When the idea is new, people don’t know where to put you

When I started eSquared, I didn’t wake up one day and think, “this is how I’m going to do it.” I built it off the back of years of feedback: fees are too high, processes take too long, I only want to speak to one person. So I built something different - a different way to recruit.

When I created Job Market Mastery, I did the same thing. I took on all the feedback from graduates and education providers and built a course that fills a gap everyone acknowledges exists. In both cases, what I’ve found is the same: clients don’t always know where to put me.

“Where do I put you?”

Am I professional? Yes. Am I also fun? Also yes. Will they get great candidates? Of course. Will I check in? Will I want to come and meet the team, walk the halls so to speak? Totally. When I describe myself as an external internal recruitment partner, it can get lost in translation. Am I going to change what I do? No, I’m not.

The same thing happened with JMM

There’s so much media about how graduates perform poorly, how they’re overconfident, how they don’t fit into the workplace. JMM was born from the same pattern of feedback: graduates, international and domestic students, and those returning to the workforce were getting outdated job search advice. Presenting resumes that aren’t what employers want to see, wearing suits, doing all the things that aren’t needed now, not understanding how much the workforce has changed.

JMM isn’t here to get rid of any other service. It’s here to complement them - built around a gap that everyone acknowledges exists, and constantly updated from what’s actually happening in the hiring room, not static theory.

Being new is the harder sell, not the wrong one

Both eSquared and JMM were built the same way - from listening, not from a single lightbulb moment. That makes them harder to categorise, and slower to earn trust. That’s a real cost. But it’s not a reason to change course.