Leader profile: Steve Giles

Just over 10 years later, he now has a thriving tech-driven recruitment firm dubbed Lookahead Search, which offers specialised solutions to a broad range of companies looking to grow their staff numbers.

Not one to brag, Steve says his deliberately small team is the recipe for the firm’s success, highlighting culture as the most important thing to push for as a successful business leader.

Identifying a need

What makes Steve someone to watch is his ability to take an opportunity and run with it.

Turning 31 this month, he may be one of the youngest business leaders in the recruitment biz, but it was a reflection on what was already in the marketplace that led him to create a firm with a unique point of difference from its competitors.

“I went from running a tech company to going into recruiting and was a fly on the wall; [I] saw a lot and I thought there was a gap in the market for someone who was technical,” Steve says.

He notes that while he was fortunate enough to work with expert recruiters, they were all lacking one fundamental aspect: “they weren’t nerds”.

“Most of the people that work in our company have come from a software and computer background,” Steve adds.

But it isn’t easy to create a distinctive recruitment firm from scratch, with patience and a keen eye being a necessity in his quest to construct Lookahead Search.

“I was in no way prepared to go straight from my tech business to my now-business, but I got the opportunity to work in a large, listed recruitment firm,” Steve explains.

“I got to observe 40 different people doing their job and understand their style, take parts that I liked from each and every one of them, and make my own way of doing things.”

Creating the right culture

Steve believes a leader is nothing without a strong team behind them.

“We have a blatant ‘no dickheads’ policy,” he says matter-of-factly. 

“You’ve got people who may be amazing and know what they’re doing, but if they’re a dickhead, then it’s not going to work.

“For us, culture is so important, attitude is super important. We hire people who are nice people, good to work with, good communicators and most importantly, life-long learners.”

Steve says rather than focus on recruiting when you need to, people who are looking to expand their business, such as brokers, should aim to always keep their door open for potential team members whenever talent arises.

“I think you’ve always got to have a role open and always be ready to go when interesting people come up,” he explains.

“We’ve been really lucky where most of our hiring has been opportunistic.”

Maintaining a stable team environment where everyone has an input will help keep a growing business on track, according to Steve.

“A lot of people could fault me when it comes to being a leader, because I don’t make all the decisions. I throw so much stuff out [to my staff ],” he says.

“There’s been a bunch of times where I was so wrong on things and it was only because we chatted about it as a team that we came to the right conclusion.

“I think that’s empowering as well. We’re all working this out together,” Steve adds.

Making it count

While working his way up the ladder, Steve embarked on what he calls ‘The Lunch Experiment’ – a concept where he made a commitment to go out and have lunch with someone different every day for 30 days.

He says this helped him learn a lot more about the industry and acquire more mentors – all of which played a pivotal role in shaping what his firm is today.

“I just made it so all my meetings were at lunch and it was really awesome because you had a solid hour to go and chat with someone,” Steve notes.

“As a result, I learned more about them, I did my job better and now it’s just how I plan my day.”

Steve encourages his team to avoid working weekends and late into the night, abiding by the philosophy that creating a work-life balance is extremely important.

“I actually found that once I went past 40-hour weeks, I wasn’t really doing great work. I wasn’t getting through the information needed,” he says.

“We really try to encourage that and have a go at [employees] if they’re answering their emails too late.”

Combatting challenges

With two offices, one each in Sydney and Melbourne, Steve says getting communication right between them has been the biggest challenge faced by the  firm so far.

“Nothing bad has happened, no one has left, no big disagreements have come up, but it’s been our biggest challenge. Because we used to run the company with four people in a room, any decision that comes up, you quickly talk, people get their work done and you hear about what’s getting done, so you’re in the loop,” he explains.

“Starting up a new office has created the need to make a conscious effort to really communicate. With that in mind, what processes do you put in place?”

To deal with this issue, Steve has created a consistent system to ensure each employee is on the same page.

“Twice a week we sit down and ask: who are the candidates I’m working with? Who are the ones that might move interstate or go remote? Who are the companies that I’m hiring for?

“Then we have a retrospective once every fortnight: what are we doing that’s bad? What are we doing that’s good? What can we fix?” he says.

Going forward

“I’m immersed in a world where there are a lot of start-ups, there’s a lot of funding, there’s a lot of easy money around and people are going for that aggressive growth,” Steve says.

Because of this, his biggest business goal moving forward is simply “staying in business”.

“When you take VC [venture capital] money, the idea is that they’re looking for those high multiple returns, high risk. We’re the opposite of that,” Steve explains.

“It’s never been about building this business up to sell it to someone else, to have a big payday and go live on an island.”

There are key questions that Steve continues to ask himself each day, to ensure his business remains in shape for the long run.

“How can I build a company that I really like to go to work at every day? How can I keep it running for 20 years? For me, the biggest challenge is continuing to play that long game,” he says.