Almost four months ago, I left the Thompson & Terry Recruitment office for the last time, having launched, grown and ultimately exited a business that had been such a big part of my life for 12 years. Aoife recently asked me to write a guest blog reflecting on recruitment with the benefit of a little distance and, perhaps more importantly, a different perspective.

First, I am incredibly proud of what we built together. And when I say together, I genuinely mean every person who worked for us, every business that trusted us with their recruitment, every candidate we spoke to and the wonderful business community we were fortunate to call home.

Building a business is never just about its founder. For me, so much of what made Thompson & Terry special came from the people who believed in our approach and helped us put it into practice every day.

The values I still stand by

When I launched Thompson & Terry in 2014, our philosophy was simple: we would only submit a candidate to a client if we would personally employ them ourselves.

That was never about assuming every business needed the same person. It was about taking responsibility for our recommendations, understanding the requirements and being confident that there was a genuine match.

I never felt recruitment should be reduced to how many CVs could be registered, how many could be sent or how quickly a vacancy could be filled. Of course, commercial performance matters. But activity alone was never the standard I wanted us to judge ourselves against.

Our aim was to give employers and candidates an honest, thorough and transparent picture of the good, the bad and the ugly. Sometimes that meant challenging expectations. Sometimes it meant having an uncomfortable conversation rather than taking the easier route.

Four months after leaving, I still stand firmly behind that approach. Recruitment should be about helping people make informed decisions, not simply getting a placement across the line.

What I would do differently

When Aoife asked what I would have done differently, my first thought was not about recruitment itself. It was about my own development as a leader.

My introduction to working life was not quite what I had planned. While recovering from a brain injury and a broken neck, and transitioning out of a wheelchair, my expectations of rugby or university changed completely. Instead, I began working in a cold-calling call centre.

I worked hard and intentionally progressed, but when I stepped into leading Thompson & Terry, there were gaps in my leadership training and approach.

I loved developing people, helping them build their profiles and supporting their careers. However, the way I responded to challenges was not always as effective as it could have been. Caring deeply about your team and your business does not mean you automatically have every skill needed to lead them through difficult periods.

That became particularly clear shortly after the autumn Budget, when six of our seven largest clients stopped recruiting. I enrolled on a management course at Oxford Brookes University, which proved to be a genuine turning point.

Looking back, I believe that investment played a significant part in my development as a leader, the growth of our three-division, multi-award-winning business and, ultimately, my successful exit.

My encouragement to other business owners, including those with years of experience, is to make space for your own professional development. I wish I had prioritised mine sooner.

Seeing recruitment from the other side

Since leaving, I have entered the job market for the first time in 14 years. After spending so long supporting employers and candidates, experiencing the process from the other side has given me a fresh appreciation of how much candidate experience matters.

In particular, it has reinforced the importance of managing expectations.

I completely understand why responding personally to every application is not always possible. I also understand the intention behind the familiar line: “If you have not heard from us within X days, please assume your application has been unsuccessful.”

But I find myself questioning whether that should remain the limit of what we aim to offer.

For me, the opportunity is to use technology alongside human empathy, rather than treating the two as alternatives. An acknowledgement, a clear explanation of the next steps or an update when a timeline changes need not always require a lengthy personal response. Equally, automation should not become an excuse to remove care from the process.

As a candidate, I am not expecting every application to result in an interview, nor every interview to lead to an offer. What I value is knowing where I stand, what to expect and whether something has changed.

There is an important distinction between receiving disappointing news and being left without clarity. Recruitment will always involve the former. I believe we should work harder to reduce the latter.

What I take forward

My time away has not changed my belief in recruitment done well. If anything, it has strengthened it.

I remain enormously proud of Thompson & Terry, grateful to everyone who helped build it and excited to see Aoife and the team write its next chapter.

The perspective I take forward is that commercial ambition and genuine care should not compete with each other. Whether we are advising an employer, supporting a candidate or developing our own people, the challenge is to make our values visible in the experience we deliver.

That was what we set out to do in 2014. Four months after my exit, it is still the part that matters most to me.

What’s next for me?

The past four months have been filled with travel, family time and plenty of volunteering, all of which I have thoroughly enjoyed. Having had that space, I am now really excited to step into my next chapter.

I know I am at my best when I am genuinely challenged, with the opportunity to contribute, develop people and help an organisation move forward. My ambition is to combine a challenging leadership role with a voluntary trustee position, bringing together the commercial and community-focused work that means so much to me.

I am already in active conversations about trustee opportunities and interviewing for leadership roles, so I hope to have more to share soon.

In the meantime, I would be very grateful to hear about any volunteering or trustee opportunities, challenging leadership vacancies, or project and contract work where my experience could make a difference. One of the greatest privileges of building Thompson & Terry has been the relationships formed along the way, and I would love those connections to remain part of whatever comes next.