Veteran recruitment entrepreneur Steve Carter (above) has launched a consultancy to serve recruiters, bringing to the table creative thinking from outside the industry.

Comparing the new Satori Partnership to a professional services consultancy, such as Accenture, Carter has gathered a team of experts specialising in data analysis, research psychology, innovation and design thinking, among other disciplines, that recruiters can access to explore new solutions for contemporary business challenges.

As Carter tells Recruiter, sometimes recruitment leaders think they are experiencing one type of problem in the business, but a specialist skilled in novel ways of thinking can bring a new perspective, help to identify what the actual challenge is and look ‘outside the box’ to address various aspects of improving and evolving their operations and offers.

“If you talk to the owner of an agency, a lot of them want to let go and think about this stuff, but they just haven’t got the luxury of time or the knowledge or the experience,” Carter says.

Whilst he acknowledges that the recruitment industry has a plethora of former leaders who are capable and qualified to serve as non-executive directors and board chairs, Carter believes that fresh perspectives from outside are a definite advantage. Online retailer Wayfair and software giant Microsoft are two of the innovative companies where Satori team members have worked.

The Satori business model enables recruitment businesses to buy one or more or a package of specialist services. An initial ‘discovery’ meeting is held with clients to understand the issue. “Then we scope it out like a consulting firm, and we’ll give people an estimate of time required – what kind and level of expertise do we need? We might need to call on a lot of different people for one projects, and they all have different day rates and skill levels, so we would price it out,” Carter explains.

A project might be simply coaching a firm on how to set up their database to unlock the analytics they need or how an organisation could future-proof their technology with the advent of AI. Or, Carter says, “it can be much more holistic – a tech programme, a data programme, a branding and marketing programme, or combinations. We’ve got a few change and project managers on the team as well”.

Carter emphasises that “we’re not aligned” with any suppliers. “We’re not taking backhanders from any tech companies. Otherwise, we can’t give you the best advice. So we’re agnostic when it comes to tech; we just want it to work.

“Optimising operations begins with the right intent.”

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Thinking outside the box

Maria Cosgrove (left), Satori partner and lead on design thinking, explains how her specialism works: “There are a lot of phases in the design thinking process. Design thinking is all about solving a human-centred, complex problem, something that has multiple layers, and it’s not easy to find a solution. You start with the ‘understand’ phase… you take a lot of time to think about who your users are, to map out your stakeholders to understand the environment around the problem that you’re trying to solve. So, you spend a lot of time during this phase looking at mega trends, micro trends, internal data you have to hand within the company, metrics, anything you can that relates to the problem. And as long as you keep an open mind, then you move on to the ‘observe’ phase.”

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