Candidate conversion content: is this the secret sauce behind Steven Bartlett’s investment in Chapter 2?

Dragon’s Den Star Steven Bartlett Invests in Recruitment Disruptor Chapter 2: Is This the Future of Hiring?

Chapter 2, a recruitment firm launched by Leo Harrison, a consulting strategist and the former global COO of ad and marketing agency Oliver, has attracted the eye of Dragon Den Star and Diary of CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett. Bartlett has invested an undisclosed amount into the talent agency which serves clients looking for permanent and freelance hires in digital, tech, product and creative roles. We look into why Bartlett has invested and if they are really that different from the hundreds of recruitment agencies already in the market.

When The Freelance Informer learned of Steven Bartlett’s investment in Chapter 2, a recruitment firm that has been around for a few years, we wanted to know why. So, the first thing we did was read the press release. Sadly, it read like a press release…a bit of waffle, sprinkling of recruitment buzzwords such as “disruptive” and “scalable”, yet not specifically spelling out what they “do” differently and in layman’s terms. That’s just frustrating.

So, we dug deeper into the Chapter 2 website and its social media presence, which is not generating as much traffic as one would think. But that could soon change now that Bartlett is invested. LinkedIn is where they seem to have the most followers.

Now we’re onto something…

However, their social media presence wasn’t what we were hungry to learn about. We still couldn’t see what made them different until we found an archived YouTube video of Chapter 2 founder Leo Harrison explaining what hiring companies have been missing: slick, enticing content that will convert candidates into new hires.

According to Harrison, Human Resources and Marketing teams in general are rarely if at all combining efforts to use the social media accounts and branding materials already at their disposal to attract new hires. In today’s post-pandemic Instagrammable world, salary or project rate isn’t enough for a candidate to accept an offer. They want to join a working environment and build up an employer or end client (if they are freelancing) that is welcoming, dynamic and non-toxic. They want flexibility on top of learning something new and being heard. Candidates want to get some balance. Get as much as they give. That’s how most humans work best. They want recognition and validation from their immediate colleagues, and when called for, the big boss.

“Day in the Life” videos to entice candidates

But how can a candidate get a real sense of the environment or employer through the recruitment agency? They usually can’t.

That’s where Chapter 2 claims it comes in. They assign one or two of their people to do a brand and culture audit on a company. This is so they can create content for recruitment campaigns. They can produce content (text, video, etc.) on the existing company culture and the team in which candidates will most likely be working. This fills in the blanks for many candidates as they will want to get a sense of who they will be working with and what the day-to-day could be like. It is to not only attract but also boost the retention of candidates. Chapter 2 calls this “candidate conversion content” which is supported by its tech stack, which is still a bit vague, most likely for competition purposes.

The Book

There is also Chapter 2 “The Book”, which showcases candidate profiles in a slick and enticing way. So with a combination of the enhanced client profiles and the candidate ones, the matchmaking process begins. The next question we had was, will this be genuine client audits taking place or slapping lipstick on a pig? According to Harrison in a 2020 YouTube video (see below) it isn’t.

But time will tell as we take from this recent look at one of Chapter 2’s clients’ GlassDoor reviews versus the recent case study Chapter 2 carried out on the company after they were hired.

Modulr case study: converting candidates despite reviews

The company in question is Modulr, a software payment solutions business. According to college GlassDoor reviews Modular has “some really great people” (in 25 reviews) and “colleagues are friendly and willing to help” (in 10 reviews).

However, the reported downside of working at the company according to some reviews includes: “People are working incredibly hard but this is never acknowledged by the leadership, instead people are asked to work even harder” (15 reviews) and “The culture at Modulr is toxic, everything is just focused on squeezing more and more out of the existing staff” (14 reviews).

Chapter 2’s case study on Modular said the company had a large number of roles to fill in the UK, including Java Engineers, Scrum Master, DevOps Engineer, Engineering Manager, Senior Front-End Engineer, and Head of QA. Once hired, Chapter 2 provided two dedicated “Talent Sources” to the project, supported by Chapter 2’s “tech stack” and “candidate conversion content”.  

In the Day in the Life video of Modulr we notice none of the leadership team or board, including the Director of People and Culture, are featured in the video. To us, that is a red flag given the GlassDoor reviews. Surely, it is better to learn about the people you will be working with day-to-day, but that could just be a mini-culture of workers and not represent the true overarching culture of the business, which is private equity backed incidentally. That most likely means the executive team has pressure coming from big investors including General Atlantic to grow revenues and the company footprint to new markets but on a streamlined budget.

With clients including John Lewis and Bumble, Chapter 2 has driven impressive growth to date to 248% CAGR. Perhaps that is why Modulr brought the recruitment firm in to carry out an in-house brand and culture audit before launching a recruitment campaign. Modulr people were reportedly being pushed too hard, and they let people know about it on GlassDoor.

Chapter 2 results according to their case study on Modulr were 4.16 average hires per month with an average time to offer of 21 days at an average cost per hire of £2,827. Pretty impressive.

We like the concept, but…

Overall, we like the Chapter 2 concept. If clients take on board what they are doing right and wrong and do something about it, then that is a win-win for everyone, especially candidates. If the audit is truthful and Chapter 2 presents the company in a way that gives candidates a better understanding of what it is REALLY like to work at a company, they may have a better chance of hiring that top 0.1%.

However, the top 0.1% are incredibly clever and savvy. They will see through any digital content sugarcoating and dig for the truth, especially if they have contacts inside an organisation to get the real story. If the people they’ll be working alongside, like those featured in the Modulr video, genuinely resonate with them, they might be hooked.

The real question is: Will those same faces still be around when the new hire starts next month, or even next year? If so, Chapter 2 might be onto something big. If not, well, that’s a question worth asking before stepping onto their candidate platform.

I’VE SPENT YEARS TRYING TO BUILD A TALENT SOLUTION THAT WOULD ALLOW MY COMPANIES AND I, TO FIND, ATTRACT AND RECRUIT THE WORLD’S BEST TALENT. 

THE ISSUE I’VE FOUND IS; THAT TYPICAL RECRUITMENT COMPANIES ARE EXPENSIVE, HAVE MISALIGNED INCENTIVES AND DON’T UNDERSTAND OUR COMPANY’S CULTURE. THEN I DISCOVERED CHAPTER 2, A COMPANY DESIGNED TO FIX ALL OF THIS, LED BY LEO WHO IS ONE OF THE BEST ENTREPRENEURS I’VE EVER MET. 

I KNEW WE HAD TO JOIN FORCES TO POWER MY COMPANY’S TALENT NEEDS; FLIGHT GROUP, BUT ALSO TO HELP HIGH POTENTIAL COMPANIES ALL OVER THE WORLD TO MEET THEIR TALENT NEEDS.

Steven Bartlett