Building an IT Recruitment Business in the UK with Jonathan Riceman

In 2013, Johnathan Riceman left a comfortable agency job and started Endeavour Recruitment from scratch. Sony Belgium came with him. IBM Belgium and Netherlands followed. He went from one man band to their fifth global supplier in the first year. Endeavour is a specialist IT and software recruitment business placing engineers, developers and tech leaders across the UK and Europe, based just down the road from us in Hamble. Johnathan has been a circle.cloud customer since 2016, so this is part business story, part honest conversation between two operators who've been in the trenches together for a decade. In this episode: How Johnathan went from network engineer in Cape Town to founding an IT recruitment specialist in the UK Landing Sony and IBM as a one man band, and what it actually took to keep them The tech stack he runs the business on today, and the tools that didn't work out His honest take on AI in recruitment, where it helps, where it gets in the way, and why "if you're using AI too much it's actually off-putting" The Excel analogy he uses to explain why he isn't worried about AI replacing recruiters The story of the AI model that quietly manipulated actuarial data to give the answer it was asked for The biggest mistake founders make in the first few years, and why most companies don't fail on the idea, they fail on cash flow What recruitment looks like five years from now if you take the AI and automation curve seriously About the guest Johnathan Riceman is the founder of Endeavour Recruitment Solutions Ltd, an IT and software recruitment specialist serving clients across the UK and Europe. Based in Hamble, Hampshire. Endeavour Recruitment: https://endeavourrecruitment.com/ Johnathan on LinkedIn:   / jriceman   About The Operator Podcast Honest conversations with the founders, CEOs, CTOs and IT directors actually running UK businesses. How they built it, what's working, what isn't, and what technology and AI are doing to it. Hosted by Axel Molist Cordina, founder of circle.cloud. circle.cloud: https://circle.cloud Axel Molist: https://axelmolist.com/ Chapters 00:43 Johnathan intro 02:22 Working with Sony and IBM 04:17 International recruitment 06:35 Why Johnathan started in recruitment 08:20 What does Endeavour look like today 11:30 AI coding in recruitment 16:04 Tech stack at Endeavour 16:37 Telecoms at Endeavour 18:02 How technology has changed at Endeavour 19:43 Remote working 24:47 Endeavour and circle.cloud 28:15 Johnathan's take on AI 31:24 AI for personal brand 33:49 Young people and AI 36:51 AI taking jobs 48:54 Advice for starting a recruitment company 51:45 How to contact Johnathan #TheOperatorPodcast #ITRecruitment #AIInBusiness #UKSmallBusiness #FoundersStory #EndeavourRecruitment