Sabrina Maddock of Avanti Search On How To Hire The Right Person

Behavioural interview questions are one of the highest success indicators of a person’s performance in a future role. “Tell me about a time when” questions really help you to nut out real-world experience as opposed to hypotheticals.

When a company is looking to grow, the choice of who to hire can sometimes be an almost existential question. The right hire can dramatically grow a company, while the wrong hire can be very harmful to morale and growth. How can you know you are hiring the right person? What are the red flags that should warn you away from hiring someone? In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders who can share insights and stories from their experience about “How To Hire The Right Person.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Sabrina Maddock.

Sabrina Maddock is the founder and CEO of recruitment agency Avanti Search. Before her recruitment career, Sabrina competed on The Apprentice, was Miss World Australia (placing third overall at Miss World 2006), and co-authored a book that landed on Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministerial reading list. She is also a diversity & inclusion consultant, and calls Sydney home.

Thank you for this interview! First, let’s “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I’ve had a weird and wonderful journey — I was raised by my Indian mother and Lebanese father in countryside NSW, where we owned racehorses. I had a pretty strict upbringing, but at the age of 19 when I realised I wanted to get more involved in charity work, I discovered the Miss World competition and decided to enter.

I ended up winning Miss World Australia and placed third overall at Miss World 2006 in Poland. I was the first Aussie in 20 years to make the top 3 at Miss World. During and after the pageant I worked with many, many charities — mostly with a focus on children and disability — and helped to raise about $5M over 18 months.

After the competition I realised that I had two choices to make — I could either (cat)walk down the modelling/entertainment industry pathway (potentially compromising my integrity) or walk into a more traditional corporate career (where I could use my smarts). I chose the latter.

I forayed first into journalism and technology sales, before landing in recruitment. I have since led recruitment functions across APAC for businesses small to large. 2 years ago, I took the plunge and started my own recruitment agency — Avanti Search. I recruit all types of talent — basically, anyone you can find inside an office — as well as healthcare professionals. I absolutely love what I do.

You’ve had a remarkable career journey. Can you highlight a key decision in your career that helped you get to where you are today?

Deciding to launch Avanti Search mere months after we exited lockdown, has to be the best career decision I’ve made. I saw a gap in the market — companies were looking for a recruitment agent who actually cared about their brand and didn’t try to shove candidates down their throats. Because I spent so long inside of businesses as a Talent Acquisition Leader, building teams from the ground up across APAC, I knew I could bring that brand-focused and caring lens to my work. I take pride in making quality candidate introductions rather than the traditional “spray and pray” transactional agency approach. And it has been so successful; the market has really engaged with this style of recruitment.

What’s the most impactful initiative you’ve led that you’re particularly proud of?

I was fortunate enough to Chair the City of Sydney’s Disability Inclusion Advisory Panel for several years. I helped to inform and shape the landscape of accessibility for all sorts of people with a disability across Sydney. Events, housing, public spaces, transportation — there has been so much good work initiated by the City of Sydney as a result of the panel’s advice. It’s something I’m very proud to have been a part of. I have also launched Diversity & Inclusion programs at businesses I have worked for in the past.

How about a mistake you’ve made and the lesson you took away?

I hired a good friend and former colleague into my agency, who was untried in recruitment. I hoped his sales skillset and general caring attitude with stakeholders would translate well into the world of recruitment — but without the hard experience, in a small agency environment during a tough market, he did not succeed in the role. I had to let him go, to my great regret — thankfully we sustained our friendship, and he was in my bridal party! But the lesson I learned was never to make assumptions about transferable skills — if someone hasn’t done the job, I will always first put them through a roleplay or some sort of skills demonstration to get a feel for their capability.

How has mentorship played a role in your career, whether receiving mentorship or offering it to others?

I have really enjoyed mentoring others. My first hire (at a huge multinational software company) started her career as a resourcer and I built her into a fully-fledged recruiter, who was able to take over my role when I left the business. I have also mentored a talented winemaker, coaching her on how to ask for a pay rise at the same time as lightening her workload, and eventually helping her to get promoted into the role she wanted. It’s so valuable to pass on your knowledge and experience to people who have huge potential (and the willingness to exercise it).

Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. Who do you model your leadership style after? What are some key character traits you try to emulate?

I model my leadership style after two former managers I had in HR — Geoff Martin and Jacqui Levings. Both were hugely caring towards their people. Jacqui has a warm, thoughtful, and intelligent approach to her team’s personal and professional needs. She was also very good at assessing our talent and nurturing us in ways that grew that talent.

Geoff is also hugely personable and used to really enjoy exploring our personalities and the goals we wanted to achieve. Both leaders made me stretch for difficult goals — they threw me into the deep end, once they were sure the water would suit me, and it always made me a better professional. I try to do the same now as a leader. Push people into the growth areas they’re striving to inhabit, but do so caringly and thoughtfully.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Let’s change paths a little bit. The pandemic forced many companies to adapt. Can you share with us the challenges you have faced, with remote onboarding and hiring? How have your internal processes evolved as a result?

I’ve always recruited teams in other parts of the country (and in fact wider APAC), so the remote hiring process is a familiar one to me. My advice is to focus on assessing skillsets through behavioural interview questions — questions that ask for specific examples of past experience, i.e. “Tell me about a time when you experienced XYZ issue. How did you approach it, and what was the outcome?” It takes away some of the guesswork from the interview process by teasing out real-world experience. You also start to paint a picture of an individual, which makes it easier to remotely onboard them.

And I also ask remote hires, “What do you need from me to succeed in your role? How do you like to be managed? How do you like to be communicated with?” And set your expectations with them in return. Don’t leave room for dead air, where you wonder what they’re up to and if they’re adding value in their role. Create opportunities for dialogue and demonstration of work.

With the Great Resignation/Reconsideration in full swing, many job seekers are reevaluating their priorities in selecting a role and an employer. How do you think this will influence companies’ approaches to hiring, talent management, and continuous learning?

Priority one for candidates right now is flexible work, followed closely by salary. Companies should see this as an opportunity to invest differently in their operations, by spending less money on overheads like office space, and more money on employee salaries. And I think companies will also start to become more proactive about pay rises. Happy employees can still walk out the door if they are offered a significant pay increase — who doesn’t want loads more cash? So, take that temptation away. Bump up salaries fairly and often.

Amazing! Now, let’s turn to the main focus of our discussion about hiring the right person. Can you share 4 techniques that you use to identify the talent that would be best suited for the job you want to fill?

First, behavioural interview questions are one of the highest success indicators of a person’s performance in a future role. “Tell me about a time when” questions really help you to nut out real-world experience as opposed to hypotheticals.

Second, if a candidate seems to be a team player and reverts to “we” language a lot in descriptions of their past work, I’ll ask them to stop saying “we” and start saying “I”. I’ll say, “I’m interviewing you, not your entire team, so I need to know what you specifically did in that scenario.” You have no idea how many people exhibit relief that they can start tooting their own horn a little more!

Third, I headhunt rather than advertise. This means proactively reaching out to my networks (both direct and on LinkedIn) to find specific talent. It means I’m approaching a select bunch of people, rather than throwing a net out and seeing what assortment of fish I can catch. It pays to be targeted!

Fourth, I sell the opportunity as realistically as possible. This is so important — why would you sell people on some grandiose description of your job or your company? You’ll attract the wrong individual and they’re likely to leave out of dissatisfaction. Don’t put them in a position to say, “The job that was sold to me was different to the one I ended up in.”

In contrast, what are a few red flags that should warn you away from hiring someone?

If they can’t give examples of work they specifically contributed to, or clients they worked with, or mistakes they’ve made in the course of their career, then they’re hiding something or fibbing about their experience. If they give you referee details for people they worked with 10 or 15 years ago — also shady. A note about reference checks, though — always treat them with a grain of salt. Some referees are bitter about their star employee leaving and will give a negative reference out of spite.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be?

I would love to inspire a movement where people above a certain income threshold must give a mandatory portion of their income to a charity of their choice. It doesn’t have to be a lot, and it should be proportionate to the amount they earn — but gosh! Imagine if everyone who was financially comfortable was giving away a tiny piece of their pie to people who are financially uncomfortable. It could really shift things on a global scale.

If you’d like to learn more about Sabrina Maddock and her services, visit the Avanti Search website or connect on LinkedIn.

This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!