've enjoyed having a conversation today. Yeah, thank you. Thanks very much for your time.

Speaker 2: 43:05

It's been a pleasure no, it's, it's been a real pleasure. Um, I uh, yeah, it was real real geeking out uh with you. It's very rare that I get to geek out uh on uh ai and tech and generally we mostly just talk about you know the business and and all of that, but not real philosophy or the way we see tech going and evolving. So, yeah, this is a very fun conversation. It's very surprising that we've never met, because every six weeks on an average, I spend a year. I spend uh about two months uh in uk okay cool.

Speaker 2: 43:53

Mostly I'm in london, but I I do travel to birmingham, manchester, different places well, let me know when you're next over.

Speaker 1: 44:00

That'd be cool to get together yeah yeah I'll be there in september show me the software and let me have a look. And it will have come a long way, I'm sure by September. But yeah, very interesting, very interesting, and long may it continue developing. It's a lot of fun, isn't it.

Speaker 2: 44:18

Yeah, no, it's absolute. I'm having the time of my life right now and, yeah, it's so funny. Started working on AI 2013, and it feels like it has come full circle now. Nobody cared about AI back then. We were a bunch of geeks just shouting at the top of our lungs oh, you can solve this with AI. But oh, wow, yeah, it's been a fun few years for me.

Speaker 1: 44:45

Yeah, and now we're listening. Now we're listening.

Speaker 2: 44:48

Yes, keep going, keep going.

Speaker 1: 44:51

Really nice to have you on the show Manan All the best.

Speaker 2: 44:54

I'll see you soon. Thanks a lot. Thank you All right, bye, bye.

Speaker 1: 44:59

Well, that's another episode of Retrained Search the podcast in the bag. Thanks for listening to our wild tales, linkedin controversies and our top tips on how to sell and deliver retained search. Get involved in our next episode. Send in your questions and share your experiences with us by emailing podcast at retrainedsearchcom. And don't be shy. Connect with us on LinkedIn and come and say hi, we don't bite, unless you're a Shrek firm, that is.

Speaker 1: 45:29

We want to say a special thank you to our retrained members for sharing what's working for them right now and innovating new ways to grow and evolve. It's an incredible community. If you're wondering what exactly we mean when we mention our communities, well, we have two separate programs. Our Search Foundations program is for recruiters who want to learn how to sell and deliver retained search solutions consistently, and we have our Search Mastery program. That's for business leaders or owners already at 50% retained or more and looking to scale and grow and structure their search firm. We cap memberships to these programs to protect the integrity of the community. If you want access, just talk to us. Okay, thanks for listening. We'll be back very soon with another episode of Retrain Search the podcast.